"We"? I pretty sure big japanese semiconductor producers want to keep "their" fabs right where they are i.e. in Japan. This isnt just about where would best for building a fab afterall. Renesas will bounce back just fine because other Japanese companies will by chips built here over anything else
>>"no, we don't need to, SMS is for foreigners, we Japanese use e-mail"
Yes, its all down to the "gaijin" issue. Not the fact that SMS is totally unsuited to Japanese/the Japanese market.
>>so it's good to see the Japan operators gradually moving away
>>from their Galapagos mentality.
Eh? You are one of those people that come to Japan and think you know better than everyone else right? The government is bad, the working conditions are bad blah blah right?
>>Sadly, a lot of the credit for that has to go to Apple,
How? The iphone is only on softbank. Android and feature phones far outsell any of Apples products. The only people I have seen locally with iPhones have been English teachers.
>> Japanese operators dictating terms and functionality.
Operator. Softbank is the only carrier with the iphone. DoCoMo etc are all happy to carry the Galaxy etc because they can ship their messaging clients etc.
>> "don't use foreign phones, they're all inferior to Japanese phones" even though
So the Japanese aren't allowed to prefer their own (AU, DoCoMo etc seem to sell an awful lot of Korean phones though).
>>Japanese smartphones at that time were running Symbian
Japanese feature phones still do run Symbian. To call the UIs the carriers ship "decent" just shows how ignorant you are. The UIs are awful. The Japanese love them though,.. hence carriers retro fitting them onto smart phones.
1. SSL/TLS are protocols that sit at different layers of the OSI model. It is not "more than protocols". CAs are not SSL.. they are trust providers. You can have SSL without trusting CAs.. if you know the other party they can verify their public keys, you don't have to have the CA to do that.
2. SSL/TLS are not "broken" which is what every article on the register about hacked CAs suggests.
There is still no way for a third party to intercept and decode an SSL/TLS session without exploiting one of the parties.
3. CAs (!= SSL) that dish out trust for money have been hacked and shown that they are useless at providing the top level of the chain of trust required to validate certificates. You can validate certs manually face to face .. people do this for PGP keys.
>>Just look at the option to being able and reboot a virtual server compared
Real servers have these features built into the board controller. Virtualisation doesn't solve the issue that the real hardware has to be management. It just mitigates it for the small guys messing around with their piddly install on top of someone else's metal.
>“Why is my browser data being read, especially HTTPS on my Wi-Fi?”
Because HTTPS is between the two endpoints.. HTTPS is for sending data over untrusted networks, not for protecting data while it is still on the source or once its delivered to the receiver.
>>Sure RMS has added quite a lot of value to software development,
Without GNU OSX basically wouldn't exist.
>Just attacking others because they don't drink your flavour KoolAid
There are plenty of people that have done more for computing than Jobs did;
Chuck Peddle
Robert H. Dennard
etc etc
RMS' main point is while Jobs may have been an amazing salesman selling computers to the middle class he did very little to advance computing or technology. To quote Jack Tramiel he "made computers for the classes". His passing is sad for his family but it isn't a great loss for the rest of us. Jobs' passing is certainly not the end of consumer-grade family-friendly computing. I'm sure Stephen Fry etc will feel like things will never be the same again.. but I'm pretty sure things will continue as they did before; Massive R&D departments at Intel, Samsung etc making real discoveries and someone else will come combine them into a shiny product and claim to have thought of the whole thing while taking a shit.
You can go to any 7-11, Circle K etc and pick up "porno manga" .. its right next to the womens fashion and golf ball of the month magazines.. all the sexy parts are censored. Surprisingly enough different countries have different rules on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.
If some guy wants to quietly read censored porn do you really care that much? Would you rather have people blasting rnb out of the tinny speakers on their phones, throwing rubbish every where, being gobby shits etc?
And to the guy that complained about getting pushed around etc... is there a train network anywhere in the world that doesn't have that. The london undergound has that, the tokyo metro has that, the paris metro has that, the bay area BART has that. I've never been on a municipal transport network that wasn't hell at peak times. Sure you didn't have "oh japan is soo baaad boohooo" syndrome?
>>1. Glad you like renting DVDs, I like playing games.
Ok, because game rentals aren't allowed here.. there are plently of game recycle shops. Any of them will be happy to sell you games at a lot less than retail price, and will buy them back from you when you have finished with them. Arcades are still pretty big here you know..
>>2. I am talking about websites for foreign companies who ignore browser language settings
Most if not all Japanese sites that offer English versions have a link in the top right hand corner for the language... I haven't actually come across a site that doesn't work like that. Being an expat in Japan is actually very easy in comparison to other places.. i.e. my bank operates totally in English, sends me English statements, has online banking in English.
You might want to not rely on English as a crutch though.. things will get messy when you say, want to go to the dentist on your own without a "friend" to translate for you..
Bottom line, your choice of living abroad isn't a excuse to pirate stuff. If you were going to anyway fair enough but don't make out you have some honorable reason for it.
There's this crazy place called Tsutaya.. they will lend you DVDs and Blurays in exchange for money!!! Learn the 3 or 4 kanji you need to switch the audio to english and/or turn on subtitles and away you go! Even eikaiwa staff can do it!
>>(Websites that only allow you to use the Japanese localised version drive me nuts.)
Most people in Japan use Japanese as their first language.. strange that eh?
>> If as they say the filesystem is encrypted anyway why do they bother with so much show?
Because it looks good?
>>What do they do to ensure no one can sniff or tamper with them?
They have their own DCs right.. they don't share with people that might sniff traffic as it goes around the DC.
>>Google has said in the past that SSL connections are expensive for them.
They have also recently changed their mind on that.. I think the figure was something like 1% extra CPU utilisation and an extra 48k of ram per user or something. The weird thing about time as while is elapses things change and things happen.
>> So I wonder how encrypted their internal network really is.
Why does their internal network need to be encrypted? Do you mean inside a single DC or between DCs? I'm pretty sure if it encryption is needed somewhere.. i.e. over public links they would be doing encryption. I would think that the big interconnect links google will be using will be multiplex in such a way that it isn't that easy to steal data from others sharing the channel...
>> NIC port in Google's server up to their users' browser.
Why does the internal network matter so much to you?
>> internal network of a company.
So in your company you have everything encrypted even though you know that there really isn't any need?
>>Can Google guarantee this end-to-end security?
The data between your browser is secured with SSL until it gets inside googles network. The only people that should have any access to packets floating around their network should be working for google,.. so they would have access to the machines on the network anyhow.
>My button-pressing-loving 15 month old daughter managed to...
Every time there is even the smell of Android vs iOS some chimp has to make this statement.
Is it one of those things "you'll understand when you have children" that overly proud parents like to make out exist to excuse the selfish things they do?
Ok, I have a sausage here.. If I drop it just right on my Pantech I06 that it slides the unlock open, rolls over to the google search widget and manages to hit the voice search button and thus records me saying "I wish these sausages weren't so slippery" and thus googles that.. Does that mean A: "Android" is so easy that even inanimate objects that can be sensed by a capacitive touch screen can use it or B: I should be immensely proud of the sausage for so clever and take a million pictures of the sausage and upload them to facebook because I'm under the false impression that people aren't already sick to death about hearing about the magic clever sausage?
>> Not bad for somebody who can't walk or talk yet!
Ok, we get it, you can reproduce. Well done! I was wondering want human reproductive organs were for but apparently only a small elite has the ability to use them.
Another reg apples vs oranges convoluted comparion article
>>Apple-versus-Google Android openness debate sound even sillier than it is.
There is no Apple vs Google openess debate. Apple doesn't have any openness. Any open source projects it has worked with it has pissed off. Even if google decides to totally close Android tomorrow instead of just delaying a source release until it's ready they will still be more "open" than Apple. Apple has like 3 major product areas right? Desktops, mobiles and selling music etc. Google has mobile, search, enterprise products like google apps, mapping,.. Comparing the whole of Google with the whole of Apple makes no sense as they are not similar companies. Google happens to have pissed on Apple's fireworks by releasing a mobile platform that is cheaper and whatever the hacks at el reg say is more open than iOS but that doesn't mean that Google is looking to take over Apples tiny share of the desktop market.
>>that somehow manages to not be very open. No, that was Google.
Again, this is more that el reg hacks seem to lack the ability to understand A: what the Android platform is (Hint it isn't value add apps like maps), B: understand the word "yet", C: The difference between "open" and "open source".
>>Instead, Facebook announced it was open sourcing its server and data center designs.
Yay.. oh wait, that means nothing to most people because the people that have the money to do anything with these "open source" designs had the money to build perfectly good data centers in the first place. Where is the source to the processor etc? Oh you mean they released PCB files.. and you couldn't get a fab in china to make you up a custom X86 board before facebook saved the world by releasing those?
>>This is big. Really, really big.
Yes, if you say so.
>custom servers.
I have a feeling the software is more important that what shape the generic X86 hardware you use it. Did Facebook deliver a proven software stack for massively scaling any application yesterday?
>>As for Apple, while we occasionally glimpse details of its infrastructure ambitions,
Apple aren't even a player here.
>>much more open about the technology they use.
We use a bunch of X86 machines in a room with cooling. There, I've "open sourced" the plans for a data center.
>>we've seen so many Google employees bolt for Facebook.
I have a hunch facebook offered them more cash.
>it won't hurt Facebook's business and may actually help its recruiting. Bonus.
Yes, that single product they have is going to out do everyone else in ever market sector.. until another service comes along and everyone leaves.
But guess what... your application still work.. replacing the launcher application or changing some graphics in the framework doesn't break all existing applications. Seriously, this really gets on my tits. You have idiots (including Steve the great) saying "Look at these companies like tweetdeck.. they have to make millions of versions of their app to cover all the Android devices".. no, they don't, you can choose not to support older platform versions or some screen sizes.. but no, HTC's changes to the stock apps and changes to framework graphics DO NOT RENDER THEIR PHONES INCOMPATIBLE WITH A "STANDARD" ANDROID DEVICE.
And FFS, how many times does it need to be pointed out that Maps ARE NOT PART OF THE ANDROID PLATFORM. Google's market IS NOT PART OF THE ANDROID PLATFORM. If you want to use Google's extra APIs you have to define that in your application's manifest.. Lets repeat that MAPS IS NOT PART OF THE ANDROID PLATFORM. If you want to use maps and the market you have to keep google happy. You could build an Android device with your own market and value add applications... but I doubt many vendors want to do that when A: consumers want the google apps B: the google apps are fairly good C: the rules google have aren't all that insane.
<n posts about Nokia phones being shit, yet my small child was able to pick up my iPhone and use it despite only being minutes out of the womb>
<n posts of "well Android isn't open" which by some so sort of mixed up reverse logic means that Apples environment including draconian code signing practices is actually the pinnacle of openness>
"there is enough fragmentation among Android handsets to significantly restrict the freedom of software developers."
I don't really get this.. I have apps running on Android 1.6 to 2.x and there are minor issues really.. even with quite modified releases like HTC push out. Versions-wise 1.6 is missing a bunch of stuff that is nice to have and has a bunch of shitty bugs but it's nothing you can't work around.
The changes vendors do to Android are mostly nicely restrained by the framework.. i.e. most vendors just replace the graphics and maybe some standard apps.. as long as those replacements accept the same intents etc it isn't an issue.
If Sun wanted write-once-run-anywhere they shouldn't have allowed JNI or anything similar in. Once you allow code to hook directly into native code you lose any platform Independence you had.
Sounds like "internet hardman" speak to me. Personally I haven't found my use of GNU tools has affected my sex life all that much.. I don't live in "my mothers basement", I "get out" a lot,.. and hey I've had sex with more than one female and I haven't had to pay for it. The fact that you aren't able to think up anything more intelligent than "neer neer at least I gets secks!" might just put the womens off though.
I heard windows users have small tackle and apple users are all four eyed lady boys or summin.
Because Free/Open/NetBSD are all really great on the interactive workload front..
I like OpenBSD but it lacks a lot of modern stuff that Linux has..
An advantage for ARM platforms would be the huge amount of upstream support for Linux.
All the major CPU vendors have at least some Linux presence.. can you say the same for any of the BSDs?
And aside from all that.. the people that have wrote the code these lawyers are getting all shitty about have said "we don't care". So there is zero issue here.
Yes, and I have a felling you can get the source for that....
>> and userland,
No.. the userland is a mix of different things. Most of Google's code, Bionic etc, is Apache or BSD licensed and considering it's their code they have the right not to give it to people. The GPL parts of the userland (I forget what actually is GPL.. bluez maybe?) need to have the source released in line with the GPL.. But even if all of the Google written code was GPL they still own the copyright on it and have the right not to release it. It's their code after all.
>>distribute binaries of GPL licensed components,
If those components are GPL licensed (Bionic is BSD licensed) and if you don't own the copyright on those components. Guess who owns the copyright on big chunks of Android that weren't imported from existing projects....
>>you must make the source code of those binaries available.
If you write some software and release it under GPL you don't have to release the source for any versions you don't want to release under the GPL. You own the copyright. People that create binaries from your GPL licensed source have to supply the source. There is no reason why the original author has to sign away their rights on the copyright attached to their work.
@Tom 38
You obviously have no idea about any of this. I suggest you walk away from the keyboard and stop making an idiot of yourself.
Open != Open Source. You can make your APIs open and not open your source.
HTML is an "Open Standard".. where is the source for it?
Before I start thinking "Yay, it's clever reply writing time!!!" please actually read what has been written. If you don't understand it don't start bashing the keys and feeling smug.
>>So, by *your* definition, Windows, AIX and HP-UX are all
>>from then on declared to be open operating systems!
Can you go and get all the API docs for free? Are you allowed to develop applications on those platforms without the vendors blessing? There are no secret API's which would stop you from being able to develop applications? You don't need your applications to be signed to have them run?
Do you know why POSIX etc exist? You can have open standards without open source.
As long as you define your interfaces and make them accessible you have something that is "open". Not "open source" but "open". Does it matter how AIX's and HP-UX libc differ as long as they implement the same interfaces with minimal amounts of differences? Nope.
>>Well done, it's all settled then and we can get back to our lives.
There's nothing to stop you developing on honeycomb, you don't have to sign an NDA to get API docs. You can download the SDK now. You can run your applications on devices now.
>>If you needed further proof that Android is not an "open platform",
Open platform != Open source.
>>it will not open source the Honeycomb code.
They said they aren't going to open the code "yet". Do you know how to read or are you ignoring words on purpose?
>> will delay the distribution of Honeycomb
You just contradicted yourself.
>>Google and its partners don't want smaller name manufacturers eating
>> into their tablet sales.
And so what? Is it against some unwritten rules for Goggle to try to make money?
>>names nabbing pieces of code for their own tablet OSes.
What exactly would they nab? The kernel can be downloaded from kernel.org.. all the UI stuff is going to be written for Android, so unless you basically copy the whole user environment you wouldn't gain anything..
>>Google has always billed Android as an open source operating system,
And it is.. because they are delaying one release doesn't mean that all the code has suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth.
>>but the latest version has always been developed behind closed doors.
And?
>> some pieces of the platform – including the Google Android Marketplace
>>and app like Google Maps –
The market isn't part of the platform. If you had ever developed an Android application you would know that the Google API's like Maps aren't part of the Android platform.
>>Google also maintains control over the Android trademark.
And?
>>can't build true Android devices unless they play by Google's rules.
They can't use the market if they don't play by googles rules (which include the ability to use ADB etc.. which is good for users). There is nothing stopping you from releasing an Android device without the market or extra google API's.
>>Google did not make a public announcement that it is not open sourcing the code.
Why would they announce something they aren't going to do? They will release the code when it's ready. Why would they announce "we aren't going to release the code" when they intend to release it?
>>In October, when Steve Jobs publicly
Steve Jobs.. like yourself.. doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.
>> download the Android source code, and build your own OS.
And you still can.. you can't download the source for honeycomb because they aren't happy with it yet.
>>By that definition, Honeycomb is not open.
Don't mix meanings of "open". You can go and get all the API docs for honeycomb. You can develop applications for it with out having to reverse engineer it. It is an "open platform" and you can run those applications without magic keys from google. Not being able to download the source *yet* doesn't change that fact.
The news coming from the BBC and the news on Japanese TV seems to be different and randomly changing .. I presume from the language barrier/technical nature of the subject involved. Japanese TV is saying "not much as happened" and then the BBC is saying "the sky is falling".
>>Asian pop can indeed sound quite different to what their used to.
Except that most "Asian Pop" is weirdly similar to western RnB etc.. Including great phrases like "oh baby baby yeah!"
>>Asian pop music melody and structure can also be quite different to western music.
Really? In what way? You mean you can have different genres? How is that a regional thing?
>>The point being made was that youTube provides
>>access to music from across the globe.
And the BBC broadcast a ton of different specialist shows that do sometimes include material from Japanese artists. There is plenty of world music programming.
>> preferring to berate someone for being a little over enthusiastic about how different
>> the music they've just discovered is.
J-Pop isn't different from western pop most of the time in fact I think you would be hard pressed to find something that isn't trying to be "western". The only difference is the language it's sang in ( Although 99.9% of J-Pop includes a few bits of English). He said that UK music is "cack" and eluded to it being a scam.. The J-Pop industry churns out just as much cack as the UK pop scene.
>>Regardless of the veracity of that statement (it's debatable) that's
>>not an answer to the original question.
He said UK music is "cack" and that J-Pop is somehow better... which is total shit. There is good and bad in both. Japan has a ton of decent bands and so does the UK.. trying to argue that music from the UK is "cack" using J-Pop as an example of something "good" is very far fetched.
watashi ha sumisu desu. nihon no bunka ga dai-su-ki- desu.
>>I am interested in J-pop
>>disillusioned by the cack pedalled in the UK charts.
So one is mass produced cack and the other is mass produced cack.. I'm really not getting your argument.
>>How else can I discover an artist on the other side of the planet
There is plenty of good music in the UK. If you go to a festival in Nippon you will soon realise that more than half the line up is from the UK. If you think that because its in Japanese that it makes it OK to listen to stuff thats basically Spice Girls level maybe there isn't much hope for you.
>> who sings in her native language and is unknown here?
I really like clammbon.. Heard one of their tunes on BBC radio 1..
>>CDs are frequently cheaper than the postage
SAL air mail is very cheap.
>>and no legal mp3 options.
Music piracy is a bit different in the land of the rising sun. You can actually rent music CDs here and people do seem to do that. I've found it pretty hard to actually find stuff to download.. like movies with Japanese subtitles for the wife. The only places that actually have anything for download have been "Otaku" or "j - nantoka kantoka suki!" sites that listeners with refined tastes like yourself run. You can always buy CDs from yesasia.
>>"new entry straight in at number one!" of a song I've never heard before?).
And you don't mind South Korean girls trained from birth to shake their ass and toot along in Japanese?
Don't go mentioning that the Xoom actually has more hardware.. don't you realise Apple invented <Everything you can imagine>? Front facing cameras, 3G etc.. these are all revolutionary ideas Jobs thought up on the toilet.. Also don't you know that Android is fragmented and apps need to be rewritten for every different device?[0]
Apple is a software vendor that sells hardware dongles designed by others i.e. Samsung and Intel and Steve Jobs has barely any idea what he's selling software or hardware.
[0] If you've ever written an decent sized Android app you will know that screen sizes are a pain in the arse, but it's not impossible to write an app that works everywhere and the market filters apps that the developer has decided not to support on your device. It's also very possible to support all the older versions of Android if you try... Different framework skin/launcher != ABI incompatibility.
We have found the one person that actually does anything with the amazing Cell processor!
>>us /have/ learned to code on the thing and /have/ written non-trivial applications using it.
You have to wonder though.. why didn't you buy a dev kit from IBM? They did sell Cell blades etc.. if it meant so much to you why didn't you buy a dev kit? Oh, was it because they were priced outside of the price range of the common man? Did IBM not run a university scheme or anything to put Cell processors into the hands of people that could use them?
>>We bought a machine that was supposed to do A, B, C and D
I've never ever seen the PS3 being advertised as a Cell dev kit.
Eggs in one basket...
>>other for my programming use.
Again, never advertised as a dev kit. All sensible processor vendors will sell you dev kits.. You even get support. I have a board for an 8 bit MCU that cost more than a PS3.. it's a commercial development kit that comes with proper documentation etc. ;)
>>I have no choice but to keep linux on both of them
Or you could buy another PS3 for games?
>>programming platform which I originally bought the machines for.
You bought consumer hardware. It was never sold as a dev kit.
>>So you can basically fuck right off with your sycophantic Sony fanboi line.
Hah, yes.. because I disagree with you I'm a fanboi. I personally don't follow brands.. I buy want is available and fits what I'm looking for at time of purchase. I don't buy a games console and cry like a baby because the vendor doesn't want to support it as a dev ket.
>>I *do* use the CBE, the applications I write are *not* portable to other systems,
The code you have written isn't portable.. I can't see any reason you can't re-implement it on another platform that hasn't been dropped upstream and has no easy accessible development hardware? Sony have removed OtherOS boohoo.. but IBM don't want to make Cell chips any more either.. will you people start another load of drama when Sony stops shipping PS3's?
You can get FPGA's with PPC cores built in these days.. and I don't think the dev kits are terribly expensive. VHDL/Verilog are industry standards and you can use them across a number of vendors hardware. So you wouldn't be wasting your time learning something that is already dead.
>> I *do* feel betrayed and shafted by Sony for fucking up the system
It still runs OtherOS right? Sony have given you a choice.. Maybe Sony could have handled it better and gave a free PS3 with newer firmware to the <insert tiny amount of people here> that actually used "THE CELL!" opposed to "Hey, it runs Linux! why can't I play windows games on this.." but they didn't and they don't have to. OtherOS was an unsupported bonus feature that is gone. Get over it.
And? PPC is dead on the desktop because it simply couldn't compete with X86.
>>your PS3 has much more processing power than your *current* PC because of this!
Really? For what application? Name a single application that you use that uses all of the Cell's co-processors and actually shows speed up from that. I bet you can't show me anything outside of number crunching..
>>PSJailbreak and the dubious piracy stuff wouldn't have been able to work at all
PSJailbreak came first. I think I have told you this before.. don't rewrite history to make it fit your version of events/opinion.
>>I'm taking issue with your "if you wanted to run Linux you should have bought a PC" line.
If you wanted to run Linux you should buy a PC. It has the most support in-kernel (Anyone that is running weird archs will know how painful that can be) and upstream from Intel, Nvidia etc....
>>The Cell processor is interesting and different from any Intel/AMD/ARM
>>processor that you will find in commodity PC and other hardware, and
>>using a PS3 to run Linux was the cheapest and easiest way of getting access to it.
So what you're really saying is that you don't want to run Linux. you want to run linux on novelty hardware. Hey I can dig that.. I have an SH4 on my desk.. some people still use m68k.
That doesn't mean that Sony should support your fetish for novelty hardware does it? And after the novelty of having a machine that can't run an awful lot because of it's limited amount of system ram what do you do then?
>> It is not for you to say that it has no value,
It has novelty value.
>>As an intellectual exercise, being able to program a Cell has serious merit to some people
IIRC there are simulators for the Cell. If you really do have a massive crazy fetish for the Cell maybe you could modify one of the existing PPC emulators out there and give it SPE's?
To be honest if I had a weird fetish for a particular processor architecture ( I actually do really like the Hitachi/Renesas H8 and SuperH chips.. thats mainly because they are nice to work with ) I wouldn't want an OS there to smooth all the naked hardware weirdness out for me. I'd want to be running my code on the hardware without hypervisors and kernels in the way. Can you do that on the PS3? Have you ever written any PPC or Cell code?
Because they continually make out its a big thing and that it's the reason the "hackers got pissed and hacked the PS3", totally ignoring the fact that the USB exploit came from nowhere and opened the doors.. it would have happened if OtherOS was still in place, the reason it didn't happen for so long was that the USB exploit wasn't discovered.
>>Still insisting on the "get a PC" argument?
Any recent X86 box is going to be a ton more useful than a PS3 for a linux box.. even if the Cell was the fastest chip in the world and all the applications people use were suited to its highly parallel architecture it would still be no better than a standard PC because of its lack of RAM and in the original OtherOS's lack of access to the video hardware... there is a phd paper somewhere that details the Cell can't decode decent resolution H264 streams in software, a shitty Atom with ION can.
>>IT-savvy people can't understand the difference between
>>PPC
Dead outside of embedded and shops running expensive IBM kit. Expensive for the performance you get.
>>x86
Apparently an amazingly horrible architecture .. decided by people that don't know what a register is .. but incredibly cheap for the performance you get. Available from a number of suppliers. Well documented. Well supported. Can be coupled with GPUs. Number of cores per die/package doubling at a crazy rate. Machines are generally built against standards and can be upgraded/expanded to suite the intended application.
>>PPC-based CellBE arch.
Over hyped. Main proponents lack the ability to actually code anything that code take advantage of the Cells architecture but like to rattle on and on about it being the "next big thing" when the companies responsible for it have basically dropped it and are trying to distance themselves from it. Expensive. Limited suppliers.
>>IBM axed their CellBE server roadmap,
So.. it's dead. Get over it. Learn how to use CUDA or something..
>>who want CellBE hardware just can't get it outside of the PS3.
So.. what you're saying is that Sony should put lots of effort into keeping 3 of their 44 million PS3 owners happy because they have a fetish for hardware that has basically been abandoned?
I'm really interested to know what the amazing application you have that requires the Cell.. please do enlighten us.
I hate to reply to you again in the same thread about a different thread..
Anyhow. You have called me computer illiterate (I'm incredibly hurt!!).
>Sad to see that even IT-savvy people can't understand the difference
> between PPC, x86 and the PPC-based CellBE arch.
It's really sad to see that people like yourself have irrational fetishes for processor architectures and start name calling if people don't agree with you.
I'll set down a challenge to you here..
On my desk I currently have these *weird* processor architectures;
I've written my own startup code for each of these.. linker scripts etc.. the H8 does weird stuff like loading binaries into external DRAM via the debugger in flash ROM and then pushes marked sections of code into the internal SRAM for speed.. I know them pretty well.
My challenge to you is this; Show us one bit of code you have personally written for the Cell, preferably in assembly, that couldn't be replicated on at least one of those processors. All of those are < 266Mhz, so we won't take speed of the operation as a factor.. you just need to show us something that you have written for the Cell which is impossible to do on all of the above chips. They can all run Linux in some form so it doesn't matter if your code needs an OS.
If you can I will eat each of those dev boards.. Some of them aren't RoHS! But I really doubt you can.
In legal jargon.. "He licensed the software". When he turned on the PS3 it brought up a massive agreement that stipulated the terms which the software was licensed to him and if that he didn't like it he should return the unit. Whether or not that stands up in court or not is another matter.
However, it is clear that Sony never said.. "You now own the complete rights to this software, do what you like with it". Geohot has a bigger problem.. the DMCA.
>>He is only modifying the copy he brought from Sony.
And distributing what Sony at least consider their IP.. To prove/disprove that his stuff has been seized.
>>Sony fanbois/astrostaffers
I'm in no way a Sony fanboy. I just hate whingers... if you wanted to run Linux you should have bought a PC. These "ethical hackers" were very big headed, give themselves names like "fail overflow" and generally acted liked arses. They are now getting the living shits kicked out of them by Sony's lawyers and I'm all for that. If you want open kit buy open kit. If you buy stuff that is being made by a megacorp for a specific purpose and they've made it pretty damn clear they don't want people messing with their stuff (I.e. we'll give you OtherOS, we get a nice tax break, but its stunted for a reason,.. we don't want you to use it) you can expect them to smash you into the ground when you start lauding the fact that you broke their security system over them. In summary it doesn't matter how many followers you have on twitter or how many unfunny jokes you can make at a "hacking conference". Sony has enough money to make your life very difficult and they should have thought about that before they got on their high horses.
Has anyone from the PSJailbreak "team" been given the Sony treatment? I can see that their devices have been banned everywhere but I can't find anyone thats been dragged out of their bed and had their stuff taken... the PSJailbreak is the only reason this has all happened..
>>Are you not free to customise it and tweak the software to your hearts content?
Messing with the ECU software, or even the software for your "GPS" will probably invalidate your warranty. Maybe some other laws would cover the software running the car.. i.e. those that stipulate that the thing has to be road worthy.
>>Are all those engine modifications and conversions illegal under DMCA law? No.
"Chipped" cars use firmware images that are modded .. i.e. they are the original firmware that has been modified,.. so copyright infringement. DMCA goes further and prohibits breaking of security systems. So this chap should feel glad he isn't in the US of A.
>>And then are you free to post these modifications onto the internet?
If you aren't infringing on patents.
>>Sell the hardware?
If you don't infringe on any patents.. which is pretty difficult not to do. Even Sony etc do it .. they have enough money to fight lengthy court cases though.
You own the physical hardware yes.. if you want to prop a door open with it go for it.
Owning a piece of hardware doesn't automatically mean you own all the IP attached to that product.. i.e. all the trademarks, patents on the hardware, copyrights etc.. Let's make a car analogy here; If you buy a car you can take it apart and make modern art out of the parts no on cares. You can't take apart and start distributing cloned parts for the car that infringe on patents etc. You can't scan all the manuals etc and start distributing those.
I see Sony going nuts over this and using their rights given to them by various silly laws as a good thing.. hopefully it'll expose how the laws are misaligned with the feeling of the populous.
>>Linux or google docs, is the lack of drivers for the old familiar printers
You can blame Apple for that now.. they bought CUPS. Maybe King Steve will make out he invented it and "opened" it for the good of the people like he did with Webkit (KHTML).
Maybe he'll push for "open standards" like postscript or something. ;)
/me hasnt had a problem with a printer in Debian for ages.. scanner/printer things are a PITA but most printers just worked..
While you were doing "packet traces" (I presume you mean, I fired up wireshark and selected follow tcp stream) did you happen to notice all the other stuff thats regularly transmitted in plain text? A surprising amount of email servers still send mail in plain text for example.
Thats fairly expensive for a phone package... maybe your provider aren't subsidising your phone hence the cost. My shiney new 1Ghz Android phone is less than that a month.. but is locked to the providers network.
>>Yes you can do alot if the ram is FAST enough.
Ok,... so how do you load something bigger than 256MB into memory? I mean into memory not into mostly paged out to disk... if its paging all the time RAM bandwidth means nothing, you need IO bandwidth. I have 3GB of data resident in memory on this 1.6Ghz Atom machine, massive disk caches etc.. how do you do that on the PS3?
People built HPC clusters out of PS3's only to find that 256MB of ram isn't enough for their datasets. doh.
>>in the ps3 it is VERY FAST.
The Cell is fast for code that can be parallelised.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl's_law
Can you name a single binary in YellowDog linux that uses all 7 or 8 (I think only 7 are usable by user code with the original OtherOS setup) co processors? They aren't full CPU cores and as such aren't suitable for everything...
>>single core PPC
Yes
>>an 8 core GPU integrated in 1 chip!!
No, it has 8 small vector co processors... imagine a 386 + 8 387's ;) They aren't GPUs.
For standard desktop usage I think you will find a bog standard X86 box is cheaper and works a lot better than a PS3. From the fact that you don't even know what the Cell is except that "It's FAST! AMAZING!!! WOOT! XBOX360 sucks!" I'm guessing you don't write a lot of highly parallel code that fits the Cells architecture.
The hardware is subsidised by game sales.. ergo Sony don't want you to use it as a PC and locked out the RSX in OtherOS and made it a "toy computer" from the start. They need you to buy games from licensed publishers that are paying them for the rights to put games on the PS3. If you need something to compare against; Mobile providers lock those "free" phones you get with a new contract to their network exactly that reason. They can't have you paying for the lowest contract and using the phone on a different cheaper network.
...and can you use a PC with only 256MB of ram for anything useful these days?
For a few hundred quid you can get a multicore X86 box with gigs of ram, hundred gigs of storage, a newer Nvidia GPU than what is in the PS3.. oh and its all open and shit so you can use it as a generic computer!! woo
Because people were doing things they didn't want to happen.. i.e. unlocking the RSX in OtherOS. There is a reason it's locked out.. Sony makes money from licensing games. If they allowed OtherOS full access to the hardware there would be no reason for publishers to get their games officially licensed by Sony. You may not agree with Sony's business model but there is a clear reason why they removed OtherOS.
>>actually pushed people who used that legitimate feature
People keep making out that lots of people used OtherOS... without any numbers at all.
I would guess if OtherOS was running on a significant portion of the 44 million PS3's out there, then there would have been more of a fuss. One guy in the US tried to sue Sony for removing it and got nowhere right?
>>to now look at the jailbreak/rooted world to get that feature back...
I'm just guessing here.. but I reckon the people using these recent developments for warez opposed to homebrew is something like 1000 to 1?
>>world where pirated games are a download away..
The only reason this has all happened was the PSJailbreak.. which is for warez.
>>when they used to live a world away from it,
So homebrew is a "gateway drug?" even more reason for Sony not to allow homebrew right.
>>happily booting between linux and GameOS.
Yes, all those millions of PPC linux users that don't seem to appear anywhere.. The Wii is PPC too.. have we seen any massive jump in PPC linux users? Nope. From the Debian popcon stats we can see that Debian PPC hasn't grown in like 3 or 4 years.... You know if you want to run a commodity OS you can just buy X86 hardware right?
I'm a Japanese speaking English in Japan.. does that count? Anyhow.. no, no one here cares. I don't think you can actually get any BBC tv without having a really expensive Pay TV package. Our IPTV doesn't have any BBC programming anyhow. Thankfully I have a fast usenet server...
If you have read the article you would have noticed that it was the Japanese embassy in London that made the complaint. So it was probably one person there that took offence.
Anyhow Fry not coming here is for the best.. we really don't need another loud mouth with a twitter account moaning about the natives being racist etc blah blah. Middle-class white people seem to count other people noticing them to be foreign as "racism" and find the need to write silly blogs and tweet about it on a daily basis.
Register
56 posts • joined Thursday 19th April 2007 19:01 GMT
Page:
Re: Well, this is what we get
"We"? I pretty sure big japanese semiconductor producers want to keep "their" fabs right where they are i.e. in Japan. This isnt just about where would best for building a fab afterall. Renesas will bounce back just fine because other Japanese companies will by chips built here over anything else
>>"no, we don't need to, SMS is for foreigners, we Japanese use e-mail"
Yes, its all down to the "gaijin" issue. Not the fact that SMS is totally unsuited to Japanese/the Japanese market.
>>so it's good to see the Japan operators gradually moving away
>>from their Galapagos mentality.
Eh? You are one of those people that come to Japan and think you know better than everyone else right? The government is bad, the working conditions are bad blah blah right?
>>Sadly, a lot of the credit for that has to go to Apple,
How? The iphone is only on softbank. Android and feature phones far outsell any of Apples products. The only people I have seen locally with iPhones have been English teachers.
>> Japanese operators dictating terms and functionality.
Operator. Softbank is the only carrier with the iphone. DoCoMo etc are all happy to carry the Galaxy etc because they can ship their messaging clients etc.
>> "don't use foreign phones, they're all inferior to Japanese phones" even though
So the Japanese aren't allowed to prefer their own (AU, DoCoMo etc seem to sell an awful lot of Korean phones though).
>>Japanese smartphones at that time were running Symbian
Japanese feature phones still do run Symbian. To call the UIs the carriers ship "decent" just shows how ignorant you are. The UIs are awful. The Japanese love them though,.. hence carriers retro fitting them onto smart phones.
1. SSL/TLS are protocols that sit at different layers of the OSI model. It is not "more than protocols". CAs are not SSL.. they are trust providers. You can have SSL without trusting CAs.. if you know the other party they can verify their public keys, you don't have to have the CA to do that.
2. SSL/TLS are not "broken" which is what every article on the register about hacked CAs suggests.
There is still no way for a third party to intercept and decode an SSL/TLS session without exploiting one of the parties.
3. CAs (!= SSL) that dish out trust for money have been hacked and shown that they are useless at providing the top level of the chain of trust required to validate certificates. You can validate certs manually face to face .. people do this for PGP keys.
Another reg article about "SSL" being broken..
when it still isn't broken. Dodgy CAs != SSL broken.. how long will it take the reg to grasp that?
>>Just look at the option to being able and reboot a virtual server compared
Real servers have these features built into the board controller. Virtualisation doesn't solve the issue that the real hardware has to be management. It just mitigates it for the small guys messing around with their piddly install on top of someone else's metal.
>“Why is my browser data being read, especially HTTPS on my Wi-Fi?”
Because HTTPS is between the two endpoints.. HTTPS is for sending data over untrusted networks, not for protecting data while it is still on the source or once its delivered to the receiver.
Renesas
Still ship more cores per year IIRC
>>I managed to Kernel Panic Hurd in 12 seconds once.
Has anyone said that Hurd is production ready? No one is forcing you to use it either..
>> not even Amiga.
Evidence that you know nothing about what you're talking about. Amiga OS has no memory protection. You don't need an "exploit" to crash the system.
>> tell Stallman to shut the fuck up and show some damn respect,
How about you shut the fuck up and show some respect? Stallman has done more for mankind than you could ever hope to.
>>they/he got stuff done.
Emacs
GDB
GCC
I hear some of those will run on OSX..
>>Sure RMS has added quite a lot of value to software development,
Without GNU OSX basically wouldn't exist.
>Just attacking others because they don't drink your flavour KoolAid
There are plenty of people that have done more for computing than Jobs did;
Chuck Peddle
Robert H. Dennard
etc etc
RMS' main point is while Jobs may have been an amazing salesman selling computers to the middle class he did very little to advance computing or technology. To quote Jack Tramiel he "made computers for the classes". His passing is sad for his family but it isn't a great loss for the rest of us. Jobs' passing is certainly not the end of consumer-grade family-friendly computing. I'm sure Stephen Fry etc will feel like things will never be the same again.. but I'm pretty sure things will continue as they did before; Massive R&D departments at Intel, Samsung etc making real discoveries and someone else will come combine them into a shiny product and claim to have thought of the whole thing while taking a shit.
And..
You can go to any 7-11, Circle K etc and pick up "porno manga" .. its right next to the womens fashion and golf ball of the month magazines.. all the sexy parts are censored. Surprisingly enough different countries have different rules on what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.
If some guy wants to quietly read censored porn do you really care that much? Would you rather have people blasting rnb out of the tinny speakers on their phones, throwing rubbish every where, being gobby shits etc?
And to the guy that complained about getting pushed around etc... is there a train network anywhere in the world that doesn't have that. The london undergound has that, the tokyo metro has that, the paris metro has that, the bay area BART has that. I've never been on a municipal transport network that wasn't hell at peak times. Sure you didn't have "oh japan is soo baaad boohooo" syndrome?
They have to do that..
to hide Scotland's massive collective "chip on the shoulder" from filling the screen.
ok...
>>1. Glad you like renting DVDs, I like playing games.
Ok, because game rentals aren't allowed here.. there are plently of game recycle shops. Any of them will be happy to sell you games at a lot less than retail price, and will buy them back from you when you have finished with them. Arcades are still pretty big here you know..
>>2. I am talking about websites for foreign companies who ignore browser language settings
Most if not all Japanese sites that offer English versions have a link in the top right hand corner for the language... I haven't actually come across a site that doesn't work like that. Being an expat in Japan is actually very easy in comparison to other places.. i.e. my bank operates totally in English, sends me English statements, has online banking in English.
You might want to not rely on English as a crutch though.. things will get messy when you say, want to go to the dentist on your own without a "friend" to translate for you..
Bottom line, your choice of living abroad isn't a excuse to pirate stuff. If you were going to anyway fair enough but don't make out you have some honorable reason for it.
Another Ex-pat in Japan
There's this crazy place called Tsutaya.. they will lend you DVDs and Blurays in exchange for money!!! Learn the 3 or 4 kanji you need to switch the audio to english and/or turn on subtitles and away you go! Even eikaiwa staff can do it!
>>(Websites that only allow you to use the Japanese localised version drive me nuts.)
Most people in Japan use Japanese as their first language.. strange that eh?
Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware
Ok,.. so Flash ROM is no longer memory? I'm pretty sure the M in ROM stands for memory.
And I'm pretty sure both RAM and ROM are forms of "storage".
<insert witty title here>
>> If as they say the filesystem is encrypted anyway why do they bother with so much show?
Because it looks good?
>>What do they do to ensure no one can sniff or tamper with them?
They have their own DCs right.. they don't share with people that might sniff traffic as it goes around the DC.
>>Google has said in the past that SSL connections are expensive for them.
They have also recently changed their mind on that.. I think the figure was something like 1% extra CPU utilisation and an extra 48k of ram per user or something. The weird thing about time as while is elapses things change and things happen.
>> So I wonder how encrypted their internal network really is.
Why does their internal network need to be encrypted? Do you mean inside a single DC or between DCs? I'm pretty sure if it encryption is needed somewhere.. i.e. over public links they would be doing encryption. I would think that the big interconnect links google will be using will be multiplex in such a way that it isn't that easy to steal data from others sharing the channel...
>> NIC port in Google's server up to their users' browser.
Why does the internal network matter so much to you?
>> internal network of a company.
So in your company you have everything encrypted even though you know that there really isn't any need?
>>Can Google guarantee this end-to-end security?
The data between your browser is secured with SSL until it gets inside googles network. The only people that should have any access to packets floating around their network should be working for google,.. so they would have access to the machines on the network anyhow.
Why the hell does that even matter..
>My button-pressing-loving 15 month old daughter managed to...
Every time there is even the smell of Android vs iOS some chimp has to make this statement.
Is it one of those things "you'll understand when you have children" that overly proud parents like to make out exist to excuse the selfish things they do?
Ok, I have a sausage here.. If I drop it just right on my Pantech I06 that it slides the unlock open, rolls over to the google search widget and manages to hit the voice search button and thus records me saying "I wish these sausages weren't so slippery" and thus googles that.. Does that mean A: "Android" is so easy that even inanimate objects that can be sensed by a capacitive touch screen can use it or B: I should be immensely proud of the sausage for so clever and take a million pictures of the sausage and upload them to facebook because I'm under the false impression that people aren't already sick to death about hearing about the magic clever sausage?
>> Not bad for somebody who can't walk or talk yet!
Ok, we get it, you can reproduce. Well done! I was wondering want human reproductive organs were for but apparently only a small elite has the ability to use them.
Another reg apples vs oranges convoluted comparion article
>>Apple-versus-Google Android openness debate sound even sillier than it is.
There is no Apple vs Google openess debate. Apple doesn't have any openness. Any open source projects it has worked with it has pissed off. Even if google decides to totally close Android tomorrow instead of just delaying a source release until it's ready they will still be more "open" than Apple. Apple has like 3 major product areas right? Desktops, mobiles and selling music etc. Google has mobile, search, enterprise products like google apps, mapping,.. Comparing the whole of Google with the whole of Apple makes no sense as they are not similar companies. Google happens to have pissed on Apple's fireworks by releasing a mobile platform that is cheaper and whatever the hacks at el reg say is more open than iOS but that doesn't mean that Google is looking to take over Apples tiny share of the desktop market.
>>that somehow manages to not be very open. No, that was Google.
Again, this is more that el reg hacks seem to lack the ability to understand A: what the Android platform is (Hint it isn't value add apps like maps), B: understand the word "yet", C: The difference between "open" and "open source".
>>Instead, Facebook announced it was open sourcing its server and data center designs.
Yay.. oh wait, that means nothing to most people because the people that have the money to do anything with these "open source" designs had the money to build perfectly good data centers in the first place. Where is the source to the processor etc? Oh you mean they released PCB files.. and you couldn't get a fab in china to make you up a custom X86 board before facebook saved the world by releasing those?
>>This is big. Really, really big.
Yes, if you say so.
>custom servers.
I have a feeling the software is more important that what shape the generic X86 hardware you use it. Did Facebook deliver a proven software stack for massively scaling any application yesterday?
>>As for Apple, while we occasionally glimpse details of its infrastructure ambitions,
Apple aren't even a player here.
>>much more open about the technology they use.
We use a bunch of X86 machines in a room with cooling. There, I've "open sourced" the plans for a data center.
>>we've seen so many Google employees bolt for Facebook.
I have a hunch facebook offered them more cash.
>it won't hurt Facebook's business and may actually help its recruiting. Bonus.
Yes, that single product they have is going to out do everyone else in ever market sector.. until another service comes along and everyone leaves.
This post has been deleted by its author
FRAGMENTATION!!!!
OH NO! THE UI IS DIFFERENT!!!!
But guess what... your application still work.. replacing the launcher application or changing some graphics in the framework doesn't break all existing applications. Seriously, this really gets on my tits. You have idiots (including Steve the great) saying "Look at these companies like tweetdeck.. they have to make millions of versions of their app to cover all the Android devices".. no, they don't, you can choose not to support older platform versions or some screen sizes.. but no, HTC's changes to the stock apps and changes to framework graphics DO NOT RENDER THEIR PHONES INCOMPATIBLE WITH A "STANDARD" ANDROID DEVICE.
And FFS, how many times does it need to be pointed out that Maps ARE NOT PART OF THE ANDROID PLATFORM. Google's market IS NOT PART OF THE ANDROID PLATFORM. If you want to use Google's extra APIs you have to define that in your application's manifest.. Lets repeat that MAPS IS NOT PART OF THE ANDROID PLATFORM. If you want to use maps and the market you have to keep google happy. You could build an Android device with your own market and value add applications... but I doubt many vendors want to do that when A: consumers want the google apps B: the google apps are fairly good C: the rules google have aren't all that insane.
Digest of comments to come
<n posts about Nokia phones being shit, yet my small child was able to pick up my iPhone and use it despite only being minutes out of the womb>
<n posts of "well Android isn't open" which by some so sort of mixed up reverse logic means that Apples environment including draconian code signing practices is actually the pinnacle of openness>
<n posts of flash and java are "CPU HOGS!">
and so forth...
Fragmentation..
"there is enough fragmentation among Android handsets to significantly restrict the freedom of software developers."
I don't really get this.. I have apps running on Android 1.6 to 2.x and there are minor issues really.. even with quite modified releases like HTC push out. Versions-wise 1.6 is missing a bunch of stuff that is nice to have and has a bunch of shitty bugs but it's nothing you can't work around.
The changes vendors do to Android are mostly nicely restrained by the framework.. i.e. most vendors just replace the graphics and maybe some standard apps.. as long as those replacements accept the same intents etc it isn't an issue.
If Sun wanted write-once-run-anywhere they shouldn't have allowed JNI or anything similar in. Once you allow code to hook directly into native code you lose any platform Independence you had.
You have to be a virgin to use decent tools?
Sounds like "internet hardman" speak to me. Personally I haven't found my use of GNU tools has affected my sex life all that much.. I don't live in "my mothers basement", I "get out" a lot,.. and hey I've had sex with more than one female and I haven't had to pay for it. The fact that you aren't able to think up anything more intelligent than "neer neer at least I gets secks!" might just put the womens off though.
I heard windows users have small tackle and apple users are all four eyed lady boys or summin.
Yeah..
Because Free/Open/NetBSD are all really great on the interactive workload front..
I like OpenBSD but it lacks a lot of modern stuff that Linux has..
An advantage for ARM platforms would be the huge amount of upstream support for Linux.
All the major CPU vendors have at least some Linux presence.. can you say the same for any of the BSDs?
And aside from all that.. the people that have wrote the code these lawyers are getting all shitty about have said "we don't care". So there is zero issue here.
@Tom 38
>>So that's a GPL licensed kernel
Yes, and I have a felling you can get the source for that....
>> and userland,
No.. the userland is a mix of different things. Most of Google's code, Bionic etc, is Apache or BSD licensed and considering it's their code they have the right not to give it to people. The GPL parts of the userland (I forget what actually is GPL.. bluez maybe?) need to have the source released in line with the GPL.. But even if all of the Google written code was GPL they still own the copyright on it and have the right not to release it. It's their code after all.
>>distribute binaries of GPL licensed components,
If those components are GPL licensed (Bionic is BSD licensed) and if you don't own the copyright on those components. Guess who owns the copyright on big chunks of Android that weren't imported from existing projects....
>>you must make the source code of those binaries available.
If you write some software and release it under GPL you don't have to release the source for any versions you don't want to release under the GPL. You own the copyright. People that create binaries from your GPL licensed source have to supply the source. There is no reason why the original author has to sign away their rights on the copyright attached to their work.
@Tom 38
You obviously have no idea about any of this. I suggest you walk away from the keyboard and stop making an idiot of yourself.
Another person that can't read
Where did I say honeycomb is open source?
Open != Open Source. You can make your APIs open and not open your source.
HTML is an "Open Standard".. where is the source for it?
Before I start thinking "Yay, it's clever reply writing time!!!" please actually read what has been written. If you don't understand it don't start bashing the keys and feeling smug.
"Open Platform"
>>So, by *your* definition, Windows, AIX and HP-UX are all
>>from then on declared to be open operating systems!
Can you go and get all the API docs for free? Are you allowed to develop applications on those platforms without the vendors blessing? There are no secret API's which would stop you from being able to develop applications? You don't need your applications to be signed to have them run?
Do you know why POSIX etc exist? You can have open standards without open source.
As long as you define your interfaces and make them accessible you have something that is "open". Not "open source" but "open". Does it matter how AIX's and HP-UX libc differ as long as they implement the same interfaces with minimal amounts of differences? Nope.
>>Well done, it's all settled then and we can get back to our lives.
There's nothing to stop you developing on honeycomb, you don't have to sign an NDA to get API docs. You can download the SDK now. You can run your applications on devices now.
This article is rubbish
>>If you needed further proof that Android is not an "open platform",
Open platform != Open source.
>>it will not open source the Honeycomb code.
They said they aren't going to open the code "yet". Do you know how to read or are you ignoring words on purpose?
>> will delay the distribution of Honeycomb
You just contradicted yourself.
>>Google and its partners don't want smaller name manufacturers eating
>> into their tablet sales.
And so what? Is it against some unwritten rules for Goggle to try to make money?
>>names nabbing pieces of code for their own tablet OSes.
What exactly would they nab? The kernel can be downloaded from kernel.org.. all the UI stuff is going to be written for Android, so unless you basically copy the whole user environment you wouldn't gain anything..
>>Google has always billed Android as an open source operating system,
And it is.. because they are delaying one release doesn't mean that all the code has suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth.
>>but the latest version has always been developed behind closed doors.
And?
>> some pieces of the platform – including the Google Android Marketplace
>>and app like Google Maps –
The market isn't part of the platform. If you had ever developed an Android application you would know that the Google API's like Maps aren't part of the Android platform.
>>Google also maintains control over the Android trademark.
And?
>>can't build true Android devices unless they play by Google's rules.
They can't use the market if they don't play by googles rules (which include the ability to use ADB etc.. which is good for users). There is nothing stopping you from releasing an Android device without the market or extra google API's.
>>Google did not make a public announcement that it is not open sourcing the code.
Why would they announce something they aren't going to do? They will release the code when it's ready. Why would they announce "we aren't going to release the code" when they intend to release it?
>>In October, when Steve Jobs publicly
Steve Jobs.. like yourself.. doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.
>> download the Android source code, and build your own OS.
And you still can.. you can't download the source for honeycomb because they aren't happy with it yet.
>>By that definition, Honeycomb is not open.
Don't mix meanings of "open". You can go and get all the API docs for honeycomb. You can develop applications for it with out having to reverse engineer it. It is an "open platform" and you can run those applications without magic keys from google. Not being able to download the source *yet* doesn't change that fact.
Bootcamp doesn'T actually do anything..
PC-Style booting is part of the EFI firmware.. Bootcamp is a GUI for the partition resizer.
Simple
No local coal or gas resources.
Mixed news..
The news coming from the BBC and the news on Japanese TV seems to be different and randomly changing .. I presume from the language barrier/technical nature of the subject involved. Japanese TV is saying "not much as happened" and then the BBC is saying "the sky is falling".
huh?
>>Asian pop can indeed sound quite different to what their used to.
Except that most "Asian Pop" is weirdly similar to western RnB etc.. Including great phrases like "oh baby baby yeah!"
>>Asian pop music melody and structure can also be quite different to western music.
Really? In what way? You mean you can have different genres? How is that a regional thing?
>>The point being made was that youTube provides
>>access to music from across the globe.
And the BBC broadcast a ton of different specialist shows that do sometimes include material from Japanese artists. There is plenty of world music programming.
>> preferring to berate someone for being a little over enthusiastic about how different
>> the music they've just discovered is.
J-Pop isn't different from western pop most of the time in fact I think you would be hard pressed to find something that isn't trying to be "western". The only difference is the language it's sang in ( Although 99.9% of J-Pop includes a few bits of English). He said that UK music is "cack" and eluded to it being a scam.. The J-Pop industry churns out just as much cack as the UK pop scene.
>>Regardless of the veracity of that statement (it's debatable) that's
>>not an answer to the original question.
He said UK music is "cack" and that J-Pop is somehow better... which is total shit. There is good and bad in both. Japan has a ton of decent bands and so does the UK.. trying to argue that music from the UK is "cack" using J-Pop as an example of something "good" is very far fetched.
!(Japanese Poo > UK poo)
watashi ha sumisu desu. nihon no bunka ga dai-su-ki- desu.
>>I am interested in J-pop
>>disillusioned by the cack pedalled in the UK charts.
So one is mass produced cack and the other is mass produced cack.. I'm really not getting your argument.
>>How else can I discover an artist on the other side of the planet
There is plenty of good music in the UK. If you go to a festival in Nippon you will soon realise that more than half the line up is from the UK. If you think that because its in Japanese that it makes it OK to listen to stuff thats basically Spice Girls level maybe there isn't much hope for you.
>> who sings in her native language and is unknown here?
I really like clammbon.. Heard one of their tunes on BBC radio 1..
>>CDs are frequently cheaper than the postage
SAL air mail is very cheap.
>>and no legal mp3 options.
Music piracy is a bit different in the land of the rising sun. You can actually rent music CDs here and people do seem to do that. I've found it pretty hard to actually find stuff to download.. like movies with Japanese subtitles for the wife. The only places that actually have anything for download have been "Otaku" or "j - nantoka kantoka suki!" sites that listeners with refined tastes like yourself run. You can always buy CDs from yesasia.
>>"new entry straight in at number one!" of a song I've never heard before?).
And you don't mind South Korean girls trained from birth to shake their ass and toot along in Japanese?
sssh
Don't go mentioning that the Xoom actually has more hardware.. don't you realise Apple invented <Everything you can imagine>? Front facing cameras, 3G etc.. these are all revolutionary ideas Jobs thought up on the toilet.. Also don't you know that Android is fragmented and apps need to be rewritten for every different device?[0]
Apple is a software vendor that sells hardware dongles designed by others i.e. Samsung and Intel and Steve Jobs has barely any idea what he's selling software or hardware.
[0] If you've ever written an decent sized Android app you will know that screen sizes are a pain in the arse, but it's not impossible to write an app that works everywhere and the market filters apps that the developer has decided not to support on your device. It's also very possible to support all the older versions of Android if you try... Different framework skin/launcher != ABI incompatibility.
@woohoo
We have found the one person that actually does anything with the amazing Cell processor!
>>us /have/ learned to code on the thing and /have/ written non-trivial applications using it.
You have to wonder though.. why didn't you buy a dev kit from IBM? They did sell Cell blades etc.. if it meant so much to you why didn't you buy a dev kit? Oh, was it because they were priced outside of the price range of the common man? Did IBM not run a university scheme or anything to put Cell processors into the hands of people that could use them?
>>We bought a machine that was supposed to do A, B, C and D
I've never ever seen the PS3 being advertised as a Cell dev kit.
Eggs in one basket...
>>other for my programming use.
Again, never advertised as a dev kit. All sensible processor vendors will sell you dev kits.. You even get support. I have a board for an 8 bit MCU that cost more than a PS3.. it's a commercial development kit that comes with proper documentation etc. ;)
>>I have no choice but to keep linux on both of them
Or you could buy another PS3 for games?
>>programming platform which I originally bought the machines for.
You bought consumer hardware. It was never sold as a dev kit.
>>So you can basically fuck right off with your sycophantic Sony fanboi line.
Hah, yes.. because I disagree with you I'm a fanboi. I personally don't follow brands.. I buy want is available and fits what I'm looking for at time of purchase. I don't buy a games console and cry like a baby because the vendor doesn't want to support it as a dev ket.
>>I *do* use the CBE, the applications I write are *not* portable to other systems,
The code you have written isn't portable.. I can't see any reason you can't re-implement it on another platform that hasn't been dropped upstream and has no easy accessible development hardware? Sony have removed OtherOS boohoo.. but IBM don't want to make Cell chips any more either.. will you people start another load of drama when Sony stops shipping PS3's?
You can get FPGA's with PPC cores built in these days.. and I don't think the dev kits are terribly expensive. VHDL/Verilog are industry standards and you can use them across a number of vendors hardware. So you wouldn't be wasting your time learning something that is already dead.
>> I *do* feel betrayed and shafted by Sony for fucking up the system
It still runs OtherOS right? Sony have given you a choice.. Maybe Sony could have handled it better and gave a free PS3 with newer firmware to the <insert tiny amount of people here> that actually used "THE CELL!" opposed to "Hey, it runs Linux! why can't I play windows games on this.." but they didn't and they don't have to. OtherOS was an unsupported bonus feature that is gone. Get over it.
"computer-illiterate"
>>PCs don't have PPC arch
And? PPC is dead on the desktop because it simply couldn't compete with X86.
>>your PS3 has much more processing power than your *current* PC because of this!
Really? For what application? Name a single application that you use that uses all of the Cell's co-processors and actually shows speed up from that. I bet you can't show me anything outside of number crunching..
>>PSJailbreak and the dubious piracy stuff wouldn't have been able to work at all
PSJailbreak came first. I think I have told you this before.. don't rewrite history to make it fit your version of events/opinion.
so what..
>>I'm taking issue with your "if you wanted to run Linux you should have bought a PC" line.
If you wanted to run Linux you should buy a PC. It has the most support in-kernel (Anyone that is running weird archs will know how painful that can be) and upstream from Intel, Nvidia etc....
>>The Cell processor is interesting and different from any Intel/AMD/ARM
>>processor that you will find in commodity PC and other hardware, and
>>using a PS3 to run Linux was the cheapest and easiest way of getting access to it.
So what you're really saying is that you don't want to run Linux. you want to run linux on novelty hardware. Hey I can dig that.. I have an SH4 on my desk.. some people still use m68k.
That doesn't mean that Sony should support your fetish for novelty hardware does it? And after the novelty of having a machine that can't run an awful lot because of it's limited amount of system ram what do you do then?
>> It is not for you to say that it has no value,
It has novelty value.
>>As an intellectual exercise, being able to program a Cell has serious merit to some people
IIRC there are simulators for the Cell. If you really do have a massive crazy fetish for the Cell maybe you could modify one of the existing PPC emulators out there and give it SPE's?
To be honest if I had a weird fetish for a particular processor architecture ( I actually do really like the Hitachi/Renesas H8 and SuperH chips.. thats mainly because they are nice to work with ) I wouldn't want an OS there to smooth all the naked hardware weirdness out for me. I'd want to be running my code on the hardware without hypervisors and kernels in the way. Can you do that on the PS3? Have you ever written any PPC or Cell code?
The difference..
>>those miffed by OtherOS removal.
Because they continually make out its a big thing and that it's the reason the "hackers got pissed and hacked the PS3", totally ignoring the fact that the USB exploit came from nowhere and opened the doors.. it would have happened if OtherOS was still in place, the reason it didn't happen for so long was that the USB exploit wasn't discovered.
>>Still insisting on the "get a PC" argument?
Any recent X86 box is going to be a ton more useful than a PS3 for a linux box.. even if the Cell was the fastest chip in the world and all the applications people use were suited to its highly parallel architecture it would still be no better than a standard PC because of its lack of RAM and in the original OtherOS's lack of access to the video hardware... there is a phd paper somewhere that details the Cell can't decode decent resolution H264 streams in software, a shitty Atom with ION can.
>>IT-savvy people can't understand the difference between
>>PPC
Dead outside of embedded and shops running expensive IBM kit. Expensive for the performance you get.
>>x86
Apparently an amazingly horrible architecture .. decided by people that don't know what a register is .. but incredibly cheap for the performance you get. Available from a number of suppliers. Well documented. Well supported. Can be coupled with GPUs. Number of cores per die/package doubling at a crazy rate. Machines are generally built against standards and can be upgraded/expanded to suite the intended application.
>>PPC-based CellBE arch.
Over hyped. Main proponents lack the ability to actually code anything that code take advantage of the Cells architecture but like to rattle on and on about it being the "next big thing" when the companies responsible for it have basically dropped it and are trying to distance themselves from it. Expensive. Limited suppliers.
>>IBM axed their CellBE server roadmap,
So.. it's dead. Get over it. Learn how to use CUDA or something..
>>who want CellBE hardware just can't get it outside of the PS3.
So.. what you're saying is that Sony should put lots of effort into keeping 3 of their 44 million PS3 owners happy because they have a fetish for hardware that has basically been abandoned?
I'm really interested to know what the amazing application you have that requires the Cell.. please do enlighten us.
"computer-illiterate"
I hate to reply to you again in the same thread about a different thread..
Anyhow. You have called me computer illiterate (I'm incredibly hurt!!).
>Sad to see that even IT-savvy people can't understand the difference
> between PPC, x86 and the PPC-based CellBE arch.
It's really sad to see that people like yourself have irrational fetishes for processor architectures and start name calling if people don't agree with you.
I'll set down a challenge to you here..
On my desk I currently have these *weird* processor architectures;
NXP LPC2294 (ARM7TDMI)
Renesas H8 3069F (H8/300)
Renesas SuperH 2 7144 IIRC, 16bit external databus version..
Renesas SuperH 4 7151R
Xilinx Microblaze (Various configurations)
I've written my own startup code for each of these.. linker scripts etc.. the H8 does weird stuff like loading binaries into external DRAM via the debugger in flash ROM and then pushes marked sections of code into the internal SRAM for speed.. I know them pretty well.
My challenge to you is this; Show us one bit of code you have personally written for the Cell, preferably in assembly, that couldn't be replicated on at least one of those processors. All of those are < 266Mhz, so we won't take speed of the operation as a factor.. you just need to show us something that you have written for the Cell which is impossible to do on all of the above chips. They can all run Linux in some form so it doesn't matter if your code needs an OS.
If you can I will eat each of those dev boards.. Some of them aren't RoHS! But I really doubt you can.
Brought?
>>When he brought the box,
I presume you mean bought? As in purchased?
>>a copy of the firmware too.
In legal jargon.. "He licensed the software". When he turned on the PS3 it brought up a massive agreement that stipulated the terms which the software was licensed to him and if that he didn't like it he should return the unit. Whether or not that stands up in court or not is another matter.
However, it is clear that Sony never said.. "You now own the complete rights to this software, do what you like with it". Geohot has a bigger problem.. the DMCA.
>>He is only modifying the copy he brought from Sony.
And distributing what Sony at least consider their IP.. To prove/disprove that his stuff has been seized.
>>Sony fanbois/astrostaffers
I'm in no way a Sony fanboy. I just hate whingers... if you wanted to run Linux you should have bought a PC. These "ethical hackers" were very big headed, give themselves names like "fail overflow" and generally acted liked arses. They are now getting the living shits kicked out of them by Sony's lawyers and I'm all for that. If you want open kit buy open kit. If you buy stuff that is being made by a megacorp for a specific purpose and they've made it pretty damn clear they don't want people messing with their stuff (I.e. we'll give you OtherOS, we get a nice tax break, but its stunted for a reason,.. we don't want you to use it) you can expect them to smash you into the ground when you start lauding the fact that you broke their security system over them. In summary it doesn't matter how many followers you have on twitter or how many unfunny jokes you can make at a "hacking conference". Sony has enough money to make your life very difficult and they should have thought about that before they got on their high horses.
Has anyone from the PSJailbreak "team" been given the Sony treatment? I can see that their devices have been banned everywhere but I can't find anyone thats been dragged out of their bed and had their stuff taken... the PSJailbreak is the only reason this has all happened..
I'll extend on that..
>>Are you not free to customise it and tweak the software to your hearts content?
Messing with the ECU software, or even the software for your "GPS" will probably invalidate your warranty. Maybe some other laws would cover the software running the car.. i.e. those that stipulate that the thing has to be road worthy.
>>Are all those engine modifications and conversions illegal under DMCA law? No.
"Chipped" cars use firmware images that are modded .. i.e. they are the original firmware that has been modified,.. so copyright infringement. DMCA goes further and prohibits breaking of security systems. So this chap should feel glad he isn't in the US of A.
>>And then are you free to post these modifications onto the internet?
If you aren't infringing on patents.
>>Sell the hardware?
If you don't infringe on any patents.. which is pretty difficult not to do. Even Sony etc do it .. they have enough money to fight lengthy court cases though.
Not this again...
You own the physical hardware yes.. if you want to prop a door open with it go for it.
Owning a piece of hardware doesn't automatically mean you own all the IP attached to that product.. i.e. all the trademarks, patents on the hardware, copyrights etc.. Let's make a car analogy here; If you buy a car you can take it apart and make modern art out of the parts no on cares. You can't take apart and start distributing cloned parts for the car that infringe on patents etc. You can't scan all the manuals etc and start distributing those.
I see Sony going nuts over this and using their rights given to them by various silly laws as a good thing.. hopefully it'll expose how the laws are misaligned with the feeling of the populous.
If you want open buy open.
um..
>therefore what he does with it is his business.
Until he starts distributing stuff that may or may not infringe on Sony's IP..
@Oodles of Noodles
>>Linux or google docs, is the lack of drivers for the old familiar printers
You can blame Apple for that now.. they bought CUPS. Maybe King Steve will make out he invented it and "opened" it for the good of the people like he did with Webkit (KHTML).
Maybe he'll push for "open standards" like postscript or something. ;)
/me hasnt had a problem with a printer in Debian for ages.. scanner/printer things are a PITA but most printers just worked..
And...
While you were doing "packet traces" (I presume you mean, I fired up wireshark and selected follow tcp stream) did you happen to notice all the other stuff thats regularly transmitted in plain text? A surprising amount of email servers still send mail in plain text for example.
@Bill Neal
>>The whole package costs $40/month.
Thats fairly expensive for a phone package... maybe your provider aren't subsidising your phone hence the cost. My shiney new 1Ghz Android phone is less than that a month.. but is locked to the providers network.
>>Yes you can do alot if the ram is FAST enough.
Ok,... so how do you load something bigger than 256MB into memory? I mean into memory not into mostly paged out to disk... if its paging all the time RAM bandwidth means nothing, you need IO bandwidth. I have 3GB of data resident in memory on this 1.6Ghz Atom machine, massive disk caches etc.. how do you do that on the PS3?
People built HPC clusters out of PS3's only to find that 256MB of ram isn't enough for their datasets. doh.
>>in the ps3 it is VERY FAST.
The Cell is fast for code that can be parallelised.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl's_law
Can you name a single binary in YellowDog linux that uses all 7 or 8 (I think only 7 are usable by user code with the original OtherOS setup) co processors? They aren't full CPU cores and as such aren't suitable for everything...
>>single core PPC
Yes
>>an 8 core GPU integrated in 1 chip!!
No, it has 8 small vector co processors... imagine a 386 + 8 387's ;) They aren't GPUs.
For standard desktop usage I think you will find a bog standard X86 box is cheaper and works a lot better than a PS3. From the fact that you don't even know what the Cell is except that "It's FAST! AMAZING!!! WOOT! XBOX360 sucks!" I'm guessing you don't write a lot of highly parallel code that fits the Cells architecture.
@Bill Neal
The hardware is subsidised by game sales.. ergo Sony don't want you to use it as a PC and locked out the RSX in OtherOS and made it a "toy computer" from the start. They need you to buy games from licensed publishers that are paying them for the rights to put games on the PS3. If you need something to compare against; Mobile providers lock those "free" phones you get with a new contract to their network exactly that reason. They can't have you paying for the lowest contract and using the phone on a different cheaper network.
...and can you use a PC with only 256MB of ram for anything useful these days?
For a few hundred quid you can get a multicore X86 box with gigs of ram, hundred gigs of storage, a newer Nvidia GPU than what is in the PS3.. oh and its all open and shit so you can use it as a generic computer!! woo
Dont re-write history.
>>There are quite a bit of PPC users, and PS3 isn't just PPC but it also has the
>> CellBE processor, the only one with such a thing. Thanks to IBM's axing of
>>the Cell Blades, the only way to get 'em now is by buying a PS3!
Ok, so IBM don't want to sell you a Cell anymore and neither do Sony.. you think it might be time to consider a new architecture?
>> the pirates themselves had considered the PS3 too hard to crack,
PSJailbreak came first. Don't try to re-write history the other way around.
The keys would have never been leaked had the PSJailbreak not appeared.
>>and thanks to OtherOS the hackers didn't care about hacking the thing.
So what the hell was GeoHot doing? Trying to unlock everything to OtherOS.
>> used the opened doors to enable the "copy game to HDD, run from HDD" thingy.
Again, you have it the wrong way around. Without the USB exploit from the PSJailbreak this would have never happened.
>> but it is the kind of people that actually have the knowledge
>>to crack the thing. Bad move!
Except that the PSJailbreak beat them to it?
wow
Ok, so you are one user with like 4 ppcs machines.. someone call fedora, suse etc.. they need to get their PPC build machines back up and running!!!
meh
>>remove the OtherOS feature has
Because people were doing things they didn't want to happen.. i.e. unlocking the RSX in OtherOS. There is a reason it's locked out.. Sony makes money from licensing games. If they allowed OtherOS full access to the hardware there would be no reason for publishers to get their games officially licensed by Sony. You may not agree with Sony's business model but there is a clear reason why they removed OtherOS.
>>actually pushed people who used that legitimate feature
People keep making out that lots of people used OtherOS... without any numbers at all.
I would guess if OtherOS was running on a significant portion of the 44 million PS3's out there, then there would have been more of a fuss. One guy in the US tried to sue Sony for removing it and got nowhere right?
>>to now look at the jailbreak/rooted world to get that feature back...
I'm just guessing here.. but I reckon the people using these recent developments for warez opposed to homebrew is something like 1000 to 1?
>>world where pirated games are a download away..
The only reason this has all happened was the PSJailbreak.. which is for warez.
>>when they used to live a world away from it,
So homebrew is a "gateway drug?" even more reason for Sony not to allow homebrew right.
>>happily booting between linux and GameOS.
Yes, all those millions of PPC linux users that don't seem to appear anywhere.. The Wii is PPC too.. have we seen any massive jump in PPC linux users? Nope. From the Debian popcon stats we can see that Debian PPC hasn't grown in like 3 or 4 years.... You know if you want to run a commodity OS you can just buy X86 hardware right?
No one in Japan even saw it..
I'm a Japanese speaking English in Japan.. does that count? Anyhow.. no, no one here cares. I don't think you can actually get any BBC tv without having a really expensive Pay TV package. Our IPTV doesn't have any BBC programming anyhow. Thankfully I have a fast usenet server...
If you have read the article you would have noticed that it was the Japanese embassy in London that made the complaint. So it was probably one person there that took offence.
Anyhow Fry not coming here is for the best.. we really don't need another loud mouth with a twitter account moaning about the natives being racist etc blah blah. Middle-class white people seem to count other people noticing them to be foreign as "racism" and find the need to write silly blogs and tweet about it on a daily basis.
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