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  • 2
    Nicu

    Nicu 3:08 am on December 7, 2011 - 61 days ago

    Several industries are out of ideas. They have tried everything and it did not work. Now, like scared stupid children they do the copycat game. Or should I say cargo cult ? Aluminum, black keyboard and few ports in some precise order on the side must sell tons of notebooks. They fail to realize their prices are unjustifiable for anyone except the fanatics that would not touch an Apple product by a 6 foot pole. Also, they fail to recognize (otherwise they would just stop throwing precious resources at this losing game) that their software is lousy and they have no chance to compete on this front. Oh my, how computing could change in a decade !

    SOURCE:
    http://www.pcworld.com/article/245564/lg_intros_thinnest_ultrabook_yet_the_xnote_z330.html

     
  • 15
    Birra

    Birra 11:28 pm on December 6, 2011 - 61 days ago

    Windows deja vu! Ars is not pro Apple so even had to make the title accurate.

    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/researcher-demos-threat-of-transparent-smartphone-botnets.ars

     
    • rastard

      rastard 8:00 am on December 7, 2011 61 days ago

      Err – back in 2009, researchers already presented a similar Botnet proof of concept — using iPhones: (http://mulliner.org/collin/academic/publications/ibots_malware10_mulliner_seifert.pdf)

      Also, the original title was [more] accurate to begin with. In your usual enthusiasm to bash Android — you apparently missed this gem in the current article:

      “Weidman said that on iOS devices, a similar botnet could potentially be distributed as part of a “jailbreak” package.”

      • Nicu

        Nicu 8:51 am on December 7, 2011 61 days ago

        That’s why Apple does not encourage jailbraking. Have you ever heard of a corrupted system being safe ? Nobody can protect users from their active stupidity.

      • Birra

        Birra 12:10 pm on December 7, 2011 61 days ago

        The rantings of a petulant child as @nicu so correctly pointed out. Yes if you are truly stupid you can jailbreak your iPhone and join the other petulant children. But most of us grow up and choose to throw away childish things. But toddle if you must.

        • rastard

          rastard 8:17 pm on December 7, 2011 60 days ago

          The irony here is rich. You resorting to ad hominem attacks… like a child would — while calling me a toddler. :-)

          Would it have been too much for you to simply admit that all smartphone platforms can be susceptible to botnets under specific conditions? That’s exactly what Researcher Weidman did…

        • SB

          SB 10:08 pm on December 7, 2011 60 days ago

          Come on, Birra – name calling does not belong on this board – leave that for the Google board. Though you may find him irritating, it is clear Rastard is not stupid, or even childish. He is typically the only one who posts here who has a counterpoint to the pro-Apple sentiment which is typically expressed here, and does so reasonably well.

    • JPWatkins

      JPWatkins 8:40 pm on December 8, 2011 59 days ago

      “. . . simply admit that all smartphone platforms can be susceptible to botnets under specific conditions? That’s exactly what Researcher Weidman did…”
      Not really.
      When the “specific condition” is a design decision of the product and it is “susceptible” out of the box,” it’s not the same as when the user has deliberately created the “specific condition” by removing designed in security measures so as to create the “susceptibility.”
      Any inability to admit this basic fact would be on par with childish name calling.

    • rastard

      rastard 5:45 am on December 9, 2011 59 days ago

      and it is “susceptible” out of the box,”

      1) Citation needed.

      2) There’s little difference between an iPhone user casually choosing to jailbreak their phone without considering the potential repercussions of doing so, and an Android user casually choosing to install apps without considering the potential repercussions of doing so. The Android Market is replete with user reviews for each app, and also provides a clear statement of the permissions and access that each app had access to. Whether jailbreaking or choosing to install apps with broad/unnecessary permissions, users have deliberately chosen to make their phones vulnerable. Any inability to admit this basic fact would be on par with being a pretentious ass.

      3) Every year, Macs and Safari seem to get hacked faster than all competing platforms at Pwn2own. Similarly, security researchers seem to regularly release reports calling out vulnerabilities in Apple produces which result in Apple bashers crawling out of the woodwork to claim that Macs aren’t secure. In response to those claims (and rightly so) people here immediately jump to Apple’s defense pointing out that these are merely proofs of concepts, research findings, and theoretical vulnerabilities, not real-world epidemics.

      Yet when it’s Android and not Apple, these same proofs of concept, research findings, and theoretical vulnerabilities are all of a sudden real-world epidemics. Fanboy bias much? Any inability to admit this basic fact would be on par with being a… well… a fanboy. :-)

    • JPWatkins

      JPWatkins 8:33 pm on December 9, 2011 58 days ago

      Rastard,
      As often is the case, I pity your post, which reeks of desperation.
      1.) The only citation needed is reality and critical thinking skills.
      2.) Although your whole world view seems to rest on this point, it made me laugh out loud and is truly unworthy of any response. If you really believe this, we are scratching our heads in wonder. But if you are just saying it, how can we in good conscience read anything you post in the future?
      3.) First, get the slightest smidgen of a basic education in critical reasoning. Then read the most basic information on electronic security. Finally, discard your obvious preexisting agenda and using your newly acquired skills, carefully read the facts around these accounts. You will discover that despite all the smoke and noise around theoretical and “proof of concept” hacks of OS X and iOS, the reality is, these platforms have never been exploited in any way (although third party software has sometimes produced vectors of exploitation.) Further, in actual “real world” computing, neither OS X nor iOS has never proven vulnerable to any exploit, (although OS X, users have occasionally succumbed to “social engineering” techniques.) One word in your assertion stands out, ” . . . Macs and Safari ***seem*** to get hacked faster than all competing platforms . . . ”
      -
      RE: your parting paragraph
      You of course ignore the fact that I have not sensationalized or even posted anything about Android vulnerabilities. Yet you gleefully lash out at me. Nonetheless, there are many documented cases where both Android system vulnerabilities and the feral “system” of Android software distribution has caused serious harm to users “in the wild.” This is not “theoretical,” “research,” or “proof of concept.” It’s just a natural consequence of Google’s design and engineering decisions.

      • rastard

        rastard 1:06 am on December 10, 2011 58 days ago

        “and it is “susceptible” out of the box,”

        1) I’ll say again, citation needed. I’d like to see one reference from this security researcher’s findings (or any other for that manner) that indicates that Android phones are susceptible to botnets right out of the box (i.e. without a user having installed an app).

        “The only citation needed is reality and critical thinking skills”

        Evaluation and analysis of evidence is actually foundational to Critical Thinking. Your unwillingness to provide any evidence makes it clear that you don’t know the first thing about critical thinking, else you wouldn’t have offered up such a recursive response. You can hide behind all of the long-winded smokescreens and grandiose assertions about your superior intellect that you want, but all those do is reveal you to be a coward without the cognitive ability or critical reasoning skills to actually engage in a reasoned discussion.

        2) Your basic reading comprehension apparently is lacking as well, because my point 3 above already stated that the theoretical security risks identified by researchers don’t actually manifest in real-world epidemics.

        3) “You of course ignore the fact that I have not sensationalized or even posted anything about Android vulnerabilities”.

        In your post just prior, you claimed that Android is “susceptible” [to botnets] out of the box”. That’s a post about Android vulnerabilities. Any inability to admit this basic fact would be on par with being a liar…

    • JPWatkins

      JPWatkins 9:10 pm on December 9, 2011 58 days ago

      People who read more than just blog headlines and who also have basic critical reasoning skills may find this recent academic article on smartphone malware of interest.
      -
      http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~afelt/mobilemalware.pdf
      -
      The authors state in their introduction, “Our survey encompasses all known iOS, Symbian, and Android malware that spread between January 2009 and June 2011. We collected information about 46 pieces of malware in this time period: 4 for iOS, 24 for Symbian, and 18 for Android.”
      -
      And in the conclusion, “We also observed that none of the malware in our data set was approved by the Apple App Store, which indicates that human review may be an effective preventative measure for malware.”
      -
      [That's *zero* malware in the wild on unbroken iOS devices and 18 (and rapidly rising) on any Android device.]

      • Nicu

        Nicu 9:47 pm on December 9, 2011 58 days ago

        Scientific data and discoveries never had any influence on religious people (regarding their object of cult).

        • rastard

          rastard 2:19 am on December 10, 2011 58 days ago

          Wow. I never thought I’d see the day where you would acknowledge that you were disregarding data and evidence because of your cultist affection to Apple. That’s really great!

          Recognition is the first step to recovery… :-)

          • Nicu

            Nicu 5:13 am on December 10, 2011 58 days ago

            You got is, smart boy !

    • JPWatkins

      JPWatkins 10:23 pm on December 9, 2011 58 days ago

      Very true.
      I can’t tell for sure if Rastard is religious about Android. It could be he “makes a religion” of something else, but I not sure what—contrariness, conflict, trolling, or maybe just a desire to “win,” “be right,” or be a “lone, rugged, individualist voice, alone on the frontier.” Or maybe it’s just what you say. I don’t know.

    • rastard

      rastard 2:29 am on December 10, 2011 58 days ago

      Here’s a question perhaps you can answer. Have you ever posted *anything* here critical of Apple, or complimentary of Android in any way?

  • 1
    Birra

    Birra 7:31 pm on December 6, 2011 - 61 days ago

    “One of the things that really stands out using an iPhone is just how smooth it feels compared to using Android. Where as Android is laggy, with a measurable interim between when you touch the screen and when the OS responds, iOS almost seems to anticipate what you want to do before your finger touches the display.

    How has Apple managed this incredible feat? A better question might be: “How has Google managed to screw up Android’s multitouch so much?” According to Andrew Munn — a software engineering student and ex-Google intern — Android is so messed up that Google might never be able to match an iPhone or iPad’s performance. Ouch!

    Here’s why Android can’t render its touch UI without lagging, according to Munn. In iOS, UI rendering processes occur with dedicated threads in real-time priority, halting other processes and focusing all attention on rendering the UI. . In other words, every time you touch your finger to your iPhone’s display, the OS literally goes crazy: “Someone’s touching us! Someone’s touching us! Stop everything else you’re doing, someone’s touching us!”

    Work on Android started before the release of the iPhone, and at the time Android was designed to be a competitor to the Blackberry. The original Android prototype wasn’t a touch screen device. Android’s rendering trade-offs make sense for a keyboard and trackball device. When the iPhone came out, the Android team rushed to release a competitor product, but unfortunately it was too late to rewrite the UI framework.

    So why hasn’t Google just changed the UI framework? Well, it’s a daunting task that would involve every app on Android Market to be rewritten to support the new framework. That’s at least a year away, and may never happen.

    In other words, for Google to ever fully deal with Android’s lag problems, it needs to basically hit the reset button and destroy its app ecosystem. iOS, on the other hand, was built from the ground up to support multitouch smartphones; hell, Apple was the supreme visionary of it. It’s important to get things right.”

    http://www.cultofmac.com/133624/why-android-will-always-be-laggier-than-ios/

     
    • Nicu

      Nicu 2:54 am on December 7, 2011 61 days ago

      From Daring Fireball
      http://daringfireball.net/
      linking to
      https://plus.google.com/100838276097451809262/posts/VDkV9XaJRGS

      “Interesting technical look at the design of Android’s graphics and event processing by Andrew Munn, trying to explain why it feels so laggy compared to iOS and Windows Phone:

      Android UI will never be completely smooth because of the design constraints I discussed at the beginning:

      <>

      I hadn’t really thought about it in those terms before, but I think he’s right. Symbian and the old BlackBerry OS aren’t gone yet, but they’ve been deprecated by Nokia and RIM in favor of OSes designed post-iPhone.

      Also funny to see in the comments a few Android fans denying that Android is laggy. “I don’t mind Android’s relative UI lagginess because of X, Y, and Z other things that Android does better than any other mobile OS” is a reasonable stance. “It is a myth that Android has issues with lagginess and UI responsiveness” is not.”

  • Birra

    Birra 6:34 pm on December 6, 2011 - 61 days ago

    The very definition of stupid.

    “The application says that the technology can, among other things, combine and analyze service intelligence modules related to games, financial transactions, and medical diagnostics.”

    http://www.macworld.com/article/164079/2011/12/carrier_iq_downplays_2010_patent_request.html#lsrc.rss_main

     
  • 1
    Birra

    Birra 1:12 pm on December 6, 2011 - 61 days ago

    “The ease and ability of Android licensees to modify the software they install on their smartphones has opened vast security holes that enable rogue apps to record calls, monitor users’ locations and access sensitive data without permission, researchers say, noting that while Google and Motorola acknowledge the issues, HTC and Samsung have ignored their findings.”

    http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/12/05/serious_security_flaws_discovered_in_android_phones_samsung_and_htc_ignore_issue.html

     

  • Nicu 11:00 pm on December 4, 2011 - 63 days ago

     
  • henrystar

    Richard 11:48 am on December 3, 2011 - 65 days ago

    Verizon + Cable:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/verizon-wireless-makes-marketing-airwave-deal-with-three-cable-companies/2011/12/02/gIQARvPYMO_story.html?hpid=z1

    What are the implications for Apple’s plans?

     

  • conshmillo 7:12 am on December 2, 2011 - 66 days ago

    conshmillo

    DIA posted a beautiful skyscraper by crossing it’s 50 EMA two days ago. AAPL closed today at the very edge of it’s own 50 DAY EMA which currently sits at around 387.00.

    Here are the scenarios. Overall I believe market will continue higher in December. There is possibility of slight pullback in DJIA (DIA) in next few days because stochastic upswing is currently spent there (signal line there is over 80%), however MACD is at the bullish crossover so overall movement should be continuation higher.

    AAPL’s own stochastic is at overbought levels today, but same as DJIA (DIA) it is at the bullish cross on MACD. So even if we would see slight pullback off the 50 day EMA resistance, eventually AAPL should break it and as a result to post it’s own little skyscraper.

    AAPL price stamp: 387.93

     

  • conshmillo 6:56 am on December 2, 2011 - 66 days ago

    conshmillo

    Safari still sucks! Updated to 5.1.2 which supposed to improve stability and resolve bugs. Not so. Switching between users causes Safari to choke with just few pages open. Safari debugger sometimes comes on, sometimes doesn’t. Not the behavior of stable product. Ready to switch to Chrome.

     
  • Birra

    Birra 1:34 pm on December 1, 2011 - 66 days ago

    Wow, I thought the battery was a big problem, at least, that’s what they told me.

    http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/12/01/iphone_4s_is_apples_most_popular_phone_yet_with_96_satisfaction_rate.html

     
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