281–290 of 554 posts
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but the screen on my new macbook is so nice :( Besides, google isn't exactly a wonderful company lately. Their ads and related policies, ugh.
Have you seen the screen on the Chromebook Pixel?
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but say I want a smartphone, what is my alternative? google, who works harder and harder to sell everything I do to advertisers (now you can't even rate apps w/o a google+ account), and who just shut off transmitting search data so they can screw site owners for more $? microsoft, who is a party to this and actively worked to make the internet worse (and succeeded!) for the better part of a decade? or apple, who at l…
but say I want a smartphone, what is my alternative? I agree all mainstream choices suck, but there are alternatives: FirefoxOS or Ubuntu Phone
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Google doesn't have >80% of the market. Android has >80% of the market. Google does not control Android. Yes, Google provides a lot of services for Android users, but Android works fine without Google services. Everybody is so quick to forget about "Android fragmentation," but fragmentation is a clear indicator of Google's lack of control over Android.
You can fork android and not license the google services, but it means doing without youtube, maps and chrome. That's a horrible experience. In reality almost everyone nicely complies with google's compatibility definition, constraining how far they can fork android, just in order to get access to google's closed source apps: https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Google%20Inc... Only amazon has managed to m…
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> Of course, Facebook will one day eliminate all privacy settings, or Google will put ads in our inbox and there will be outrage again. As I was explaining in another comment, if you or other people or other companies don't like something, they can always build something better. If that something is good and provides more value to some people than the popular alternative, then it will take off. That's how the free ma…
> All the freedoms and luxuries you enjoy today come either from technological disruption, or from people that were outraged and that decided to do something about it. "Decided to do something about it" I am against "outrage" for outrage sake. If you are outraged but not willing to do anything about it, then it is worse than ambivalence. You are wasting energy and reducing the value of outrage as a deterrent. Outrage…
Personally, as a web developer, I never liked third-party APIs, I stayed away from proprietary platforms that are hard to replace, always preferring open-source alternatives or alternatives based on standards, I use Ubuntu Linux on my workstations, I encrypt my documents that I store in Dropbox and I use Facebook & Twitter with great care.
I also prefer Android both as a user and as a developer, in spite of Google's disregard for Romanian developers (i.e. we can't sell apps on Google Play, we can only distribute free apps), but that's only because with Android you're not tied to Google Play. Plus I'm rooting for Firefox OS taking off, as even with 5% of the market, it will push things forward by developing and standardizing new web APIs.
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They haven't done it because they don't have many patents. It's easy to act noble about how you'll use your patents when you don't have any. Other commenters have noted that Google is currently suing Apple and others over standards essential patents (no just because the lawsuit started before their acquisition closed doesn't mean anything, they could settle or withdraw their case). Google had the opportunity to join…
>"Google clearly wanted to control these patents themselves so that they could extract licensing deals from others..." Has Google ever extracted licensing deals from others?
http://allthingsd.com/20130905/microsoft-trounces-google-in-...
It's a little early to say for sure, but I predict this will do more to hurt Apple's reputation in the tech community than anything they've done before. And that is not a good community to alienate. I would not be surprised if they look back on this move one day and feel that they ended up net worse off as a result. Apple used to be careful not to alienate hackers. And Microsoft has been gradually digging itself out…
but say I want a smartphone, what is my alternative? google, who works harder and harder to sell everything I do to advertisers (now you can't even rate apps w/o a google+ account), and who just shut off transmitting search data so they can screw site owners for more $? microsoft, who is a party to this and actively worked to make the internet worse (and succeeded!) for the better part of a decade? or apple, who at l…
What I don't understand is why in the world are companies allowed to buy patents in the first place? At the very least, patents should NOT be transferable. How is it acceptable for companies with big pockets to simply buy 6,000 patents and then sue the shit out of whomever they don't like? I mean, to some degree, I accept that patents in the health-care industry are helping, because research labs spend years and enor…
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I think separating good guys and bad guys is pretty simple, if one is against (at least software) patents: Using patents aggressively makes you a bad guy. Google has not done this, Microsoft and Apple have.
They haven't done it because they don't have many patents. It's easy to act noble about how you'll use your patents when you don't have any. Other commenters have noted that Google is currently suing Apple and others over standards essential patents (no just because the lawsuit started before their acquisition closed doesn't mean anything, they could settle or withdraw their case). Google had the opportunity to join…
Whichever side that is not willing to end the patent fight (without payments to either side) is the aggressor.
And it seems to me Apple is the one not willing to quit.
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It's worth noting that although the lawsuits were issued yesterday, the consortium was finalised in June 2011 when all of the group members were strongly involved in non-Android smartphones. It's not unreasonable to suspect that this action was planned as part of that formation and priced into the bid.
I'm not sure about Sony. I can't remember any non-Android smartphones they had in 2011.
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but say I want a smartphone, what is my alternative? google, who works harder and harder to sell everything I do to advertisers (now you can't even rate apps w/o a google+ account), and who just shut off transmitting search data so they can screw site owners for more $? microsoft, who is a party to this and actively worked to make the internet worse (and succeeded!) for the better part of a decade? or apple, who at l…
How did Microsoft make the Internet worse?