Sony Finally Fully Unveils Its Android Tabs, The Sony S and P • Hacker News Board

Re: Sony Finally Fully Unveils Its Android Tabs, The Sony S and P

#31

Post by rayiner » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 8:39 PM UTC

CamperBob wrote: post #26

mortenjorck wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rootkit debacle was six years ago, and was perpetrated by a business unit that is effectively siloed from the one that manufactures consumer electronics. I'm not saying your apparently indefinite boycott is unjustified; what happened under the Sony name in 2005 happened on the same watch that everything else in all its myriad corporate structures happens. What I am saying is that corporately, Sony is a complex be…

Sony is a complex beast, and one business unit's missteps are not necessarily representative of another. Then they should be broken up, with the respective divisions required to maintain their own corporate identities, balance sheets, and whatever goodwill may be left. Bottom line, the CDs said "Sony", and no amount of spin is going to deflect blame from where it belongs: Sony.

Cool story bro.

Re: Sony Finally Fully Unveils Its Android Tabs, The Sony S and P

#32

Post by wmf » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 8:55 PM UTC

calloc wrote: post #22

Where did "Tabs" come from? To me it conjures the image of little sheets of paper (acid) and or pills ... when did this start being used to describe tablet devices?

AFAIK Mark Weiser of PARC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing

Re: Sony Finally Fully Unveils Its Android Tabs, The Sony S and P

#33

Post by chrischen » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 9:25 PM UTC

dman wrote: post #9

pavel_lishin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you cite some examples, aside from the somewhat recent chain of security flaws that leaked customer information all over the intertubes?

Here are a couple 1) Removing ability to run linux on ps3's after they had already been sold to customers. 2) Rootkit on cd's 3) How they handled the geohotz case was not ideal in my opinion.

1) It was an optional removal. You had to voluntarily update your PS3 system and they no longer wanted to maintain linux support in future updates.

Re: Sony Finally Fully Unveils Its Android Tabs, The Sony S and P

#34

Post by dman » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 9:35 PM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #33

dman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are a couple 1) Removing ability to run linux on ps3's after they had already been sold to customers. 2) Rootkit on cd's 3) How they handled the geohotz case was not ideal in my opinion.

1) It was an optional removal. You had to voluntarily update your PS3 system and they no longer wanted to maintain linux support in future updates.

This was arstechnica's summary of the 'voluntariness' - """It's pointed out that this update is strictly voluntary, although if you don't download the new firmware you won't be able to connect to the PlayStation Network, play any games online, play any games or Blu-ray movies that "require" the new firmware, play any files kept on a media server, or download any future updates. To put it simply, if you don't grab the update, the system will become useless to you as a gaming or media machine."""

Re: Sony Finally Fully Unveils Its Android Tabs, The Sony S and P

#35

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 31, 2011, 9:38 PM UTC

lallysingh wrote: post #17

JonLim wrote: post #2

They looks interesting - if they can be snappy and responsive and work well, I would give it a shot. My only reservation is that it would be proprietary Sony everything that it would work with, which means that it probably sucks when trying to use in conjunction with anything other than that. Yay for more competition!

To be fair, I can take an ancient 512mb memory stick and it still fits into most sony devices I have now. Sometimes proprietariness leads to consistency.

[deleted]

Re: Sony Finally Fully Unveils Its Android Tabs, The Sony S and P

#36

Post by hrktb » Thu, Sep 01, 2011, 1:38 AM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #16

cryptoz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was specifically referring to their installation of rootkits on consumer PCs through the Sony BMG CD channel. Also, their attitude about it. From Wikipedia: > Thomas Hesse, Sony BMG's Global Digital Business President, told reporter Neda Ulaby, "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

The rootkit debacle was six years ago, and was perpetrated by a business unit that is effectively siloed from the one that manufactures consumer electronics. I'm not saying your apparently indefinite boycott is unjustified; what happened under the Sony name in 2005 happened on the same watch that everything else in all its myriad corporate structures happens. What I am saying is that corporately, Sony is a complex be…

I think the heart of the problem is that Sony is a complex beast and there is no real control over who does what is which business unit.

This is recipe for corporate debacle in itself, and the bigger the company gets the more morally chalenged people try to climb the ladders, and the more a corporate culture of not screwing the consumer becomes important. A lack of unified values in the business units should in itself justify a "don't trust, avoid if alternatives are viable" attitude.

Now Sony headphones for ex. are really good quality, but you don't need to trust their privacy policies to use them.

Re: Sony Finally Fully Unveils Its Android Tabs, The Sony S and P

#37

Post by chrischen » Thu, Sep 01, 2011, 1:53 AM UTC

dman wrote: post #34

chrischen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) It was an optional removal. You had to voluntarily update your PS3 system and they no longer wanted to maintain linux support in future updates.

This was arstechnica's summary of the 'voluntariness' - """It's pointed out that this update is strictly voluntary, although if you don't download the new firmware you won't be able to connect to the PlayStation Network, play any games online, play any games or Blu-ray movies that "require" the new firmware, play any files kept on a media server, or download any future updates. To put it simply, if you don't grab the…

Not useless, you can still play games on it and play blu-ray movies. I don't think there are many blu-ray movies that "require" new firmware. Playstation Network is a free bonus service which isn't necessarily unconditionally guaranteed to you based on the purchase price of a PS3.

> "To put it simply, if you don't grab the update, the system will become useless to you as a gaming or media machine."

Not true. I didn't update my PS3 for for over half a year and during that period i encountered no problems playing my existing games or new games, or any of my blu-ray discs.

Most PS3 users do not care about the OtherOS feature. I installed linux on my PS3 and frankly it was quite useless. I'm glad Sony did not keep diverting resources into maintaining that feature for a minority of people at possibly the expense of other features.

I don't understand why people expect Sony to keep supporting legacy features for a small minority of people who purchased one of the first models of the PS3? Updates as well as the PSN are NOT obligated by Sony after you purchase the PS3. Otherwise, 20 years from now, do we all have to right to complain to Sony that their system has stopped being updated? No. That would be absurd.

If you want their free software updates and free online features, then you would obviously have to accept the separate terms for those features. If not, your PS3 is still perfectly as functional as the day you bought it.