However, its report cites factors it says contributed to the crash, including the logic built into the plane’s autothrottle software.
Boeing and Asiana agree that as the pilots came in to land, they expected the autothrottle to automatically supply engine thrust to maintain a minimum airspeed. In fact, in the flight mode they had engaged, the onus was on them to maintain the speed.
Asiana also faulted the cockpit alerting systems as providing “inadequate warning” that the speed had dropped dangerously low.
The discrepancy between the airline and the jet-maker pivots around Boeing’s flight-control design philosophy, cited in its submission as requiring “the pilot always has the final authority over any automation system.”]]>
Provided that the modem runs proprietary software and can be remotely controlled, that backdoor provides remote access to the phone's data, even in the case where the modem is isolated and cannot access the storage directly. This is yet another example of what unacceptable behaviour proprietary software permits! Affected devices: Nexus S, Galaxy Note 1+2, Galaxy S, S2, S3, and more. But there's a very big proviso encapsulated in that "provided". The NSA or GCHQ might be able to. Others? Likely not.
The idea of a "fully free/libre version of Android" seems a trifle redundant, though.]]>
The reason why the Android version of the 2.0 Pebble app has lagged the iOS version is fundamentally pretty simple – it has purely been a matter of resources. A thousand devices and 27 different flavours of Android 4.x. The latter reaches the same proportion of Android users as iOS 7 (78%) - which has eight versions at most (iOS 7.0.0 - 7.0.4, phone and tablet) and perhaps 12 devices (iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5C, 5S, iPad 2, 3, 4, Air, mini, retina mini). ]]>
That’s according to a follow-up piece airing this weekend on This American Life, the public radio program that first dug into Intellectual Ventures’ dealings as part of a larger exploration of the patent system in 2011. The size of that “back-end” cut is one of the revelations in the new piece. The patent in question was used to in a lawsuit against 16 companies. Intellectual Ventures is the company run by ex-Microsoftie Nathan Myhrvold. There have long been suspicions that it's behind, and benefits from, lawsuits by small "non-practising entities" - aka patent trolls. This is the first time this has been confirmed. And when one targeted company finally took the case all the way to a jury trial, the patent was found invalid. But that didn't help companies which had already signed up to pay in earlier settlements.]]>
Due to the location of the remote’s 2.4in display, some key buttons are placed out of easy reach. Those who like physical buttons might also take issue with the remote’s reliance on the touchscreen for things like entering channel numbers.
But the biggest hurdle may be its expensive $250 price tag. At this point, the touchscreen is a nice-to-have feature, not a must-have, so it’s not worth the extra cost. If you ever needed proof of the ocean between hardware companies - which solve problems by adding more buttons (or touch screens) - and software companies, which solve problems by repurposing features and adapting to the user, here it is. Also: $250??]]>
So, I ranted and raved on my blog and in the press. Samsung wouldn't respond to me - either through customer support or through their PR team. Nice way to treat a paying customer, guys!
There is an OTA update for the Galaxy Note II - taking it to 4.1.2. Sadly this isn't yet being pushed out via all UK carriers (including O2, who I work for).
As far as I can tell, the update does fix the bug. I've only been trying it for an hour - but it seems that copying no longer crashes the device.]]>
In Stallman's view, the idea that society might be able to eliminate "bad patents" while keeping good ones is a kind of Jedi mind trick. Offering patents as a reward for software development—a system where the prize is a right to shut down someone else—is fatally flawed.
"Consider the MP3 patent," said Stallman. "That caused a lot of harm. It's not trivial, it came from a research institute. But we can fund research institutes in other ways." (Thanks @doarunner for the link.)]]>
But it’s also because of the nature of computer programming.
Functional claiming of software inventions is arguably responsible for most of the well-recognized problems with software patents today. Software patentees have increasingly been claiming to own the function of their program itself – not merely the particular way they achieved that goal. His argument would be really powerful if he were to cite an example, but he doesn't. (Thanks @hotsoup for the link.)]]>
... we were getting an exception from our EMM386 memory manager when we exited the game. We'd clear the screen and a single line would print out, something like "EMM386 Memory manager error. Blah blah blah." We had to ship ASAP. So I hex edited the error in the memory manager itself to read "Thank you for playing Wing Commander!" Actually, the whole thread is worth reading, starting with Space Invaders.]]>
Most of the computers’ problems could be fixed by wiping the disks and reinstalling the operating system—but buying new software for every donated computer would be prohibitively expensive. You've probably guessed what happened next.]]>
We care a lot about how people communicate, and we did our best to provide you with the most intuitive and pleasurable mailing experience.
Now we're joining the Gmail team to accomplish a bigger vision — one that we think we can better achieve with Google.]]>
“We always wanted to be in the hardware business,” he said. “Larry and Sergey have always wanted to do hardware in one form or another. This was a way to get into it quickly.” If anyone can find a quote from any of Schmidt, Page or Brin from any period before 2012 in which they have indicated that they want to get into the hardware business, please point us to it. (Note: "Android" isn't the hardware business. It was always software, and intended to be software.)]]>