Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

[Raja Bose]

P&S are evolving, just like everything else and the rest of the world doesn't stand still. There is a move to go away from the OVF, coupled with the fact of using a larger sensor. You will have a very capable small camera, that will be a P&S, but will have many of the capabilities of a DSLR. The smart phone may take the place of a $100-$200 P&S, it's not there yet, but not of a $300-$400 P&S. Another thing you can't seem to realize is that people who shoot with a DSLR, also keep a capable P&S with them most of the time. The Sony RX-100 is a good example as is the Olympus XZ-2 or Fujifilm X20 of what the near future holds for the P&S category. Yes, right now these are $500-600, but will see a 20% price drop when more are produced.

Nothing stands still - that's what you seem to have a problem comprehending. Everybody loves to think their favoured technology is the only one moving - that is never the case. For you the importance of a standalone P&S may be a religious thing, for most of the consumers they couldn't care less. The question they will ask is "is my smartphone good enough for taking pics like a P&S" and the answer overwhelming is yes. Why would they pay extra few hundred dollars and lug around an extra device for benefits which are non-existent as far as they are concerned? The trends are clear, P&S is going the way of the windshield mounted PND. Even camera manufacturers are now going "WHOA!! Why don't I put my super-duper sensor/DSP into phones instead of my standalone cameras onlee?!". Much more volume, less overhead (since they typically license the IP and don't do the manufacturing or end customer sales), more margin, more profits - they couldn't give 2 shits about what some small bunch of photo hobbyists think, they gotta business to run, dude!

Anyhow you can choose to believe whatever you want in contrary to the facts. I will not deny you your warm fuzzy feeling which comes from curling up tightly and keeping your eyes closed imagining a pissful world of the past.

[Mort Walker]

^^^Arre yaar, why your chaadis in such a twist onlee?

Manufacturers never gave a sh1t about the kastmar, it was always about profit. Nothing has to do about hamaraa hobbies or feelings.

On Privacy:
1. I don't use Google Drive.
2. I run my own mail server.
3. My photo/video and document data is stored on computer with no ethernet connection. It is physically removed and is one 4 desktops at home.
4. I don't wear tin foil hat, but I lined my roof with foil, but my brain waves are of low amplitude since I am duffer onlee. This is to protect SHQ since she has high amplitude brain waves and won't wear foil hat.
5. I store my guns, food, water and important HDD in my bomb/tornado shelter anyway.
6. I don't use CCs and pay cash. Just like desh.
7. I post here and will let spooks decode my bhashaa.

[Yayavar]

....When I wanted to show the pictures to my parents, they were interested only in the few pictures where I was in the frame. All the landscapes and scenery was completely uninteresting for them. They flipped through the 700 in about 15 minutes and that's it. I don't even where those pictures are anymore. Can't live in the past - lots of things to do right NOW.

ha ha! I recall my first trip abroad and being fascinated with the sights and paintings etc. and then my uncle politely said -- the only ones interesting are where I or some other person is in the frame. The rest can be seen in a magazine if they were interested in them.

But there is a big difference if one is interested in photography. The pictures printed by my friend - who is a photo enthusiast of the similar or same locations over the last couple of years are beautiful - a magazine or coffee table book could include them. My pictures with phone camera or non-SLR cameras are good but not comparable. They are considered interesting since they help us relive the trip and are of interest to the rest of the family since we are in them.

[Raja Bose]

On Privacy:
1. I don't use Google Drive.

Liar liar pants on fire! BRF has elephantine memory like our gobermint babooze....

^^^Why are you indulging in babu-giri? And if this is for injineering anal-e-sys then which self-respecting injineer uses Excel for such stuff?

Because it's easy to enter using Google Drive (docs).

And you own an Android phone - that's all the spooks need to watch you 24/7.

Better grow a beard and run for the hills. But as even Ted Kacinzski discovered....

[Mort Walker]

Nothing in there is discernible and I don't use it for anything serious.

[prahaar]

Talking about privacy:

Creepy Linkedin - This article gives some information about how seemingly innocuous information becomes sensitive and intimate when clubbed with plurality of information sources.



On a related note, online privacy is a myth. Look at the following article:

http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130325/ ... 01376.html

Excertp from the above article: We study fifteen months of human mobility data for one and a half million individuals and find that human mobility traces are highly unique. In fact, in a dataset where the location of an individual is specified hourly, and with a spatial resolution equal to that given by the carrier's antennas, four spatio-temporal points are enough to uniquely identify 95% of the individuals. We coarsen the data spatially and temporally to find a formula for the uniqueness of human mobility traces given their resolution and the available outside information. This formula shows that the uniqueness of mobility traces decays approximately as the 1/10 power of their resolution. Hence, even coarse datasets provide little anonymity.

[Raja Bose]

No worries. Here, you can have your chaddi back...

[Vayutuvan]

Nothing to see here, folks. I remember an article as far back as a score years, that gave a statistic each and every Amru's name pops up 100 times per day on a screen or printer somewhere. In fact there used to be this crazy thing about SS No. being put on Driver's License which was made optional and now thankfully it is gone. But still it is no big deal. Data collection about each and every person had been going on for a long time. And chacha's answer (well Mr. Schimdt said it - I am assuming he did in an official capacity) was (paraphrasing) "You shouldn't worried as long as you are not doing anything that you should be worried about".

So sticking to one of the nukkads and gizmos should be fine. Even FLOSS/Linux might be a problem as it is peopled by neck beards.

[Anujan]

If at the level of the government someone decides to wiretap you, you are pretty much helpless.

Yes you can encrypt your files and run your own mailservers, but

1. They have access to all your credit card receipts, so they know what you are buying and where you went.
2. They have access to all your flight travel records,
3. They can listen in on all your phone calls
4. Every time you pass by a toll plaza or a signal or a bridge they can read your car number plate. In fact golden gate bridge in San Francisco did away with all the toll booths, the tolls come home nicely in the mail (think about it, you are driving, they photograph your pate, do OCR, correlate it with where you live, bill you and send home a mail)
5. Sure you run a mail server, but the people you mail are they running their own? If they are, then are SMTP relays encrypted? If they are the certificate relays signed by your ISP? If they are -- well then with your ISP's co-operation your email can be decrypted.

All these are just "passive" surveillance. Recall that Stuxnet was installed on Iranian machines by a computer that spoofed as windows update machine. That machine had a fake certificate signed with Microsoft's keys. That certificate was made using *as yet unknown mathematical techniques to produce MD5 has collision*. Does your mail server auto update patches? How do you know the patches are downloaded from M$/Ubuntu? How do you know those patches even if downloaded from M$ and Ubuntu dont have backdoors?

Two things come to mind

1. Way back in the 70s IBM won the contract to come up with standard commercial grade encryption and came up with DES. Then NSA stepped in and made changes to "S-boxes" the steps of DES that permute the bits of the data being encrypted. It was widely believed that they had installed a backdoor. Except decades later, when differential cryptanalysis was invented, people discovered that the original S boxes were susceptible to differential cryptanalysis but the modified ones werent. Go and dhoti shiver.

2. Did you know that every laser printer prints a series of nearly invisible dots on the paper recording which printer it was printed from? On a related note, ever tried photocopying a dollar note on a color photocopier. Please try and do so, you will see interesting results.

So chill, relax and post in Peeareaf. They can read everything anyway.

[Nandu]

Yes, if the government wants to wiretap or spy on you in any way, they can pretty easily.

The current PRISM controversy is about whether they should, routinely, do this on pretty much ALL Americans. The outcome seems to be that that is not what they are doing, but what they are doing is tracking and gathering data on absolutely everything related to specific individuals, mostly foreign nationals inimic to US security, i.e. Pakis.

[Anujan]

[Raja Bose]

I think Mortullah has falled into the TFPE Khan male trap after living in Khan for too long. As SDREs we were pretty much resigned to getting kicked, beaten, booted, abused, spied upon by any sarkari entities. We had no illusions that we were anything more than ants to be crushed into the sidewalk when a babu's whim so desired. We never complained, never went ZOMG!!!! I am being spied upon. We knew it was our lot as SDREs to be spied upon. In fact we would be (secretly) flattered if some big black sarkari car came and hauled us off between 2 heavies for chai biskoot.

In Khan, no such thing. Every Khan imagines they are some super-duper SF type warrior who will defend their FREEEDOMMM from the tyrannical government (conveniently elected by themselves onlee).
What every Khan male thinks they are


What the same Khan male probably is in reality


All dream of a last stand with burning house in the background and government drone soldiers and APCs massed in the front. Hence, the obsession with I won't let the government spy on me, I am gonna raise my own cattle and run my own mail server while polishing my Hattori Hanzo sword for the last battle. Guess what - in front of the evil government juggernaut, you are of no consequence. So best to have curry, be SDRE and chill.

[Yayavar]

Govt spying is not so much of an issue I guess since they can get you if you are doing any wrong anyway; but the companies doing so - for what purpose beyond advertisement? They claim they keep privacy data but then share with others and those probably with others.. and then many of the same letting the credit card or social sec numbers being stolen from their servers. Or, issues of who owns the data? IF you upload anything to FB, or if to google docs; then who owns it?

[Raja Bose]

Schimdt is right in a way. If your data is online, you don't own it in practice (i.e. you cannot enforce ownership).

There are 2 aspects to this whole data privacy issue.

1) One is collection of data itself and what is collected.

2) The other is what is being done with the data.

In case of the government, they mine it for so-called "threats to national security". In case of e-mail providers, they scan it for spam and viruses. In case of companies like Chacha or FB, they also scan it to for monetization becoz thats where they derive their core revenue from. So one cannot just paint it with a single broad brush which is why when Chacha tried to do an equal-equal between scanning your e-mail for spam and scanning your e-mail for monetization/serving ads, it didn't come out sounding convincing.

[Yayavar]

yes, but this monetization is not defined. We believe it to be ads since that is what we see, but what happens beyond that? In dire times could the provide the same data to the spammers or something else? What about non-US users? How much of the data is safe for them since certain safeguards wont apply that may apply to US citizens. I never liked FB's 'share everything' policy (though they have made it a little tighter since then) but who knows that the others will actually do with the data. Eventually every user and foreign govt/user needs to decide what they are comfortable with.

(btw, I doubt any photo taken is sent up to servers for scanning. People with limited bandwidth would have noticed and will scream.)

[Raja Bose]

Non-US residents are fscked unless they plan to stop using US based services like China and Russia have to some extent (search, social network).

[Gus]

a friend of mine dropped by home and he had a phone that was not branded..looked like one of those galaxy types. he says he got it from HK where they sell factory made phones, but sold without branding. apparently cheeni birathers sneak away a cart now in the shop floor.

[Raja Bose]

a friend of mine dropped by home and he had a phone that was not branded..looked like one of those galaxy types. he says he got it from HK where they sell factory made phones, but sold without branding. apparently cheeni birathers sneak away a cart now in the shop floor.

oh that's old hat stuff. Chipanda ODMs are known for doing ghost runs of the assembly line without the customer's knowledge and then wiggling in the charges into the customer's bill. If you suddenly see yield drop for your device, that is one of top suspicions. So for all you know, Sammy might have unwittingly paid for the manufacturing of those Galaxy KIRFs (Kirf = Keep It Real Fake). These days however all sorts of funky tracking taknikis is applied to prevent this abuse by Chipanda ODMs - the taknikis themselves are very closely guarded secrets.

[Mort Walker]

No worries. Here, you can have your chaddi back...

Just got back long long missions.

No doubt you are dost with most, but I will not chaddi utaaro with you unless -

a. It is one of those parties at Hugh Hefner's mansion in Kalifornia.
b. You're a 36C and have a V.

Finally, I have no interest seeing your 30 cm Samsung or Nokia. And I wouldn't want you to give me a prostate exam with both your hands on my shoulders.

[Mort Walker]

The problem in the US is that every aspect of your life is being tracked. The minute you're born you get your all paw prints taken, cord blood cataloged, and assigned a SS number. For most Americans, the music you listen to is tracked by iTunes, the books you read are tracked by Amazon, the movies you watched are tracked by Netflix, the purchases you make are tracked by the CC companies and the food you eat is tracked by the discount card you use at the grocery store. Your income is tracked by the IRS and the property you own is tracked by the county or local governments to be assessed. Many people may not object to the authorities tracking these things for national security or perhaps even criminal activity, but often this activity can lead to misuse and abuse. It is a slippery slope.

[Raja Bose]

No worries. Here, you can have your chaddi back...

Just got back long long missions.

No doubt you are dost with most, but I will not chaddi utaaro with you unless -

a. It is one of those parties at Hugh Hefner's mansion in Kalifornia.
b. You're a 36C and have a V.

Finally, I have no interest seeing your 30 cm Samsung or Nokia. And I wouldn't want you to give me a prostate exam with both your hands on my shoulders.

Reality to yeh hai janab!

[Yayavar]

Non-US residents are fscked unless they plan to stop using US based services like China and Russia have to some extent (search, social network).

Think of all those afsars in other countries, including India, who have gmail/hotmail accounts and are using Chinese made telco equipment. Either they dont care or are entirely clueless.

[krisna]

Non-US residents are fscked unless they plan to stop using US based services like China and Russia have to some extent (search, social network).

Think of all those afsars in other countries, including India, who have gmail/hotmail accounts and are using Chinese made telco equipment. Either they dont care or are entirely clueless.

what are the alternatives for clueless folks like me .
any Indian web/emails or non us ones.
am not too sure which one to go for.
use gmale yahoo extensively along with now hotmail etc,

truly phucked like many others.

[Yayavar]

China and Rus have built their own was the point. Other countries hopefully are investing in networks the are protected or have the right kind of encryption.

[Anujan]

Tomorrow bawarchi is taking the stage to bestow blessings upon us, the undeserving unwashed.

Soon there will also be a video on fruitco site from sir Ive explaining how they took the magical iphunwa and made it even more magical.

[Mort Walker]

iOS 7 should be a welcome development. Perhaps they should copy Android and call it iOS 7.

[Raja Bose]

^^That will be incestuous

[Gus]

The problem in the US is that every aspect of your life is being tracked. The minute you're born you get your all paw prints taken, cord blood cataloged, and assigned a SS number. For most Americans, the music you listen to is tracked by iTunes, the books you read are tracked by Amazon, the movies you watched are tracked by Netflix, the purchases you make are tracked by the CC companies and the food you eat is tracked by the discount card you use at the grocery store. Your income is tracked by the IRS and the property you own is tracked by the county or local governments to be assessed. Many people may not object to the authorities tracking these things for national security or perhaps even criminal activity, but often this activity can lead to misuse and abuse. It is a slippery slope.

It is, but then look at the credit environment. Because lenders can track you down, they are liberal with credit and this helps individuals to take low interest loans for entrepreneurial activity.

Over here, this stilts economic activity. The paperwork is daunting by itself. This attitude is prevalent and affects everything. For ex, a bank does not delegate authority to its people in local branches. At HDFC, to change anything, your address etc, the paperwork is filed to their office in Mumbai and is cleared there.

[Vayutuvan]

Remember the show Max headroom? There was also a movie of Ben afleck

[Singha]

see my post in nukkad about the cia analyst who blew the whistle on this latest round of the game. he is living in HK now and hoping to avoid being extradited.

[Singha]

Cheen will be happy to let him be and do whatever damage he can. He picked his machan well. Its very unlikely he will be extradited.

[archan]

OMFG Appil istore is down!!
Take that you kaafir Bose!

[Raja Bose]

^^^^Admins ban this zaahil uh....admin

2 live events and live blogs are happening simultaneously - FruitCo and Mickey.

Apple WWDC Live Blog

Microsoft XBox E3 Live Blog

[Suraj]

Aapil has replaced iOS with Android! At least, iOS7 sure looks like the latter after a 2 second glance at engadget

[Anujan]

Well it looks like a combination of webos and android ... With worse colors.



Meanwhile ,this is why you dont trust analcysts. Note that this "research report" was put out before ios7 got released.

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Equity-R ... le_id43688

An equity research firm has put out a report about Apple and iOS 7. The report makes some bold claims, like saying that iOS 7 is "far superior" to other platforms, and goes on to predict that Apple will be extremely aggressive in pursuing patent lawsuits against those it feels infringe on iOS 7.

Maybe fruitco took out a patent on copying webos and will sue anyone who infringes on its idea of copying webos.

[Suraj]

In other news, loud revolving sounds have been reported coming from Steve Jobs' grave.

[Anujan]

They have a nice lock screen wallpaper too!!



All in all, I disappoint. I thought they would do something truly innovative and advance the state of mobile UI. instead it seems to be like a hastily thrown mishmash of features from other OSes.

The lack of attention to detail also bugs me. Translucent overlays are all nice and dandy but they distort the color of the icons below and make it look like molten mixed ice cream. Control center is a mixture of things with no visual separation. And finally they added a back: without the button.

[Raja Bose]

So which step of the Apple Fanboy cycle are we in now, with the iOS7 update released and people going "meh"?

Looks like Apple copied I mean "Sir Ive got inspired by" ....icons from Android, notification center from Android, E-mail gestures from Android, Lock screen from WP, Typography and placement from WP, Card view from WebOS/WP, quick task icons+app UI from Maemo6/MeeGo......

[Raja Bose]

...and people can use the top as an ash tray - Revolutionary!

[SaiK]

so they only made siri use bing for iOS7.. what else?