wfjackson

Are there any official sales/revenue/margin/profit numbers for the Nexus devices or Chromecast announced by Google?

That's wrong. Statcounter measures usage , while Net Applications measures user share and IE has by far the larger install base.

Did they check the lithium levels in those places?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/opinion/sunday/should-we-a...

Perhaps they should be forced to release keywords versus clicked links data to other companies like Duck Duck Go, just like Microsoft was forced to document things like SMB for Samba and the various Office formats.

I'll bite the troll in the off chance you're serious.

Wait, Open Source is magically free of bloatware? OpenOffice, Firefox, KDE?

Try running a modern Linux desktop distro like Ubuntu on a 10 year old machine or a 5 year old netbook. Open ten tabs with sites like Gmail, YouTube etc. in Firefox on that machine and then get back to us.

And since Windows 7, the minimum requirements have been steady and boot time has been pretty fast.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html

The need to change passwords arose in April, when the Heartbleed vulnerability was revealed. Heartbleed makes systems vulnerable to data theft since attackers can use it to gain access to systems and then proceed to access and steal information without leaving a trace.

Even though our central IT systems are protected against Heartbleed, any accounts that have already been stolen still pose a security risk. Almost 20,000 members of the McGill community did change their McGill Password, but thousands more did not, and so additional actions have become necessary.

So, ff the people who got the passwords read this post then all they need to do is double the passwords they got with HeartBleed to gain access?

Perhaps they should quadruple the password? /s

The brightest minds aren't programming on Microsoft platforms if you look at colleges and conferences worldwide. This cannot be reversed; Open Source products are now technically superior, the community is very well organized, and it is free.

All I see at colleges and conferences worldwide are Macbooks. How is OS X Open Source? It actually seems to be worse, since it's legally tied to expensive hardware.

Also, Open Source products aren't really technically superior for a number of categories. I am sorry but Photoshop, Office, Exchange etc. are definitely technically superior. Software like Windows Server and SQL Server are competing with free products and still doing very well.

Imagine how much marketshare they would have if they were free of cost and MySQL/PostgresSQL and Linux cost the same as SQL Server and Windows Server now. How many would buy them instead of the free MS products? How many would pay the same as Office costs now for OpenOffice if Office was free? How is this technically superior?

Also, Azure runs Linux and other open source products quite well.

Not really true, and Google stopped blocking Windows Phone after the outrage.

See "Misspelling "Windows Phone" Makes Google Maps Work".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7RiMCrZFw

I never saw Chrome as the way for Google to ascertain that the general public can have unfettered access to Google properties, I saw - and see - Chrome as a way to extend the Google eco-system onto the end users device, and to gain access to URLs that otherwise would remain hidden from Google to reduce the 'dark web' as seen through Google as well as a way to track users on pages that don't have Google Analytics installed. When technically speaking it really shouldn't matter what browser the users uses, as long as it is standards compliant it should simply work.

Agreed, things like Chrome and Android appear to be moats against a new search engine not being able to compete on a level playing field. For example, on Android, in order to get access to the Play Store and other Google APIs, OEMs are forced to ship only Google as the default search provider.

From http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/02/new-android-oem-licen...

The agreement is basically a laundry list of "dos and don'ts" for licensing Google apps. The terms at the time covered the "Set-up Wizard, Google Phone-top Search, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, YouTube, Google Maps for Mobile, Google Street View, Contact Sync, Android Market Client (not products downloaded from Android Market

The most important clause states that "Devices may only be distributed if all Google Applications... are pre-installed on the Device." Google apps are an all-or-nothing affair. If you want Google Maps or the Play Store, you must also take things like Google+ and Google's network location provider

Google's Network Location Provider must not only be included, but set as the default network location provider; this is no doubt the clause that triggered a lawsuit from rival location company Skyhook.

The practice originally seemed to be in place to give discretion to officer to deal with druglords and people like that since proving everything is court is very hard, but since the incentives are all wrong(departments keep the proceeds), it seems to be quite abused.

A quick fix would be to use the proceeds for charity or to pay down the national debt. That way the incentives are atleast reduced somewhat.

From http://googleforwork.blogspot.com/2014/04/protecting-student...

removed all ads scanning in Gmail for Apps for Education, which means Google cannot collect or use student data in Apps for Education services for advertising purposes.

We’re also making similar changes for all our Google Apps customers, including Business, Government and for legacy users of the free version, and we’ll provide an update when the rollout is complete.

I believe the data gathered was used to target ads shown in other Google properties, like YouTube, and that Content OneBox was scanning all emails. See this:

The plaintiffs allege that Google has employed such practices since around 2010, when it began using a new technology, known as Content Onebox, that allows the company to intercept and scan emails before they reach their intended recipients, rather than after messages are delivered to users’ inboxes, regardless of whether ads are turned off.

Looks like the ads checkbox applied to only ads being shown in Apps, not to the data being collected from the emails on the backend to build ad profiles.

I remember reading somewhere that Google announced that they're now stopping using emails in Apps for Business and Apps for Education for building ad targeting profiles.

Very surprising to know that the paid Google Apps for Business were also being used that way, but this being primarily an ad company, not surprised that they were making misleading and false statements to the public on their web site until they were compelled to explain in federal court, where apparently they couldn't continue lying under the threat of heavy fines or jail time. Only Google knows what other data is being used to track people for showing ads.

I doubt many people are aware that their Android phone's location might be being tracked for monetizing ads.

http://www.datadrivenbusiness.com/google-quietly-testing-off...

I am debating getting a Nest, but all this makes me queasy.

Not sure if you're referring to Walmart or VISA/MasterCard.

On the other hand, these are their rules; the conditions under which various transaction fee schemes apply are defined entirely by the card associations (Visa and MasterCard, et al.), and if they want to extend preferential treatment in this fashion, then it's entirely within their scope to do so.

And how is what Walmart accepts for payment in their own stores is not under Walmart's own scope?

And possibly Oracle as well.

I wouldn't want to risk legacy proprietary medical applications for hardware interfaces into medical devices to be running on an API re-implementation layer that could easily be missing functionality, quirks and bug-for-bug compatibility.

It's quite possibly infringing, but it's unlikely to become a target for a lawsuit unless it starts making a lot of money or starts hurting a good percentage of sales of MS products.

Drivers.

Again, all it means is that it's OEM crapware free.

OP is mistaken. The signature designation only implies that it's free of pre-installed crapware and junkware. If one wants a real Nexus like device(branded Google), then Surface is their friend(made by MS).

as such MS certainly has a responsibility for allowing these hardware specs onto the street

And then get sued by the DoJ and split up by a court. Thanks to the antitrust ruling, MS cannot force anything on the OEMs. If you can install Windows on a 512MB RAM machine and sell it, MS can't do shit to stop you.

This thread just 4 days ago on HN is interesting in this context.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8506911

Google employees were implying that Andy Rubin got bored of Android and left to work on robotics and people suggesting the opposite were getting downvoted. It still could be true but looks less likely down.

Now, if your competitor is on an open stack and on real computers they will eventually run rings around you because they get more control and lower costs. The initial boost you're experiencing will turn into a straightjacket with a hefty pricetag over the longer term.

From another post by you: >Because I have fairly extensive insight into a very large number of companies and can see their license bills as well as their cloud bills if those are applicable.

Since you claim to have a lot of info on this can you give any, even one, real world example of you just said happening?

Otherwise I am going to call BS on it.

Perhaps you're starting something that is going to take down NewEgg.com ? You're clearly missing the forest for trees here. At work we run a large mix of Windows Servers, SQL servers, Linux, Drupal, MySQL, Moodle etc. running fairly traffic heavy and top ranking public health sites and all said our licensing and hosting costs are about 2% of our annual budget.

Yet we see that StackOverflow is fast and scaling really well with demand while Reddit still has load issues after seven years.

The iWatch looks clunky and thick from some angles and tries too hard to be a smartphone on your wrist.

http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/iwatch-i...

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTtB7RX...

The Moto 360 looks better because it's round but the UI is made for a square device.

Whereas this appears to be a reimagination in an authentically digital and modern format. The iWatch is already looking outdated IMO.

68% of people in the US are obese or overweight. The numbers in other countries aren't much better and are rising. The iWatch is a luxury watch that does fitness tracking and also allows you to view images. This is a fitness band that allows you to see the time.

It also depends on how much the other platforms support deep integration. For example Apple tends to lock down things like Siri(perhaps this can connect as a bluetooth mic) and Google had scuffles over Youtube on Windows Phone so is likely to do everything in it's power to undermine this.

WebOS and Jolla had/have a ton of closed source components(pretty much the whole GUI) but run on top of Linux so there's a loophole somehere.

I've thankfully never seen a Windows Server with Flash, Reader, iTunes or VirtualBox installed, sounds like a security nightmare waiting to happen regardless updates.

I also see lots of insecure and outdated applications running on Linux servers, especially Wordpress, Drupal, myphpadmin, cPanel etc. Heartbleed and Shellshock themselves are still not patched in a good percentage of servers.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6876177/windows-10-cortana...

I see Google as a company collecting and organizing information...

...and then making it hard to access on Windows Phone.