The war against general purpose computers

[u-Bob]

food for thought?

[blackmonsters]

Originally Posted by u-Bob

food for thought?

Translation : Hey, you people are stupid to swat roaches with a rolled up news paper,
so just give up and let the roaches infest your home because roaches will only get
better at surviving and no one will ever invent something like Raid or Combat in the
future that will actually wipe out roaches.



The guy is a very well spoken idiot.
Because Just like killing roaches has evolved to be more effective, so will protecting copyright.
SOPA will have to evolve if it is passed, but the idea that government should just give up
ahead of time is just silliness brought up by childish minds who have had the freedom to
steal for a decade.

[Operator]

[jollyperv]

[adultsitecms]

[Fletch XXX]

smartphones and tablets will surpass pc.

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by Fletch XXX

smartphones and tablets will surpass pc.

The video isn't about that. It's about general purpose computing. Smartphones are general purpose computers.

"General purpose": the device can do more than 1 job. The device can do whatever the software running on the device tells it to do.

As the video it explain, it would be very difficult (and expensive) to develop a device (smartphone, tablet, computer,...) that does only 1 specific thing. For example: only play video's from company X.

The way around that for companies that want to limit what people can do with their devices is to build general purpose computers and load them with spyware and rootkits.

That then creates a lot of potential problems both for the user and the company that wants to enforce those restrictions.

for more info: see video

[Barry-xlovecam]

Kindle

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by Barry-xlovecam

Kindle

That's actually a good example of what can go wrong when companies require access to your devices in order to enforce copyright regulations.

Remember when Amazon sold x number of ebooks and then later removed them because they ran into some licensing problems? Amazon's system not only removed those ebooks from its users kindles but also the content those users had produced themselves (in the form of notes, school work and essays).

[Fletch XXX]

Originally Posted by u-Bob

The video isn't about that. It's about general purpose computing. Smartphones are general purpose computers.

"General purpose": the device can do more than 1 job. The device can do whatever the software running on the device tells it to do.

As the video it explain, it would be very difficult (and expensive) to develop a device (smartphone, tablet, computer,...) that does only 1 specific thing. For example: only play video's from company X.

The way around that for companies that want to limit what people can do with their devices is to build general purpose computers and load them with spyware and rootkits.

That then creates a lot of potential problems both for the user and the company that wants to enforce those restrictions.

for more info: see video

hah! crazy i was just reading about what i posted about and sw this thread thought it was same thing lol was still having coffeee, srrrryyyy

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by Fletch XXX

hah! crazy i was just reading about what i posted about and sw this thread thought it was same thing lol was still having coffeee, srrrryyyy

understandable

[Barry-xlovecam]

I use the Kindle (Kindle for PC) -- I am the anti-thesis but I can see the use for the consumer of the Kindle device -- a single purpose computer. People want to read books on a screen that can zoom and set background colors at the beach, on an airplane at some other place where you can't bring your bookshelf. Books for the Kindle are also considerably less than the hardback version so I think it's a good value.

Amazon annual report - 2010
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External...xUeXBlPTM=&t=1

[O]ne example is Whispersync, our Kindle service designed to ensure that everywhere you go, no matter what devices you have with you, you can access your reading library and all of your highlights, notes, and bookmarks, all in sync across your Kindle devices and mobile apps.

The technical challenge is making this a reality for millions of Kindle owners, with hundreds of millions of books, and hundreds of device types, living in over 100 countries around the world?at 24x7 reliability.

At the heart of Whispersync is an eventually consistent replicated data store, with application defined conflict resolution that must and can deal with device isolation lasting weeks or longer. As a Kindle customer, of course, we hide all this technology from you.

So when you open your Kindle, it?s in sync and on the right page. To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, like any sufficiently advanced technology, it?s indistinguishable from magic. ...

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by Barry-xlovecam

I use the Kindle (Kindle for PC) -- I am the anti-thesis but I can see the use for the consumer of the Kindle device -- a single purpose computer. People want to read books on a screen that can zoom and set background colors

The kindle may be marketed as a "single purpose computer" but it actually is a "general purpose computer". Like I said (and like the video explains) it would be very hard and expensive to build a single purpose computer. That's why those companies build general purpose computers and load them with all kinds of software that restricts how you can use them.

People have been running different flavors of Linux (and if I'm not mistaken even NetBSD) on Amazon Kindles for 2 or 3 years now. If the Kindle was a true "single purpose computer" it would only be able to run the "kindle software" and no other software or operating system.

[asdasd]

More of this ^

[V_RocKs]

Good read...