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Comment Why is it to huge? (Score 1) 37

I mean back when I was still using Windows, I once tried to get it as small as possible by boot-formating a disk and putting in more and more files until it came up. I think I ended up comfortably getting it onto a normal HD 3,5 inch "floppy". It's not that hard. Though I have never actually looked into Windows 7, but I can't imagine it's so much bigger than Windows 3.1.

Comment Yes, of course (Score 1) 141

It's simple math. Eyes have a limited resolution so you can calculate that easily.

I now have a decent 4K TV and I have to say that HDR provides way more value than the higher resolution.... at least for normal screen sizes and distances.

It's different for computer displays, as a 4k display at, for example 40 or 50 inch, offers way more space.

Comment Well we are past peak-car (Score 1) 265

Care sales are no longer on the rise as cars have gone more and more expensive over the years, regardless of the engine inside of them. Financial uncertainty also plays an important role in that. Why spend a lot of money into a device that mostly stands around? It may be more economical just to move closer to your job, or telecommute. The number of people for which cars are a status symbol is going down.

If anything, the electric car could solve that problem, since electric cars can be made a lot cheaper than gasoline powered ones. It's a bit like with LCD TVs, which have replaced CRTs just by virtue of gradually becoming the better product for most, for a lower price.

Of course CRTs didn't have a huge industry behind them, buying up media companies in order to delay that process and spread doubt and confusion.

Comment Well it's saving cents (Score 0) 107

Those cents add up to millions. Plus I mean, why should phone manufacturers care about their users, none of them does.

The practical problem, of course, will now be where subscribers will get the exact type of USB cable from, they'll need for the phone... but one can sell it to them at overinflated prices, even more profits.

Of course there's always a risk that people get their phone, and then don't bother using it, because they can't find a proper cable, effectively lowering the revenue for the company... but that's probably very rare.

Comment At least in Germany it's different (Score 1) 153

I mean Germany got less innovative as the social system got torn down.

I think the main issue is strategic support for companies. While in the US you have a huge military sector which supports companies which then see civil markets for their military goods (think of integrated circuits) the German stategy was always to ask the leading companies what thy think we should support.

That's why, for example, we got things like Teletex. A sort of "end-to-end" e-mail system that works without servers over the circuit switched data network Datex-L. You could send a formated page of text in very few seconds.... reliably and throughout Germany at 2400 bps. For the early 1980s this was quite impressive.... however since companies were involved, this only worked between word processors... no computers allowed... and it required an expensive line to Datex-L. So essentially it was replaced by fax machines.

Comment The more important aspect is another one (Score 2) 29

They can just approve every apps, but they can just hand out the name and address of developers. That way if you have a fascist government, they can get the name and address from Google and "convince" the developer to withdraw their app.

We have seen that Big-"Tech" does not even try to stop fascism.

Comment The Intersection of Profit and Fashism (Score 1) 29

Such a feature is wonderfully useful for Profits and Fashism. You can block out ad-blockers or other software that threatens business models.... and you can block software that tries to circumvent fashism.

If every app has a person attached to it, it's fairly easy to go against software that software that doesn't spy on the user. You just go against that person. It's a dream for both fashists and corporate lawyers.

Comment Re:Would be a weird plot (Score 2, Informative) 47

Well half of the team I work at handles exactly those things, and while in the past this was an issue as it was handled via individual 64k TDM links... this now goes via Ethernet... and even though part of the software we use is written in Java, it's essentially just idling. Before there is even a noticable load on the signaling, the radio channel certainly will already be congested beyond being useful.

Comment Would be a weird plot (Score 1, Interesting) 47

First of all, if you have so many devices at one spot, you'd essentially just overload a few cells. Second mobile networks are used to operating at 100% utilization, priorities are normal, particularly for things like emergency calls.
Besides if you wanted to DoS cells you could just use normal jamming, or if you want to be fancy and less easy to detect, just request a channel for authentication. You wouldn't need a SIM-card for that.

What seems more likely is that they build some sort of in official network interconnection. One can earn money by bringing calls from one country into another country. Interconnection fees are weird, so offloading calls into the mobile network may be cheaper than doing it via an official interconnect. This is also true for things like SMS.

Comment Code signing is not security (Score 2) 96

Just because you have a "security enclave" doesn't mean it has anything to do with security for user data. In virtually all cases we've seen in reality so far, this kind of technology is used for securing business models against the interests of the users. Effectively they facilitate attacks against the user rather than hinder them. The most prominent example, of course, is DRM.

So please skip the nonsense. In the rare event you actually need some sort of hardware security, get a hardware security module.

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