Yes, shaking hand is the most common greeting form, just like in the west. In Vietnamese households, several generations live together often sharing a small space. Classrooms in schools are large (50 students) sitting very close together. You see women walking holding hands, even man holding hands if they are good friends (doesn't mean they are gay). If you ride around the city (commuting is by motorbikes), you will see hundreds of tiny cafes, where people sit close together around a tiny table with no space between them whatsoever. For a westerner, the lack of personal space is a bit of a culture shock when first arriving to the country.

Not all Asian countries. Ever seen commuting pictures in Japan? Also, I live in Vietnam, where personal space is virtually non-existent. I would say in most South-East Asian countries you would see the same.

However, the response in Vietnam has been professional and reassuring. Contact tracing from the very beginning, quarantine zones for suspect patients have been ready for months (converted army barracks, university campuses, etc.), now the country makes test kits to export to other countries, proper protective garment for health workers, etc.

Unfortunately, that's probably accurate. Some more context:

After the Ebola crisis in 2014, president Obama created something called the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense. This was basically responsible for pandemic preparedness. In 2018 Trump got rid of it. Fired the guy who ran it, fired the whole team, never replaced them. He got rid of the whole Global Health Security Unit at the National Council, at Homeland Security and even at the Pentagon.

Then just recently, Trump blamed Obama for the unpreparedness of CDC and the whole country.This is how deranged he is.

As it stands now, the USA has been sitting on its ass for months, with zero preparation. There has been 10000 and some change tests done so far in TOTAL, while South Korea can do the same amount in ONE DAY. The virus has been doing its rounds in the country for weeks now, and once widespread testing starts, the number of infections will skyrocket.

Encoding times have dropped dramatically in the last 12 months. Check out this article to see see the difference (in 2018 encoding was a thousand times slower than h265, now it's only 3 times slower). https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.streamingmedia.com...

There are more and more hw based decoding options. Mediatek just launched a new SOC that supports hw based decoding. I expect hw decoders to show up in a few 2020 products, (LG announced that their 2020 TVs will have it) and become commonplace the following year.

They made steps to mitigate this problem. And now, we have a variety of Android One devices with pretty decent support. My current phone, a Xiaomi mi A1 came out in 2017 with Android Nougat, and runs the latest Android (9.0 Pie) with regular monthly security updates. That's not bad for an $200 phone. There is plenty of choice now with long(ish) term support for devices from a variety of vendors.

Linus Torvalds called grsecurity patches garbage earlier this year. https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F...

Same here, I love my Asus UX501. Beautiful 4K matte screen, 16GB RAM, i7-6700HQ, 128GB SSD + 1GB HDD, NVIDIA GTX 960M. And very stylish, looks as good or even better than a MacBook and it costs $1500.

Looks to me, they are going back to good old pre-Internet methods (bugging phones, taking a peak at your computer at your house, etc.). Good old 80's and 90's. Worse case scenario is back-doors or no strong encryption. Going back to less scalable, less practical methods is practically status quo. At any rate, screw them!

I'm a photographer - not really affected by the change, been using Lightroom for 3 years now. But before Aperture users panic, take a look at what Thom Hogan writes about the change (he's more or less an Apple insider when it comes to photography): http://www.dslrbodies.com/acce...

There are literally thousands of ways to set up your lights to create a complete white background in camera without the need of retouching. You can bet good money that this setup (white cyclorama background, object on elevated platform, 4 lights) have been used thousands of times. It's hilariously simple. By the way, the patent claims at least 1 light source hitting the background ("at least one rear light source positioned between the elevated platform and the background) which is far more vague than the diagram supplied with the patent. Disclaimer: I'm a pro photographer doing mostly portraiture and travel (http://molnarcs.500px.com) but I do take product photos on the side (nothing complicated like jewellery or glassware, just basic products). I'm telling you this patent is complete bullshit.

I'm a pro photographer (mostly portraiture and travel) and I'm doing product photography on the side - just basic products, nothing fancy. What Amazon claims is complete bullshit. They imply that white background product photos need retouching to make the background completely white. This is definitely not the case. Even with the simple setup I have for products (completely DIY setup - a cardboard box, a white roll of paper clipped to the a piece of plastic) I can get completely white background in camera without any retouching. Most cameras have a playback screen that shows white clipping - blown out highlights flashing in red indicating areas completely white. I play around with my lights (2 lights plus reflectors) until I get everything blinking except the product I'm shooting. Been doing this for years. With a proper plexiglass shooting table, this is s cinch. And let's not forget those $25 shooting tents that are designed precisely for this, and allows even amateurs to do it easily (well, with some practice in light placement and power levels).

That's not an Android fuck-up. That's the OEM's problem, and it has nothing to do with Android. I chose Nexus devices (4 and 7) to avoid this, as these are the devices Android was written for. For any non-Nexus device, you depend on the OEM for certain things that may or may not occur. As a Slashdot person, surely you know this, right?

I agree completely, but different users have different priorities. My problem with the Nexus is the lack of choice. I'd rather Google partnered up with different companies to release different models that suit different needs. For example, I don't need a large phone. I use the 4 inch Nexus 2 (first Samsung Nexus after HTC N1) now. I'm a photographer, and I'd love a Nexus with a good camera. I don't carry my d800 and lenses everywhere ;) I'd pay more for it. How much extra a decent camera module & lens would cost? $50? $100 - I'd pay that much more for the Nexsus if it came with decent photo capabilities. Frankly, the cameras in Nexus 3s, 4s and now 5s are not really convincing for me to upgrade. Thus I'm eyeing alternatives, even though I hate the thought of running Android with OEM fluff and worse, not getting the latest upgrades :(

What a tribulation!

It was a stupid decision to tie themselves to Microsoft. The new Lumia and its camera is a very attractive phone for me. Probably most photographers would look at a phone's camera first, even though we are used to hauling around heavy gear. I would buy this phone in a second if it was running Android. And I'm sure I'm not alone - smartphone cameras are killing the compact camera market, and this is a feature that is important to many people. I also love some of their design choices.

Nokia still has some brand recognition left, especially in South-East Asia, but it's vanishing alarmingly fast. Had they introduced the Lumia 808 a year ago with stock Android and we some clever marketing campaign, they would have created some buzz. They could increase that buzz with this new launch. Instead, their are complaining about Microsoft. Big fracking LOL at them and their choice for a CEO.

What are you smoking? The people who are actually buying Android phones have no clue about "open source." You call yourself a geek? What are you doing here? You need to realize the 99% of the non-geek population of this planet never heard of "open source." You need to go out more, socialize, get to know the rest of the world ;) You can't make money on Android and assume nobody else can. But the trend is changing, even here where I live. Blackberry is still very strong, but the growing upper-middle class idolized Apple for years. This trend has been changing for the at least a year now. There are no subsidized prices here, people pay $400-700 for a smartphone. These are not "cheap" people as you seem to assume. Google Play has been getting better and better (though more buggy at the same time, QC Google please!) and now paying through your gmail account became so easy... I bought about 18 apps myself. Samsung has a very heavy presence, lots of marketing and it works. I see more and more people with high-end android smart phones and tablets. Hell, my model at the shooting (I'm a photographer) asked me about the Nexus 10! Have you heard of it? she said. And she is most definitely not a geek ;) I saw a women wielding a Galaxy Note the other day.