Putting iTHINGIES into perspective

[kiwithrottlejockey]

[flyjoe180]

Sept 29, 2012 20:44:11 GMT 12 ngatimozart said:

Sept 29, 2012 19:20:28 GMT 12 kiwithrottlejockey said:

I occasionally use a Garmin GPS that is waterproof, shockproof and dustproof, but I never rely on it, instead prefering to use my inbuilt brain for navigation around terra-firma. Besides, the people who rely on GPS to know where they are will end up being totally lost if a huge war breaks out somewhere and the Americans switch off the GPS signal to prevent the enemy from using it. Plenty of people who can only find their way round with GPS will be running around in circles like headless chooks if/when that occurs.

Did I miss anything?

The US wouldn't turn the GPS constellation off because their military and other govt departments that rely upon it. GPS has two settings a military one and the civilian one. Simply GPS relies on time signals to establish its position and the more accurate the time signals the less circular error in position fixing. Thats why you need to see a minimum of three satellites to have a reasonable fix. So to keep the system secure the US inserted a deliberate timing error in the GPS signal which made the non military horizontal accuracy around 200m. Back in early 2000s the US removed the timing error bringing the horizontal accuracy down to about the 10m that it is now. So all they have to do is to reintroduce the timing error. Now there is the Russian GLONASS system plus I think a European one and the Chinese are in the process of installing their GPS constellation. The greater the number of GPS satellites, the better the accuracy. When I was doing some GPS work on Lyttelton Harbour in 2010 we could see 17 satellites which mean't our accuracy was good, probably down to about 2 - 5m. That's why now GPSS is available. Finally the US GPS system is nearing the end of its life and they have been slow in replacing their constellation.

The 'dumbing down' of accuracy of the GPS system is known as Selective Availability (SA). In 2000, President Clinton issued a directive to stop intentional degradation of the GPS system. This in effect turned off SA. Here is the President's statement of 1 May 2000.

THE WHITE HOUSE


Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release May 1, 2000

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT REGARDING
THE UNITED STATES’ DECISION TO STOP DEGRADING
GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM ACCURACY


Today, I am pleased to announce that the United States will stop the intentional degradation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) signals available to the public beginning at midnight tonight. We call this degradation feature Selective Availability (SA). This will mean that civilian users of GPS will be able to pinpoint locations up to ten times more accurately than they do now. GPS is a dual-use, satellite-based system that provides accurate location and timing data to users worldwide. My March 1996 Presidential Decision Directive included in the goals for GPS to: “encourage acceptance and integration of GPS into peaceful civil, commercial and scientific applications worldwide; and to encourage private sector investment in and use of U.S. GPS technologies and services.” To meet these goals, I committed the U.S. to discontinuing the use of SA by 2006 with an annual assessment of its continued use beginning this year.

The decision to discontinue SA is the latest measure in an on-going effort to make GPS more responsive to civil and commercial users worldwide. Last year, Vice President Gore announced our plans to modernize GPS by adding two new civilian signals to enhance the civil and commercial service. This initiative is on-track and the budget further advances modernization by incorporating some of the new features on up to 18 additional satellites that are already awaiting launch or are in production. We will continue to provide all of these capabilities to worldwide users free of charge.

My decision to discontinue SA was based upon a recommendation by the Secretary of Defense in coordination with the Departments of State, Transportation, Commerce, the Director of Central Intelligence, and other Executive Branch Departments and Agencies. They realized that worldwide transportation safety, scientific, and commercial interests could best be served by discontinuation of SA. Along with our commitment to enhance GPS for peaceful applications, my administration is committed to preserving fully the military utility of GPS. The decision to discontinue SA is coupled with our continuing efforts to upgrade the military utility of our systems that use GPS, and is supported by threat assessments which conclude that setting SA to zero at this time would have minimal impact on national security. Additionally, we have demonstrated the capability to selectively deny GPS signals on a regional basis when our national security is threatened. This regional approach to denying navigation services is consistent with the 1996 plan to discontinue the degradation of civil and commercial GPS service globally through the SA technique.

Originally developed by the Department of Defense as a military system, GPS has become a global utility. It benefits users around the world in many different applications, including air, road, marine, and rail navigation, telecommunications, emergency response, oil exploration, mining, and many more. Civilian users will realize a dramatic improvement in GPS accuracy with the discontinuation of SA. For example, emergency teams responding to a cry for help can now determine what side of the highway they must respond to, thereby saving precious minutes. This increase in accuracy will allow new GPS applications to emerge and continue to enhance the lives of people around the world.

clinton4.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OSTP/html/0053_2.html

[flyjoe180]

This in turn enabled aviation use of GPS to move forward so that the navigation systems we all enjoy today can be used with a certain degree of accuracy 99% of the time.

[kiwithrottlejockey]

---

[Dave Homewood]

Bruce, did you see Neil Young on The Late Show With Dave Letterman last night? He had a new handheld device that he has developed (as well as a singer he's an engineer and right into developing electronics) which will allow people (like you) to have the purest form of recorded music on it, straight from the Master tapes. He has negotiated with recording companies to allow access to the tape archives so people can get it.

Personally I cannot see the point, an iPod is fine in my opinion. Better than a transistor....

[kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Los Angeles Times....

Apple slips billions through loopholes of U.S. tax laws

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM - Wednesday, May 23, 2013



APPLE, America’s richest, most innovative consumer technology company, is also the most creative in hiding billions of dollars in profits from the taxman, according to congressional investigators. But on Tuesday in testimony before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Apple CEO Tim Cook pointed out that his company’s creative tax sheltering, far from being illegal, is made possible by the loophole-ridden tax laws of the United States.

Cook told the senators that Apple paid a $6-billion tax bill to the federal government last year. Not only does Apple pay everything owed to the IRS, Cook said, the company does not employ gimmicks to avoid required tax payments.

The subcommittee chairman, Senator Carl Levin (Democrat-Michigan), differed with that last point. "The company's engineers and designers have a well-earned reputation for creativity,” Levin said. “What may not be so well-known is that Apple also has a highly developed tax avoidance system — a system through which it has amassed more than $100 billion in offshore cash in a tax haven."

According to congressional investigators, Apple has developed an overseas network of obscure subsidiaries that are run by executives in Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, often with no employees in the locations where they are technically based. For the most part, the subsidiaries do not exist for any other reason than to have huge chunks of corporate earnings assigned to them on paper, thus making it possible for Apple to keep that money outside the reach of the IRS. One Irish subsidiary has paid almost zero tax on $30 billion in profits since 2009, according to investigators.

Before the hearing, Senator John McCain (Republican-Arizona) said, “Apple claims to be the largest corporate taxpayer, but by sheer size and scale, it is also among America’s largest tax avoiders.” When he was face to face with Cook, he said Apple had violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.

McCain’s fellow Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky took exception to the bullying tone of his colleagues. "What we're talking about is what every company in America does, and that's minimizing their tax," Paul said. He asserted that the real culprit was “the awful tax code” and that “Congress should be on trial” for failing to fix it.

Stated more gently, that was Cook’s ultimate point as well. He called for a lowering of the corporate tax rate and a simplification of the law. Such changes would likely mean Apple would end up paying more in taxes, Cook told the senators.

Cook may have a good idea, but it is preposterous to think the current dyspeptic Congress will get past its dysfunction and find common ground on the best way to reform the tax code. Too much ideology and too many lobbyists stand in the way. As a result, Apple and every other American corporation will continue to slip through the gaps in the outmoded law with big bags of cash bound for foreign lands.

www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-apple-tax-laws-20130521,0,862291.story

[richard1098]

Holy jeepers Batman, Apple isn't voluntarily paying more tax than the tax law requires it to........ I'm stunned.........

[kiwithrottlejockey]

May 23, 2013 21:05:06 GMT 12 richard1098 said:

Holy jeepers Batman, Apple isn't voluntarily paying more tax than the tax law requires it to........ I'm stunned.........

You're 100% right.

The muggins ordinary workers are paying Apple's share of the tax take as well as their own.

Isn't capitalism grand?

[corsair5517]

I'm pretty sure Apple aren't the only ones doing this, eh, and yes; capitalism certainly beats the alternatives like socialism, fascism and communism as far as I'm concerned!

[kiwithrottlejockey]

My miracle can beat up your miracle

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist | 4:11PM - Tuesday, May 28, 2013

DO YOU recall the browser wars? Microsoft Explorer vs. Netscape and the cute absurdity of the earliest-known battle for Web supremacy, in the late ’90s? That’s OK. It’s worth forgetting.

How about the platform wars, Mac vs. PC? That one ended only recently, with everyone agreeing not to really give a damn anymore, given how Steve Jobs is dead and Bill Gates is now a kindly, gray-haired philanthropist and their respective companies are now both monoliths of such staggering international ginormity it’s no longer any fun to take sides.

How about the megapixel wars? That one’s mostly over, too. Did you notice? Probably not; digital photography has been completely adequate for most consumers since about megapixel number three, despite how Canon, Nikon, Panasonic et al kept racing well past 20, not to mention how all the most widely used camera apps, like Hipstamatic and Instagram, are designed specifically to look like they used barely a single megapixel, underwater, with a piece of dirty Kleenex over the lens. Ironic!


What Would Jesus Instagram?

It ain’t over yet. Right now we’re smack in the midst of the smart phone wars, which consists of the iPhone versus, well, everyone else (mostly Samsung). While the iPhone is supposedly still “winning,” Samsung’s Galaxy is apparently moving up quick, thanks to the cheapness of the Android OS and also because oh my God blah blah blah who cares just shoot me now.

Meanwhile! The Bay Area recently gushed all over the massive, megageek frat party of dreadfully dressed white boys known as Google I/O, an enormous developer’s conference in which the Web’s most powerful overlord rolled out an awesome slew of upgrades, features and services that blew everyone’s mind — that is, if your mind consists of swipe-able interfaces, indefatigable widgets and a hundred nifty applications that send your BFF an exhaustively detailed map of where you like to go for sushi. Neat.

The media coverage of I/O was all kinds of feverish and silly, featuring countless wide-eyed headlines about Google stealing Apple’s limelight, or how Apple had better watch its back, or how Siri is now obsolete thanks to Google’s new voice commands, on and on, ad nauseam.

Apple will reply shortly. The programmer orgy that is Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) starts June 10, and tickets sold out in less than two minutes (“95 percent faster than Google I/O!”), despite costing at least $1600 each. This is because the WWDC is the senior prom of tech conferences, and the Black & White Ball, and the highest paid prostitute money can buy, all rolled into one. It’s where you go once you graduate from making dorky widgets for Google. Ooh, snap.

WWDC is where Apple inspires its army of devoted developers and reveals its own most dazzling upgrades and widgets, mostly centering on iOS, which increasingly runs the Apple universe. Are you ready? Can you sense the WWDC excitement? Yeah, I’m guessing not.

Here’s the thing: Somewhere in the midst of all those silly wars, epic battles and amazing OS revelations, somewhere between Steve Jobs quietly revealing the first iPod (in 2001 — see video clip below) and Sergey Brin wearing the dorkiest eyeglasses ever built, we quietly passed the point of everyday miracle.



Did you notice? The wow factor of what our consumer tech can do is now so routinely high, so commonplace, we look right past the fact we’re no longer heading toward a truly miraculous tech age; we’re already there.

Don’t just take it from me. Scan, if you dare, any of the geek forums, from Slashdot to Engadget, Technorati to Macrumours, and skim the discussions of Google I/O or WWDC. Behold the furious fights over inane, microscopic OS feature sets, app functionality, just how fast or slow, say, Google Earth renders a live-updating photo of our planet in real time (or whatever).


I don’t understand why no one will have sex with me or my Google Glass.

It’s sort of embarrassing. Battles absolutely rage among pale geeks, and even many consumers, over the most inane and miniscule application tics, hang-ups, lack of a certain phenomenal feature in this or that device. It would all be sweet and hilarious, if it wasn’t so frequently hateful and nasty.

It’s like two naïve snobs fighting over the saltiness of the caviar. It’s like arguing over the brand of jet fuel used in the Lear. It’s an embarrassment of riches, with both sides attacking each other over whose enormous pile of gold coins is slightly glitterier on a given day, from a given angle, if you’re wearing the right slouchy hoodie and never have sex.

Sweetheart, can’t you see? It’s a goddamn pile of gold coins. No one cares which one’s slightly better at drunk texting your ex-girlfriend via slurred voice command in the dark. Check that: far too many still care, and modern culture is the worse for it.

Small anecdote: Jaguar has a new sports car coming out, the F-Type, a ridiculously sexy two-seater that’s set to compete with the likes of the Porsche 911 and the Mercedes SLK55 AMG. It’s utterly gorgeous. It’s getting rave previews. It starts at about 70 grand, goes to 110.

In one of the reviews, amid the usual talk of horsepower and torque, awesome handling and sumptuous, leather–wrapped everything, came the definitive discussion point: Is this car better than the Porsche? Than the Audi TT-RS? Than the BMW Z4? Which one, oh rich and pampered CFO with four other cars and a third home in Italy, is the best?


That’s all you got? Infinite miracles on a gorgeous slice of magic glass?

The reviewer summed it up perfectly: The question is ludicrous. If you’re shopping in this category, there are no bad choices. There are no “wrong” $85,000 sports cars. You are in rarified space indeed and if you actually give a serious damn that the Jag is 0.7 seconds slower than the Porsche Cayman or that the Audi R8 can hit 100MPH three seconds faster, something is deeply wrong with you.

So it goes for the current state of everyday tech. We’re all driving ridiculous, luxury sports cars now. Even the most basic smart phones can now perform what would be seen as stupefying miracles just a handful of years ago. Any mobile web browser running on any platform can effortlessly reveal the universe. We all have access to everyday tech so advanced, it is indistinguishable from magic.

So smile, biped. Quit fighting about utter nonsense. It’s nearly impossible to make a “bad” choice in the upmarket, high-tech category anymore. You exist in rarefied, first-world air. You are surrounded by magic and wonder. It’s when we stop noticing that fact that the real trouble begins.

•

• Mark Morford on Twitter and Facebook.

blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/05/28/my-miracle-can-beat-up-your-miracle

[flyjoe180]

I was quite late getting a smart phone. I got a (then) top of the range Samsung Android job. It has been handy at times, especially at work when I need to check the weather or check emails away from home. I've found it has made me lazy to a certain extent because I no longer remember phone numbers or email addresses as I used to. I later got a Samsung tablet because it was free from my parents who thought it was a place mat or fancy chopping board (joke). I still use my laptop because I prefer it over the annoying tablet. I have refused to 'upgrade' my phone because it does what I need it to do. The newer phones seem to be faster and larger and thinner, but there is little in the new gadget arena that takes my fancy. These companies have made their fortunes out of turning the cell phone into a fashion accessory. In a time when we are apparently struggling financially, it's incredible to see how many people have the latest and greatest electronic toys. Madness.

[corsair5517]

That is a fabulous summing up of the whole dross-filled argument; thanks for posting!

I have to say its very easy to get caught up in this kind of thing, though.... we recently bought a new car after much perusing of brochures and tyre-kicking and somewhere along the line I lost sight of what was important in the decision and was looking at the options lists of all these vehicles, ie Bluetooth, iPod connectivity and all the rest of that utter crap! As it turned out, the Falcon we eventually bought has Bluetooth but iPod connectivity would cost around $500 in the base model that we bought, but the kicker is that the CD player will play mp3 CDs and display the ID3 tags quite happily, so Ford can jam their $500 techno pack where the sun don't shine....

Oh, the car itself drives beautifully, rides well and is so bloody quiet after the station wagons I've had up to now that I've had to check the rev counter at the lights to make sure it's still running! The 4 litre six is still a little thirstier than a 2 litre four but we can all fit in the car with loads of space in the back for growing kids and go to places very far away in comfort.

I wonder how my father, born in 1924, regards all this techno stuff.... after all, he was born only 11 years after Kittyhawk.... there's been some advances since then!

[kiwithrottlejockey]

[AussieBob]

and for those who believed it all, the helpful smart techies gave some advice to help;

"In order to clean out the 3.5mm socket of debris from the drill you need to soak the phone in soapy water for around 15 minutes so all the drill shavings are loosened. Then give the phone a shake once you're done. Hope this helps someone. ;-)'
and;
' If you want me to tell you how to fix it, just reply to this comment with your credit card number, expiration date, and three digit code on the back... and I'll tell you how to fix it.'

Make you worry about the human race ?

[haughtney1]

The latest and greatest "i" thing...and it even works without an internet connection...

link

[kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Telegraph....

• Apple files new patent — for a paper bag



(click on the image to view the patent application details)

[Dave Homewood]

[kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Washington Post....

A ‘safe’ replacement Samsung phone
reportedly catches fire — on a plane

By TRAVIS M. ANDREWS | 4:34AM EDT - Thursday, October 06, 2016


In this July 28th file photo, a color blending feature of the Galaxy Note 7 is
demonstrated in New York. — Photograph: Richard Drew/Associated Press.

A SAMSUNG PHONE, a replacement model for the defective ones, caught fire and grounded a domestic flight on Wednesday in Louisville. There were no injuries but the Southwest flight to Baltimore was evacuated.

On September 17th, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones because their batteries displayed an unfortunate inclination to catch fire and, at times, explode. (The company had issued a voluntary recall on September 2nd.)

Though the phone's advertisements claimed it was “designed to be a key that opens the door to new experiences on the go,” they proved to be liability since their August 19th release.

At the time, the commission stated that the phone's batteries were linked to “26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage, including fires in cars and a garage.”

In one instance, a car was “fully engulfed in flames” after a phone caught fire. In another, a man sued the South Korean company after allegedly suffering severe burns on his right thigh and left thumb when his phone exploded.

At one point, an airplane had to be evacuated when a phone caught fire — the FAA later weighed in, stating, “In light of recent incidents and concerns raised by Samsung about its Galaxy Note 7 devices, the Federal Aviation Administration strongly advises passengers not to turn on or charge these devices on board aircraft and not to stow them in any checked baggage,” the FAA said.

As autumn approached, it appeared that Samsung's phone troubles were behind them. The company offered an exchange program for users to trade the affected Galaxy Note 7's for new ones, and fortunes seemed to be on an upswing for the company.

Until Southwest Airlines flight 994 from Louisville to Baltimore on Wednesday morning.

Brian Green was on that flight. With him was a replacement Galaxy Note 7, one the company sold with assurances of its safety. Green confirmed this to The Verge, and a photograph of the box in which the phone came displays a small black box, which, according to Samsung, indicates that the phone is safe to use.

In preparation for takeoff, he powered the phone down and slipped it into his pocket. That's when he noticed the smoke drifting from his pocket into the pressurized cabin.

He grabbed it and threw it to the floor, while what he described to The Verge as “thick grey-green angry smoke” poured out of it.

The plane was evacuated, and no injuries were reported.



The company's statement to Recode said that, since the Louisville Fire Department's arson unit still has the device, it can't offer a specific comment. See it here:

Until we are able to retrieve the device, we cannot confirm that this incident involves the new Note 7 … We are working with the authorities and Southwest now to recover the device and confirm the cause. Once we have examined the device we will have more information to share.

The batteries can explode when the anode — an electrode filled with positively charged ions — and the cathode — an electrode filled with positively charged ions, make contact. As The Washington Post's Andrea Peterson explained:

Like pretty much all batteries, lithium ion batteries work by storing energy and releasing it through controlled chemical reactions. A lithium ion battery has two electrodes — places where electricity can enter or leave the battery. One electrode, called the anode, is filled with negatively charged ions. The other electrode, called a cathode, contains positively charged ions and lithium. You can think of the anode and the cathodes like the plus and minus signs you often see on batteries.

When you use a battery, the lithium moves over from the cathode to the anode — and when you charge it, the lithium moves back over to the cathode. There's a separator inside that keeps the anode and the cathode from touching because that can trigger mishaps such as fires and explosions.

In Samsung's case, it appears a manufacturing error caused that separator to fail.

This isn't Samsung’s only brush with explosions. According to a recent lawsuit filed against the company, some of its washing machines are also prone to an explosion of sorts.

As to the Louisville incident, the Consumer Product Safety Commission told The Verge that it’s “moving expeditiously to investigate” it.

Meanwhile, Green has purchased an iPhone 7.

• Travis M. Andrews is a reporter for The Washington Post's Morning Mix. Previously he was an editor for Southern Living and a pop culture and tech contributor for Mashable.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related story:

• First it was Samsung phones. Now it's exploding Samsung washing machines.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/10/06/a-safe-replacement-samsung-phone-reportedly-catches-fire-on-a-plane