More interestingly, he(Martin Kool) wrote an interpreter for the old Sierra adventure games engines. Notably the engines use GOTO statements which javascript doesn't have an analog of, so they compile the entire thing into a giant switch-case statement. Nifty!
This is much more impressive than it looks, I feel. Saving/loading games by using a browser bookmark? Multiplayer?
I sadly feel we'll never have cars that drive themselves.
The first time, ever, one crashes, regardless of the circumstances: "COMPUTER DRIVEN CAR DEATH! DO COMPUTER CARS MAKE YOU UNSAFE?" is shouted from the media rooftops, citizens get outraged, laws are passed, and we're all doomed to sit in traffic and continue to lose many lives to manual driving forever.
I think this can only be addressed by stating it clearly and upfront. "Automated cars will kill people. They will kill people every year. The only thing they have going for them is that every year they will kill 10 times less people than people driven cars. Life is dangerous, and it's your choice."
Car makers initially fought putting seatbelts in cars because it made them look dangerous. Now seat belts fracture thousands of ribs a year and are required by law. Both initial fear and actual danger were over come due to the massive demonstrable benefit of the technology.
This hasn't happened for other transportation methods so I don't see why cars should be different.
Early planes crashed more often than not and even today we get at least one huge crash per year, highly covered by media but no one suggests that we should ban planes even after they were used on 9/11 to destroy twin towers.
Busses crash, trains get derailed etc.
I think you're painting humanity with overly pessimistic brush as if reacting in the worst possible way is the only way can possibly react.
A vision for a safer, more efficient transportation is very compelling and something that many people and plenty of media will get behind and advocate.
I can see that too, but I don't think it's impossible. I don't think it will be an instant transition from driver to computer, it will be more gradual. More and more things in your car will become automated, starting with the simplest until we've reached the point that the driver is there simply to be transported.
For comparison, I think about other methods of transportation that have already been automated. Autopilot on planes, fully automated airport trams, etc. To be sure, these are dangerous systems if something goes wrong, but the infrequency of catastrophic occurrences let's us mostly trust in their safety.
Not really. Computer cars will very likely be manufactured mainly by the existing auto giants. And those have billions of ad dollars, so the media will be very careful.
In the USA this is true but European countries have already given the green light to a somewhat watered-down version of self-driving cars on public roads. The USA will eventually follow I would think.
>Google will be able to exert more influence on carriers and manufacturers by withholding the Google apps and Market when certain conditions are not met.
Google already does this. Android is free for anyone to use, but if you want the Market and the Google branded Apps, you have to go through a round of certification. The process is testing for compatibility, among other things.
(This is the reason we keep seeing cheap Android tablets pop up without the Market application installed - they haven't gone through the process.)
Most carrier/OEM customization of Android is at the UI level. As a developer, it's understandable to not have all the different devices with different capabilities, but if you code as recommended and don't make assumptions about what the user has / doesn't have available, your application will work pretty much anywhere that the Market is installed.
Null Pointer Exceptions don't happen because the phone's OEM or carrier changed something - they happen because the code went ahead and assumed something worked correctly that did not.
(NPEs are the most common reason I've personally seen applications crash on my own devices, I have no data to support an assertion that that is the main cause of Force Closes, however)
Actually, I like it. API seems simple too. I have a forum where I like to go through every single new post; would be useful for this (right now my solution is middle clicking a ton of tiny "arrow representing updated posts" images).
Definitely needs a STOP button, though; stopping the current page using my browser didn't stop it from preloading.
Same exact thing in Opera. Private browsing is per-tab, cookies are separate per private tab (so multiple accounts into gmail is okay). You can open private tabs right next to regular, they don't live in another window (as Chrome enforces).
Your iPhone's processor may have a larger number representing its clock, but your laptop's processor is likely much faster.
You can't compare different CPU architectures by the number of hz. Desktop (=laptop in this case) processors are out-of-order power-sucking beasts compared to the power sipping CPU in your phone and other devices.
t1=time.time(); x=[i*i for i in xrange(1000000)]; time.time()-t1
On my 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo iMac, this runs in 0.47 seconds. On my Nexus One (using the Python executable from Scripting Layer for Android), it takes around 3.8 seconds. So the N1 is around an eighth of the speed of the iMac (ignoring the C2D's second core), which is actually pretty impressive.
Keep in mind that the N1 has a 1 GHz CPU, so the OP was correct in that you can't do an apples to apples comparison when different architectures are at play.
You are correct. But I did want to mention that I'm running an old iPhone...two generations old by now. I imagine that the newer iOS and Andriod phones are indeed comparable in speed to a decent but not top-of-the-line laptop.
I see nothing wrong with assuming that your phone should be able to handle laptop-like web media functions, such as watching video and playing audio or games.
It's not only the CPU that's the problem, but swap space too. While a laptop would have swap disk, as the OS would require one, an iPad/iPhone/iPod would not, and it's limited by the memory there is. As there can be N number of flash applications running on the same web pages, it could be that you need N "flash engines" running (I don't know that for a fact - just guessing here). And because it's hidden from the main browser, it can't control it. For example the browse might be able to do some kind of limit how much javascript memory/cycles are used, but can't do for plugin like adobe's.
Just punditry on my side, but I've also tried the jailroken frash on my iPad - and while it worked fine, I clearly saw that certain games are not playable - they were made for mouse with buttons, and just does not work with fingers.
Obviously this could be changed, but what Steve is afraid, is that people might perceive this as iPhone/iPad/iPod failure, rather than flash application one just expecting a mouse, and someone trying to emulate it with "fingers".
This person's experience is completely the opposite of what I've seen on my own N1, though to be honest I don't watch many flash videos on my phone.
Strongbad episodes and casual flash games run perfectly.
The small amount of video I have tried seems fine - Youtube via the inline flash player (not launching the separate application) and flash player video porn.
The argument that Jobs was right because flash video sucks on a phone seems silly - weren't we suspecting that flash games were what Apple were trying to keep off their ecosystem?
This is much more impressive than it looks, I feel. Saving/loading games by using a browser bookmark? Multiplayer?