I can actually see myself using this. There are times where certain stores have these promotions where I can buy a $30 gift card for $20, but I never bother doing it because I know that I will probably leave the gift card at home the time I come back. I also like the automatic locking feature as well when it loses the bluetooth connection with your phone.
Another benefit I see is that it doesn't actually have the credit/debit numbers printed on the card, so nobody could take a picture of your card and use it to fraudulently purchase things online.
> Without proper Trademark law, it is impossible to build up a "trustful" relationship between a company and its customers.
I disagree. This can still be achieved with the right (non legal) infrastructure to protect your brand i.e. an official Twitter account or domain name that can be used to identify the "legitimate" products from a company. It would be a much better tradeoff to the current cannibalistic nature of our current trademark laws that cripple the development of truly wonderful games like Pokemon Generations [1] while they milk the brand to death by regurgitating the same game with new Pokemon year after year.
Domain Camping is when you look at another person's brand and say "I like their brand, lemme pretend to be them". For example, "camping" the site "microSSoft.com" would be domain camping.
Trademark law requires you to provably build a brand from the ground up. Hire your own artists, hire your own creativity. Are you honestly telling me that you are so uncreative that you can't create your own brand? Don't recreate "Mario", create your own damn characters!
And that is how the world gets better: when you reward creativity. It is virtually impossible to recreate a character, a brand, or anything and actually violate trademark law if you actually built a brand from scratch.
The only way for Bitcoin to not go up is for a different cryptocurrency to come to fruition that has significant improvements over Bitcoin, like zerocoin, and subsequently can not be integrated into Bitcoin's blockchain.
Or stricter regulations are put in place, or a big company like PayPal creates a competitor product, or... Lots of things can happen. There is absolutely nothing backing the price of Bitcoin, so to say that its price won't go down is foolish--pure speculation. If that were irrefutably true, the price would already be $1,000 or $10,000, but it's not, which means there are valid concerns for the future of Bitcoin.
There isn't much to back the price of fiat currencies either: Bitcoin is valued by demand which is effectively the case with other currencies too. If there's demand for bitcoins and trust in the platform, that's all the back up Bitcoin needs.
After all, with any currency the only value it has is the ability to later exchange the currency back to services or material goods.
Even if a currency is backed by gold like in old times there can only be faith in that gold will actually buy you goods in the future, too.
Currencies aren't backed by anything physical; they're backed by the confidence that you will actually be able to buy something with them. Bitcoin doesn't yet have that confidence, so it basically has no inherent value. (Technically, fiat currencies don't have truly inherent value either, but I don't want to argue about semantics.) The value of Bitcoin today is purely speculative, because it doesn't actually have much of a practical use. Those investing in Bitcoin are betting that it's going to become a currency you can use as confidently as US dollars, but no one can accurately predict whether that will ever happen; it's all a gamble at this point.
Fiat currencies (at least those that are the official currency of one or more sovereign states) actually do have intrinsic value beyond people's beliefs.
USD is valuable not only because people trust you'll always be able to buy things with USD, but also because the US. government collects USD-denominated tax. As long as the government continues to have the firepower to enforce the tax code, there will always be a demand for USD, irrespective of how confident people are in its viability.
No. You don't understand what "intrinsic value" and "fiat money" mean. These two terms have literally opposite meanings! (Seriously, look them up.)
The USD has had zero intrinsic value since the end of the gold standard. That's why, by definition, it is called a fiat currency.
The USD has value solely because it is demanded (and the biggest demander is the US government, via taxes) and because people believe it will remain demanded.
The USD, or any fiat currency, has no value beyond this "belief". And this is not inherently wrong. Most of the world economies run on fiat currencies. Even Bitcoin is, technically, fiat.
> The USD has had zero intrinsic value since the end of the gold standard. That's why, by definition, it is called a fiat currency.
The definition of "fiat money" depends on who defines it, but in my eyes the most correct definition is "any money declared by a government to be legal tender". Fiat literally means "let it be done", as in a declaration. The U.S. dollar is fiat because the U.S. government says it is money, and it was fiat under the gold standard as well.
Even under the gold standard, U.S. dollars did not have "intrinsic value" the way I understand it, which is to say value that comes from the physical properties of the object in question. There is a very tiny intrinsic value because you can burn U.S. bank notes for heat and things like that, but nothing else - gold standard or not. Gold may have some intrinsic value because it can aid industrial processes and fill teeth and make jewelry, but that is probably far away from explaining gold's market price today.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, is not fiat, because no legal authority has declared that it shall be money.
Your definition of fiat is overly strict and unusual.
By law, the USD used to be convertible to gold at a legally defined USD-per-ounces rate. This legal rate is what gave it intrinsic value. All economist will agree with this statement. Any literature about the USD explains clearly that "the USD transitioned from the gold standard to a fiat currency".
No. Precious metals have intrinsic value. Fiat money does not. The fact USD is legal tender makes it legal tender but that's it. It does not give it intrinsic value. (Or, pedantically, the paper the USD is printed on has some intrinsic value, about $100/ton.)
I don't mean to be rude, but I am always surprised by discussions about money. They reveal that people have no idea what money is and what gives it value.
Can bitcoins security algorithms become outdated due to Moore's law in any reasonable period of time? Is there a possible threat of algorithm compromise by cryptanalysis?
Bitcoin uses ECDSA signatures to verify transactions. According to Wikipedia [1], the current record for solving the discrete logarithm problem (which is how you recover a private key from the corresponding public key) was done on a 112-bit key in 6 months. Bitcoin uses 256-bit keys, and the algorithm in question has a complexity of O(2^(N/2)), so breaking its keys is 2^72 times harder.
So even under the ridiculously unlikely assumption that computational power halves in cost every 18 months for the indefinite future: 50 years from now, the entire current global GDP still won't be enough to buy a processor that can crack a Bitcoin key in less than a decade.
(Of course, this is assuming there are no other unknown flaws in the protocol, and that no better algorithms are found to find discrete logarithms over elliptic curves. But if a vulnerability is found, it won't be thanks to Moore's law.)
As for mining, there are enough bits in SHA256 to allow billion-fold increase in difficulty. And if there is a danger of breaking it much quicker, all people holding bitcoins have huge incentive to change the protocol to fix the problem.
As for ECDSA, it can only be broken by quantum computers, but still most balances are protected by sha256*ripemd160 hash, so they are safe in the face of sudden QC attack or a weakness in ECC. People will want to protect their wealth and thus will change the protocol for other algorithms.
When everyone's money is at stake, it'll be very quick. This March, when the network forked, miners with newer version 0.8 agreed to forego mining rewards and abandon their own branch (incompatible with v0.7) just to resolve the issue quickly to not shake the confidence in Bitcoin.
Yes, but this was not planned ahead. Miners did abandon their rewards even being on a longer chain just to maintain trust in the system. They did not know if they will ever get their money recovered.
Yes, but the creator of Zerocoin has stated that it seems unlikely to integrate into Bitcoin's blockchain and may only be usable if it is put into a new blockchain.
I agree with most things Cody Wilson stands for, but I just can't stand those videos he makes. It makes it sound like this wallet (and a few months ago, the 3D printed gun) is going to destroy the U.S. government in one fell swoop. This wallet isn't really bringing anything new to the table. Zerocoin / Blockchain.info already exist.
I cringe aswell when I see such videos but they're for media attention not to people very well informed like yourself. They do no harm to you except for cringing for a few seconds. On the other hand these kind of videos appeal to sheeple on an emotional level.
I'm honestly starting to regret choosing to learn Objective-C now. I am seriously considering learning Android development and ditching my Macbook / iPhone for a Nexus 5 and some sort of linux distro. People like me are making this whole situation significantly worse by contributing software to Apple's platform.
This comment is ridiculous. The big players have been playing a patent chess game since 2007. Don't forget Google bid for these patents as well and it's completely ignorant to think they would have not exercised their billion $+ purchase.
Google took the initiative a year ago with their Motorola patent portfolio, Samsung took the initiative with their FRAND patents, Apple took the initiative with their design portfolio, Microsoft took the initiative by funding SCO and suing android OEMs and now this conglomerate is taking the initiative with the Nortel patents.
This is a war with many players willing to stifle the industry until this gets sorted out. All players are responsible, but this terrible system requires that you get involved and are proactive in protecting your intellectual property.
Go sell your mac and get an ultra book. Go learn Java and ditch obj-c. But do it because you prefer those products, not because you think you are taking the moral high ground.
Google says a lot of things. But they've shown time and time again that they're willing to ignore their past promises and do whatever they feel is in their best interests at the moment. Remember "Don't be evil"?
Even if they were sincere when they said that, I fully expect that they would have changed their minds within a few years of actually winning. Remember, they've already shown a willingness to use patents offensively.
I disagree, microsoft tried to destroy linux by coercing companies to pay a bogus linux tax. Microsoft also footed the bill for SCO's case against Linux. MS' record is atrocious here.
Motorola Mobility sued apple in 2010. Just last month Motorola filed a motion to reopen their case against Apple.
Again, all of these companies are deeply involved in this game of patents.
As far as I know Google acquired Motorola Mobility in 2011. So they had nothing to do with the original suit. As for last month's one, I don't know about the details.
If I were to blame one company for undermining standards, it'd be Apple for consistently refusing to license standards-essential patents and Obama for protecting Apple. Remember, the reason all their other competitors have so many standards-essential patents and Apple have essentially none is because the other companies worked to develop those standards and Apple just came along years later and took the benefit of their work for free whilst suing them over dubious software patents.
What's the point of putting in the work and money to actually develop standards if someone can walk into your industry, take all that work for free, and use their non-FRAND-licensed patents to stop you from selling anything? Far better to forget standards, abandon fundamental technology work, and spend the time and money building your own non-FRAND patent warchest instead.
Apple has a fair number of standards-essential patents as well, but they have not been used in a lawsuit to date. These include networking patents (notably zeroconf) and are always made available by Apple via the following statement:
In the event that the technology discussed in the Document becomes an IETF standard (the "Standard") which is not materially different from the Document, Apple agrees, upon written request from a Party to negotiate outside of IETF to make available a non-exclusive license under reasonable and non-discriminatory ("RAND") terms and conditions under such claims of the Patents that are essential to implement a product compliant with the Standard (a "Compliant Product").
These RAND terms and conditions may be conditional upon a reciprocal grant or defense use.
However it has yet to demand reciprocal grants of design patents from others for licensing.
The company has not refused to license SEPs, it has refused to license them with a cross-patent agreement that includes their design patents, as their view is that SEPs should be offered on fair monetary licensing terms.
That does not necessarily mean their stance is right (or that Apple is innocent because they're quite clearly not), but it's a lot more complex and defensible than you've implied here.
It's only partially about taking the morally high ground; I'm afraid Apple is going to start losing significant market share.
i.e. I always hear of friends and colleagues who switch from the iPhone to Android (and not vice-versa). And from what I've seen Google is also actually making significant improvements Android's API instead of Apple's method of just making aesthetic changes (and some argue making it worse).
You must be kidding if you think iOS 7 is just aesthetic changes. So Apple iOS engineers took one year leave and left their designer colleges update iOS 6 to new look?
UI
Inter-app audio
Background fetch
P2P (arguably, this isn't a new feature, it's essentially a wrapper to dns_sd)
Airdrop
Significant KitKat changes:
*Actual* SMS/MMS API
Storage access framework
Printing framework
Plus, Inter-app audio and Airdrop are essentially wrappers to P2P (which is also a wrapper to dns_sd), so the only real added feature was background fetch.
You could say the same about KitKat (except for SMS), so really it boils down to this:
iOS 7:
UI
Background fetch
KitKat:
SMS/MSS API
Which Android still wins, IMO.
Plus, Android already has way more features than iOS already, not to mention the ability to install unsigned software, NFC, custom lockscreens/launchers and who knows what else.
Both are mature OS, ground breaking features are not expected. I'm not familiar with Android, but iOS tends to introduce new and improved API in each release that makes app development easier, there is lesser need to go down to core OS to develop your app. Beside what you mentioned, new in iOS 7: TextKit for fine typography control makes it easier to write text layout and editor; SpriteKit which is higher level framework for writing 2/2.5D games; game controller framework for standardise interface to game controller; 64-bit support; Open GL ES 3.
But seriously: This isn't an issue that'll be solved by buying one product over another.
(I mean, if I understand correctly, this could impact your ability to actually get your hands on a Nexus 5 (or later) device if litigation either prevents them from being produced or makes them too expensive for Google to make. That's the whole point, right? To take the power to choose financial winners and losers out of the hands of the market. To make your decision matter less. That's one big reason it's shitty: It distorts markets regardless what you as the consumer want.)
It's an issue with how our government treats patents like this. Buy your Apple product if that's the best one for you. Enjoy building with Objective C. Or work with Google's products. Whichever you want.
But.
If you're interested in changing this situation, I'd try recommend trying to get the attention of the one organization that really holds the power, here: The United States government.
> If you're interested in changing this situation, I'd try recommend trying to get the attention of the one organization that really holds the power, here: The United States government.
Well it's certainly easier to vote with your dollars than to change the state of politics. Politics are relatively stable in short-mid run, and even a large group of citizen has very little power to change that unless they get representatives of their own to run for and win elections with a clear no-more-patent-bullshit agenda.
Good thing you realize it now. Better now than later. Do take action if you are serious about the philosophical implications of your work.
Anyway, we can see that even in the absence of Steve Jobs, Apple is certainly serious about "going nuclear on Android". They'll follow their former leader's thinking even beyond the grave. That's sad.
Probably because they can see what happened with PCs happening again. If they don't fight android with everything they have now then in 5 or 10 years they might not have the chance.
Their market share is already going away progressively. There's way more Android devices being sold than Apple ones nowadays. They still have a clear edge on tablets, but for how long ? I can't see how Apple's growth can be sustainable unless they come on new segments (just like they did with the iPhone and the iPad in the first place). Fighting to the death on existing segments is not going to cut it in the long term.
All of this assumes that Android is Windows and that another open source platform, such as Firefox OS or Ubuntu Touch, wouldn't be available to pose any challenge to Android. The mobile sphere is probably dynamic enough to support such changes.
If the FOSS projects in mobile work hard enough now, they can eat into Android's market share, at least in the developing world. We shouldn't consider Android's position to be unshakeable.
The groundwork for these measures was laid a long, long time ago. Many of the patents Apple has used against Android OEMs have gone back to the mid-90s - when Apple v Microsoft was recent history and their inability to get "patent-like protection" from UI copyrights was fresh in Apple's mind.
It's basically big corps trying to shoot down each other,it's war. It will not end google search,dont worry,worst case google will have to pay a few billion but they can afford it.
Remember these corporations are using patents as nuclear dissuasion tools,we are not really in patent trolling here.IMHO Google is not better than the rest.
However, what the original commenter is saying is that he is trying to make an impact against this action by not giving his money to the companies that are taking this action.
Your attitude suggesting that company revenues have nothing to do with the actions of the company is simply suggesting that people don't vote with their dollars, or maybe that they shouldn't, which is wrong.
Corporations exist to make money, if they make decisions you disagree with, you should not spend your money on their products. You should do what you can to let them know that reason x,y,z is the reason you're not spending your money with them. Enough of a groundswell and that will change.
Interestingly in this case, if a large enough mass of people bought Android phones specifically because of this lawsuit, that is a double-wammy for Apple and Microsoft in the mobile space, and it gives Google a few dollars to pay for the patent suit.
Google paying a "few billions" will impact their company as a whole: a few billions lost, means these billions are not invested somewhere else, and patents may have other insidious consequences, such as restraining the internal innovation at Google because of past experiences with Patent trolls.
And as I said in another post, Google has a different stance on patents. So far, they pledged not to use them in an aggressive way. Maybe they'll change their mind in the long run, but they have not been very aggressive in that field so far.
I can't speak for Android, but the Nexus phones are nice and Linux can make a stellar developer environment. What with Android no longer being an ugly step-child, it's a good time to make the switch.
If it makes any difference I'd say Android development is mostly a lot more logical and sane than iOS, particularly now that Apple is shoving the tragic catastrophe of an API that is AutoLayout down everybody's throat. Don't let the fragmentation FUD scare you.
But we should all just accept that Google does no wrong by listening to a perennial Apple troll? Do me a favour! That's the problem with you open source terrorist; it all black and white. Google as just as bad as everyone else. They are not doing this out of altruism! If they were, we'd have the source for the Google apps on android, the search algorithms and web apps and they'd all be BSD, not the cancerous GPLv3! They really don't care about your silly ideologies. They care about revenue. That comes from advertising, which requires spying! For fuck sake man, THEY WORKED WITH THE NSA!!! They are pulling the same trick that Microsoft did with nascent IT departments; they convincing you that they are your friends. Hell, they already fucked consumers by giving power back to mobile companies. What is with you people? I frankly cannot believe the utterly childish language I'm seeing; especially from the likes of pg! I suppose you'll be telling me that Samsung are an example of a morally upstanding company next.
What do you mean by fragmentation FUD? Are you seriously saying that android isn't more fragmented than iOS?
There are 5 resolutions to support in iOS. For most purposes, there are only 2 versions to support. What's the situation like on android?
Just because you don't understand an API, doesn't mean you should trash it. Writing APIs is hard. Last I checked I couldn't have more than 1 map on a screen on android with massive trickery.
I've developed several iOS and Android applications professionally and I've actually spent more time dealing with device-specific issues on iOS than Android. It's true that you do have to deal with different form factors and resolutions in Android but the tools the Android SDK gives you to deal with these issues are so vastly superior to what Apple offers that it comes as a wash in typical cases.
I've been writing software for a living for fifteen years now and I've yet to encounter a more opaque, complex, and unpredictable API than AutoLayout.
Screen resolution is almost meaningless on Android. Form factor is what matters. Phone (1280x720 being the floor for remotely new devices), small tablet, large tablet.
Another benefit I see is that it doesn't actually have the credit/debit numbers printed on the card, so nobody could take a picture of your card and use it to fraudulently purchase things online.
This + Simple would be perfect.