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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: Are you gonna get the iPhone "X"?
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 09-14-2017 10:52 PM
I had an Android phone until last December, when I was forced to replace it because the processor in it simply wasn't powerful enough to run a GPS navigation app without constant freezing and crashing. At that point I got an iPhone 6, largely at my wife's insistence (the selling point for her being that Facetime is so much better than Skype, and would enable video conversations with my son when I was away for 12-15 hours at a time).
I don't like the Crapple control freakery, the fact that you can't replace the battery without performing major surgery, and the clunky, unintuitive email app compared to the Android one; but I'm forced to admit that Facetime is definitely a killer app, and it runs Waze without any problems, or even getting warm. As those are about the only two things I use it for, no complaints.
When I started a new job in June, I was issued with an iPhone 7 by my employer. Impressions are similar, but the camera on the 7 is a big improvement. I can take a picture of 72 multi-pin connectors on a board in an NEC before swapping it out, and zoom it in enough to use it as a guide to refit them all after installing the replacement board. The resolution on the 6's camera isn't quite good enough to use it for that. It can pick up an astonishing amount of detail even in almost zero ambient light, too.
However, would I be willing to part with a grand of my own cash (or sign a 10-year lockin contract at $80 a month, or something extortionate like that) for another slight evolutionary improvement on this machine? That's about as likely to happen as Fatboy Kim is to join the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 09-15-2017 01:50 AM
quote: Justin Hamaker
I don't know how well Apple's face recognition will work, but I don't expect that using a picture would work. I just started using the facial recognition on my Samsung S8 about a week ago and the results are very mixed. In perfect lighting it works so fast I almost don't know the phone was locked to begin with. However, is the lighting or angle are off by too much then it won't work at all. With the Android phones you have to use a PIN to disable the biometrics, so a thief would almost have to cut off your finger or they wouldn't be able to keep the phone unlocked.
It uses a so called dot-projector, much like the Microsoft Kinect does. It projects a specific infrared dot pattern on your face and by the deformation of this pattern it can get a depth pattern of your face. It would not actually need to extract the depth pattern as such, it could also simply compare the dot-pattern of your original face scan with the current one.
So, holding a picture of someone else in front of it won't work. I guess to trick it, you would need a facial mask that closely matches the contours of your subject.
quote: Leo Enticknap
I don't like the Crapple control freakery, the fact that you can't replace the battery without performing major surgery
Unfortunately, this isn't an Apple-only problem, Samsung for example, did their best to copy Apple on this one years ago. It's funny how most of the top-end smart-phones all don't allow you to replace the battery.
Those non-user serviceable batteries probably infringe on European consumer laws, which clearly state that all so called "consumables" are required to be easily replaceable. Since they aren't, I guess they are now part of the device and no consumables anymore, so they should be covered by the same mandatory 2 year manufacturer warranty as the device itself.
It's interesting to see that most people with some technical affinity usually prefer Android above iPhone. I guess it's because they are more aware of the constrains and possible risks of an Apple Walled Garden.
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David Stambaugh
Film God
Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted 09-15-2017 12:54 PM
"The recent Equifax hack, combined with numerous other security breaches, has me pretty pissed at certain software developers and even more pissed at Microsoft. It seems pretty safe to assume the "hole" used in the Equifax breach involved a Windows PC at some level."
The Equifax hack was an unpatched vulnerability in open-source Apache Struts software. Patch was available but Equifax failed to install it.
https://www.enterprisetech.com/2017/09/15/equifax-ignored-apache-struts-patch-months/
In the aftermath of the second massive security breach at Equifax Inc. in four years, the Apache Foundation confirmed this week the data breach stemmed from the consumer credit reporting agency's failure to install patches to Apache Struts, an open source framework used to build Java web applications.
In a statement released Thursday (Sept. 14), the foundation said a vulnerability in Apache Struts, an open source framework for creating "enterprise-grade" Java web applications, was announced and patched on March 7, 2017. Six months later, Atlanta-based Equifax announced a data breach affecting an estimated 143 million consumers.
"The Equifax data compromise was due to their failure to install the security updates provided in a timely manner," the Apache Foundation statement concluded.
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Frank Cox
Film God
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 09-15-2017 07:03 PM
In the specific case of Equifax, there are two issues (in my opinion).
First, their security manager has no education in computers, technology, or security. She has a degree in music composition. ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Second, Apache Struts is one of those Frankenstein monsters that's grown far past the point where anyone really understands what it does, and that includes the folks who develop and maintain the framework itself. Not to mention that Struts is built on Java, which brings its own set of issues to the table, and it simply boggles my mind how many large outfits use that thing.
But then, what do I know. I don't have a degree in music composition, after all.
EDIT: Actually I do know why large outfits use Apache Struts. It makes web application development very quick and easy. Security and doing it right be damned if we're paying those programmer yahoos by the hour, right? And who was the lowest bidder, again?
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 09-17-2017 10:45 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Actually, if you're operating in Equifax's field of business and a single security exploit in a single piece of software you're using can cause a data breach this massive, you're simply doing it *WRONG*.
It's surprising how many seriously mission critical systems (healthcare, financial services, you name it) have been found to have had vulnerabilities like that.
One of the UK's largest retail banks pretty much melted down as the result of a botched attempt to install an update patch. That one stuck in my mind, because I was in the process of putting my financial affairs in order in preparation for emigrating from the UK to the USA at the time, and that caused me a lot of time consuming problems. All the traffic lights in a small city near here suddenly went red and stayed red for a day and a half last year, thanks to similar systems maintenance that went wrong and the backup system not having been tested before the primary one was taken down for maintenance.
Scary to say, but this sort of thing happens way more often than it should, and it's usually the result of not taking simple precautions around backing up, basic security and/or software installation that I was taught as a high school kid in the 1980s on BBC Micros and Sinclair Spectrums...
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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 09-19-2017 04:23 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Unfortunately, this isn't an Apple-only problem, Samsung for example, did their best to copy Apple on this one years ago. It's funny how most of the top-end smart-phones all don't allow you to replace the battery.
As much as I hate it, there are some engineering reasons behind this. First and foremost, it moves all of the lithium ion safety circuitry to the board in the phone. While this is a cost reduction for batteries, the biggest benefit is that it ensures that 3rd party (Chinese knockoff) batteries are properly protected from over voltage and short circuit conditions.
As a side benefit, it makes it easier to design thinner phones. It also gets rid of issues with intermittent loss of contact on the battery connector.
Once battery life was long enough and charging time short enough that people didn't need to change batteries during the day, the integrated battery became a no brainer.
Us losers that don't replace our phone every 18 months just have to do the battery surgery or keep it on a charger all the time after a while.
The biggest pain of the "surgery" required to replace a battery in many phones is the adhesives that they like to use that seem to turn into high strength epoxy from the heat over time.
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