Terminator 5: Revenge of the Microsoft Fanboy (video)

We know things can get pretty hairy in the war between man and machine. Even in times of peace a foul-mouthed forum troll slagging off your favorite consumer electronics company can be too much to bear. But violence is never the answer. Yes, we're looking at you Mr. Down-on-his-luck series 800. Watch the Leon Wang created story unfold after the break.

Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook

Facebook privacy policies keep going down the drain. That's enough reason for many to abandon it. Here you will find nine more:

After some reflection, I've decided to delete my account on Facebook. I'd like to encourage you to do the same. This is part altruism and part selfish. The altruism part is that I think Facebook, as a company, is unethical. The selfish part is that I'd like my own social network to migrate away from Facebook so that I'm not missing anything. In any event, here's my "Top Ten" reasons for why you should join me and many others and delete your account.

10. Facebook's Terms Of Service are completely one-sided

Let's start with the basics. Facebook's Terms Of Service state that not only do they own your data (section 2.1), but if you don't keep it up to date and accurate (section 4.6), they can terminate your account (section 14). You could argue that the terms are just protecting Facebook's interests, and are not in practice enforced, but in the context of their other activities, this defense is pretty weak. As you'll see, there's no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. Essentially, they see their customers as unpaid employees for crowd-sourcing ad-targeting data.

9. Facebook's CEO has a documented history of unethical behavior

From the very beginning of Facebook's existence, there are questions about Zuckerberg's ethics. According to BusinessInsider.com, he used Facebook user data to guess email passwords and read personal email in order to discredit his rivals. These allegations, albeit unproven and somewhat dated, nonetheless raise troubling questions about the ethics of the CEO of the world's largest social network. They're particularly compelling given that Facebook chose to fork over $65M to settle a related lawsuit alleging that Zuckerberg had actually stolen the idea for Facebook.

8. Facebook has flat out declared war on privacy

Founder and CEO of Facebook, in defense of Facebook's privacy changes last January: "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time." More recently, in introducing the Open Graph API: "... the default is now social." Essentially, this means Facebook not only wants to know everything about you, and own that data, but to make it available to everybody. Which would not, by itself, necessarily be unethical, except that ...

7. Facebook is pulling a classic bait-and-switch

At the same time that they're telling developers how to access your data with new APIs, they are relatively quiet about explaining the implications of that to members. What this amounts to is a bait-and-switch. Facebook gets you to share information that you might not otherwise share, and then they make it publicly available. Since they are in the business of monetizing information about you for advertising purposes, this amounts to tricking their users into giving advertisers information about themselves. This is why Facebook is so much worse than Twitter in this regard: Twitter has made only the simplest (and thus, more credible) privacy claims and their customers know up front that all their tweets are public. It's also why the FTC is getting involved, and people are suing them (and winning).

Check out this excellent timeline from the EFF documenting the changes to Facebook's privacy policy.

6. Facebook is a bully

When Pete Warden demonstrated just how this bait-and-switch works (by crawling all the data that Facebook's privacy settings changes had inadvertently made public) they sued him. Keep in mind, this happened just before they announced the Open Graph API and stated that the "default is now social." So why sue an independent software developer and fledgling entrepreneur for making data publicly available when you're actually already planning to do that yourself? Their real agenda is pretty clear: they don't want their membership to know how much data is really available. It's one thing to talk to developers about how great all this sharing is going to be; quite another to actually see what that means in the form of files anyone can download and load into MatLab.

5. Even your private data is shared with applications

At this point, all your data is shared with applications that you install. Which means now you're not only trusting Facebook, but the application developers, too, many of whom are too small to worry much about keeping your data secure. And some of whom might be even more ethically challenged than Facebook. In practice, what this means is that all your data - all of it - must be effectively considered public, unless you simply never use any Facebook applications at all. Coupled with the OpenGraph API, you are no longer trusting Facebook, but the Facebook ecosystem.

4. Facebook is not technically competent enough to be trusted

Even if we weren't talking about ethical issues here, I can't trust Facebook's technical competence to make sure my data isn't hijacked. For example, their recent introduction of their "Like" button makes it rather easy for spammers to gain access to my feed and spam my social network. Or how about this gem for harvesting profile data? These are just the latest of a series of Keystone Kops mistakes, such as accidentally making users' profiles completely public, or the cross-site scripting hole that took them over two weeks to fix. They either don't care too much about your privacy or don't really have very good engineers, or perhaps both.

3. Facebook makes it incredibly difficult to truly delete your account

It's one thing to make data public or even mislead users about doing so; but where I really draw the line is that, once you decide you've had enough, it's pretty tricky to really delete your account. They make no promises about deleting your data and every application you've used may keep it as well. On top of that, account deletion is incredibly (and intentionally) confusing. When you go to your account settings, you're given an option to deactivate your account, which turns out not to be the same thing as deleting it. Deactivating means you can still be tagged in photos and be spammed by Facebook (you actually have to opt out of getting emails as part of the deactivation, an incredibly easy detail to overlook, since you think you're deleting your account). Finally, the moment you log back in, you're back like nothing ever happened! In fact, it's really not much different from not logging in for awhile. To actually delete your account, you have to find a link buried in the on-line help (by "buried" I mean it takes five clicks to get there). Or you can just click here. Basically, Facebook is trying to trick their users into allowing them to keep their data even after they've "deleted" their account.

2. Facebook doesn't (really) support the Open Web

The so-called Open Graph API is named so as to disguise its fundamentally closed nature. It's bad enough that the idea here is that we all pitch in and make it easier than ever to help Facebook collect more data about you. It's bad enough that most consumers will have no idea that this data is basically public. It's bad enough that they claim to own this data and are aiming to be the one source for accessing it. But then they are disingenuous enough to call it "open," when, in fact, it is completely proprietary to Facebook. You can't use this feature unless you're on Facebook. A truly open implementation would work with whichever social network we prefer, and it would look something like OpenLike. Similarly, they implement just enough of OpenID to claim they support it, while aggressively promoting a proprietary alternative, Facebook Connect.

1. The Facebook application itself sucks

Between the farms and the mafia wars and the "top news" (which always guesses wrong - is that configurable somehow?) and the myriad privacy settings and the annoying ads (with all that data about me, the best they can apparently do is promote dating sites, because, uh, I'm single) and the thousands upon thousands of crappy applications, Facebook is almost completely useless to me at this point. Yes, I could probably customize it better, but the navigation is ridiculous, so I don't bother. (And, yet, somehow, I can't even change colors or apply themes or do anything to make my page look personalized.) Let's not even get into how slowly your feed page loads. Basically, at this point, Facebook is more annoying than anything else.

Facebook is clearly determined to add every feature of every competing social network in an attempt to take over the Web (this is a never-ending quest that goes back to AOL and those damn CDs that were practically falling out of the sky). While Twitter isn't the most usable thing in the world, at least they've tried to stay focused and aren't trying to be everything to everyone.

I often hear people talking about Facebook as though they were some sort of monopoly or public trust. Well, they aren't. They owe us nothing. They can do whatever they want, within the bounds of the laws. (And keep in mind, even those criteria are pretty murky when it comes to social networking.) But that doesn't mean we have to actually put up with them. Furthermore, their long-term success is by no means guaranteed - have we all forgotten MySpace? Oh, right, we have. Regardless of the hype, the fact remains that Sergei Brin or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett could personally acquire a majority stake in Facebook without even straining their bank account. And Facebook's revenue remains more or less a rounding error for more established tech companies.

While social networking is a fun new application category enjoying remarkable growth, Facebook isn't the only game in town. I don't like their application nor how they do business and so I've made my choice to use other providers. And so can you.

How the iPad Killed HP's Slate

In a sense, the iPad was released twice in the span of one month. First, the iPad wifi hit stores April 3rd, and seemed to be nothing short of a successful launch. 27 days later, on April 30th, the iPad 3G was released into the wild. Again, the lines formed around the Apple stores as fans awaited the launch of their highly-anticipated 3G-enabled iPad.

Many said the iPad was a stupid idea. Heck, some still do. After all, it can't multi-task, it doesn't have Flash and it doesn't exactly do anything a laptop can't do. Yet somehow, Apple's latest gadget was able to see two successful launches. HP, who was destined to give the iPad a run for its money, can't even manage one. But why?

There is no denying that the iPad had heavy press coverage even before it was confirmed as true. Apple was the big winner of CES 2010…and the company wasn't even there. Yet all the media and tech blogs could talk about was Apple's new magical device.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer even went on to show off Hewlet Packard's upcoming slate during the pre-CES keynote. Whether it was in an attempt to beat Apple to the punch in popularizing slate computing, or mere coincidence, he made sure to show off the Windows 7 tablet at the show. it never came. Sometimes it's common for a major company to spill big money into a product, demo the device and have it never see the light of day.

Last week it was reported that HP had canceled their tablet. According to some media outlets, HP was not satisfied with Windows 7 as a tablet OS.

On paper, When compared to the iPad, HP Slate should have provided a strong competitor for Apple's device; it multi-tasks, runs flash, has a (when looking strictly an numbers) stronger processor, built-in webcam HDMI out, USB 2.0 port. Engadget tallied up their specs and found that pound-for-pound, the HP tablet may easily seem like the wiser purchase. Almost all of those advantages are things that Apple's machine has been criticized for. It should have been a sure-fire winner among Windows users. It could be that the device was destined to run a standard version of Windows 7 rather than an optimized Windows 7 more suitable for mobile devices. The image below shows the specifications of each device next to each other:

(Image: Engadget)

It's easy to play the spec game; load your product with features and narrow it down to the essentials to put in only what is needed for the time. However, this also opens up the difficult strategy of improving your product up in incremental releases and capturing the audience each time. A strategy Apple is very familiar with. There is a difference between taking a risk to make a breakthrough and just following through with what's hot. HP took an easier route while Apple, as they like to do, decided to place added importance on the future of slate computing. So far, it seems to have paid off.

When creating a tablet computer, which amounts to what is essentially a laptop without a keyboard, its about holding a device upright in your hands. With standard laptops users have the luxury or setting it on a desk or just resting their hands on their computer while they wait for a page to load. A minute wait for a program to launch seems a lot longer when holding up the computer with your hands, as is the case with a tablet. When holding something in their hands, people naturally opt for total control. Chances are that Apple realized this early on as they struggled to create the iPhone. They likely had a good idea as to how far they would have to optimize their OS to run on a tablet. Which put Apple at a major advantage when designing the user interface.

Often when reducing the size of a device, battery life has to be sacrificed, because the battery is also becoming smaller. Run a full-fledged operating system like Windows seven on a tablet, complete with all the bells and whistles of a laptop. Battery performance is going to suffer. Chances are that HP saw this as a potential problem and knew that this was not the time to invest in a Windows slate. Combine that with the megaton load of media exposure Apple had before, during and after the iPad announcement and even running through it's release it's hard to see yourself in the top spot against them.

HP's tablet wasn't the only casualty of the iPad's extensive media coverage and popularity. Microsoft canceled their Courier. The device was said to be a tablet PC (or two? Sort of?) hinged together at the side, almost like a book. Perhaps it wasn't made with the same sort of drive that Apple products are always pushed with. It's rumored that Jobs' tough management techniques have made people cry. In a 2007 book entitled The No A--hole Rule, it was said that, "[Jobs] inspires astounding effort and creativity from his people," and that a Silicon Valley insider told the author that he had seen Jobs verbally thrash several employees and make some of them cry, though this insider finished with saying that Jobs "was almost always right." It brought out some of the best work in people, no doubt. However, it's also important to remember that unlike Apple, Microsoft isn't a hardware-focused company, but that's what works for them.

What made the iPad so popular in the end, however, was it's ease of use. It may seem hard to imagine, but to some older people, the computer mouse is a strange concept. It has nothing to do with their intelligence, they simply haven't been exposed to it as much as we have. But a device that trims the user experience down to nothing more than pointing at where you want to go has already changed some lives. (That sounds like a stretch, but please watch the heartwarming video of a 100-year-old woman learning to use her first computer, an iPad.)

iSmashPhone even ran the iPad through the child test. Putting a 5-year-old on a computer for the first time didn't exactly work out as easily as we imagined. However, the kid is very familiar with his Nintendo DS. For simplicity's sake, upon presenting him with the iPad, we just told him it was a new computer for the house. The more hands-on pointing interface of the iPad worked. Now he says he likes the iPad better than his DS and cartoons. It's fascinating to see how computing becomes totally different for him than it was for our generation.

The thing is, technology isn't always about the fastest processor or how many USB ports you can cram into your device. Sometimes it's about making for a satisfying experience without the hassle of too many plugs and adapters. Sometimes it's about making at least one aspect of life a little bit easier.

In the end, it's about the experience, not always what's under the hood.

That said, we truly hope that HP has learned from their failed Slate project and can use their purchase of Palm to improve their approach. Even though we do have a love for our Apple products, we have even more of a love for the technology industry. The last thing we want to see if Apple shutting off the tablet space to the rest of the industry. Competition, after all, is the father of invention.

NVIDIA VP says 'Moore's law is dead'

NVIDIA and Intel haven't been shy about their differing respective visions of the future of computing in the past year or so, but it looks like Team GPU just upped the rhetoric a little -- a Forbes column by NVIDIA VP Bill Dally argues that "Moore's law is dead." Given that Moore's law is arguably the foundation of Intel's entire business, such a statement is a huge shot across the bow; though other companies like AMD are guided by the doctrine, Intel's relentless pursuit of Gordon Moore's vision has become a focal point and rallying cry for the world's largest chipmaker.

So what's Dally's solution to the death of Moore's law? For everyone to buy into parallel computing, where -- surprise, surprise -- NVIDIA's GPUs thrive. Dally says that dual, quad- and hex-core solutions are inefficient -- he likens multi-core chips to "trying to build an airplane by putting wings on a train," and says that only ground-up parallel solutions designed for energy efficiency will bring back the golden age of doubling performance every two years. That sounds fantastic, but as far as power consumption is concerned, well, perhaps NVIDIA had best lead by example.

Smartphone sales jump 50%, Apple 3rd largest vendor globally

Global sales of smartphones surged by 50%, growing from 35.9 million units in the year ago quarter to 54 million units in the first quarter of 2010, the strongest growth rate in several years.

A report by MarketWatch cited figures released by Strategy Analytics, which said smartphones now make up 18% of all mobile phone sales.

Strong sales of smartphones are "driven by healthy operator subsidies, competition between vendors, and a rising number of cheaper models," the report noted, citing Android and Symbian specifically as operating system platforms fueling growth in low cost handsets.

Smartphone makers are not all competing in the same markets however. Strategy Analytics said that "some smartphone vendors, such as Nokia, will chase growing mid-tier volumes in emerging markets such as China and India," while "brands, such as Motorola will focus on mature markets like the US."

Motorola has returned to profitability after giving up high volumes of mobile phone sales to focus on higher-end smartphones like the Android-based Droid/Milestone, which is often described as the closest rival to Apple's iPhone.

Meanwhile, Nokia is struggling to retain its leadership position by focusing on emerging markets. The company sold a record 21.5 million smartphones in the first quarter, but it largely sold cheaper models "in regions including China and South America, while North America remained a 'problem child' for the company," the report stated.

Behind Nokia, RIM sold 10.6 million BlackBerries, keeping Apple in third place globally with its record 8.8 million iPhone sales for the quarter. Apple's share of smartphone sales for the quarter, at 16.4%, is up from the 14.4% share it earned in general during 2009 and up from 10.6% in the year ago quarter.

Apple's growth in the first quarter made it the number one mobile vendor among all US phone makers. Globally, Apple reached a record high of 3% global market shareamong all mobile phone makers.

RIM's second-place share, at 19.7%, remained relatively static, falling slightly from its 20.3% of the smartphone market in the year ago quarter. Nokia's smartphone sales are up from 38.2% in the year ago quarter to 40% this year. Nokia's definition of smartphones includes a variety of simple, low cost phones that mostly run Symbian.