Showing posts with label Analysis. Show all posts
Steve Jobs explains why Macs don't sport "Intel Inside" stickers
In a recent interview, outgoing Intel CEO Paul Otellini explained how he passed up on an opportunity to get Intel chips inside the original iPhone.
According to Otellini, Apple and Intel couldn't come to terms regarding cost. Further, Otellini explained that he simply had no way of knowing how successful and ubiquitous the iPhone would go on to become.
While there's no way to know for sure just how seriously Apple was considering Intel as a partner for the iPhone, I couldn't help but laugh at the notion of an iPhone sporting an "Intel Inside" sticker on the back. Of course, Apple would have never allowed such a thing in a million years, but the thought reminded me of an old video where Steve Jobs is asked why Apple doesn't put "Intel Inside" stickers on its Macs.
The video is from August, 2007 and is of a Q&A session that followed an Apple special media event where the first aluminum iMac was introduced.
Comically, the very premise of the question elicits laughter from both Tim Cook and Phil Schiller.
Jobs, always masterful when put on the spot, evokes laughter and applause from the audience when he responds sharply, "What can I say? We like our own stickers better."
Jobs, of course, follows that up with praise for Intel.
Don't get me wrong. We love working with Intel. We're very proud to ship Intel products in Macs. I mean, they are screamers. And combined with our operating system, we've really tuned them well together, so we're really proud of that. It's just that everyone knows we're using Intel processors, and so I think putting a lot of stickers on the box is just redundant. We'd rather tell them about the product inside the box, and they know it's got an Intel processor.
Makes sense to me.
Hacker Hat Details "Black Hats, White Hats & Gray Hats"
Hackers aren’t inherently bad — the word “hacker” doesn’t mean “criminal” or “bad guy.” Geeks and tech writers often refer to “black hat,” “white hat,” and “gray hat” hackers. These terms define different groups of hackers based on their behavior.
The definition of the word “hacker” is controversial, and could mean either someone who compromises computer security or a skilled developer in the free software or open-source movements.
Black Hats
Black-hat hackers, or simply “black hats,” are the type of hacker the popular media seems to focus on. Black-hat hackers violate computer security for personal gain (such as stealing credit card numbers or harvesting personal data for sale to identity thieves) or for pure maliciousness (such as creating a botnet and using that botnet to perform DDOS attacks against websites they don’t like.)
Black hats fit the widely-held stereotype that hackers are criminals performing illegal activities for personal gain and attacking others. They’re the computer criminals.
A black-hat hacker who finds a new, “zero-day” security vulnerability would sell it to criminal organizations on the black market or use it to compromise computer systems.
Media portrayals of black-hat hackers may be accompanied by silly stock photos like the below one, which is intended as a parody.
White Hats
White-hat hackers are the opposite of the black-hat hackers. They’re the “ethical hackers,” experts in compromising computer security systems who use their abilities for good, ethical, and legal purposes rather than bad, unethical, and criminal purposes.
For example, many white-hat hackers are employed to test an organizations’ computer security systems. The organization authorizes the white-hat hacker to attempt to compromise their systems. The white-hat hacker uses their knowledge of computer security systems to compromise the organization’s systems, just as a black hat hacker would. However, instead of using their access to steal from the organization or vandalize its systems, the white-hat hacker reports back to the organization and informs them of how they gained access, allowing the organization to improve their defenses. This is known as “penetration testing,” and it’s one example of an activity performed by white-hat hackers.
A white-hat hacker who finds a security vulnerability would disclose it to the developer, allowing them to patch their product and improve its security before it’s compromised. Various organizations pay “bounties” or award prizes for revealing such discovered vulnerabilities, compensating white-hats for their work.
Gray Hats
Very few things in life are clear black-and-white categories. In reality, there’s often a gray area. A gray-hat hacker falls somewhere between a black hat and a white hat. A gray hat doesn’t work for their own personal gain or to cause carnage, but they may technically commit crimes and do arguably unethical things.
For example, a black hat hacker would compromise a computer system without permission, stealing the data inside for their own personal gain or vandalizing the system. A white-hat hacker would ask for permission before testing the system’s security and alert the organization after compromising it. A gray-hat hacker might attempt to compromise a computer system without permission, informing the organization after the fact and allowing them to fix the problem. While the gray-hat hacker didn’t use their access for bad purposes, they compromised a security system without permission, which is illegal.
If a gray-hat hacker discovers a security flaw in a piece of software or on a website, they may disclose the flaw publically instead of privately disclosing the flaw to the organization and giving them time to fix it. They wouldn’t take advantage of the flaw for their own personal gain — that would be black-hat behavior — but the public disclosure could cause carnage as black-hat hackers tried to take advantage of the flaw before it was fixed.
Today's Top 20 Sites
1. Google - Enables users to search the world's information, including webpages, images, and videos. Offers unique features and search technology.
2. Facebook - A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos.
3. YouTube - YouTube is a way to get your videos to the people who matter to you. Upload, tag and share your videos worldwide!
4. Yahoo! - A major internet portal and service provider offering search results, customizable content, chatrooms, free e-mail, clubs, and pager.
5. Baidu.com - The leading Chinese language search engine, provides "simple and reliable" search experience, strong in Chinese language and multi-media content including MP3 music and movies, the first to offer WAP and PDA-based mobile search in China.
6. Wikipedia - A free encyclopedia built collaboratively using wiki software. (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License).
7. Windows Live - Search engine from Microsoft.
8. Amazon.com - Amazon.com seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Site has numerous personalization features and services including one-click buying, extensive customer and editorial product reviews, gift registries, gift certificates, wish lists, restaurant and movie listings, travel, and photo processing.
9. QQ.COM - China's largest and most used Internet service portal owned by Tencent, Inc founded in November, 1998. Presently, Tencent is aiming its operations at the strategic goal of providing users with a "one-stop online life service". Tencent's Internet platforms QQ, QQ.com, QQ Games, and PaiPai.com have brought together China's largest Internet community. Tencent's communications and information-sharing services include QQ.com, QQ Instant Messenger, QQ Mail, and search engine SOSO. Linked up with heavily used features such as forums, chat rooms, and QQ Groups, Tencent's Qzone has grown into China's largest personal Internet space. These services foster group interaction and resource sharing. Virtual products such as QQ Show, QQ Pet, QQ Game, and QQ Music/Radio/Live have been successful in providing entertainment and customization options to users. Mobile phone users can take advantage of a number of value-added wireless services. Tencent's PaiPai.com is a C2C on-line shopping platform that seamlessly integrates into Tencent's other community platforms.As of June 30th, 2009, the number of registered QQ Instant Messenger users has reached 990.0 million. Active users numbered at 448.0 million. Peak concurrent users have reached 61.30 million. QQ Games platform counted about 6.2 million users simultaneously on-line. QQ.com has become China's most visited Internet portal website. PaiPai.com has also become China's second largest Internet shopping platform.
10. Taobao.com - Launched in 2003, Taobao Marketplace (www.taobao.com) is a popular consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online marketplace in China. With more than 800 million product listings and more than 500 million registered users, Taobao Marketplace is the primary online shopping destination for the largest online population in the world and is one of the world’s top 20 most visited websites.
11. Blogspot.com
12. Twitter - Social networking and microblogging service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface.
13. Google India - Indian version of this popular search engine. Search the whole web or only webpages from India. Interfaces offered in English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi and Tamil.
14. LinkedIn - A networking tool to find connections to recommended job candidates, industry experts and business partners. Allows registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business.
15. Yahoo! Japan - Japanese version of popular portal site.
16. Bing - Search engine developed by Microsoft. Features web, image, video, local, news, and product search.
17. 新浪新闻中心 - 包括即日的国内外不同类型的新闻与评论，人物专题，图库。
18. Яндекс - Поиск информации в интернете с учетом русской морфологии, возможность регионального уточнения. Параллельный поиск по новостям, картинкам, товарам, блогам, адресам организаций.
19. MSN - Portal for shopping, news and money, e-mail, search, and chat.
20. eBay - International person to person auction site, with products sorted into categories.
All Site Information collected from Alexa.com