madsci1016 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Insteon, long time maker of smart switches, has disappeared, stranding users (reddit.com)

Submitted by madsci1016 on Friday April 15, 2022 @05:53PM

madsci1016 writes: Long time smart home control device brand Insteon has disappeared overnight. Users woke to hubs no longer connecting to the Insteon cloud server, losing full app control of their smart switches and dimmers. This include loss of all integrations with Amazon Alexa and Google. Insteon support phone numbers are off the hook, and the customer support forum has been taken offline. Users are rallying in r/insteon to help find solutions. "Bridges" (PLMs) needed to allow third party control of Insteon devices are now listing on ebay for $600+. 5x their original price. Yet another example of the folly of trusting a cloud based IoT solution.

Comment Re:IPv6 features missing (Score 1) 198

by madsci1016 on Saturday June 06, 2020 @03:57PM (#60153824) Attached to: Will The Transition To IPv6 Take 5 to 10 Years?

IPv6 is an excellent example of a solution that is computationally elegant to the point where it completely disregards the human interface component. Because of this, it has seen extremely slow adoption, and I believe it may never see full internal network adoption. I think most companies will eventually have IPv6 to their perimeter and do IPv4 internally with translation.

100% accurate.

Windows 10 Now Runs on 1 Billion Devices (venturebeat.com) 61

Posted by msmash on Monday March 16, 2020 @02:40PM from the moving-forward dept.

Windows 10 is now running on over 1 billion monthly active devices, just six months after passing the 900 million device milestone. From a report: Microsoft has been consistently adding 100 million active Windows 10 devices every six months over the past two years. Windows 10 also passed 50% desktop market share in August. The milestone is notable because Microsoft originally aimed to hit 1 billion devices running Windows 10 "in two to three years." A year in, the company backpedaled on that goal after it became clear that Windows 10 Mobile was a failure. (Android has over 2.5 billion monthly active devices.) Windows 10 was released four years and eight months ago in July 2015. It thus took the company more than double its ambitious estimate and 20 months longer than its conservative estimate to pass 1 billion Windows 10 devices.

Comment Re:LOL, NO (Score 1) 66

by madsci1016 on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @10:21PM (#59312504) Attached to: Google Announces the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL Smartphones

" on a phone that Google will likely orphan in a few years, .

That right there outs you as a "never owned a Pixel" user. The pixel/nexus line has been some of the most long term supported phones in history. My wife had a Nexus 4 still getting updates when I owned my first Pixel. It's one of the major selling points that "justifies" it's price. That said, I recently tried a $200 nearly Android stock no-name phone from tmob the other day. Smart phone experience wise, it did match my $800 MSRP (not what I paid) Pixel 3. In every way except the camera. The camera blew. Made me really appreciate how amazing photos my Pixel takes, something more important now that we have our first child, who is now 2. So yeah, $200-$300 gets you a similar smartphone, but the additional $500 gets you one that takes pictures better than a cheap DSLR camera (especially when you don't know how to use an DSLR that well).

Comment Can they install better customer service? (Score 1) 125

by madsci1016 on Monday July 23, 2018 @07:16PM (#56997622) Attached to: American Airlines Is Using a CT Scanner To Screen Luggage At New York's JFK Airport

Now it would be great if American Airlines could also install some better customer service for their customers too...

Submission + - Windows Server 2016 has an Updating Problem 2

Submitted by madsci1016 on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @04:57PM

madsci1016 writes: Frustrated with how long my Windows Server 2016 Essentials was taking to apply weekly updates, I turned to the web. A quick search revealed I'm not alone. Many people are reporting similar experiences across the web. All sharing stories of weekly patching taking hours and sometimes ending in hung welcome screens. Some of these threads started a year ago and are still active, with no response from Microsoft addressing the issue. If you use Server 2016, have you experienced this problem?

Comment Looking at it another way..... (Score 1) 173

by madsci1016 on Monday March 05, 2018 @11:51AM (#56210339) Attached to: Google Fiber Is a Faint Echo of the Disruption We Were Promised

I'm posting this through my $60 100Mb/100Mb AT&T fiber connection from my small town. Should we not credit Google Fiber for rattling the cages of the giants ISPs through competition threat to get them to move forward on products like these? I do.

Submission + - 18th Annual International RoboSub Competition Happening Now in San Diego

Submitted by madsci1016 on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @10:09AM

madsci1016 writes: The 18th Annual International RoboSub Competition is happening this week at the TRANSDEC Naval Testing facility in San Diego, California. 38 teams from around the world have built fully autonomous underwater robots designed to complete a gauntlet of underwater obstacles. No GPS here, advanced image processing and acoustic sensors are your only tools. The competition is open to the public from now until Sunday. A few pictures from the ongoing event can be found here.

Submission + - Amazon's 60 Minutes Shocker? Delivery by Drone Demo

Submitted by theodp on Sunday December 01, 2013 @09:46PM

theodp writes: 60 Minutes has been teasing it would reveal a "big surprise" from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Sunday night's show. Well, the cat's out of the bag — Amazon's big surprise is that it is working on an R&D project to create autonomous flying delivery drones that could deliver packages to customer doorsteps someday in as little as a half an hour. Called "Amazon PrimeAir," Bezos said it will take years to implement the project and get FAA approval, but insists the project is realistic. "I know this looks like science fiction — it's not," Bezos told 60 Minutes. In the words of Yogi Berra, It's deja vu all over again for Segway fans!

Comment Re:Exxon's Response (Score 2) 187

by madsci1016 on Monday September 30, 2013 @02:47PM (#44994613) Attached to: Underwater Sonar Linked To Whale Deaths

Correct, oil surveys are not performed using the same electro-transducer SONAR you find on Subs, they use high pressure air gun arrays which are an order of magnitude louder than SONAR. I've stood near a single air gun transducer fire on its lowest pressure setting and it was disturbing. I'm not surprised there could be a link.

Comment SG-1 (Score 4, Insightful) 182

by madsci1016 on Wednesday January 09, 2013 @09:45PM (#42541189) Attached to: Asteroid Apophis Just Got Bigger

SG-1 Will take care of it no doubt.

Comment Best example of Vaporware I've heard in a while (Score 2, Funny) 130

by madsci1016 on Wednesday November 14, 2012 @11:10PM (#41988095) Attached to: New WiFi Protocol Boosts Congested Wireless Network Throughput By 700%

"We don't have the exact details of the WiFox scheme/protocol, but apparently it increased the throughput of a 45-device WiFi network by 700%, and reduced latency by 30-40%." And what makes this different than Quality of Service (QOS)?

Comment Re:It's over, domain was given to the CM team (Score 1) 143

by madsci1016 on Wednesday November 14, 2012 @10:32PM (#41987797) Attached to: CyanogenMod Domain Hijacked

I'm sorry, his 'apology' is anything but and it offers no explanation to his actions or his emails including this one: “Hi, so you think by removing all my access across the infrastructure was going to be a great idea? We had a chat yesterday, you’ve decided to end this bitter. How about I just change the DNS entries right now. CM will practically go down.” What context could that have been taken out of that doesn't implicate this guy as a horrible, immature person? Either CM is making that quote up or he got the negative attention he deserves and is trying to save face.

Comment Re:Name and shame again and again. (Score 2) 143

by madsci1016 on Wednesday November 14, 2012 @07:20PM (#41986085) Attached to: CyanogenMod Domain Hijacked

His Twitter: https://twitter.com/MrADeveci He's claiming misunderstanding. Anyone buy it? Anyone?

Pumpkin Carving For the Digital Age: Pumpktris 40

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Tuesday October 30, 2012 @08:32PM from the also-electrocutes-neighborhood-vandals dept.

antdude writes "Pumpktris is a fully playable version of Tetris built into a pumpkin, with 128 Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) for the display and the stem serving as a game controller."

Slashdot Top Deals