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Comment Re:Why RCS? (Score 1) 77

by zixxt (#60743084) Attached to: Google is Rolling Out End-To-End Encryption for RCS in Android Messages Beta

I disagree. SMS is not free, and it is controlled by megacorporations (phone carriers).
SMS doesn't work (or at least, not well) on a non-cellular, Internet-connected devices such as PCs and tablets.

Say what? SMS is free! It's been free for most of the world for the past 10-15 years. When I did not have have cell phone service I used to SMS/MMS my friends everyday all just by using E-Mail. And I still use email to SMS/MMS back and forth whilst on my Desktop when I'm too lazy to hunt down my phone.

Comment Re:Pennsylvanians never learn (Score 0) 89

by zixxt (#59143746) Attached to: Google Contractors In Pittsburgh Are Unionizing With a Steel Workers Union

I grew up outside of Pittsburgh when the steel industry collapsed. There were many factors for this, but a large part was the absurdly large salaries that the steel workers were making made the price of US steel completely uncompetitive. It was a case of the unions being too strong, and demanding too much money. All things in life need a balance..

Tell that to the CEO's and board members making too much money and being too strong first before you rant against the workers.

Submission + - How Much Do Tech Startups Care About Ethics & Social Issues? (brightest.io)

Submitted by chrisbolman
chrisbolman writes: It's common for startups to say they're "changing the world." But an equally interesting question is: which startups are changing the world for the better? This analysis of 40,461 U.S. startups in 8 cities — Austin, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, NYC, SF, and Seattle — looks to better understand the state of startup social impact and tech ethics.

Submission + - Can New Jersey Ban the Distribution of Computer Files That Can Help Make Guns? (reason.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: A hearing is scheduled on January 15 in a U.S. District Court in Austin, Texas, in a federal lawsuit over the state of New Jersey's law that bars distributing digital information that could assist in making a gun to anyone in that state who is not a registered or licensed gun manufacturer.

Defense Distributed, a company founded by Cody Wilson, inventor of the first plastic 3D-printed pistol, and dedicated to distributing hardware and software aiding in home gunsmithing, is involved in a multi-front legal battle over the distribution of their digital files. In this particular case, they are insisting that the Jersey law violates "violates the First Amendment, Commerce Clause, and Supremacy Clause."

Their argument is based on the principle that computer code counts as speech protected by the First Amendment. As the suit says, "New Jersey's law obviously imposes content-based speech restrictions, in that its penalties apply only to speech with this content: 'digital instructions' that 'may be used to program a three-dimensional printer to manufacture or produce a firearm, firearm receiver, magazine, or firearm component.'"

In addition, "the statute covers not just actual distribution of the 'instructions' at issue, but also an 'advertise[ment]' of instructions or an 'offer' of instructions. But of course, if no actual delivery of the instructions occurs, none of the state interests that could possibly justify the statute come into play."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: what laptop to buy for my first employee ? 2

Submitted by vikingpower
vikingpower writes: Until now, yours truly has been running as a one-man freelancer show. However, since January 1 the first employee is here, and of course I'm mighty proud of a stellarly clever young person working for me. She works remote (I'm in one European capital, she in another), and I need to buy her a laptop. That's a bit of a puzzle: as she's straight out of university and a non-techie, she basically only knows one OS: Windows, although she could get comfortable with Mac OS. However, as a long-time (server-side) programmer, I feel Apple hardware is seriously over-priced. Also, my brilliant firstemployee will mostly do research, and hardly needs anything more than a browser, Office or Office-like software (yes, I'm looking at you, Libre Office, and I love you!), and bibliography software. Should I get her a Chromebook ? A mid-level laptop with ye standarde OEM Windows installation ? Any thoughts ?

Submission + - Lasers vs. Microwaves: The Billion-Dollar Bet on the Future of Magnetic Storage (ieee.org)

Submitted by Wave723
Wave723 writes: "For most of the past 50 years, the areal density of hard disks—a measure of how many bits of data that engineers can squeeze into a given area—increased by an average of nearly 40 percent each year. Lately, though, that rate has slowed to around 10 percent. Everyone who works on magnetic storage is well aware of this problem, but only in the past year or so have executives from Seagate Technology and Western Digital, the leading manufacturers of hard drives, very publicly split on how to solve it."

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