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Comment Re:SiriusXM (Score 5, Informative) 113

by caballew (#42773943) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How Long Do We Give an Online Service To Fix Issues?

Case in point is Sirius Satellite Radio. last year just before I paid for the next year they dropped a station that happened to be what I mostly listened to. When I called them up, they offered a reduced rate. This year when it was time to renew, I called them up and they again offered me a discounted rate. I'm still with them because I am paying what I consider is fair for the service. If they do not offer me a discount next year I will drop it.

I found that if you disable auto-renew, then when it's renewal time they don't cut you off for a few weeks while they try desperately to contact you. After a week or so, finally answer the phone and tell them their service is too expensive. Every year, they "check" with a retention supervisor and then offer me a reduced rate of ~$6/mo if I prepay for a year. That's less than 1/2 of their regular rate.

Comment Re:"could have a big problem" (Score 3, Interesting) 232

by caballew (#41774263) Attached to: Trouble For Microsoft Developers With the Windows Store
I don't see MS and/or PCs being marginalized simply because business won't adopt Win 8 RT if it means their in-house software as well as other specialized software can't be used unless MS approves it in their App store. This might affect individuals but not business clients from small business to enterprise clients. With these restrictions, development for Android will only grow while development for Win 8 RT will whither after the initial rush of early development. Sorta like how SPARC and DEC lost out in the business desktop and small server application race; poor business model equals failure. There are still way too many businesses using XP that haven't even upgraded to Win7 because of legacy and in-house software .
Space

Submission + - Small Telescopes Make Big Discoveries

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Hakeem Oluseyi, an astronomer at the Florida Institute of Technology and president of the African Astronomical Society, says his goal is to put one research telescope in every country, starting with African and Southern Hemisphere nations because there is now an amazing opportunity for small telescopes to discover and characterize new planetary systems, as well as measure the structure of the Milky Way. "Astronomers are no longer looking at high-definition pictures but at HD movies, scanning for objects that change and for transient ones," says Oluseyi. "A 4-inch telescope was used to discover the first exoplanet by the transit method, where you watch the brightness vary." Small telescopes capable to doing real science are a lot cheaper than people think. A 1-meter telescope costs $300,000 but reduce the size by 60 percent, and it falls to just $30,000. For example the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) uses hardware costing less than $75,000 to look at millions of very bright stars at once, over broad sections of sky, and at low resolution to see if the starlight dims just a little — an indication that a planet has crossed in front of the star. The KELT team has already discovered the existence of a very unusual faraway planet — KELT-1b, a super hot, super dense ball of metallic hydrogen so massive that it may better be described as a 'failed star' and located so close to its star that it whips through an entire "yearly" orbit in a little over a day."

Submission + - Japanese Carrier is in talks to acquire Sprint (thenextweb.com) 1

Submitted by caballew
caballew writes: Japanese carrier Softbank has engaged in talks to acquire two-third's of U.S. carrier Sprint. This acquisition will expand its bandwidth and LTE service domestically while also giving it a large foothold into the US market.
Iphone

Submission + - 'Arrogant' Apple should be building bigger iPhones (bgr.com)

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: Never one to mince words, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has once again offered up some solid criticism of the company he helped build. In an interview with TechCentral, Wozniak called Apple “arrogant” and said the reason the iPhone 5 doesn’t have a larger display — both wider and taller — is because the company thinks it’s “the only one with the right clue.” In a recent television commercial, Apple stressed the fact that all of the iPhone 5s 4-inch display can be reached comfortably with a thumb during one-handed use, but Wozniak wants a bigger panel and thinks Apple should have made two different iPhone models, a smaller one and a larger one...
Linux

Submission + - Linux Developers Still Reject NVIDIA Using DMA-BUF (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Many Linux laptop users are quick to bash NVIDIA over their lack of proper Optimus support. In August NVIDIA confirmed they were working on NVIDIA Optimus Linux support. As part of their Optimus Linux implementation they want to use DMA-BUF for the multi-GPU interactions just like the open-source drivers, so that they can all work together. Unfortunately, the developers of the linux kernel prevent NVIDIA to finish their implementation by not allowing non-GPL drivers to use this unified buffer sharing infrastructure.

Should NVIDIA use the F-word to respond to their intransigence ?
Security

Submission + - Conficker worm still being tracked, but evidence collection slows (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: The notorious malware known as the Conficker worm still infects computers, a sort of wild horse with no rider, but investigators appear no closer to finding its creator. Also known as "Downandup," Conficker was discovered in November 2008, exploiting a vulnerability in Windows XP that allowed remote file execution when file-sharing was enabled. Microsoft patched it a month later. At its peak, Conficker infected upwards of 7 million computers, and Microsoft still ranks Conficker as the second-most prevalent malware family on domain-joined computers. Security researchers with the Conficker Working Group along with vendors including Microsoft successfully cut off the Conficker's operators from the botnet, but the group is still working to try to find Conficker's master. The problem is that botnet operators have stayed away from Conficker and not tried to reclaim it, a welcome development but one that leaves researchers with a lack of fresh electronic leads. "Well, we sort of won in that regard," , said Jose Nazario, a malware researcher. "On the other hand, if they're not interacting with it, there's no more evidence coming in."

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