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Businesses

Submission + - Did TiVo Succeed in Reinventing the DVR? (gadgetopolis.com) 1

Submitted by gjt
gjt writes: So last week Slashdotters looked at my submission entitled The Sad History and (Possibly) Bright Future of TiVo. TiVo just gave us a peak at that future. At their incredibly hyped up product unveiling atop Rockefeller Center in New York, TiVo unveiled it's first major new DVR product in 3.5 years — The new TiVo Premier. But will it do for TiVo, what the iPod did for Apple? Is it enough to turn around TiVo's ailing fortunes? I decided to pick apart the new product's specs and post the verdict.

The key takeaway seems to be that they've definitely improved their DVR. But they definitely did not live up to their own hype. HTPC geeks will probably still be disappointed.

Submission + - Armband Turns Skin Into Input Surface (chrisharrison.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers at Carnegie Mellon have come up with a clever method to turn your skin into an input device using a special microphone array embedded in an armband. This video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3XPUdW9Ryg) demonstrates the technology. This technology could not only allow people to use the palm of their hands as a keypad, but also control devices such as a music player simply by tapping your fingers.

Submission + - World's 1st Whole House Per Circuit Energy Monitor (energycircle.com)

Submitted by The Greensmith
The Greensmith writes: Do you know how much energy your Wii uses? Your refrigerator? That lamp in the corner? Of course you don’t. But soon, you will.

I found this article on the soon to be released eMonitor, that is the world’s first energy monitor to tell you, on a per appliance basis, how much energy it’s using, how much it costs you, what the carbon footprint is. It can even tell when energy use is unusual or your circuits are about to be overloaded. Soon, it’s going to be able to interact with home control systems to actively control individual outlets and thermostats in the house, remotely.

The people at Energy Circle have been using themselves as guinea pigs, and have had many surprising results.
Google

Submission + - Google Asks US For WTO Block on China Censorship (businessweek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google is asking the US Government to petition the WTO to recognize China's censorship as an unfair barrier to trade. The US Trade Representative is reviewing their petition to see if they can prove that China's rules discriminate against foreign competition. At least it's something worthwhile for the US Trade Reps to do, rather than secretly negotiating ACTA.
Businesses

Submission + - Motorola Says Milestone Isn't Open For Development (motorola.com)

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: While the Motorola Droid developing community has been active since being rooted, the Milestone, the European GSM equivalent, has been going a bit slower. The key difference between the two being that only the Milestone has a signed bootloader, restricting any custom firmware to be written and flashed to the phone. After a user posted a direct question on the official Motorola forum, a response came on the MotoDev site about a month later, titled "Custom ROMs and Motorola's Android Handsets", stating app development is encouraged but

We understand there is a community of developers interested in going beyond Android application development and experimenting with Android system development and re-flashing phones. For these developers, we highly recommend obtaining either a Google ADP1 developer phone or a Nexus One, both of which are intended for these purposes. At this time, Motorola Android-based handsets are intended for use by consumers and Android application developers, and we have currently chosen not to go into the business of providing fully unlocked developer phones.

The understandable anger arises from the belief that the Milestone is just simply a GSM version of the Droid, which is not true.

Securing the software on our handsets, thereby preventing a non-Motorola ROM image from being loaded, has been our common practice for many years. This practice is driven by a number of different business factors. When we do deviate from our normal practice, such as we did with the DROID, there is a specific business reason for doing so. We understand this can result in some confusion, and apologize for any frustration.

This specific business reason for doing so is unclear, but perhaps some persistence by Verizon. With the bounceback that Motorola has had with the Droid, and other Android devices, it seems odd to alienate an entire continent, and tell them to buy a competitor's device.

Submission + - Large Scale PS3 firmware failure.

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From http://twitter.com/SonyPlayStation

SonyPlayStation

      1. We're aware that many of you are having problems connecting to PSN, and yes, we're looking into it. Stay tuned for updates.

Feb. 28th 2010 a unknown number of pre 'slim' generation PS3s suffered a 8001050F error and reset their clocks to 12/31/1999. Even PS3 that were not on the network recently suffered this error.
Games with Downloaded Content or using the trophy system were unable to play.

Disabling the internet in the PS3 menu then changing the date manually before loading any games that used DLC or Trophies seemed to avoid this problem.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Will the Serial Console ever Die? 2

Submitted by simpz
simpz writes: Will the serial port as a console connection esp for devices switches, routers, SAN boxes etc ever be displaced? Okay in one sense it's an simple connection, but it is the only current port you need to know about wiring/baud rates/parity etc to use, has non-standard pinouts and is now becoming too slow to quickly upload massive firmware updates on dead devices. And it is rapidly being removed from new laptops where you really need it in data centers. Centronics, PS/2, Current loop have mostly passed on. Any sign of a USB console connection?
Earth

Submission + - How Slums Can Save the Planet 1

Submitted by
Standing Bear
Standing Bear writes: "One billion people live in squatter cities and, according to the UN, this number will double in the next 25 years. Now with sixty million people in the developing world leaving the countryside every year, Stewart Brand writes in Prospect about what squatter cities can teach us much about future urban living. "The magic of squatter cities is that they are improved steadily and gradually by their residents," writes Brand. "Squatter cities are also unexpectedly green. They have maximum density—1m people per square mile in some areas of Mumbai—and have minimum energy and material use. People get around by foot, bicycle, rickshaw, or the universal shared taxi." Brand adds that in most slums recycling is literally a way of life e.g. the Dharavi slum in Mumbai has 400 recycling units and 30,000 ragpickers. "Of course, fast-growing cities are far from an unmitigated good. They concentrate crime, pollution, disease and injustice as much as business, innovation, education and entertainment" says Brand. Still as architect Peter Calthorpe wrote in 1985: “The city is the most environmentally benign form of human settlement. Each city dweller consumes less land, less energy, less water, and produces less pollution than his counterpart in settlements of lower densities.”"
Science

Submission + - How telescopes deal with earthquakes in Chile (edgeofphysics.com) 1

Submitted by edgeofphysics
edgeofphysics writes: Given that Chile is one of the most seismically active countries in the world, how do astronomers protect their giant telescopes that have been built or are being built in the Chilean Andes? This blog post discusses how Chile's most advanced facility — the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) — protects its precious 8.2-metre primary mirrors in the event of an earthquake.
Privacy

Submission + - Companies using new technology to track cars. (nytimes.com) 3

Submitted by kamapuaa
kamapuaa writes: MVTRAC, is one of several new companies in the process of automatically tracking car license plates to make private databases. They're for use in helping banks re-possess them, or helping police find stolen cars, or really whatever the companies feel like, as the new-found industry lacks government oversight. The New York Times has an article about how it's changing the car repo industry
Google

Submission + - Microsoft says Google acts raise antitrust issues 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Oh ... the irony: Microsoft Corp made its most vehement and public attack on Google Inc on Friday, calling its internet rival's actions potentially anti-competitive, and urging victims to file complaints to regulators.The broadside comes days after a Microsoft-owned business, along with two other small online companies, complained to European Union regulators about Google's operations there. Microsoft is also fighting a plan by Google to digitize millions of books, currently under scrutiny by the Department of Justice.
Linux

Submission + - 1 Second Linux Boot! (embedded-bits.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Less than one second Linux boot! This post/video shows an OMAP3530 capturing video data from a camera and rendering it to an LCD display — the video appears on the LCD display in less than a second from reset.

Comment I wouldn't blame Open Source (Score 1) 148

by gjt (#31289210) Attached to: Is Mozilla Ubiquity Dead?

I just watched the Ubiquity video again for the first time in years to refresh my memory. It's pretty awesome. But it's also a pretty major project that Mozilla can't really do themselves. Web sites need to implement "verbs" for it to work. And browsers other than Mozilla need to implement it too.

That said, I hope it comes back to life and improves. Hey, maybe this /. post will entice some readers to become Ubiquity developers. Maybe Google can help too and bring it to Chrome - and I don't mean as an extension, but a built in feature (Firefox too). If it's built-in, as opposed to an add on, more users will have access to it and web site developers will have a bigger audience to code verbs for.

Comment Re:Apple TV should be TiVo (Score 2, Interesting) 490

by gjt (#31288010) Attached to: The Sad History and (Possibly) Bright Future of TiVo

I always thought Apple should buy TiVo's patents and tech and rebrand the failed AppleTV. Apple has the cash, marketing position, and design gurus to make an amazingly elegant, easy to use device integrated with beautiful TVs and screens, with all the backend apps to add value (iTunes integration, iMovie, etc.), and TiVo has the all the original patents that Apple could afford to defend. And Apple could turn into the big bullies themselves against the cable companies, especially if they can lobby for net neutrality legislation.

Seems like a perfect marriage to me.

That would be nice. But, unfortunately, Apple seems to perceive live TV as a competitor to the iTunes store's selection of movies and TV shows.

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