Apple invented HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) which breaks up assets (media) into individual "fragments" which can be downloaded via individual TCP requests - in a way in which they are easily and transparently spliced back together on the player. Thus, when an individual fragment download failed it is retried. i.e. If it failed because Wifi had gone away - the retry would (automagically) go over 3G via even the current network stack.

Furthermore HLS has provisions to tell when bandwidth is too restricted - and to allow pulling in subsequent fragments at a lower bitrate until more bandwidth becomes better (i.e. gong from crappy 3G connection to a good Wifi connection).

Thus - HLS would be a much more ideal way of handling something like iTunes radio. "Internet Radio" is even described as an ideal use case in Apple's own docs.

Pandora I can totally see. It's the antithesis of Siri. Very long, persistent, lots of data - a continuous stream. (Though other technologies, such as fragmentation at the application/asset level are often used here too - especially for video).

As for Siri - you have quite the edge case. It is an *extremely* small window between the transmission and then reception of the Siri transaction that you lose your Wifi.

It seems to me that Siri is a bad use case for Multipath TCP. Siri transactions seem to be fast and short-lived. i.e. You wouldn't need a persistent connection that could service transitions between Wifi and 3G. So why use MultipathTCP on it?

I never knew until I heard about the 3.11 "Linux for Workgroups" thing...

...for a lawsuit like this!

I don't get it...at all. The article "bashes" the security, but makes no suggestions or recommendations how to improve it. And frankly, I see no problem. It see it as a "minor issue" that you need to use SSL encryption.

Why is this an issue?

Everything is secure, as long as a malicious piece of code doesn't steal the users' username, password and/or temporary authentication token. So - how would they claim to permit any type of login without this information being on the device - unless you make the user enter a password on every login (which I guess could still be snooped). Pretty much every authentication system I can think of - from "plain", to Kerberos to things with session tokens have a vulnerability where if someone could "steal" a piece of data (like a token) one could get in. The only real way around it would be to perhaps put a two-factor authentication system with a very short timeout - but that just closes the window and makes it more annoying for the user.

So - what is this article really getting at???

What other industry relies on teenagers (who don't know any better) having the power to (borrow) and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Cars don't cost that much. Teenagers don't buy houses. The decision-makers here are people who aren't even old (or mature) enough to drink - are completely impulsive - have no life-experience and less of a tangible "long-term" outlook - and they're actually *pressured* (by society, parents, high-school guidance counselors, etc) to go with the BEST school they can [at any cost].

What can possibly go wrong??

...Ken Olsen says that PCs are just for hobbyists, businesses will stick with Minis and Mainframes.

Really?!??!

All those ads with people dancing around snapping covers on and off - opening and closing weren't enough to evangelize the masses as to the virtues of the technology?!?

As much as I hate Microsoft - it's sad to say - that the [very, very] few people who I know who actually had a Surface had nothing but RAVE reviews about them. The summary was: "Size/weight of an iPad - but with a real keyboard. I could take it to meetings, and actually run Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. I could actually take notes with the keyboard - and not some "add-on" iPad type keyboard which made the iPad as big and bulky as a small laptop or netbook".

So in short - it was a real "productivity" device - not like tablet, which I still don't think is really good for anything but *light* web browsing and watching movies on a screen, the size of what we used to watch them on in the 70's.

They're going to launch it from the surface at orbital velocity? It would burn up from the air friction inside the Slingitron itself before hitting orbital velocity. If it didn't (i.e. it was a vacuum inside the Slingitron) - it would as soon as it hit the outside air. Meteorites and returning spacecraft do this (in the opposite direction) when the reenter the Earth's atmosphere. Watch how much the atmosphere slows them down (and burns them up). Why wouldn't this happen from a Slingitron launch? This issue was never even addressed in the video.

While they're at it - I don't think anyone has really discovered what the deal was with the Accura/Honda remote-control doorlock gadget that thieves were reportedly using to effortlessly break into cars. All the article said was "police are stumped" (duh).

It's called 123D Catch. They have an iPhone app and everything...

http://www.123dapp.com/catch

Actually, the "flicker" is when they are *not* super bright. It's when they are at their "normal" brightness that they flicker - to make them look dimmer.

When the driver steps on the brake - and the brakelights go to full illumination is when they *stop* flickering. i.e. Make them on all the time to appear brighter.

I agree with you all:

1. Old caddy's.

2. They have been getting better

3. Why not increase the pulse rate.

(and I'll throw in:)

Why no just add a capacitor to smooth things out??