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Comment I believe in UFO's and Crop Circles (Score 2) 384

by randomErr (#55724319) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Is Your View On UFO Sightings?

Here the deal. I live near a military base, two airports, a fault scar, and a great lake. We tons powerful winds and air traffic. So often we get UFO's making wide turns around densely inhabited areas. The local rumor is that the military is testing unmanned, long range, stealth flight vehicles. The crop circles are presumed to be caused by circular patterns similar to small localized tornadoes. In general there are one or two sightings a year the get documented and doesn't have an easy explanation. And no, I'm not one of those people that has filed one of those unexplained sightings. Still it keeps the dinner table conversations interesting.

Submission + - North Korea Hacked South's Military Network (securityweek.com) 1

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: North Korean hackers reportedly stole hundreds of classified military documents from South Korea, including detailed wartime operational plans involving the U.S., a report said Tuesday. The hackers broke into the South's military network last September and gained access to 235 gigabytes of sensitive data, the Chosun Ilbo daily reported.

Among the leaked documents was Operational Plans 5015 for use in case of war with the North and including procedures for "decapitation" attacks on leader Kim Jong-Un, the paper said.

Submission + - Scientists selectively trigger suicide in cancer cells (scitechdaily.com)

Submitted by Baron_Yam
Baron_Yam writes: From SciTechDaily.com: "A team of researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine reveals the first compound that directly makes cancer cells commit suicide while sparing healthy cells. The new treatment approach was directed against acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells but may also have potential for attacking other types of cancers."

Comment Re:Firefox OS failed because it was terrible! (Score 2) 304

by randomErr (#55337875) Attached to: Slashdot Asks: Does the World Need a Third Mobile OS?

Firefox OS was treated more like a project like NodeWebkit or Electron: A sand-boxed browser that calls custom external components that could be more sand-boxed browsers. It was inefficient and a memory hog for the hardware it was being designed for. The failure (misrepresentation?) of Matchstick.tv left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Comment Branch Tizen or Ubuntu (Score 5, Insightful) 304

by randomErr (#55337331) Attached to: Slashdot Asks: Does the World Need a Third Mobile OS?

Both are / has a mobile version of their OS. Someone should branch it and get it working on commodity hardware. We need truly open source devices. Its ridiculous that Android phone I bought a year ago will never get a security update. Or that I have to basically pay for a security update from Apple.

Comment 720p (Score 3) 219

by randomErr (#55335557) Attached to: Latest TVs Are Ready for Their Close-Ups

I have a 720 32" TV. Its good enough for the shows and games I play. Does that make me some how evil? The way marketing is going I feel that way sometimes.

I like the higher resolution picture but I prefer content. That might be why I like to buy DVD's a lot of the time over a BluRay. Same content and cheaper.

Submission + - Startup plans to clean up cigarette butts using crows 1

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: A startup in the Netherlands has developed the "Crowbar", a bird feeder that takes discarded cigarette butts as payment for dispensing food. A camera recognises cigarette filters and rejects any other objects placed in the Crowbar. The idea isn't entirely original, a gentleman in the US has already built a similar device and trained crows to deposit coins. The hope is that crows will be able to keep cities clean, sort through refuse and perform other tasks for our mutual benefit.

Submission + - Google Did Not Learn From Apple's Headphone Jack Removal

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google decided it could just blindly copy Apple in this regard and everything would work out. It won’t. Apple sells millions of iPhones every quarter, while Google is lucky to sell a million Pixels in a few quarters. The two companies are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. The iPhone has years of momentum and brand allegiance. The company can afford to remove a useful feature and know that millions of iPhone owners will either happily buy, or begrudgingly upgrade to, the next one. Google only last year dropped the Nexus brand in favor of Pixel. And 2017 was just like every year before it: Samsung and Apple on top, while Google doesn't even register on the charts. Pixel sales are abysmal. Why give potential buyers another reason to say no?

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Is Deliberately Misleading People On The Internet Free Speech? 6

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: Before anyone cries "free speech must always be free", let me qualify the question. Under a myriad of different internet sites and blogs are these click-through adverts that promise quick "miracle cures" for everything from toenail fungus to hair loss to tinnitus to age-related skin wrinkles to cancer. A lot of the ads begin with copy that reads "This one weird trick cures ......" Most of the "cures" on offer are complete and utter crap designed to lift a few dollars from the credit cards of hundreds of thousands of gullible internet users. The IQ boosting pills that supposedly give you "amazing mental focus after just 2 weeks" don't work at all. Neither do any of the anti-ageing or anti-wrinkle creams, regardless of which "miracle berry" extract they put in them this year. And if you try to cure your cancer with an Internet remedy rather than seeing a doctor, you may actually wind up dead. So the question — is peddling this stuff online really "free speech"? You are promising something grandiose in exchange for hard cash that you know doesn't deliver any benefits at all.

Submission + - FCC orders Apple to activate FM chips in iPhones (cnn.com)

Submitted by MountainLogic
MountainLogic writes: From the CNN Story: Trump's top telecommunications official is calling on Apple to take a step to boost public safety in natural disasters. There's just one problem: Apple (AAPL, Tech30) says it can't.
Ajit Pai, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, urged Apple to activate the FM radio chips included in its iPhones to "allow Americans to get vital access to life-saving information."
When cell service goes down, as is currently the case in much of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, a phone may still be able to pick up the FM signal, if the chip is activated.
"Apple is the one major phone manufacturer that has resisted doing so. But I hope the company will reconsider its position, given the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria," Pai said in a statement.
The FCC chairman then quoted an editorial from a Florida publication calling out Apple CEO Tim Cook by name after Hurricane Irma rammed through the state. "As the Sun Sentinel of South Florida put it, 'Do the right thing, Mr. Cook. Flip the switch. Lives depend on it.'"
In response, Apple said its most recent iPhone models do not have that option.
"iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models do not have FM radio chips in them nor do they have antennas designed to support FM signals, so it is not possible to enable FM reception in these products," Apple said in a statement.

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