I remember reading a magazine article (possibly even an ad) years back with some company touting this exact technology. It went so far as to mask the card number itself or even allowing selection of multiple card numbers based on the buttons. Sadly I never saw anything past that initial piece.

No, but according to the Smartcard Alliance's FAQ (http://www.smartcardalliance.org/pages/publications-emv-faq), the transaction will contain signatures proving the card is genuine, the correct PIN was used to access the chip, and "Third, even if fraudsters are able to steal account data from chip transactions, this data cannot be used to create a fraudulent transaction in an EMV or magnetic stripe environment, since every EMV transaction carries dynamic data." So while it doesn't include a key fob or rotating key the user must enter, it sounds like it implements it on a virtual level, thereby accomplishing the same goal. If the card data is intercepted, it is useless for future transactions.

It isn't the merchants dragging their feet. Chip and Pin has not been available to merchants in the US. The thing most people don't realize is that credit card fraud is a profit center for Visa/Mastercard/etc. Do you think Visa is eating the cost of a fraudulent transaction to cover the "$0 Fraud Liability" they offer to their customers? Of course not. It goes right back on the merchant. Now the merchant is out their merchandise, out the money they would have received from the sale, and they are hit with a fee (that goes to Visa) for the chargeback. Have a massive breach like Target? Now there are big fines to pay to the card companies on top of it all.

The entire security of the credit card system is based on keeping a 16 digit number secret. That same 16 digit number you have to share with everyone you give money to. Making it TONS more secure would be cheap and easy, and most merchants are already set up to handle it... A simple rotating PIN that is only valid for a length of time is all it would take. Have merchants run all transactions as Debit, and give the customer an app on their phone (or even a periodic SMS with a new PIN.) The card companies could use the fraud liability as an incentive to use the system. No rotating pin? $1000 fraud liability. Monthly? $500. Weekly? $100. Daily? $25. Rotating PIN app or new SMS after each transaction? $0. This would also secure online purchases as well.

Every time I see a story relating to credit card security, I laugh to myself over how much more secure my World of Warcraft account is than my credit card accounts.

I knew the Fire TV name sounded familiar, and now I remember why. FyreTV is a set-top box for streaming pr0n delivery that advertised years ago in the back of Maxim magazine. I'd forgotten about them until Amazon reminded me, and am actually surprised to see they are still around. I wonder if Amazon will be forced to change the name of their box due to trademark concerns?

I think it comes down to where the line is between utility and distraction. When driving, do you really need to see the independent pressure of all 4 tires, or just a warning if one of them falls below a certain threshold? I've not seen a (personal) vehicle in the last 20 years with a vacuum gauge. Most newer cars no longer have battery voltage/charge gauges, replaced with a "low voltage" idiot light. What utility is there to the driver knowing what the battery voltage is, vs. being alerted when there is a battery issues that needs to be resolved? I'd argue none, a "pull over and check your shit under the hood" is sufficient for everyday use.

Now I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to get that raw data, especially when trying to diagnose an issue. When the car is in park, it would be awesome to switch to a diagnostic display on the dash to see individual tire pressure, charge rate, actual coolant temp, manifold pressure, etc. Some of that is available now through the OBD port. I have a OBD-II to Bluetooth dongle that I use with an app on my smart phone. It lets me read the diagnostic codes, and can display (and more importantly log) real-time sensor data. It is very handy when trying to figure out an issue. I can start the app on my phone, and it starts saving sensor data to a CSV file every second. I can then go try to reproduce the issue, then I have all of the sensor data to determine the cause. I can't see tire pressures with it, but I think that is just a limitation of the car's computer, and may be available on some vehicles, I don't know.

I also agree that you should be able to set the warning threshold for certain sensors. Tire pressure is a good example. Some people run a different tire pressure than recommended. This can be for a multitude of reasons, such as aftermarket tires with a different rating, different climate/road conditions, or hypermiling. It would be great to be able to adjust it so your idiot light isn't on constantly when running 3 PSI lower than "factory" or having a false sense of security when a tire is actually 3 PSI low, but because you're running 5PSI high normally it isn't detected.

In RS's defense, the kit you're referring to is the Make magazine's Raspberry Pi starter kit, for $130. I looked it up and it is the same price Make sells it for. It includes the Pi, power brick and MicroUSB cable, breadboard, cable to go from it's GPIO pins to the breadboard, an SD card, jumpers, components, and I believe a case. Is it overpriced? A little, but for someone who is looking to buy a starter kit rather than sourcing the parts on their own, it isn't that bad. Personally I think it is great that they're stocking them. I hope it gets more exposure to young kids in there while their parents are looking for the latest cell phone. Where they fall short now is they don't have anything to really take someone beyond the kit.

I needed a new MicroUSB cable to charge my phone the other day. I walked into radio shack and the cheapest one they had was $20. For a stupid cheap MicroUSB cable. The local convenience stores have cables for $7. It has MiniUSB, MicroUSB, and the 30 pin apple connector on the same cable so it will charge nearly every device. And RS wonders why they're failing. It is a sad day when a convenience store, known to have high markups because of the convenience factor, has a better price than the place that should have be best deals because it is their specialty.

When I was growing up, Radio Shack had an entire wall dedicated to electronics components, kits, 300 in One educational kits, etc. Tons of RC cars, walkie-talkies, scanners, even a few pieces of ham radio gear. Lots of good stereo equipment too. Most of the employees were ham radio operators who knew electronics and could answer any question you had, or point you to a buddy that was an electronics engineer somewhere that could. I used to love picking up a couple copies of their catalog every year, and would drool over things in it all year long.

They talked about getting "back to the roots" but they've not done anything to actually do that. Sure they added some Make kits, but that's about it. If they want to be marketable they need to add not only the make kits, but the components needed to actually do something with them. I can walk in and get a Raspberry Pi starter kit for $130, but no servos, no OneWire temperature sensors, no addressable LEDs, etc. They used to have project enclosures of all shapes and sizes, but now they have 1 or 2 and that is it.

Sadly Radio Shack today is nothing but an oversize cell phone kiosk. You walk in to buy a cable, and all they want to do is get your cell phone number so they can "check your account for available upgrades." They need to go back and actually serve the hobbyists as they have, or they need to close. As much as I'd hate to see a chunk of my past go away, it is better than watching it suffer.

Part of the problem in my opinion is the way they're metering it. Take my cell phone for example. I get to "choose" ahead of time how much data I think I'll need for the following month. Right now my family is able to stay under 2GB every month. I could go the next step up and choose the 4GB plan for another $10 per month, or 6 GB for an additional $20 per month. The problem is I don't know what my data usage is going to be. What if I take an unexpected trip for work and the WiFi is unreliable. What if we go on a trip and send a lot of pictures back and forth to family members. I'm faced with a couple choices. I can leave the data plan where it is, and hope we don't end up going over. If we do, I'm charged at $15 per GB for overage. Oh, it's the last day of the billing cycle, and you used 300K too much? Too bad, pay $15, and no your extra data you just paid for doesn't roll over to the next month. I could bump up my data plan to the next notch if I know I'm going out of town, but then if don't actually end up going over the usual plan, I paid extra for the privilege of *maybe* going over. Again, no refund or carry-over.

I don't have to worry about that for my electricity. It is 100% metered, and I like it that way. There are no pre-planned packages, I use what I need and I pay for what I use every month. The billing unit is small enough that I don't fret over it. If cellular and/or hardline data providers would do something similar I think they'd see a lot less resistance to implementing metered billing. I use about 300 GB in a 30 day period on my home Cable connection. I'm not a light user, but I'm not what I'd consider a high-usage user either. Most of my data usage comes from the family using Netflix for the primary video choice. If I run the math, I'm paying on average of 20 cents per GB. If my service were metered at a similar price, I wouldn't lose any sleep worrying if I used an extra few hundred megs.

Honestly I wish my cellular provider did bill in this manner but billed on a KB or MB unit. I hate worrying at the end of the month if I am going to wind up paying an extra $15 and only being able to use a small fraction of what I just paid for.

They're more than welcome to move to Iran, Afghanistan, or North Korea. After they've been there for a year, they can come back and I'll be happy to discuss the merits with them.

Why not? If the law of the land requires all of it citizens to carry a certain coverage, and therefore all of the employers to provide said coverage, they shouldn't be exempt. It has been determined time and again that laws trump religious beliefs in most cases. There are people out there that refuse to pay taxes due to their religious beliefs. They get prosecuted for tax evasion. Some religions practice polygamy. Other than some grey area in Utah right now, it has been determined in court to actually be illegal and people get prosecuted. Otherwise what is to stop me from founding my own religion that says I can marry 10 women, make my own weed-infused moonshine, and ignore speeding laws? If I want to partake in those activities, counter to local law, I can either move somewhere that looks fondly upon such activities, or face the legal consequences of doing so here.

If this particular belief is so near and dear to them, they can make the same choices. They are free to move their business to another country where they aren't required to offer contraceptive coverage, or they can stay here and face the consequences.

I don't understand why the religious people are so up in arms about this. Are they getting some non-negligible discount on their current insurance plans because they don't offer contraceptive coverage? Logic says it would be the opposite because lack of availability of inexpensive contraceptives has proven to increase birth rates, and that is a lot bigger expense for insurance to cover. Just move to an ACA-compliant plan, and don't announce the "new" coverage. If the employees want to research and use that benefit on their own, that is their burden.

Just because a plan offers contraceptive care doesn't mean the employees are forced to use it. My plan has coverage for inpatient drug rehab. When that coverage was added it didn't make me go out and start smoking meth. Adding birth control coverage isn't mandating that these employees go out and start taking the pill. Do the employers have agents follow their employees around when they shop to make sure they don't buy condoms?

These employers need to understand that they don't own their employees. They have no say over what goes on in the bedroom when the employee isn't working. They can't force their employees to follow their beliefs. If an employee makes the decision that it is better for their family to use contraceptives to delay children (or prevent more) then that decision is between them and their particular deity.

I'm familiar with Ting. I have a phone with them (my old Sprint Hero) for my "tween" daughter. I decided to give her a phone for her birthday, and contacted Sprint about adding her on with our existing plan. Despite already having a phone, meaning no "free" phone needing a subsidy, they still refused to add her line without a 2 year contract. Sprint yet again shot themselves in the foot.

That said I have not tried roaming with her phone on Ting, but I'll take your word for it that it works. She has traveled to see her grandma with her phone and it worked for her, but I wasn't with her to see if it was roaming or not. We have data disabled (She has Wi-Fi wherever she needs it) so that wouldn't have made a difference anyway. My wife's phone and my phone are both to the point of needing to be replaced. She is always hard on her phones, and while I'm usually great on my phones it did have a freak accident a couple of months back and shattered the screen. It still works, but it is time to replace it once I figure out what I'm doing. When I do the math on Ting, it would actually cost us quite a bit more based on our existing usage models. I use my phone a lot for work data wise, and my brother's phone uses a ton of minutes due to the custom farm work he does. If Ting had free mobile-to-mobile calling it would probably be cheaper if we modified our data habits a bit.

I've considered that route. You are correct in that Virgin is a MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) using Sprint's network. The kicker for us is that MVNOs (on Sprint anyway) will not roam to another carrier if signal gets too low. For example, with Sprint Proper service, if I get into an area where Sprint coverage doesn't exist, my phone happily roams over to Verizon's network. I travel to some locations for work (within a couple hours drive) on a fairly regular basis that have zero Sprint coverage. If I were to switch to Virgin, I'd have no cell service at all when in those areas.

That said, the roaming threshold settings in Sprint phones is horrible. If there is any Sprint signal whatsoever, even if it is unusable for a call, my phone will not switch to Verizon's tower. I can be standing next to someone with a Verizon phone, full signal, while mine is at one bar flickering. If they had some intelligent roaming configured I'd probably be staying with Sprint rather than most likely switching.

When I switched to Sprint from AT&T, it was nearly half the price for 2 "smart" phones with data and one "feature" phone. Sure Sprint's coverage was nowhere near as good, but for the price difference it was worth it since it worked OK in most of the places I was at anyway. Over time their signal quality has not improved, actually I'd say it's degraded quite a bit, and their pricing has gone up. If I were to renew my contract on the plans they offer today, I'd be within $10 per month of Verizon's plans with the amount of data we actually use. Add to this the fact that Sprint doesn't have LTE in my area, yet they only offer new phones with LTE data, not the older WiMax 4G. I'd have to downgrade my data speed to "early upgrade" our phones, and they aren't offering any kind of discount until LTE is in place. They won't even give an estimate of when LTE will be available. I talked to a Sprint rep a couple of weeks ago and was told they have tower techs working in this area, but they were working on a 3G capacity expansion, not an LTE upgrade.

I've been with Sprint now for about 10 years, but unless something changes (in a big way) in the next 5 months before my contract runs out, I'm highly likely to be joining the mass exodus.

Whether they are "forced" into doing this or if it is an unwritten agreement is the only real question here. Cable and satellite companies are scared to death of ala carte premium programming. I'm sure they don't make much on premium channel subscriptions like HBO, Showtime, etc. Their bread and butter is in the low tier packages. Right now they hold the monopoly on premium content. If you want the movie packages, you're forced to have the $30 basic package full of channels you don't want before you can even think of paying for the channels you actually want. If everyone could get just the movie packages without the basic fluff by going directly to the premium networks, the traditional cable/satellite providers will lose their primary source of income.

When the "small satellite" DSS trend began, DirecTV (DTV) and United States Satellite Broadcasting (USSB) were 2 separate providers that used the same bird in the sky to provide service. DTV had the basic and "expanded basic" levels of programming with the usual fodder. USSB had HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and other premiums. The key was you could get USSB service without DTV, basically giving you what people are asking for now. You could walk into Circuit City, Future Shop, or even Sears and buy a DSS receiver (and self-install kit,) put it all on your house in an evening, and pay a reasonable amount for movie channels with no fluff. Unfortunately that didn't last long, and DTV acquired* USSB and it went back to the basic plus premium model.

Consumers are now demanding split service again. They don't want 50 channels of MTV reality shows, shopping channels, and Spanish programming because they want to watch Game of Thrones or Shameless. Technology making this model possible, combined with the economic situation people are faced with today, is making people want to cut more waste out of their lives and out of their bills.They don't want to spend upwards of $150 per month for background drivel to be able to watch a few specific shows on a few specific channels, but it is what they're being forced to do. As others have said, if the providers aren't willing to provide it this way, they'll go to places where they can get it, piracy in this case.

* I don't recall if it was a merger, buyout in one direction or the other, but one way or another DTV became what it is today.