Comment Re:Unnecessarily complex? (Score 4, Insightful) 453
Obligatory XKCD link: http://xkcd.com/627/
Comment Re:CmdrTaco drags big brass ones along the ground (Score 1) 750
The iPad will happily associate with your existing iTunes account and use all the same content.
As for the speaker, it's a stereo speaker, but both sides are in the same place (so you don't lose any sound to mono conversion, but you're not getting the "stereo" experience either). Of course you can always plug in external stereo speakers or headphones as usual.
Comment Re:TiVo invented timeshifting? (Score 1) 490
In my first reply to this I missed some of what you wrote:
- The cost of the program guides information
- The cost of the TiVo backend infrastructure to support the remote updates of appliance (software and program guide information)
- The cost of them integrating all the above pieces into one "appliance"
This is the part I don't want to pay for, because as far as I am concerned it adds no value.
As far as MythTV goes, I am unaware of any store I can walk into, buy one, take it home, connect it to my TV and I'm ready to go. I could do all of that with a VCR.
Then you're missing the major draw of what the TiVo can do. The draw of the TiVo isn't that it's a fancy VCR that you don't have to put tapes in, it is that you tell the TiVo what kind of programming you like and it GOES OUT AND FINDS IT FOR YOU. That means that it'll chase down your favorite program when the network decides to go hide it in another time slot. It'll look at the programming you like and find similar programs to record in the free space you've got left over (if you don't disable the feature). All these things require a constant source of program data, something that doesn't come free.
US Coast Guard Intends To Kill LORAN-C 316
adaviel writes "LORAN (Long Range Aids to Navigation) is an electronic navigation system using low-frequency radio, used by many boaters (including me) before GPS. It has an approximately 200m accuracy and is a functional replacement in case GPS fails or the US implements selective availability in time of war. The US Coast Guard, part of the Department of Homeland Security, intends to turn it off starting February 8." This is in spite of $160M spent on modernizing LORAN stations over the past 10 years.
Bernie Madoff's Programmers Arrested 280
ZipK writes "With their former boss cooling his heels on a 150-year sentence, programmers Jerome O'Hara and George Perez are now in the US Attorney's crosshairs. They've been arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy, and 'accused of producing false documents and trading records at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in New York.' Apparently Madoff's fraud was too large and too complex to be foisted entirely by hand."
Comment Re:Needs internet connection (Score 1) 439
They could be even lighter if they only had the on-board storage to hold the maps you need, as opposed to topographical maps of the entire western US, as well as road data and a bunch of other 'white pages' type junk.
When a microSD card can hold all the map data you could possibly need, I really doubt that weight considerations are a reason to strip down the size of a mapping dataset anymore.
Baby To Be Born Without the Gene For Breast Cancer 259
manoftin writes to tell us that next week a baby will be born without the gene for breast cancer, according to the BBC. "But he said that, in this case, not carrying the BRCA1 gene would not guarantee any daughter born to the couple would be unaffected by breast cancer because there are other genetic and environmental causes. Dr Alan Thornhill, scientific director of the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre, said: 'While the technology and approach used in this case is fairly routine, it is the first time in the UK that a family has successfully eliminated a mutant breast cancer gene for their child. It is a victory for both the parents and the HFEA that licensed this treatment.'"
Comment Re:Are you trying to say... (Score 1) 247
Or you could just submit the form without your credit card info the first time to see where it goes (assuming of course that the form doesn't have javascript code to prevent that).
