27515036
submission
Attila Dimedici writes:
I came across a an article this morning that suggests that the Nook and the Kindle have changed things in such a way that schools are becoming obsolete. His premise is that the ideal way to teach children is by a tutor. Schools arose because those who were not well enough off to afford tutors pooled their resources to hire a tutor (teacher) for all of their children. Schools further developed because they offered the opportunity for society to indoctrinate children in the values society considered important. Until today, the indoctrination has become more important than the education.
The author's premise is that the Nook and the Kindle have allowed large amounts of written material on many different subjects to become accessible enough that parents can tutor their children at a price that just about everyone can afford.
24105388
submission
Attila Dimedici writes:
GM has announced that they will start collecting information from Onstar equipped cars, even if the owner has not signed up for Onstar service. Onstar will hand over the data to police when required to and anyone they deem necessary for the "safety of you or others."
23355686
submission
Attila Dimedici writes:
This article says that slashdot is among once popular sites that are dead or dying. It lists 8 sites that it says are dead or dying. Certainly, Myspace is dead and some of the others are dying, but is slashdot? Is it just a matter of time until slashdot is no more? Is that why CmdTaco is leaving?
23001678
submission
Attila Dimedici writes:
A remote town in Alaska (are there any other kind?) was troubled by the sudden appearance of an orange goo in their water. Well, NOAA has now identified the goo as eggs. The question is what kind of eggs? Is this the beginning of the alien invasion?
22573990
submission
Attila Dimedici writes:
Massachusetts wants to establish a database with the information gathered by license plate scanners installed in police cars. The scanners will scan license plates of every car the police car passes and transmit that information (along with the location) to a database that will be made available to various government agencies. The data wil be kept indefinitely.
22034682
submission
Attila Dimedici writes:
Amazon has announced that they will NOT be collecting sales tax on sales to California after all. Instead they have terminated their affiliate contracts with all of their affiliates located in California. Overstock.com is following a similar course of action. So, how much revenue is this new law going to generate, again?
21839168
submission
Attila Dimedici writes:
Tesla has announced that their business model has failed. Their basic idea was to sell a boutique electric car to fund the development of a regular consumer electric car. With this announcement they are saying that they did not sell enough of the Roadster to make producing it profitable. If that is the case, it is only a matter of time until Tesla closes its doors. I think this is a shame because I thought their approach was the most likely to create a successful fully electronic car. Although it is possible that the technology they have developed will allow the existing car companies to develop successful fully electronic cars, it is a shame that Tesla has failed to become a successful car manufacturer.
21495034
submission
Attila Dimedici writes:
Facebook has eroded the online privacy of millions of its users by switching on facial recognition technology without telling them, a technology expert said today.
The leading social networking website has 'enabled' a function that automatically identifies people in photos without their knowledge.
Isn't that nice of them?
21154752
submission
Attila Dimedici writes:
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to Link text ">announce a new regulation requiring all vehicles to contain a "black box". Not only that, but the devices would be designed to make it difficult (possibly illegal) to modify what information these devices collect or to disbale them even though the courts have ruled that the owner of the vehicle owns the data. The courts have also ruled that authorities may access that data (to what degree and whether a warrant is necessary depends on the state).
20938746
submission
Attila Dimedici writes:
I believe that we discussed this when they first proposed it, but now they have gone and done it.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/pigeon-transfers-data-faster-than-south-africas-telkom/story-e6frfro0-1225771449209?from=public_rss
Workers at a South African information technology company this week proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom, the country's leading ISP.
20906352
submission
Attila Dimedici writes:
This CNN Money story tracks an unusual pattern of Apple stock prices that suggests that someone is manipulating Apple share prices. This yeilds three questions. Who? Why? and Why isn't the government investigating?
