Comment Re:48GB?! (Score 1) 107
It's not and they didn't say it was. Chris Roberts worked at Origin. That was the joke.
Comment Re:sad state of affairs (Score 1) 113
It's sad that people are more concerned with what companies are doing with their information than the government.
Because people aren't allowed to be concerned about both things? Why this false dichotomy?
Google's Diversity Chief: Mamas Don't Let Their Baby Girls Grow Up To Be Coders 446
theodp writes: Explaining the reasons for its less-than-diverse tech workforce, Google fingered bad parenting for its lack of women techies. From the interview with Google Director of Diversity and Inclusion Nancy Lee: "Q. What explains the drop [since 1984] in women studying computer science? A. We commissioned original research that revealed it's primarily parents' encouragement, and perception and access. Parents don't see their young girls as wanting to pursue computer science and don't steer them in that direction. There's this perception that coding and computer science is ... a 'brogrammer' culture for boys, for games, for competition. There hasn't been enough emphasis on the power computing has in achieving social impact. That's what girls are interested in. They want to do things that matter." While scant on details, the Google study's charts appear to show that, overall, fathers encourage young women to study CS more than mothers. Google feels that reeducation is necessary. "Outreach programs," advises Google, "should include a parent education component, so that parents learn how to actively encourage their daughters."
Comment Re:Why do this in the first place? (Score 1) 90
and they still do not allow the default email or browser app to be changed.
No, but companies can do like what Google does and just tightly integrate all your apps together where clicking something in one launches another one of your apps to handle it.
Comment Re:Why do this in the first place? (Score 1) 90
Are "alternate webkit-based browsers" capable of adding support for HTML5 elements and attributes that Apple chose to leave out of WebKit for iOS? Are they allowed to associate themselves with the http: and https: schemes?
No. Hence why I said that they can't have a third-party web engine. They have to use the system-provided WebKit.
I didn't think so.
And I never said they could so I don't see the relevance.
Comment Re:Why do this in the first place? (Score 1) 90
Apple do indeed (still) have an infrequently enforced policy about competing apps
Such as?
That there are lots of alternative web browsers based on their webkit does not suggest 'competing' browsers, because those browsers are unable to meaningfully compete.
They can't compete on the rendering engine, sure, but users don't actually give two shits about that. The browsers compete on the other features they can provide.
Comment Re:Why do this in the first place? (Score 1) 90
Apple doesn't allow any application competing with their own as far as I know
And what you know amounts to very little apparently. When was the last time you heard anything about iOS? 2009? What Apple doesn't allow is third-party web engines, but they allow alternate webkit-based browsers. There are probably hundreds of such applications in the App Store.
Comment Re:Why do this in the first place? (Score 3, Insightful) 90
The problem is that they are essentially rudderless without Google's yearly handouts. If Mozilla had diversified their revenue long ago they wouldn't be in this situation of throwing tons of shit at the wall to see what sticks.
Comment Re:Think that's impressive? (Score 1) 207
If they had compelling content people would pay for it directly. Sites like ehow and Buzzfeed create crap but can stay around due to clickbait spam.
Comment Re:Think that's impressive? (Score 5, Insightful) 207
No what will happen is shitty sites full of fluff and click bait will go out of business. Nothing of value will be lost.
Comment Re:End-to-end encryption cannot come fast enough. (Score 1) 104
Why is this modded up? Stingrays are mostly for metadata capture. End-to-end encryption is completely orthogonal to that.
Comment Re:I guess that if a Mathematician... (Score 1) 176
But you thought it was credible to give Kissinger one?
Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Dumb Phone? 313
An anonymous reader writes: For those of us who don't need or want a smartphone, what would be the best dumb phone around? Do you have a preference over flip or candy bar ones? What about ones that have FM radio? Do any of you still use dumb phones in this smart phone era? Related question: What smart phones out now are (or can be reasonably outfitted to be) closest to a dumb phone, considering reliability, simplicity, and battery life? I don't especially want to give up a swiping keyboard, a decent camera, or podcast playback, but I do miss being able to go 5 or more days on a single charge.
Comment Re:yeah, right (Score 1) 170
Are you accusing Fuckerberg of lying to people? Blasphemy!
Ads Based On Browsing History Are Coming To All Firefox Users 531
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla has announced plans to launch a feature called "Suggested Tiles," which will provide sponsored recommendations to visit certain websites when other websites show up in the user's new tab page. The tiles will begin to show up for beta channel users next week, and the company is asking for feedback. For testing purposes, users will only see Suggested Tiles "promoting Firefox for Android, Firefox Marketplace, and other Mozilla causes." It's not yet known what websites will show up on the tiles when the feature launches later this summer. The company says, "With Suggested Tiles, we want to show the world that it is possible to do relevant advertising and content recommendations while still respecting users’ privacy and giving them control over their data."
