I was in Radio shack a few months ago looking for a Mic for my HAM Radio. The guy at the counter said "We don't sell radio stuff like that..." I said "But you're radio shack!" He laughed at me "No-body comes to the Mall to buy Radios" I finally said "The only person you currently have standing in your store came here for a Radio, you might want to rethink your inventory" and walked out. Morons.
...properly securing them is very very difficult...
No it's not. You can hire a person with a degree in computer security starting around $40k a year. You can get someone with 10yrs+ experience for under $100k/yr. Then its a matter of doing what they say, and not letting executives over-rule every inconvenient policy they put into place.
But underlying all this, it seems that the US American belief that you should have the complete right as a parent to decide how to raise your children, even if it is against their well being, is not new. I clearly remember 'Huckleberry Finn', and the description of his father who falls in the same category as those people that are opposed to vaccination (for whichever reason). And that was written 130 years ago.
Right, and I even agree with them. But in this case you're not just making a choice that puts your kid at risk. You're also making a choice that puts my kid at risk, which is where it crosses the line. If a vaccine were 100% effective, I'd agree with them on choice. But they're not, so they should be mandatory.
Smeadly finally drove them into the ground. Without Sony propping them up they'll be dead in less than a year. That morons done more to hurt gaming than just about anyone else in the industry.
The Frogloks and Jedi finally have their revenge on that lying scum.
As is usual, there's always an appropriate metal song warning of the folly of man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Today the warning came in the flood
Architects and fools never cared for poor men's blood
Cursed to repeat the past they are
The river dragon swims upstream
They've built another wall.
Ironically based on Chinese myth to.
Why was that a scam and this is not?
Because that they have working products and aren't grubbing around for the great unwashed's loose change on Kickstarter, for a start.
That past Slashdot story was about the many questions that were already being floated about iFind. That's why it was a story in the first place.
So, really, your question is a bit like asking why a story about Steve Jobs kicking a puppy results in more negative comments about the subject than one about Bill Gates single handedly saving 20 children from an orphanage fire.
Incidentally I think you credit Slashdot with way too much influence if you think it can bring down a startup in a couple of days. Those guys were already on their way out (this, again, being what the story was more or less about).
But read the thread... no one discussed the dudes fishyness. It was all a lot of bloated "I know about electronics and..." nonsense saying it was physically impossible. It's not. You can buy a dozen sensors just like the ones in this article that are powered by ambient RF or light, or whatever. It's an industry that's existed for years now. Were they a scam? I have no idea, but if it were a scam it had nothing to do with the physical impossibility of the device they designed.
Violates the laws of physics does it?
http://www.mouser.com/new/powe...
Look at it. Read the damned data sheet: http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/329...
You'd better let the world know one of the largest Electronics parts suppliers in the world is scamming them then. Because that's exactly what that IC does. 50ma output to! I doubt it gets that continuously, but carried around in close proximity to your phone and computer? Over a period of months? You're damned strait that'd charge it.
FYI that RF harvester is specifically designed to power sensors like what's described in this article. You're supposed to hook it up to a battery and a sensor like this and power that sensor to wireless transmit its readings.
1. They specify low power sensors, not transmitters.
Whoever said iFind was a transmitter? For all we know it "Beeped' when lost. In fact, I assumed that's how it would work. Why the hell would it transmit? Even if it did transmit, the most power it could transmit by law would be 1 watt. Why is that unfeasible?
2. They specify a number of different methods to gain power, not just RF.
And that has what to do with the price of tea in china? So only 1 of there several methods of charging is a scam?
3. Siemans spinoff indicates access to real engineers and technology.
right... because they used to work at Siemans, they are fully backed by that companies brand name? lol
As usual the devil is in the details. Harvesting enough energy from the environment to run a very low power IC in short bursts to do simple sensor measurements? Completely feasible. Charging your cellphone from ambient radio waves? Complete bullcrap.
As usual, the ability of the Slashdot community to even bother clicking on the god damned link is thwarted by their lazyness. It doesn't charge your cellphone. Where the hell did you get that?
It was a tag that hung on your keys, charged by RF that listened for a specific radio signal (like your garage door opener) When it received said signal it would beep. That's it. There's no physical reason that wasn't possible. The company could have still been a scam, but the device itself was possible.
...or if 40$ hurts that bad maybe reconsider your self employment and/or investments.
The point is, they aren't offering anything for that $40. It's the same thing as last year, but twice the price. And there are a dozen other products out there that don't charge that much. In fact, many are free and simply charge for state filing.
I thought powered by RF was impossible and a scam?
http://mobile.slashdot.org/sto...
Slashdot basically killed that company outright with nothing more than the argument that the technology was impossible. Search the thread for my screen name and watch me get shouted down for suggesting it actually is possible and even provide links to ICs you could use.
And now here we have a story that's touting it as a legitimate device?
I've no idea if iFind was actually a scam or not. They clearly went bust just days after the Slashdot story. But this kind of smacks of hypocrisy. Why was that a scam and this is not?
The PFC appointed as Social Media Officer probably chose a weak password. Seriously, whenever I see a news article about a social media account being "hacked," I really wish journalists would understand these are just password-protected web services!
Celebrities' naked pictures and Twitter feeds get hacked because they have simple passwords, not because some genius hacker spends months looking for an exploit on their personal phone and the opportunity to introduce it. And even "security question" based password resets don't work when a celebrity will choose answers that anyone can find in 100 gossip rags.
And cockroaches scuttling across a restaurant floor don't mean the place is dirty either. But I get up and leave either way.
...just remember this XKCD: http://xkcd.com/932/
You're assuming they aren't using the same password for their Twitter account that they're using for the Nukes launch codes.
Oh... you think I'm kidding?
Seriously... it's a real concern:
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
1. Speech that directly and immediately puts human lives in danger (The old, yelling fire in a crowded theater, thing.)
FALSELY yelling fire in a crowded theatre. The "falsely" is important.
No it's not. "Falsely" is often a subjective determination. What if you smelled smoke and it was just a cigarette?
Ambiguity and law are a bad mix.
Suggest you just sit there and wait till life gets easier.
