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Comment Re:One fiber to rule them... (Score 1) 221

Cable TV would devolve into each service like HBO having their own streaming site available on the 'Net. And Comcast would have no reason to exist.

Comcast would still have a reason to exist: To provide last-mile access to such sites as, say, hbo.com.

Just like any other Internet provider.

*shrug*

Comment Re: Lesson goes unlearned (Score 1) 75

In the US, we have a long tradition of paying both to place and receive mobile phone calls and SMS.

We also have a long tradition of receiving landline calls for free, and also placing them for free to numbers in a specific local area. We have never had a custom of paying to answer a landline.

Nor, I must point out, have we ever had a custom of paying more to call a mobile number than any other number, as I understand is/was commonplace in some other parts of the world. When I would pick up my landline to dial a local number, it would cost me nothing additional, as with any other local number.

(these lines are blurred now that inexpensive landline-esque service is generally unlimited and flat-rate within the US, and many people opt for mobile plans that are similarly unlimited and flat rate (aside from data)).

Comment Re:Think that's bad (Score 1) 234

That is what it is being used for in your use-case.

Looking around in the Worx Gallery (which, I must say, the very concept of which sours my mouth), it looks like it can also do just about everything else, too.

Hence, why it needs all of the permissions in the world (or at least enough of them that arguing otherwise is a moot point).

If you don't like it (and I certainly don't, don't get me wrong), there's Xposed modules that can fix it. (And Xposed modules that defy root-detection. And, and, and. See also: Cat and mouse, Tom and Jerry, and DRM wars going back decades before DRM was even a TLA.)

Or, do it the old-fashioned way: One device for work, one device for other. Power off one or the other when not needed.

Comment Re:It DOES have permission (Score 1) 234

I still haven't upgraded Waze since their new "social" integration required a ton more privileges, mostly to phone private info. And this despite running XPrivacy - I just can't be bothered to go through the whitelisting for it, when current version works well enough.

Chances are good that Google already knows everything about your contacts. Google wholly owns Waze.

What is the difference?

Comment Re:Think that's bad (Score 3, Informative) 234

That, actually, doesn't look all too onerous for such a product.

Of course I want my fancy remote-everything program to be able to manage the network, see the status of the network, use the network, vibrate, pair with devices, manage shortcuts (shortcut to email on the homescreen?), change settings (so that the remote apps can, you know, do their thing), draw on top (notifications), take pictures, use a microphone, use the camera, access files (do you like attachments with your email?) and read phone status and identity (it knows you're on the phone, just like every other app that handles audio).

I don't know why it needs precise location, but sheesh. At least it's not like Pandora, which is just a bloody streaming music player:

        find accounts on the device
        read your contacts
        add or modify calendar events and send email to guests without owners' knowledge
        test access to protected storage
        modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
        view Wi-Fi connections
        read phone status and identity
        receive data from Internet
        install shortcuts
        run at startup
        full network access
        pair with Bluetooth devices
        connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi
        change network connectivity
        access Bluetooth settings
        view network connections
        prevent device from sleeping

Comment Re:Li-Ion batteries aren't good for this role (Score 1) 41

Because nobody at Facebook is an engineer with enough knowledge to be capable of thinking of such things before endeavoring on a scaled test, right?

Oh, and by the way, maximizing the lifespan of a lead acid battery is a wee bit more complicated having them "fully charged and kept that way, and discharged infrequently."

But I'm sure you already know that.

Comment Re:Manufacturers can help make this better (Score 1) 321

It's more convoluted than that.

In order for these cameras to be accessible on the Internet in a world of NAT and deny-by-default inbound firewall rules, someone (at the home) MUST have set up port forwarding explicitly...unless the cameras are shipped with UPnP enabled.

I've got mixed thoughts on UPnP (I both loathe and utilize it for different things), but I'm firmly of the opinion -zero- cameras should come with it enabled.

Comment Re:Am I missing the point? (Score 1) 124

Indeed.

To further muddy the waters, DropBox supports (under Windows, at least) what it calls "LAN sync," with the goal of having data traverse LAN-WAN only once, no matter how many LAN clients want that data.

I do not know if it is default behavior. But I've seen it work just fine.

Comment Re:No. (Score 1) 291

When the price differential between 2Mbps and 75Mbps is large, some people elect the cheaper option.

I write this from a 2Mbps connection. It works well, even with Steam, blizzard, and who knows what, all at the same time, while running BitTorrent to get the newest Linux ISOs, and remote backing up my computer.

Sure, it's slow. Downloading those ISOs requires patience.

But it's responsive. Interactive things happen quickly, and that's what matters most for the user experience. Games work fine. Netflix works. Pandora works. Youtube works. Skype works. Throw random workloads at it, and it works.

How? Using the perhaps-poorly-named QoS adjustments in Shibby's build of Tomato-USB on an old WRT54G.

Light and interactive and latency-sensitive things get the first dibs at bandwidth (both headed out, which is easy -- and coming in, which is much less straight-forward). Progressively more-intensive things get pushed to the back of the bus.

My Linux ISO torrents get whatever is left after these other more-important tasks (as defined by me) get their share.

So, either $20/month with an old freebie router, or $100+ per month for enough bandwidth to do what I describe without perceived lag.

Some people are more willing to put a little bit of effort into such things, some people are more willing to open up their billfold a little wider. (And some people manually micro-manage what they do, and when, to keep latency low, but that's the path of madness and a generally unfulfilling Internet experience.)

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