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Comment Starting to make sense (Score 2) 610

After seeing the keynote I went looking in my iPhone/iTunes for the album - expecting to see a "Free" where "Buy" usually appears (or Buy $0.00). I couldn't even find the album for a long time (still can't find it on my PC w/ iTunes). Next stop - Google, to discover that it was already on my phone. Sure enough - when browsing through my Artist list there was a new entry to U2, and all of the songs marked with the "download from cloud" icon.

From a user perspective it was confusing and expected to "buy it" (first) like any other album. Let's pretend I'm not a U2 fan. Sure I've purchased albums from other band and decided I didn't like it later - and simply deleted it. I now forever have this album in my list that Genius will try to mix and play from when at home on Wifi.

While I appreciate being able to discover "new" music - I'm not in control of it. I can't put it back on the shelf. Kind of ugly.

They assume everyone likes the same entertainment. Sure - U2 is probably more universally liked than the Juicy Bananas.

Submission + - Apple Outrages Users by "Automatically" Installing U2's Album on their Devices 3

Submitted by Zanadou
Zanadou writes: Apple may have succeeded at breaking two records at once with the free release of U2’s latest album, titled Songs of Innocence, via iTunes. But now, it looks like it’s also on track to become one of the worst music publicity stunts of all time.

Users who have opted to download new purchases to their iPhones automatically have found the new U2 album sitting on their phones. But even if iTunes users hadn’t chosen automatic downloads, Songs of Innocence will still be displayed as an “iTunes in the Cloud” purchase. That means it will still be shown as part of your music library, even if you delete all the tracks. The only way to make the U2 album go away is to go to your Mac or PC and hide all of your “iTunes in the Cloud” purchases, or to use iTunes to manually hide each track from your purchased items list.

Other reactions include rapper, Tyler, The Creator, saying that having the new U2 album automatically downloaded on his iPhone was 'like waking up with herpes', while Twitter user Mez pondered 'If Apple can forcefully download a U2 album onto everyone's phone, imagine what else they can do.. and see.'

Submission + - School to fingerprint students to 'monitor their diets' (eagnews.org) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: STOURBRIDGE, England – A school is implementing a biometric system to better track what students are eating each day.

The Express & Star reports students at Redhill School in Stourbridge, England will be fingerprinted in an attempt to reduce lunch lines and “monitor pupils’ diets.” The system requires pupils to press a finger against a machine which converts the print into biometric data. This can then be used to identify individual pupils accounts.

Headteacher Stephen Dunster wrote to parents, “We are aiming to have a cashless system throughout the school. The catering system is better for parents because they don’t have to provide children with lunch money every morning. From our perspective it is far more efficient as it reduces waiting times. We will also be able to monitor what children are buying to make sure they are eating a healthy diet.”

Comment Much bettern than my idea (Score 2) 210

by ripvlan (#47892253) Attached to: Turning the Tables On "Phone Tech Support" Scammers

I have been using the "Yes..and" Improv method of Step In.

"What? Again? My damn kid put a virus on the computer again? Boy!! Get your Ass down here now... yes you... talk to this guy... WTF (whack)" [pull phone away from head, change voice "No Dad, that hurts, let go, stop, ow ow" "You get the phone with this guy right now and fix this.... and after we're going to have a talk...."

or -- two old people "Ethel - do you understand what this guy wants? Something about a computer... hmm.. our grandson was over last week. Hold on while I get him"

or -- "Oh - I've been waiting for you to call. See I have this problem where....."

of course if I'm in a rush I just say, "I have a Mac" and they hang up immediately. Seriously.. click.

Submission + - White House Names Google's Megan Smith As CTO (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: The White House has named long-time Google executive Megan Smith as the government's new CTO, in charge of improving technology and the use of data across agencies. Smith most recently served as vice president at Google's tech lab, Google[x]. She previously served as CEO of PlanetOut, helped design early smartphone technologies at General Magic and worked on multimedia products at Apple Japan in Tokyo. She holds bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT, and just might be, as noted in a previous Slashdot post, the first US CTO worthy of the title. Also on Thursday, the White House named Alexander Macgillivray, a former general counsel and head of public policy at Twitter, as deputy U.S. CTO.

Submission + - Music Training's Cognitive Benefits Could Help "At-Risk" Students

Submitted by AthanasiusKircher
AthanasiusKircher writes: In recent years, emphasis on standardized testing and basic skills has forced many schools to cut back on things like arts and extracurricular activities. A study out this week from Northwestern University hints that schools may be hurting "at-risk" kids even more by cutting such programs. Just two years of music lessons were shown to have significant effects on brain activity and language processing which the researchers argue could help close achievement gaps between at-risk students and more affluent students. Aside from better brain response to language observed in the lab, practical effects of the interventions were readily apparent: 'Leaders at Harmony Project approached the researchers after the non-profit observed that their students were performing much better than other public school students in the area. Since 2008, over 90 percent of high school seniors who participated in Harmony Project’s free music lessons went on to college, even though the high school dropout rates in the surrounding Los Angeles areas can reach up to 50 percent.' Note that this is only one of several ongoing studies showing significant cognitive benefits for music training among at-risk students; an article last year from The Atlantic gives a more detailed summary of related research.

Submission + - Hackers Steal Data On 4.5 Million US Hospital Patients (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Community Health Systems said the attack occurred in April and June of this year, but it wasn't until July that it determined the theft had taken place. Working with a computer security company, it determined the attack was carried out by a group based in China that used 'highly sophisticated malware' to attack its systems. The hackers got away with patient names, addresses, birthdates, telephone numbers and Social Security numbers of the 4.5 million people who were referred to or received services from doctors affiliated with the company in the last five years. The stolen data did not include patient credit card, medical or clinical information.

Submission + - Are altcoins undermining Bitcoin's credibility?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The editor of a Bitcoin advocacy site believes the proliferation of altcoins (cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin) is harming Bitcoin's long-term potential as an alternative to traditional currencies. Posting at BadBitcoin.org, a site that seeks to expose online scams that target Bitcoin users, the pseudonymous ViK compares altcoins, including the Internet meme inspired Dogecoin, to a pump-and-dump scheme where developers create their own version of the Bitcoin wallet and blockchain and then "pre-mine" or generate a significant number cryptocurrency units before the altcoin's official release. Later, when their value has risen, the pre-mined altcoins are exchanged for Bitcoin or in some cases converted directly to cash. While critics of cryptocurrencies in general might find ViK's comments about the altcoin "tulip" mania ironic, the self-confessed Bitcoin fan is nevertheless calling for an altcoin boycott: "The easiest way to stop them is to not participate. We all know that they only have one purpose, and that is to make Bitcoin for the so called developers."

Submission + - A Thousand Kilobots Self-Assemble Into Complex Shapes (ieee.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers at Harvard's Self-Organizing Systems Research Group—describe their thousand-robot swarm in a paper published today in Science (they actually built 1024 robots). In the past, researchers have only been able to program at most a couple hundred robots to work together. Now, researchers at Harvard University have programmed the biggest robot swarm yet. Alone, the simple little robot can’t do much, but working with 1,000 or more like-minded fellow bots, it becomes part of a swarm that can self-assemble into any two-dimensional shape. These are some of the first steps toward creating huge herds of tiny robots that form larger structures—including bigger robots.

Comment Separate Docs from Training (Score 1) 199

by ripvlan (#47672649) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Should You Invest In Documentation, Or UX?

Yes - an obvious UI should reduce the need for documentation. Are you documenting every single screen - and is it really useful?

We split everything into a few buckets:
  * Proper and Intended Use of the product
  * End User Training
  * Suggested workflow and use (kind of a how-to accomplish important tasks)

If users are unable to accomplish their work without reading the documentation - then there is a problem. Our documentation went down from "feet thick" to a small "1 cm thick" manual. Via a removal of duplication and splitting into Role based helped keep changes to a minimum.

Of course - if the UI is changing that drastically every year - are the customers happy? It sounds like there's a huge investment from the customer base to re-learn the product every year. At some point I'd get tired of that and slow down how often I upgraded...or went looking for a less complicated product.

To answer your general question: Yes - it is possible and you will be successful in doing it.
Wider question, not asked but we all derived, it sounds like some change control needs to happen.

Good luck.

Submission + - Apple's App Store Needs a Radical Revamp. How Would You Go About It? (dice.com)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Given the hundreds of thousands of apps currently on offer, it’s hard for any one app (no matter how well designed) to stand out on Apple's App Store, much less stay atop the bestseller charts for very long. In an August 10 blog posting, former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée offered Apple CEO Tim Cook some advice: Let humans curate the App Store. 'Instead of using algorithms to sort and promote the apps that you permit on your shelves, why not assign a small group of adepts to create and shepherd an App Store Guide,' he wrote. 'A weekly newsletter will identify notable new titles, respond to counter-opinions, perhaps present a developer profile, footnote the occasional errata and mea culpa.' Whether or not such an idea would effectively surface all the good content now buried under layers of Flappy Bird rip-offs is an open question; what’s certain is that, despite Apple’s rosy picture, developers around the world face a lot of uncertainty and competition when it comes to making significant money off their apps. Sure, some developers are making a ton of cash, but the rising tide doesn’t necessarily float all boats. If you had the opportunity, how would you revamp/revise/upgrade/adjust/destroy the App Store to better serve the developers who put apps in it?"

Submission + - Vancouver Pastafarian boiling mad over ICBC photo flap (vancouversun.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A Surrey man, an ordained minister in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is involved in a holy war of sorts with ICBC over his right to wear his religious headgear — a spaghetti strainer — in his B.C. driver's licence photo.

Submission + - Google Expands Its Safe Browsing Service to Block PUAs 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google today announced it is expanding its Safe Browsing service to protect users against malware that makes unexpected changes to your computer. Google says it will show a warning in Chrome whenever an attempt is made to trick you into downloading and installing such software. In the case of malware, PUA stands for Potentially Unwanted Application, which is also sometimes called Potentially Unwanted Program or PUP. In short, the broad terms encompass any downloads that the user does not want, typically because they display popups, show ads, install toolbars in the default browser, change the homepage or the search engine, run several processes in the background that slow down the PC, and so on.

Submission + - Correcting Killer Architecture (theguardian.com)

Submitted by minstrelmike
minstrelmike writes: In Leeds, England, architects are adding a plethora of baffles and other structures to prevent the channeling of winds from a skyscraper that have pushed baby carriages into the street and caused one pedestrian death by blowing over a truck (lorry). Other architectural mistakes listed in the article include death ray buildings that can melt car bumpers and landscape ponds that blind tenants.

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