While the NUCs are overkill for HTPC duty, the PIs are also not sufficiently there either. A PI just has problems keeping up with the user interface (XBMC).

That's not a Pi problem.

Because the Pi's CPU is designed as a set top box processor - the ARM for the UI and networking, while the VideoCore IV does the heavy lifting.

In fact, the Pi's CPU is used in set top boxes right now - I believe if you go to your favorite electronics retailer (online or off), pick up a Roku 2. The same CPU powering the Pi powers that. (Same amount of RAM, too I believe, and Ethernet.).

Do you have any proof that China systematically back-doors hardware before it leaves the country? I have not seen any, just lots of innuendo from US companies trying to make out that China is as bad as they are and you are screwed either way.

The US is exceptionally bad. It spends more money spying on people than anyone else. It has more extensive programmes than anyone else we know of, except perhaps the UK who they are close partners with. Let's not pretend that everyone is as bad, because they are not. There is zero evidence that China installs backdoors in routers or hard drive firmware before they go through customs, for example, while we have photos of the US doing it.

China is bad, but all the evidence suggests that the US is worse. Most of us prefer an evidence based approach to our paranoia.

So you're saying because the Chinese Edward Snowden hasn't come forward, the Chinese aren't doing it?

That's a very dangerous attitude. Fact is, EVERYONE is doing it. At the very least, for industrial espionage. That's the truth.

In fact, if you're waiting for the Chinese Edward Snowden to appear, realize that he's probably been "disappeared" by the Chinese government before he even had a chance to open his mouth.

You may think the US isn't a free country, but it is. A country like China is not going to allow anyone to air the dirty laundry without consequences. Sure Snowden may be exiled outside the US, but leaking state secrets in China means your disappearance and likely that of your family.

In fact, Snowden really didn't reveal anything noteworthy - you cannot do anything online without leaving a footprint, and anyone can see those footprints. So the fact that the government is tracking you should come as no surprise.

I cannot even begin to count the number of commenters here who pushed HTML5 as the best way to end, once and for all, those incredibly invasive and annoying Flash ads.

You got exactly what you were asking for.

So long as business is on the web, there will never, ever, ever be a technological "solution" to online advertising. There's simply too much money at stake for that to happen.

Except things are different now.

With HTML5, you have a LOT more control over everything. With Flash, it was all or nothing. An HTML5 ad is still an ad, and it still can be blocked in the same way other ads are blocked.

But your browser can do a lot of things you can't do if it was flash - e.g., your browser can easily block popups (something a lot harder to do on a flash ad). If a flash ad takes too many CPU cycles, you're SOL, but the browser can easily go and limit the CPU cycles an HTML5 ad uses.

I would add a couple of things.

- Stay curious. Do not accept things as they are said - ask why. If they do not give an answer, that usually means the answer either is beyond our means of knowing (e.g., Why did the Big Bang happen?), or someone is hiding something (Why is climate change not happening?).

- Along the same lines, be inquisitive. Lifelong learning. Always attempt to learn something new - a new skill, new knowledge, new language, whatever. There should be no time where you think "I know all I need to know" - there is always something new to learn. And no, the something new doesn't have to be useful to anyone - if you want to learn to speak Latin, do it. Do it for the fun and enjoyment of learning. Always be learning.

- Enjoy the world - explore the beauty of nature. Examine the complexity of modern day life. Just sit back - do not spend all your time on practicalities, but learn to just step back, put away your daily distractions, and just ... enjoy. Take in the bigger picture. Do not let the minutiae of everyday life bog you down. Appreciate simple joys like how a dog might spend hours with a rope or ball.

- Realize there is much evil in the world, and strive to not contribute to it. Realize there are those who are not as fortunate, who may have lost much more than you, and to not judge them for you may find yourself in the same spot.

- If something does not feel right, act on that feeling. There are very few things in life that require immediate action. If your life is not in danger, take your time. Make it feel right. If it doesn't feel right, don't do it.

Unless the big fish start feeling the pain of the current patent regime. If patent trolls get too greedy, they may undo themselves.

Not likely. Patent trolling has been going on for CENTURIES. It's NOT a new thing. in fact, abusing the patent system has been worse in the past than it is right now. Sure it seems like a lot, but remember, you're on a tech website and tech is where a lot of patent fights are right now in the past 30 years. But since the 19th century, there have been tons of patents and patent wars and patent trolls.

Way back when, it was sewing machines. There were so many patents filed related to sewing machines that it ended up in a stalemate as no one could actually make a sewing machine without violating someone's patent somewhere.

And yes, many patents overlapped then as well.

To counter this, a conglomerate went out and bought up many of the patents (eventually becoming Singer) so people could go to one place to buy licenses for a set of patents and make sewing machines. Probably one of the first patent pools around, and this was an era where FRAND didn't exist. So you ended up with a huge corporate entity that basically holds everything sewing machine related to which you paid license fees for.

Then there were vehicles... the internal combustion engine was highly patented and the current Otto cycle engines we use today was patented, avoided, etc. Then other aspects of the car were patented, avoided, sued over, etc.

Then there was the case of intermittent windshield wipers (invented about a half dozen times), but the modern version would be by Robert Kearns who did a fully solid-state version, and offered it to the Ford Motor Company who copied the ideas and made their own, resulting in a massive patent litigation that spanned 26 separate car manufacturers and lasted until the mid 90s through appeals and the Supreme Court.

Yes, you can imagine that in the 90s when intermittent wipers were basically almost standard, patent litigation was STILL going on about it.

this is what they want us to believe to keep costs down.

You won't believe how old the technology is in a SIM card. It's actually quite ancient.

Think about it - your SIM probably has a 32k storage area, yet if you saw the actual die, it's remarkably big for what it is (just an 8-bit microcontroller and storage) - something that would in normal circumstances literally the size of a grain of sand if you used recent, but not cutting edge, fab technology.

Instead, the dies are relatively big (measured in the mm scale) - it's because SIMs are so disposable so the manufacturers basically buy up ancient fabs and equipment for basically nothing. (It's probably sub-micron by now, but not the deep-sub-micron we use for bleeding edge stuff). Students in VLSI design often use micron-scale technology as it's basically extremely cheap to run. Even the masks used don't have to be particularly precise (a modern mask for a fab is on the order of $100K, each, and you often need 20 or more masks) so those are really cheap. And probably reused in the end, as well.

SIM cards are stupidly cheap because of this - which is the entire point - that $10 they charge for a SIM card is pure profit for the most part.

Recently, I saw a picture of a diamond-encrusted Apple watch band / case. I'm sure there will be a market for third parties, catering to people with more money than either common sense or fashion sense to 'improve' their smart watch in one way or the other.

Don't laugh. Turns out custom straps actually are quite important, and it's a mistake many Swiss watchmakers forget about. The fact that Apple provides a wide range from the get go signals other manufacturers to step their game up.

A horologist's take on the Apple Watch. It's not perfect, and it's still a digital watch, but the Swiss need to get their heads out of their asses, and take a look at what Apple brought to the table because there is genuine improvements Apple did.

http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/h...

This is a fight that doesn't need to be dealt with. Just call it a CNC mill, which is designed for fabricating automotive parts. Hoppes calls their #9 product, "lubricating oil", instead of "gun oil." Might as well not have to deal with a wedge issue when it comes to business if one doesn't have to.

Unless the whole point is to create publicity by deliberately creating wedge issues. In other words, it doesn't matter what FedEx said, because now I have a great advertising platform - buy my stuff!.

Like Apple developers who deliberately code something that will not pass muster to cry foul and say "oh, we have an Android version buy that!".

The goal is not force companies to act in ways you want them to act so you can create attention for yourself. "Poor me, the big bad FedEx won't ship my stuff! Oh, btw, I have a new gunsmithing machine! You can buy it today!". That's how I read this advertisement.

That's what it really is - an ad. Creating a wedge gives you publicity that can be worth several million dollars and be far more effective.

This bill would move forward with the XL portion of the pipeline. The Keystone pipeline currently terminates at the refineries near Chicago, Il. The XL portion of the pipeline would extends the line to the Gulf Coast, allowing for the oil to be more easily re-sold on the world market as opposed to being land locked into the US market.

Exactly.

In fact, the US has tried to compromise with Canada on this issue. They asked if they could buy the oil and refine it on the gulf coast (more refineries) - we said no. They asked if they could buy it and sell it - again, we said no. Also asked if they could buy capacity to ship oil around - no. Absolutely no benefit other than having a big fat pipe through your land that you can look at and practically not touch.

Etc.

In effect, Keystone XL is less about US oil interests and more about getting Canadian oil to the sea. There will be a small US benefit in the form of construction jobs and maybe the odd person for monitoring, but that's it - most of the benefit goes to Canada who can sell their oil at higher prices. If a leak happens, too bad, so sad.

It's quite funny what a wedge issue it is, when it's clear that other than a few jobs, the US is getting shafted by having this pipeline that not only can the US not use, but is basically just for another country's benefit. Which is a completely strange situation since it's usually the other way around and it's the US throwing its weight around.

Hell, gas prices could very well go UP because of this - think Canada would want to sell to Chicago when they could sell to oil tankers in the gulf coast?

I'm thinking some people really don't understand what they're agreeing to by accepting Keystone XL. Yeah, pipelines are generally better, but what good is a pipeline that's a look-but-don't-touch? You can't get at the oil inside, you can't use it move your oil, you can't even go and buy/sell the oil inside.

No, The real issue (I believe) is that they can't find engineers willing to work for less than other engineers (2/3rd the pay and no benefits).

I've seen when they do a postings for H1B jobs, Its tailored specifically to that person for THAT job, then its posted for just long enough to meet the legal requirement to "prove" they tried to find a qualified US engineer but nope, They didn't find any so the H1B person is kept

Just because a law can be exploited, doesn't mean it's always exploited.

Engineers are more than just computer or electrical - they span the range from mechanical, civil, chemical, etc., Even electrical engineering has a bunch of specialities.

In fact, if you can avoid computers, there are real shortages in engineering (because everyone sees the glitz of the internet, video games, computers and goes for that.). I mean, if you want to stay close to the field, there's analog IC designers where the pay is practically 6 digits as a new grad, power engineering is similar (power utilities all over the globe can't find enough people to just replace retirements, nevermind trying to expand their systems).

Oh yeah, the math is a lot harder and you better have a good grasp of your EM equations and calculus, but the work is out there.

Just because the tech industry is known for abusing its employees (unpaid interns? that's practically a tech invention since interns in other fields, including medical, are paid. Poorly paid, perhaps, but still paid), doesn't necessarily apply to other occupations.

I suppose the biggest question is why tech employees let themselves be as mistreated as they are. (My gut says it's because most tech workers feel "superior" over the everyday Joe so they overestimate their knowledge of the world - why bother with unions and labor laws - they're for people who aren't as "smart" and employers know that.).

Hell, a workweek isn't necessarily 40 hours - it can easily be 35 (7 hrs/day) or 37.5 (7.5hrs/day) and overtime is compensated for. And this is in North America, not Europe.

Of course, there are terrible employers everywhere who do take advantage of their employees, but there are also plenty of companies where the need for H1-Bs is valid and they often will pay a premium just to get someone to fill the position (and often do anything they can to convert the to full citizen as a two way perk - to both attract someone willing to immigrate, and as a way to hang onto the employee).

Yes Martha, there ARE people who do use laws the way they were intended to be used.

I'm not an electrical engineer or anything close, but I live in a developing country and notice that the biggest problem here is not 3G or LTE speed (which just works fine everywhere) but that when a zone gets a little crowded, even if the signal strength is high, connectivity drops to E and stops working.

  Is this a problem that the specification does not allow more than a certain amount of frequencies per antenna and more are needed? As in, If it's so easy to saturate an antenna, shouldn't the extra frequencies, speed and bandwidth be used for allowing more connections instead first?

Most likely the control channel gets overloaded. It's the problem AT&T had when the iPhone came out - the iPhone was very aggressive with power management which resulted in it basically setting up and tearing down data connections on an almost per-tcp connection basis. This results in control channel overload, and other devices can't access it when they need it - perhaps when doing a handoff. The end result is the call drops because the phone can't establish communications with the next cell in time. And there is no relation to a cell's load level and its control channel load level - AT&T found that while the control channel was overloaded, they still had plenty of data and voice channels available - resulting in the worst performing carrier having the best data speeds.

The control channel is used to set up and tear down links (voice channels, data channels), perform handoffs, handle SMS, etc. In crowded places, this can easily be overloaded - most providers set up additional micro-cells in densely populated areas to prevent this.

Your phone is likewise seeing the same problem - it can't establish a 3G connection with the tower (overloaded control channel), so it falls back to 2G (which uses a different set of bands and thus has its own set of control channels) which are far less crowded where it can obtain service. Hence the "E" (stands for EDGE).

Why not just say that in the press release?

I mean at the end of the day the result is the same. However I would consider that explanation as "plausible" (I still would not buy it without some verifiable facts posted along with it).

Actually, it's more like a few conservative flash mobs went and complained.

Remember when Apple was forced to remove all porn apps from the App Store? I'm sure it wasn't because they wanted to, but there's a group of dedicated social conservatives who do nothing but complain about anything even remotely explicit.

Think back to the superbowl "wardrobe malfunction" - it probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere if not for the group being vocal in their complaints. When the FCC decided to filter out mass complaints of their nature, well, they went after the next target - Apple.

And you can easily bet they're the ones flagging tons of videos off YouTube, and probably they discovered Blogger.

Hell, I won't be surprised if they discover Android next and start getting all the more explicity apps there removed. (Yes, you can sideload, but that cuts down your visibility tremendously, and sideloading these kind of apps is already sort of questionable, given they're very ripe vectors for getting malware on Android).

These sort of groups will stop at nothing to ensure society is clean and full of "pure Christian values".

SteamOS is still under active development and works quite well. I anticipate we'll see some dedicated hardware halfway through 2015.

That was stated last year. In fact, there were plenty of prototype Steam Machines last year.

The problem is no the idea, but the sales pitch. When people considered the Xbone expensive at $500, and the best machine that was out was an i3 with dedicated graphics, you really start to wonder about its viability. Sure there were competent boxes out there, if you're willing to pay for it (say over $1000), which buys a LOT of PSN or Xbox Live Gold cards (practicaly 10 year's worth).

Then there's the upgrade path - considering the Xbox360 and PS3 are last gen, they still lasted 7-8 years. Will a $500 steam machine running an i3 last 7-8 years or will it require constant upgrading? Will your $1000 one last? You can argue that "you can turn down the graphics!" but will that just cause users to think the graphics are crappy because they have to run it in a virtual VGA upscaled to 1080p graphics mode?

That's the fundamental problem. Valve sees Steam Machines as specialized PCs that sit in the PC section of Best Buy alongside the gaming PCs. Yet the public is likely to see it as a game console that sits beside the PS4 and Xbone with expectations of such.

VR, I see as having other problems. Oculus has had how long to release their VR stuff? It's gotten long enough that the only product is the Galaxy Gear, while plenty of people are using it for development and research. Either the technology will end up dying out as "pie in the sky" - it's out there, but there's nothing for the public to buy so they end up forgetting about it like much vaporware, or low cost ripoffs will come out and people's impressions of the Rift will be from those things that barely work. There's a vacuum in the market and competitors that don't work as well are likely to spoil the market.

The fun of coding is NOT the physical typing in of the code text along with edits, deletions what whatnots. So quite why anyone would want to watch someone *else* do it frankly is beyond me. If you want to learn to code in language XYZ go buy a book or look at some example code online then most importantly try it yourself.

You can argue that about anything.

You can argue that the "fun" in playing videogames is well... playing videogames. Yet for over a decade now, watching others play videogames is popular (ask anyone in South Korea who watch people play StarCraft). And in the past 2-3 years, "Let's Play" style videos have been extremely popular on YouTube (which consists of nothing more than someone recording their play through of a game). And perhaps in the past year, broadcasting of games through Twitch.

It's apparently REALLY popular given Sony's dedicated a whole button on their controller to putting up gaming videos.

And no, we're not talking about quickie "This is where the item is" style videos that basically show you where some object is to save paragraphs of text. We're talking about videos showing a game from start to finish.

The first transistors on a slab of semiconductors were made of GaAS but had trouble with temperature and reliability as Nasa and Boeing at the time were the biggest customers. Silicon was used as it was more stable and can withstand higher temperatures.

I am surprised they are considering GaAS again after it failed

You have to realize that modern technology is quite... wonderful in that it allows us to revisit things that were impractical before, and are practical now.

I mean, back in the early days of microchips, you can't consider the deep-sub-micron technology we have today - the technology and materials know-how we have today just wasn't there. Just putting a few thousand transistors on a single die a few millimeters across was considered state of the art.

I'm sure these days GaAs might be a bit more achievable because our tools, research and understanding of material sciences and IC lithography is far more advanced than the early days.

Especially since GaAs based semiconductors have been around a long time now. It's not generally used as it's been a more expensive technology in general so it was reserved for things that require extremely high speed electronics.