Ultimately all of them will make a lot of money. I never claimed they wouldn't.

As a game developer professionally, I love the competition. I want lots of game consoles. Since we're cross platform, I want all of them to have as many sales as they can. That's the good part for me and for everyone.

Last generation both Sony and Microsoft had a net loss on hardware sales that they never recouped in hardware. They took (and continue to take) profits from online subscriptions and other licensing.

Nintendo made more money than either of them, but all of them were profitable. Nintendo is still on track to make more money than Sony (but probably not Microsoft) because both Sony and Microsoft again decided to take a huge loss on hardware sales.

As slashdot users, most of us understand that 'broadband' refers to frequency, not speed. Broadband is different from baseband, in that they use their spectrum differently.

DSL is broadband by definition. It doesn't matter if they give you a 1kbit connection or 5GBit connection, it will remain broadband as long as the frequencies are partitioned in that way.

Except that it is still cheaper to manufacture than either the PS4 or XBox One.

Although the manufacturing contracts and specific details are not known, the estimate is that Wii U hardware is currently roughly net positive $350M. The XBox One hardware is approximately net loss of $350M, and the PS4 is approximately net loss of $750M. Sony and Microsoft are hoping losses will be recovered with software and online subscription fees to recover the losses, but Nintendo doesn't really need it since it is just extra profit.

So even though by count the two devices are tied, the Wii U is over a half billion ahead of XBox One, and a billion more than the PS4.

Again: Hardware sales are tied, but Nintendo has a BILLION dollars more in net funding from race.

When you are making a profit on every unit and your competitor is making a loss on every unit, why would you object very much when the competitor takes the lead on number of units?

As much as the FAA would love to regulate model aircraft, the guidelines generally don't apply. When they recently tried to enforce the rules (suing because a radio controlled meter-long craft was not piloted by an FAA-certified pilot) they were challenged in court - and lost.

There has been ONE case where the FAA actually tried to sue a model aircraft pilot in the past.

It is still going through the appeals process, but it doesn't look good for the FAA. It lost the case in a summary judgement that completely emasculated the FAA's claims on regulating model aircraft.

The judge basically reviewed the regulations and the definitions. None of the FAA policies appear directed at these small craft. All the regulations the judge found were discussing large, manned craft, or large unmanned craft, or large experimental aircraft. The law they rely on for their authority are based on large craft, and the current actual regulation for the smaller model aircraft is a simple safety guideline asking (not requiring under law) that certain polite behavior be followed, such as flying away from airports and under certain heights.

The judge found in the summary judgement that the FAA rules are regulations are built around certified pilots with so many hours in flight school, filing flight plans to ensure the craft do not interfere with military and commercial airlines, and tend to refer to large aircraft requiring airports and runways and high altitudes ... and they say nothing specific about model craft.

And of course, the judge noted, all the FAA guidelines and requirements mandated that the person operating a little 2-stick remote control have an FAA license with mandatory in-air flight time, noting it as being a nonsensical requirement for model aircraft. The summary judgement had little gems like calling the FAA guidelines "incompatible with the law", not "binding upon the general public",

The trial court judge also ruled that FAA policy notices are not binding law generally. As much as the FAA keeps claiming on their publications and policies that their word is the absolute law, the judge felt it was not. In part, any government mandated official policy has a bunch of requirements about comment periods, minimum time between posting and effectiveness, etc., and the FAA does not follow the legal requirements. It may be policy internally within the FAA, and the FAA can challenge FAA-certified pilots with violations that suspend their license, but it doesn't look the FAA currently has any jurisdiction on model pilots. Of course, as mentioned, appeal is pending, but it is improbable to succeed.

I cannot, in any way, fathom the appeal courts accepting that every person flying a model aircraft must have an FAA-issued pilots license, file flight plans for their model aircraft, notify ground control at the inception of flight, maintain radio contact with FAA systems, and so on. Every little kid with a little battery-powered glider would be facing enormous fines, payable to the FAA's general fund. There is no way that is happening.

There is still generally a big difference between drones and RC aircraft.

RC aircraft do include many of the quadcopters and traditional devices that are controlled by line-of-sight from a controlling box. The key difference is that RC aircraft are not fully autonomous.

Drones are the ones that can fly with autonomy, be programmed with routes, and otherwise do things independently from the radio controller.

These specific devices feature GPS-driven autopilot, dynamic routing, and automated photography systems. The website also lists some auto-drop functionality to deliver small packages to GPS coordinates. They can fly autonomously to GPS locations, take actions, fly elsewhere, take actions, then fly home.

While they do offer a regular controller box and can operate as normal RC aircraft, they are also GPS-drivable, programmably autonomous, and capable of fully automated flight and fully automated recording, so these Dragonflyer X6 devices very firmly fall into the 'drone' category.

Depends on where you live, I suppose.

Here in the heart of the Rocky Mountains our search and rescue organizations are separate from law enforcement, covered under the department of public safety. Basically search and rescue is a sibling organization to the county sheriff offices.

I agree with the representative; I do not want the local LEOs to use drones for just about any reason. But I don't mind other governmental agencies, like search and rescue, fire departments, the department of wildlife resources, and other non-LEO organizations, using them for public good.

Reading the rest of the article (yeah, who does that) has more of the little gems.

The quotes fro the headlines were from a PR drone. They write PR, but they don't know the actual secrets. They are not the ones who are called in to a private executive meeting with the legal team.

When they question Mark Chandler, the executive general counsel who does hear the legal secrets:

“We ought to be able to count on the government tonot interfere with the lawful delivery of our products in the form in which we have manufactured them,” Chandler wrote. “To do otherwise, and to violate legitimate privacy rights of individuals and institutions around the world, undermines confidence in our industry.”

We ought to trust... people need to trust... because that is good for business.

Chandler didn’t say if the company knew of the NSA interdiction program, nor did the executive acknowledge if Cisco participated in the interception of packages delivered to certain customers.

Thank you!

It is amazing at how quickly people jump from the word "mental illness" to "homeless, homicidal, criminally insane."

The vast majority of humanity has a mental illness at least one in their life. It may be trouble coping with a death. It may be trouble overeating or starving yourself. Most executives, politicians, and a large number of law enforcement officers are all sociopaths. Even issues like premature ejaculation can be linked to mental illnesses, either short term or long term.

NO MORE STIGMA. "Mental illness" almost never means "homeless, homicidal, criminally insane", just like "physical illness" almost never means "hospital intensive care on life support, a living vegetable."

Mental illness can range from the equivalent of a physical illness of a cold, or a bigger infection, or a life-long treatable condition like diabetes, or it can be severe like aggressive brain cancer.

The article headline and so many of the replies, including yours, seem to just focus on a tiny subset of mental illness. STOP THE NEGATIVE STEREOTYPES

Sure, people who suffer severe and extreme levels of depression do have trouble with these things.

But mental illness covers a huge swath of conditions.

That skinny girl who has anorexia, that is a mental illness. That person who keeps his desk really neat at work has mild OCD which is a mental illness. Chances are very good that your boss or your grand-boss, and almost certainly your CEO and other executives, are all sociopaths, also a mental illness.

Dyslexia, ADD and ADHD, caffeine-induced sleep disorders, dysthymia (mild depression), stuttering, insomnia, and premature ejaculation all fit under the "mental illness" umbrella.

DON'T FEED THE STEREOTYPES. Because clearly, as you suggest men suffering from premature ejaculation due to mental issues "often have trouble getting good jobs if any jobs at all".

Nearly every human being suffers from mental illness during their life, even if it is only briefly. You wouldn't make such broad claims about other illnesses, but mental illness has such a horrible stigma in western culture it is disgusting.

It isn't the only one. Quite a few conferences dedicated to cryptography and security have been held outside the US because of the ITAR controls and other regulations that treat encryption as weapons and security systems as terrorist devices.

Cryptographic systems were listed as arms until about a decade ago, and even today some security technologies are potentially on the list. Even if they aren't on ITAR any more, attending the conference is certain to get your name entered to all kinds of US-based lists. Rather than risk being considered for international arms dealing and international terrorism, quite a few conferences take place anywhere but the US. The risk both to the conference itself and to those who might attend the conferences are just too great.

Austria, Switzerland, France, Malaysia, ... many countries are still more popular for security conferences than the US.

I know, this is /. and the vast majority don't RTFA.

Here is perhaps a better summary for this story:

School system in the state is terribly corrupt. $100M given to school, with requirement that another $100M must match it. Over $200M is given to the system. ALL THE MONEY in the known-to-be-corrupt system was spent by politicians, union groups, and administrators, NONE OF THE MONEY was actually spent on students.

Throwing more money at the people who are known to be corrupt will not correct the corruption problems. To fix corruption requires actually removing those who are corrupt and implementing strong accountability systems that also remove those who are corrupt or underperform. Right now the politicians in the state are among the most immoral corrupt politicians in the world, the teachers union is strong enough that once hired you have a job until you die no matter how bad you teach, and administrators are protected by both the political and the union sides.

Throwing more money at them is like throwing pretty little fish into a piranha tank hoping it will make a beautiful fishy ecosystem. The natural result should not be surprising. You need to dump the tank and start over.

And yet the patent still went through.

Patent officers reportedly only check existing patents. They cannot be experts in all fields, but searching the patent database is easy.

Yes, I would prefer the patent office said "That is standard art". But on the other hand, they DID issue the patent.

Given the choice, would you prefer Amazon hold the patent, or the patent be held by "XYZ Technology Holdings", a shell company of "SueEmAll Inc", a shell company of "TrollCentral", all existing to sue everybody? Amazon is most likely to just sit on the patent until it expires. The same is not true for patent trolls.

Actually, Amazon claims it was for defensive purposes only.

They noticed that there was very little prior art and they used the process for a huge number of photos on their site. Amazon claims they were concerned that a patent troll would get a patent and then sue Amazon.

In some ways that is a good thing. If their patent was denied for prior art, then it means the patent system (or at least one clerk) understood that there was prior art, and Amazon could have said "We tried to patent it, USPTO denied it, so the troll's patent is invalid."

Instead, since the patent came through, it means the USPTO could have just as easily given the patent to a troll, so it was a hopefully correct action to prevent them from fighting a patent battle later.

Time will tell, but considering the nature of how Amazon has been using its patents, this is probably fairly safe.