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Comment Re:Police side of things. (Score 1) 515

Cops are using head-mounted cameras to record everyone and everything they come in contact with. They like this tool because they control the video. That's what it's really about, controlling information. But when ordinary people record street scenes, that's "bad".

Cops are out in public engaging in public-viewable activity, just like the rest of us. They should expect being recorded and do their job appropriately.

Comment No password may be a feature not a bug (Score 4, Interesting) 161

There is no way to know if the open wifi networks are open intentionally or not. Just ask Bruce Schneier. Saying they're "open to criminals" is biased, maybe "open to visitors" would be more appropriate. How come coffee shops and other businesses with open wifi aren't called out for letting criminals access the network?

Comment Re:I have a dream (Score 5, Insightful) 850

That one day, little iPhones, and little Android phones, may one day access the same content.

That was, essentially, Steve Jobs argument in his letter slamming Flash. His view is that the Web should be based on standards.

The truth is Flash is not a standard, it's a convention. A huge amount of Web content may be in Flash, but it's a closed system. Only one company, Adobe, decides how it works. Ten years ago you could say the same thing about RealPlayer. Shouldn't the iPhone support Real video? What about ActiveX?

The iPhone platform is closed, sure. But it's not delivering content to others, it happens to include a way to access web content. If it does a poor job of that the market will reject it, but the only ones who seem up in arms are Flash developers who are mad about their favorite tools not working on some shiny, popular platform.

Nintendo

Brain Training Games Don't Train Your Brain 151

Stoobalou writes with this excerpt from Thinq.co.uk: "A new study has shown that brain training games do little to exercise the grey matter. Millions of people who have been prodding away at their Nintendo DS portable consoles, smug in the knowledge that they are giving their brains a proper work-out, might have to rethink how they are going to stop the contents of their skulls turning into mush."
Games

Whatever Happened To Second Life? 209

Barence writes "It's desolate, dirty, and sex is outcast to a separate island. In this article, PC Pro's Barry Collins returns to Second Life to find out what went wrong, and why it's raking in more cash than ever before. It's a follow-up to a feature written three years ago, in which Collins spent a week living inside Second Life to see what the huge fuss at the time was all about. The difference three years can make is eye-opening."
Image

PhD Candidate Talks About the Physics of Space Battles 361

darthvader100 writes "Gizmodo has run an article with some predictions on what future space battles will be like. The author brings up several theories on propulsion (and orbits), weapons (explosives, kinetic and laser), and design. Sounds like the ideal shape for spaceships will be spherical, like the one in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie."

Comment Palm is breaking the USB standard (Score 1) 656

...where would the PC world be without interoperatability and standards?

Since USB-IF assigns unique vendor IDs to its members, Palm cloning Apple's vendor ID is in fact breaking the USB standard. Imagine if vendors didn't respect their uniquely assigned IDs with other hardware, such as ethernet. That would be a nightmare for driver writers.

I don't see how Palm forging a vendor ID in direct violation of the USB standard is a good thing for the industry. It renders that portion of the USB standard meaningless.

Comment Re:Total cost? (Score 1) 647

You've always been able to buy Mac OS X separately, usually for $129. So if you started with 10.0 and upgraded to each version to 10.6 you would have paid at most about $775 over seven OS versions (including Snow Leopard) and eight years.

Of course, that's not going to really count since Intel Macs weren't introduced until 2006 under 10.4 (Tiger). And all Mac purchases come with the latest OS, even if Apple has to slap an upgrade disc on the outside of the box (my Intel Mac mini came that way).

Comment Gazizza! (Score 1) 798

This reminds me of Bill McNeal on News Radio trying to be "cool" with his Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor promos:

"Gazizza, dilznoofuses, this is Bill McNeal saying, get with the crazappy taste of Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor! Rocket Fuel's got the upstate prison flavor that keeps you ugly all night long. So when you wanna get sick, remember: Nothing makes your feet stank like Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor. Damn, it's crazappy!"

Comment So dozens of set top boxen? Genius! (Score 1) 375

Boxee consolidates the indefinite number of online content services into a single viewing experience. Kind of the best of all worlds, the content providers get to try and make their own walled gardens but the users get a simplified experience. So Hulu decides no, that's not good enough. We want to force everyone to buy our hardware too, so they can pay $$ for the hardware to watch our "free" service on their teevees.

Yeah, no.

Or maybe Hulu's goal is to keep people using a crappy web browser experience on their computer display while the 60" flat screen HDTV across the room sits dark.

Comment We need lumens ratings (Score 4, Insightful) 553

The real issue is that all light bulbs really do need to have the rating of lumens. Wattage is power use, lumens is light output (obviously). Saying "40-watt equivalent" is empty marketing speak, no wonder they were disappointing. And then there's the whole light temperature issue, which is very difficult for a consumer to determine.

For my LED experience, I went with these LED bulbs for my chandelier (I was looking for a "25-watt equivalent") and have been very pleased. It may help that it's a cluster of bulbs in my fixture. Considering the lifespan of LED bulbs, I'm willing to pay a lot more per bulb providing the light output falls in the appropriate range.

Comment Re:Will this change anything? (Score 2, Insightful) 438

I hope stations switch anyway. The February 17 deadline is three weeks away. Stations have already scheduled their work crews and support staff, have made plans for the hardware cutover, etc. Now they're expected to suddenly halt everything, add an additional four months of dual-service costs and redo all of their plans?

Seems to me this move does nothing to help people prepare for the switch, but will succeed in making the stations unprepared. So it'll be a bigger mess than sticking to the original date.

Comment Re:Battery?! (Score 1) 1079

I've become very annoyed at my battery in my MacBook Pro, it's been a weak point in the case. I seem to always put the most pressure right where the battery is when moving my laptop. Sure, it could be moved, but does everyone grab the laptop the same way? Could it ever be moved to a good place?

I'm not sure how good the battery in the new 17" MBP is going to be, but I think it's the right idea. Most people replace their laptops every 2-3 years (especially in the high end world), and those who don't will surely have battery replacement options.

A more interesting issue is how do you "unfreeze" something with a built-in battery? I've had to remove my battery a few times to get the machine to cold start, not sure how Apple's worked around that with the sealed battery.

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