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Comment Re:Actually closed-blob free? Re:Except that it's (Score 0) 152

by acariquara (#42320045) Attached to: Open Hardware and Software Laptop

"The bunnie" says otherwise (from The Fine Article's comment section):

bunnie says:
December 16, 2012 at 3:20 am

Clarification: Wifi does not require a closed-source blob, if you use an Atheros 9k mPCI-x version

The USB card is provided as an option just in case you want to put something else in the mini PCI slot, or you wanted a second wifi interface for some reason. Also, the USB card is much cheaper than the mPCIx card, so it’s a cost-down option for those who don’t care as much about a small blob in the system. Basically, if you care about having no blob for wifi, you can pay for an option that is open source.

GPU, on the other hand, is probably out of reach. nvdia and ATI have set a pretty strong precedent for closed source drivers to use those elements, and the IP vendors for integrated GPUs (like Vivante) are following suit. However, GPU is non-essential IMO for a large application space.

An interesting project, I wish them luck. Even if it is never widely popular in the marketplace, who knows what spinoff projects this might launch?

Yeah, for Wifi IF you use one specific mPCI-x version, but he also ammends GPUs are "out of reach", as in "binary blobs required". So, from a purist point of view, no different than the myriad of ARM netbooks/tablets/convertibles/whatnot.
Mozilla

Firefox Disables Microsoft .NET Addon 448

Posted by kdawson from the with-their-consent-of-course dept.
ZosX writes "Around 11:45 PM Friday night, I was prompted by Firefox that it had disabled the addons that Microsoft has been including with .NET — specifically, the .NET Framework Assistant and the Windows Presentation Foundation. The popup announcing this said that the 'following addons have been known to cause stability or security issues with Firefox.' Thanks, Mozilla team, for hitting the kill switch and hopefully this will get Microsoft to release a patch sooner." Here's the Mozilla security blog entry announcing the block, which Mozilla implemented via its blocklisting mechanism.
Communications

45-Year-Old Modem Used To Surf the Web 622

Posted by timothy from the cool-wooden-case dept.
EdIII writes with this awesome snippet from Hack a Day: "'[phreakmonkey] got his hands on a great piece of old tech. It's a 1964 Livermore Data Systems Model A Acoustic Coupler Modem. He recieved it in 1989 and recently decided to see if it would actually work. It took some digging to find a proper D25 adapter and even then the original serial adapter wasn't working because the oscillator depends on the serial voltage. He dials in and connects at 300baud. Then logs into a remote system and fires up lynx to load Wikipedia. Lucky for [phreakmonkey] they managed to decide on a modulation standard in 1962. It's still amazing to see this machine working 45 years later.' Although impractical for surfing the Internet today, there is something truly cool about getting a 45-year old modem to work with modern technology. The question I have, is what is the oldest working piece of equipment fellow Slashdotters have out there? I'm afraid as far back as I can go is a Number Nine Imagine 128 Series 2 Graphics card on a server still in use at my house which only puts me at about 14 years."

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