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Comment Re:The recreation is a little misleading too. . . (Score 1) 463

by Tim Browse (#25910817) Attached to: What The Banned iPhone Ad Should Really Look Like

I did a quick test on my iPhone (v2.1 OS), trying to copy what they did in the ad (zoom in on image, follow link, maps set to street mode not satellite, etc) - albeit using PC Pro's method of using wifi.

Minus phone call, but using the iPhone stopwatch app to time myself, it came to 54 seconds in total. I cleared Safari's cache first to avoid getting an advantage, and sent myself an email with a PDF attachment before the test.

I can't see from the PC Pro video how big the PDF was, but it didn't look complicated, so I chose a 2-page data sheet that was about 150k.

And it took 54 seconds. But then I'm not a hamfisted fecking eejit like the person doing the PC Pro 'recreation'.

I imagine the story is different with 3G (PC Pro's wifi seems to perform worse than 3G!), but then if you're in a good reception area, 3G is pretty good. You can't really argue that the ad has to work with 1 bar of 3G signal.
Businesses

Interviewing Experienced IT People? 835

Posted by timothy from the experience-is-not-just-a-euphemism dept.
thricenightly writes "After more than 20 years in IT I've learned that the most valuable people in a team are frequently the old timers. Young pups straight out of college might (think they) know all the latest buzzwords and techniques, but in the real world, where getting working products delivered on time and on budget is of paramount importance, people who have been doing the job for a decade or two tend to be the people I'd rather be working alongside. I've recently been elevated to a position where I get to interview and choose those who get hired in my department. Although I'm very much focused on choosing the right person for the role regardless of age, experience or whatever, it's probably fair to say the more mature applicants will get a more sympathetic hearing from me than they might from most other interviewers for IT roles. The question is, what do I ask older applicants to get them to demonstrate the value of their experience? My current gambit is something like 'IT is seen as a young man's game. My next applicant after you is 23 years old. What do you know that he doesn't?' This gets responses ranging from the vague to the truly enlightened. All next week I'm interviewing for a number of senior software designer and developer roles. What should I be asking of the more experienced applicants, and what responses should I be looking out for?"
Privacy

Researchers Find Problems With RFID Passport Cards 172

Posted by timothy from the clearly-unpossible dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Washington have found that RFID tags used in two new types of border-crossing documents in the US are vulnerable to snooping and copying. The information in these tags could be copied on to another, off-the-shelf tag, which might be used to impersonate the legitimate holder of the card." You can also read the summary of the researchers' report.
GNU is Not Unix

id and Valve May Be Violating GPL 399

Posted by Zonk from the can't-we-all-just-get-along dept.
frooge writes "With the recent release of iD's catalog on Steam, it appears DOSBox is being used to run the old DOS games for greater compatibility. According to a post on the Halflife2.net forums, however, this distribution does not contain a copy of the GPL license that DOSBox is distributed under, which violates the license. According to the DOSBox developers, they were not notified that it was being used for this release."
Wireless Networking

GPL Code Found In OpenBSD Wireless Driver 671

Posted by kdawson from the cross-licensing dept.
NormalVisual writes "The mailing lists were buzzing recently when Michael Buesch, one of the maintainers for the GPL'd bc43xx Broadcom wireless chip driver project, called the OpenBSD folks to task for apparently including code without permission from his project in the OpenBSD bcw project, which aims to provide functionality with Broadcom wireless chips under that OS. It seems that the problem has been resolved for now with the BSD driver author totally giving up on the project and Theo De Raadt taking the position that Buesch's posts on the subject were 'inhuman.'" More commentary from the BSD community is over at undeadly.org.
Wii

The Wii - Is the Magic Gone? 492

Posted by Zonk from the do-the-clowns-always-cry-when-you-pack-up-the-paper-sky dept.
Computer And Video Games asks the tough question: is the Wii's magic gone? After the flurry of excitement around the launch, lackluster ports and a persistent inability for Nintendo to keep units on the shelves has made it hard for gamers to sustain their enthusiasm for the system. It doesn't help that most of the good games slated for this year won't be out for months. In some cases, there's doubt they'll even make it out this year: Reggie Fils-Aime appears to be backpedaling on Metroid Prime 3 by Christmas, which would be a shame. GigaGamez has additional commentary. Are you still as excited about the Wii as you were when it launched?
Sony

Sony Open to Considering PS3 Price Cuts 339

Posted by Zonk from the get-em-out-of-the-house dept.
njkid1 writes with word that Sony is considering dropping the PS3's price. The Mercury news reports that Sony Senior Vice President Takao Yuhara has admitted they are investigating whether to drop the PlayStation 3 in price around the world, despite statements previously made that the 'lower' PS3 price in Japan is hurting Sony's bottom line. Profits for the company slipped some five percent in the October-December period, and the shortfall expected through March could be even worse than previously predicted. The article points out the possibly risky nature of a price cut for such an expensive item so early in its lifespan, and notes the stiff competition from the Xbox 360 and the Wii.

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