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Comment Re:got my gvoice number this week (Score 2, Informative) 86

by SeanMon (#29701589) Attached to: FCC To Probe Google Voice Over Call Blocking

The problem is that Google has made themselves into a phone company, [emph. added] but don't want to play by phone company rules.

This is fundamentally wrong. There is no way to place or receive phone calls without an existing phone service.

(SMS messages are slightly different because with Google Voice you can send and receive SMS without another phone service. However, no landline phone services (that I know of) support SMS, so I don't believe that's relevent.)

Comment Re:lim-0 (Score 1) 495

by SeanMon (#28632701) Attached to: How Heavy Is a Petabyte?

As long as the data is being transmitted, it doesn't really weight anything.

However, since E=mc^2, the photons traveling in this transmission have a non-zero equivalent mass:

Assuming a distance of 1.861 AU from Earth to Mars (according to Wolfram|Alpha), light takes 15.48 minutes to travel from Earth to Mars. Assuming a bandwidth of 5 times dial up speed, 35 kB/s, this gives us only 32 MB of transient storage. This 5x dial-up speed is achieved with a radio transmitting at, say, 500 kilowatts (this number is completely, utterly pulled out of my ass).

Using E= mc^2, (500kW * 15.48 minutes)/(c^2) = 5.17 micrograms. So, thats 5.17 micrograms / 32 MB * 1 PB giving 173.35 grams for a petabyte!

Comment Re:As usual with new Firefox releases... (Score 1) 436

by SeanMon (#28530739) Attached to: Firefox 3.5 Reviewed; Draws Praise For HTML5, Speed

Yeah, I thought the same, a convenient way to browse. And being able to close FF and open it later on with all my tabs intact, that's even better.

Have they fixed the annoying "bug" where having the Downloads window open causes Firefox not to ask you to save the tabs for later? The Downloads window shouldn't count as an open FF window.

Comment Re:Eh (Score 4, Insightful) 519

by SeanMon (#27055473) Attached to: Apple Store Reopens With Many New Products

Amazingly, that now pretty much describes the bottom end Mac Pro...

...Except for the price tag.

Except for the price tag and the use of overpriced server-class components, yes. The really screwy thing, of course, is that the 24" iMacs all have 4GB of RAM, whereas the hideously expensive quad-core Mac Pro has only 3GB (and you can bet Apple will charge through the nose for more).

And you can bet that it has 3GB because it's using triple-channel DDR3, which is required with the latest Core i7 processors and boards.

Comment Re:So....what about TV? (Score 2, Interesting) 1079

by SeanMon (#26346767) Attached to: Apple Intros 17" Unibody MBP, DRM-Free iTunes

Do I need to download my library again, (and thereby lose the totally pointless play count next to my songs? What will I do? That's how I keep score damnit!)

iTunes separates the metadata from the data somewhat: a song entry in the iTunes database has a pointer to a file.
I updated my library to iTunes Plus when it first was released, and I didn't lose anything (play counts, ratings, and playlists!)
Privacy

Public Iris Scanning Device In the Works 154

Posted by kdawson from the road-you're-on-john-anderton dept.
Nonfinity writes "A public iris scanning device has been proposed in a patent application from Sarnoff Labs in New Jersey. The device is able to scan the iris of the eye without the knowledge or consent of the person being scanned. The device uses multiple cameras, captures multiple images, and then selects the best image to process."
Software

Novell "Forking" OpenOffice.org 370

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the patent-office-dot-org dept.
l2718 writes to mention that In the wake of their recent deal with Microsoft, Novell has announced a new version of OpenOffice.org which will support Microsoft's planned Office formal, Open XML. From the article: "The translators will be made available as plug-ins to Novell's OpenOffice.org product. Novell will release the code to integrate the Open XML format into its product as open source and submit it for inclusion in the OpenOffice.org project. As a result, end users will be able to more easily share files between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org, as documents will better maintain consistent formats, formulas and style templates across the two office productivity suites."

Viral Fossil Brought Back To Life 320

Posted by samzenpus from the what-could-go-wrong dept.
hey hey hey writes "In a controversial study, researchers have resurrected a retrovirus that infected our ancestors millions of years ago and now sits frozen in the human genome. Published online by Genome Research this week, the study may shed new light on the history of these genomic intruders, as well as their role in tumors. Although this particular virus, dubbed Phoenix, is a wimpy one, some argue that resuscitating any ancient virus is inherently risky and that the study should have undergone stricter reviews."

Windows Media Player 11 Released 365

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the progress-without-forward-progress dept.
filenavigator writes "Microsoft issued a press release today publicizing the release of Windows Media Player 11. Looks like the major updates in this version are for the Microsoft marketing engine. Features boasted by Microsoft include better integration with media players sanctioned by them, and integration with their new URGE music service. Additionally, and more importantly, this version contains the latest in Microsoft DRM software. Interested parties can download a free copy"

China Moving to Real Name Registrations for Blogs 228

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the defeating-the-greater-internet-fuckwad-theory dept.
dptalia writes "China is moving to require people to use their real names when blogging. The proposed solution, arrived at by the Internet Society of China (affiliated with the ministry of information) would allow bloggers to use a pseudonym when blogging as long as they used their real name when registering."

Study Shows Good With Math Means Bad With People 479

Posted by samzenpus from the numbers-are-my-only-friends dept.
Sylentmode writes "A recent study by Brookings Institution's Brown Center shows that students who are good with math are less likely to be happy, and are likely to have low confidence. From the article "In essence, happiness is overrated" says study author Tom Loveless. I wonder if Loveless is just a nickname, because he is so good with math."

Looking Back on Five Years of Windows XP 620

Posted by Zonk from the so-many-memories dept.
david.emery writes "In an article in the Washington Post entitled If Only We Knew Then What We Know Now About Windows XP, post technology columnist Rob Pegoraro points out the 5 year legacy of Windows XP. The article starts 'Windows XP is turning five years old, but will anybody want to celebrate the occasion?' This is (IMHO) a very well-reasoned critique of WinXP, although it does fail to credit XP as being markedly better than its predecessors." More from the article: "Consider stability, the single biggest selling point of XP. The operating system was meant to stop individual programs from crashing the system, and it succeeded. It takes an especially malignant program to send my copy of XP to a 'blue screen of death.' But that's not the only way XP can crash. Drivers, the software that lets XP communicate with hardware components, can still lock up the system. If you've seen an XP laptop fail to wake up from standby, you can probably blame it on buggy drivers."

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