I have the world's slowest blu-ray player, an original Sony. BDP-S300, I think. It lacks both ethernet and performance. Sadly, the Raspberry Pi lacks SATA, which is what the unit uses to connect to the optical drive. That gives it hack value, though not with R-Pi. I'd probably have to shoehorn something Micro-ITX in there, or use a laptop motherboard, as the optical drive is smack in the center.

I've bought just one Blu-Ray movie because the player is so godawful slow and I have to use a crappy remote with it. Ideally I'd be able to run XBMC on Windows (XP or 7) on whatever I stuffed into the case, and then I could use the android remote app. Right now my entertainment system is a mk908 running Finless 1.4 or so and it leaves a lot to be desired. Playing discs is one of those things.

If you aren't already working on this, or don't already have a pretty good idea with at least a fair chance of succeeding, then you're probably not too smart if you decide to take this challenge on. So what? There are those who are working on solving this problem already. If they have the means to produce a product, they're already doing that. If not, then this will give them some money for production of prototypes for larger systems, and probably attract some investment dollars from Google.

Indeed. The text is a nice, manipulative propaganda piece. While I don't know women in the game industry, I know several female engineers, in EE, CS and some other fields. Some of them are very attractive, some are more plain. (I don't mind either way, conversation is far more important than looks.) Now, from their comments, there is no specific discrimination against women in tech. Some think there may be a slight bias either way, but not anything significant. Of course, incompetent women get yelled at and derided just the same as incompetent men, but they though that was rightfully deserved. And the one thing that they universally find quite repulsive is women playing the "women card" to get ahead instead of demonstrating solid skills. Most of them have observed that happening.

My conclusion is that this is nothing but a part of an ongoing power-grab effort by styling women as victims and men as primitive cave-men.

They just send data to some server they own in clear and they know your last public IP. For spywork, that is enough. If laws are draconian enough, they are also sure to find _something_ when they kick down your door. Also, when you are not on US ground (warning: current state, this may change), they may also just drone-murder you and bypass any legality whatsoever.

There are some things you can do even when second-rate, just by throwing resources at the problem. They may also have _bought_ these exploits form people that are not second-rate.

Using Tor (Tails) _and_ doing financial transactions with it! You are sure to be on the short list for a drone-strike...

Well, I am not sure about "minor". But a prime source of zero-days should be the Java-Script engine. Turn it off or use NoScript, and you may be still secure.

It is the most unethical thing they can do. On the plus-side, this may help Tails (and Tor) to get ahead of the game again, as this draws a lot of attention to the problem.

Commercial enterprises (such as Exodus) will do anything and everything that is or should be criminal, provided they can get away with it. Do not even look for minimal ethics there, it is a complete waste of time.

What is certainly there is at least several JavaScript zero-days. JavaScript is complex to implement and easy to get wrong. As this is a commercial effort (as can be seen by its immorality and focus on profit), they will go after low-hanging fruit. The JavaScript engine is the most promising one.

And who said it would not affect other users too?

Then you can't afford not to have a backup server and a development server. This point needs expansion :p

It can be disabled, but can you trust that they won't "accidentally" turn it back on with an update? If you must use Chrome, use Chromium instead. The only practical difference besides that it doesn't spy on you for Google is that you need to install a Flash player (if desired) manually.

Stupid objection the first: "This is worth a lot more than a million dollars."
Response:

Does Google own the intellectual property created during the competition?

No. Google is not requiring any IP or licenses be granted except a non-exclusive license to be used only for the purpose of testing the inverter and publicizing the prize. [...] However, in the spirit of advancing this power electronics community, Google may choose to make public some or all of the teamsâ(TM) high-level technical approach documents

Stupid objection the second: (something stupid about 12 volts)
Response:

Will be taking in 450 V DC power in series with a 10 Ω resistor
Must output 240 V, 60 Hz AC single phase power

I know that slashdotters don't RTFA, but seriously, all of you jaw-jacking about 12 volts or about how a million is chump change are a bunch of Useless McToolbags. STFU already.

"Git it on." But it's only effective with Vic Romano and Kenny Blankenship providing commentary.

It was a good place to hang a scanner, of course.

If your goal is to play games, the obvious answer is a better disk interface with some non-resetting RAM on it that you could use for a RRAD:. That's a lovely thing to have in your system.