_iris - Slashdot User

Comment: Roku + Popcorn Hour Box (Score 1) 697

by _iris on Friday April 22 2011, @11:56AM (#35907698) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Are You Streaming-Only For Home Entertainment?

I've ditched my satellite television plan in favor of a Roku player and a Popcorn Hour Box. The Roku is for Netflix's Instant Watch ($8.99) and Hulu Plus ($7.99). The PHB is for watching offline stuff, like ripped DVDs, streamed off of my PC in the other room. I considered going the media PC route but I have very little space available in my living room and I cannot stand fan noise. Both the Roku and the PHB are fanless and low power.

I've been more than satisfied with the content available and you can't beat the price. The major downside for me is that when my girlfriend is watching television I can't play ping-sensitive online games, despite using IP ToS tagging and traffic shaping tools to prioritize my game packets.

Comment: Cores aren't just for applications (Score 1) 336

by _iris on Friday April 08 2011, @11:44AM (#35759506) Attached to: Quad-Core Mobile Chips Wasted On Mobiles?

> But do smartphones need quad-core chips? There's surely only so much multitasking a smartphone user can do.

Even if you're running a single application, that application can benefit greatly from operating system processes running concurrently.

Kongregate App Pulled From Android Market 139

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 25 2011, @03:28AM
from the gone-in-a-flash dept.

itwbennett writes "Last week Google took a page from Apple's book and pulled the Arcade by Kongregate app from the Android Market for violating its terms of service. In particular, the part that forbids distributing 'any Product whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution of Products outside of the Market.' As Kongregate's Jim Greer explained to Joystiq, the app is essentially a custom web browser that loads in a Flash game from the mobile version of Kongregate. Plus, it will cache the game so you can play offline. And this may be the feature that got it yanked, speculates Ryan Kim at GigaOm."

Fed Goes Hunting For Malcontents 193

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 14 2011, @08:45AM
from the are-you-now-or-have-you-ever-been-julian-assange dept.

snydeq writes "The wake of State Department document leaks to WikiLeaks may have the unhappy rousted from government agencies' 'privileged insiders' ranks, thanks to a recent memo from the US OMB asking agencies to spell out their strategies for minimizing insider risk. 'It's likely that federal contractors and government suppliers will also find themselves responding to this list of questions (PDF) and the central issue of preventing the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive and classified materials. In a key section of the memo, the OMB requests information on whether organizations are measuring the "trustworthiness" of their employees and whether they use a psychiatrist or sociologist to measure the unhappiness of an employee as a measure of trustworthiness.'"

Why Sony Cannot Stop PS3 Pirates 378

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 14 2011, @06:29AM
from the of-pots-and-kettles dept.

Sam writes "A former Ubisoft exec believes that Sony will not be able to combat piracy on the PlayStation 3, which was recently hacked. Martin Walfisz, former CEO of Ubisoft subsidiary Ubisoft Massive, was a key player in developing Ubisoft's new DRM technologies. Since playing pirated games doesn't require a modchip, his argument is that Sony won't be able to easily detect hacked consoles. Sony's only possible solution is to revise the PS3 hardware itself, which would be a very costly process. Changing the hardware could possibly work for new console sales, though there would be the problem of backwards compatibility with the already-released games. Furthermore, current users would still be able to run pirated copies on current hardware." An anonymous reader adds commentary from PS3 hacker Mathieu Hervais about Sony's legal posturing.

Hank Chien Reclaims Donkey Kong High Score 122

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 11 2011, @06:36AM
from the barrels-of-fun dept.

An anonymous reader writes "If you can say anything about Hank Chien, it's that he evidently doesn't take defeat very well. Sure, he knew not so deep down that his Donkey Kong World Record score wouldn't last forever, but he couldn't have foreseen that it would have been toppled so quickly. Twice, even. But he also knew that more Kong competition would be coming his way; namely Richie Knucklez Kong-Off in March. So Hank had something to prove, and prove he did. Scoring a massive 1,068,000 points in less than three hours, Hank has officially reclaimed the high score in Nintendo’s 1981 arcade classic."

Atari Loses Copyright Suit Against RapidShare 198

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 07 2011, @06:28AM
from the game-over-play-again? dept.

dotarray writes "Online copyright lawsuits aren't all about music. Video game publisher Atari Europe recently became concerned that copies of its game Alone in the Dark were floating around one-click file-hosting service RapidShare, so it took the hosting company to court. While they won the initial case, the decision was overturned on appeal, finding that RapidShare is doing nothing wrong."

A Blue-Sky Idea For the USPS — Postal Trucks As Sensors 252

Posted by timothy on Sunday December 19 2010, @05:13PM
from the also-datamining-for-amazon-gifts-ideas dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The US Postal Service may face insolvency by 2011 (it lost $8.5 billion last year). An op-ed piece in yesterday's New York Times proposes an interesting business idea for the Postal Service: use postal trucks as a giant fleet of mobile sensor platforms. [Registration-required link; this no-reg summary encapsulates the idea, as does this paper by the same author.] (Think Google Streetview on steroids.) The trucks could be outfitted with a variety of sensors (security, environmental, RF ...) and paid for by businesses. The article's author addresses some of the obvious privacy concerns that arise."

Michael Moore Posts Julian Assange's Bail 987

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday December 14 2010, @11:47AM
from the right-is-right dept.

digitaldc quotes Michael Moore in a story running on the Huffington Post where he says "Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail. Furthermore, I (Michael Moore) am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars."

Comcast Accused of Congestion By Choice 434

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday December 14 2010, @08:55AM
from the i'm-completely-shocked dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A kind soul known as Backdoor Santa has posted graphs purportedly showing traffic through TATA, one of Comcast's transit providers. The graphs of throughput for a day and month, respectively, show that Comcast chooses to run congested links rather than buy more capacity. Keeping their links full may ensure that content providers must pay to colocate within Comcast's network. The graphs also show a traffic ratio far from 1:1, which has implications for the validity of its arguments with Level (3) last month."