asto21 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Beating SMS spam with intelligent pricing rather t (arunbalan.in) 3

Submitted by asto21 on Sunday October 09, 2011 @01:18PM

asto21 writes: So the situation as it stands now – in order to reduce spam, normal consumers are allowed to send only 100 SMSes per day but certain businesses are allowed to send as many as they want!

How about we start pricing SMSes incrementally? Each SMS will have a price xn where n is the nth SMS of the day, and x is a modifier of TRAI's choosing. For example, if the modifier is 1, the first SMS of the day will cost Rs 1, the second Rs 2 and the third Rs 3 and so on. The total cost for the 3 messages will be 6.

Submission + - 0day Full disclosure: American Express (qnrq.se)

Submitted by asto21 on Thursday October 06, 2011 @08:48AM

asto21 writes: American Express leaves admin panel unsecured. Oops!

Submission + - Facebook caught lying? (arunbalan.in)

Submitted by asto21 on Sunday October 02, 2011 @03:23PM

asto21 writes: Facebook execs seem to make conflicting statements/moves in the span of a few days. This, before news broke of Facebook's user profiling patent.

HN discussion at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3063273

Michael Arrington's post on the patent http://uncrunched.com/2011/10/01/brutal-dishonesty/

Submission + - Hey Facebook! I've got a question for you! (arunbalan.in)

Submitted by asto21 on Wednesday September 28, 2011 @09:24AM

asto21 writes: http://blog.arunbalan.in/2011/09/28/hey-facebook-ive-got-a-question-for-you/

Comment Wow (Score 1, Offtopic) 382

by asto21 on Sunday September 25, 2011 @10:45AM (#37507888) Attached to: Newb-Friendly Linux Flavor For LAMP Server?

You sure have a lot of friends!

Comment Woohoo! (Score 1) 314

by asto21 on Wednesday September 21, 2011 @02:00AM (#37464778) Attached to: I tend to keep random notes most often ...

I have terrible memory! Comforting to know that I'm not the only one on /. :)

Comment I say stay away from D-Link too (Score 1) 398

by asto21 on Monday September 19, 2011 @01:42AM (#37438104) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Good Gigabit 802.11N Home Router?

I've had only one D-Link product till now - An 803 adsl modem. They packed it with loads of features on the software side that the hardware clearly couldn't handle. It would hang randomly every few hours but got better when I disabled the firewall and some other stuff. Randomly slowed down and required a reboot to fix the issue. Finally crapped out a few days back and replaced it with a chinese adsl modem (tp-link) which works WAY better. Even the huawei (also chinese) that I had before the D-Link performed much better. I will never buy a D-Link again for the rest of my life!

Submission + - Twitter announces analytics tool (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by asto21 on Thursday September 15, 2011 @11:07AM

asto21 writes: Yesterday, at TechCrunch Disrupt, Twitter is debuted a brand new publisher analytics platform to help sites understand data around the Tweet button and sites using the t.co wrap. While the platform is still private, Twitter says it will be launched to the public soon.

Submission + - Ziff Davis secretly paying sites to track users (medacity.com)

Submitted by

jonez450

on Thursday September 15, 2011 @02:31AM

jonez450 writes: "Times are tough in the advertising business. But PCWorld publisher Ziff Davis has come up with a new plan to gain a competitive edge: Paying other tech sites $1 CPM to place tracking code on their sites in return for data about their users via javascript. The company is also offering free content in return, but the "private" Ziff Davis Tech Co-Op doesn't want anyone to know what they are up to."

Submission + - Dear Department of Telecom, Govt of India (arunbalan.in)

Submitted by asto21 on Thursday September 15, 2011 @02:31AM

asto21 writes: It has come to my notice that you would like access to encrypted channels of communication used by services such as Blackberry Messenger (BBM) and that if they do not comply, you will ban them. While this is definitely a step in the right direction towards achieving a peaceful society that has no avenues left to propogate terror, I have grave news for you.

Submission + - NASA Administration announces Saturn V Rebirth (foxnews.com)

Submitted by

TheHawke

on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @10:56AM

TheHawke writes: "The Obama administration on Wednesday will unveil its much-delayed general plans for its rocket design, called the Space Launch System, which will cost about $35 billion, according to senior administration sources and information obtained by The Associated Press. It will carry astronauts in a capsule on top and start test launching in six years.

The design for NASA's newest behemoth of a rocket harkens back to the giant workhorse liquid rockets that propelled men to the moon. But this time the destinations will be much farther and the rocket even more powerful.

I can hear the old Saturn contractors cheering now..."

Submission + - Ford Announces 3-cyl Engine (egmcartech.com) 1

Submitted by kgeiger on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @10:37AM

kgeiger writes: The WSJ and other outlets report Ford Motor's formal plans to deploy a three-cylinder, turbo-charged "Ecoboost" engine. About the length of a legal-sized piece of paper (14 in or 36 cm), the 97 kg motor generates 88 kW (118 HP) per liter of displacement. The 1 liter engine produces the same power as current 1.6 l engines. It uses a cast-iron block to retain heat. The new motor wil be featured in Ford's Focus line of world cars.

Submission + - Moore's Law of Processing Power Is Superseded (wsj.com)

Submitted by

pbahra

on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @10:35AM

pbahra writes: "In 1965, Intel founder Gordon E. Moore predicted computer processing power, measured in terms of the number of transistors which could be placed on a chip, would double roughly every 18 months. But, particularly with the growth in the number of portable computing devices, “Moore’s law” has become increasingly irrelevant. What matters now is power consumption, whether it is cutting the cost of giant data centers or making sure the battery in your laptop, cellphone or tablet lasts all day. Surprisingly, perhaps, the Technology Review published by MIT reports that researchers have found that energy efficiency also doubles roughly every 18 months, an effect it dubs “Koomey’s law” after the leader of the project, Jonathan Koomey, consulting professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University."

Submission + - Combating information overload through compression (arunbalan.in)

Submitted by asto21 on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @08:36AM

asto21 writes: News/information as it is presented now is inefficient and could be significantly better with compression, indexing and headers (not really as fancy as it sounds but could make a really big difference to how quickly news can be assimilated)

Submission + - An $80 Open Source Chemical Analyzer (plosone.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13, 2011 @10:00PM

An anonymous reader writes: A group of electrical engineering students at UCSB teamed up with some chemists and built an $80 gadget that can check water for arsenic, measure the level of vitamin C in orange juice, and also do simple DNA biosensor tests. The electronics in a blood sugar meter could do all of those things, but their firmware isn't easily hackable. All of the circuit schematics, gerber files, and software for this project is available on their project website. Another team, at Denver Metro College, is working to improve upon their design. Eventually, it could be used as a teaching tool in chemistry classrooms, or possibly to do blood and water tests in developing countries.

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