Fortunately for Verizon, AT&T chose to level the playing field a little with their network's periodic auto-hangup feature.

Now redo the example with 5 or 10 checkout lines as is more typical at the big box stores, and let me know how it turns out.

You must like waiting in line. I don't know where you shop, but where I shop the self-service lines are the only ones that properly implement output queuing. One line feeds usually 4 to 6 registers, as it should be. Even if one or two of the self-service registers has a problem that needs to be serviced by the one designated clerk, it is still substantially more efficient for the rest of us that are up to the task of scanning our own groceries.

Just to be clear, processors don't run at the toggle frequency (f-sub-t) of an inverter. At best, a CPU will run somewhere south of 1/10th of the inverter toggle frequency. So we're talking more like 50 kHz, probably slower.

Not saying that there aren't applications for a really slow CPU running in a 500 degree C environment. (Like my DVR? Chuckle...)

You're forgetting about Total Cost of Ownership. (Duh!)

Here's a link to an independent study about that to help you out:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/compare/default.mspx

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I Have a Master's Degree.... Innnnnnnnnnnnnnn Science!

> a sophisticated new Twitter-based research tool

Lost me right there...

So you're suggesting that thousands of hackers knew that Iran used Siemens PLCs, knew the specific equipment being controlled by those PLCs, knew how to modify the program code in those PLCs to damage that equipment, had multiple stolen certificates, and had apparently four zero day exploits cued up and ready to be blown on this. Even as a self-righteous slashdot-reading geek, I'm not buying it. This was government all the way. The bullshit dates were thrown in the code to add an intentional tinge of unprofessionalism to an otherwise ridiculously professional piece of work.

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant in my original suggestion of an LCD mounted in front of the flash. Basically a grayscale LCD projector without a lens. Or maybe with a lens. Beats me, I'm not an optics guy (got a C in that class).

Although from the original article it would appear that Apple is taking the opposite approach. The article suggests an array of light sources (LEDs) that can be controlled individually rather than a single light source with an array of masks (LCDs) in front of it.

And no, I haven't patented it. And no, I couldn't give a crap about patenting it. And unless someone else has already filed on this variation then I hereby declare it part of the prior art and NOBODY can patent it. Not that it would pass the non-obvious test anyway. Not that that's a requirement to patent anything anymore. Not that any of this would stop me from building it if I wanted to even if someone else already patented it because it's obviously so obvious that even I thought of it. Not that that would stop some asshole at Apple from suing me. Obviously. Have a nice day, get off my lawn, etc.

> Sounds impossible

Why wouldn't it be as simple as an LCD array mounted a very short distance in front of the flash source?

I knew it was just a matter of time before Ballmer showed up as an AC on Slashdot.

No, they are not that naive. They just said that to try to calm down their Hollywood HDCP partners who are presently going apeshit.

Most low-end FPGAs don't have integrated phys. You need something like a Xilinx Spartan-6 with at least 6 phys (3 HDMI ins and 3 HDMI outs). Their "Spartan-6 FPGA Broadcast Connectivity Kit" would do the trick, but it lists for US$1,995. If you were to contract an ASIC designer to code it up and test it, that would probably add at least another $20K. If you're able to do it yourself, you still need the board for $2K. What this means is that only people with a significant financial interest in cracking HDCP would undertake the task. So, ironically, cracking HDCP is only practical for those with nefarious financial interests in doing so... not practical for those who have typical "fair use" interests at heart.

They (Intel) are not so naive as to believe that building a hardware decrypter from an off-the-shelf FPGA development board with integrated high speed serial phys (HDMI tops out around 5 gig, I think) would not be relatively straightforward for those skilled in the art. They are simply trying to ease the fears of their Hollywood partners... who are not skilled in the art.

At some point these medical manufacturers need to organize themselves into standards bodies or else the government will do it for them. Perhaps the problem is that the medical equipment manufacturers don't have the same cultural view that their counterparts in the computer industry have (Apple excluded, of course) that standards are beneficial to their business. I'm not exactly sure why this is, perhaps others closer to the medical equipment industry have better insight. But I suspect that it isn't as easy to fix as many of us slashdotters (read computer geeks) dismissively suggest because it is more dependent on culture and politics, not technology.