Comment Re:thats a real concern (Score 1) 884
That's nothing new with Verizon. Heck, they've been crippling Bluetooth for ages.
Comment Re:I've said it a million times before... (Score 1) 564
It's a heck of a lot easier to shout non-unique names to identify someone though in most situations... I mean, I'm pretty sure no one wants to have to yell at their kid "76995cdc-9825-4b13-b66a-a60b26b6cc41! Stop drawing on the wall!"
White Space Debate Intensifies As Vote Approaches 94
Ars Technica reports that the debate between broadcasters and white space supporters has intensified after each side recently made inflammatory comments and suggested that science would vindicate their position. Several organizations are pushing to delay the upcoming white space vote, in part because it takes place on the same day as the US presidential election. We recently discussed Google's claim that a test of this system was rigged to fail. From Ars:
"The broadcasters contend that adjacent channel interference would be significant even at the 40 mW level proposed by Kevin Martin. In fact, they claim that such a device would interfere with digital television signals when the viewer is 25 miles from the television tower and the whitespace device is 10m or less from the TV set. At 50 miles from the television tower, a whitespace device within 50m from a set could allegedly cause interference. The broadcasters also want several safeguard requirements put on the technology that go beyond the new, lower-power transmission levels."
Comment The Problems With Internet Typography... (Score 0) 315
The problem with typography on the Internet is the desire of font creators to limit distribution of their work (as the font files themselves are copyrighted in the US, and the font designs elsewhere). Thus, DRM is most likely inevitable in some form or other. This is why PDF obeys the 'no-embedding' bit in TTF, and has the option (if not the requirement) to embed only parts of fonts.
But why stick with a proprietary format? I always wondered what the problem would be with establishing some sort of private/public key signature/encryption method of DRM.
In this way, one would use a signature on the font to ensure that the font can only be used on one domain/rooted-URL and to also 'affix' some sort of source on the file (so that taking the raw font-file won't work elsewhere, and if the decrypted data is redistributed, the source domain/site is plainly visible) and would, furthermore, only be able to be decrypted with a one-time key unique to the session (transferred with SSL?). The end user is ALWAYS going to be able to theoretically pull out the decrypted TTF or rewrite the 'tag' on the decrypted TTF marking its original source, but you're never going to get around that problem in open-source implementations, as black boxes aren't going to be kosher either. At the very least though, you could build on the idea to make it difficult enough for others to crack without trying, and prosecute with the DMCA when they do...
I don't agree with this in the long term, but it's a better solution than a proprietary black box, and is perhaps a reasonable compromise for open-source implementation as well as meeting the rather restrictive demands of the font foundries...
Submission + - Same dev tools/language/framework for everyone?
AC writes: Upper management of the company I work at recently stated that all new development should be done with a single combination of Dev tools, language and framework. The main reason behind this is that this way, people can be relocated from one group/project faster, because they don't need to learn a new language when they switch. Of course the chosen language and framework used by everybody does not need to be the best tool for the job, but it should just be good enough to allow every project to be done. What does Slashdot think about this? Is it OK to use the same development tools and language for every project, without choosing what fits best? Will the time saved be sufficient to cover the more time spend because of the "not the best tool for the job" framework devs will be forced to chose?
G8 Summit Aims To Kill International Piracy 340
arcticstoat writes "Next week, the G8 summit will discuss proposals for new international piracy laws, which include border controls and cooperation from ISPs to identify pirates. The laws will also prevent ISPs from being liable for copyright infringement. If the G8 summit were to agree on these measures and enforce them through international cooperation, could they really cut down piracy, or would they be impractical to enforce?"
Submission + - Hawking's new Theory on the Big Bang (telegraph.co.uk)
kwabbles writes: From the article:
"In this theory, the early universe can be described by a mathematical object called a wave function and, in a similar way to the light particle, the team proposed two years ago that this means that there was no unique origin to the cosmos: instead the wave function of the universe embraced a multitude of means to develop.
This is very counter intuitive: they argued the universe began in just about every way imaginable (and perhaps even some that are not). Out of this profusion of beginnings, like a blend of a God's eye view of every conceivable kind of creation, the vast majority of the baby universes withered away to leave the mature cosmos that we can see today."
Submission + - When Is a Self-Signed SSL Certificate Acceptable? 5
UltraLoser writes: When is it acceptable to encourage users to accept a self-signed SSL cert? Recently the staff of a certain website turned on optional SSL with a self-signed and domain mismatched certificate for its users and encourages them to add an exception for this certificate. Their defense of this certificate is that it is just as secure as one signed by a commercial CA and because their site exists for the distribution of copyrighted material the staff do not want to have their personal information in the hands of a CA. In their situation is it acceptable to encourage users to trust this certificate or is this giving users a false sense of security?
Submission + - What's in your RSS Feeds? 2
oncehour writes: I'm looking to broaden my horizons in terms of news, industry information, and just generally good to know stuff. I've found a lot of great blogs and websites over the years but I'm wondering what Slashdotters read regularly? What's in your RSS feeds?
Submission + - Sandvine CEO says Internet monitoring a necessity
Khalid Baheyeldin writes: "In an interview with the Canadian CBC, Sandvine CEO Dave Caputo says, among other things, that internet monitoring is a necessity.
Slashdotters may not know who Sandvine is, until they realize that it is the Waterloo, Ontario based company that provides the technology for Comcast and other ISPs the ability to send RST packets for torrents."
Slashdotters may not know who Sandvine is, until they realize that it is the Waterloo, Ontario based company that provides the technology for Comcast and other ISPs the ability to send RST packets for torrents."
Submission + - IE7 Alters Gmail Contents (mosspod.com) 1
Caleb writes: A friend sent out the latest clip for Ghost Humpers, our episodic mockumentary. Downloading the quicktime movie from Gmail gave me a compressed version. I thought that was odd. After a little searching, I found an option to download attachments as a zip file. Simply replace "disp=attd" with "disp=zip" in the attachment URL. IE7 was changing this to "disp=indzip" for the same result; on its own. This piqued my curiosity. I searched Gmail for more attachments. A WMV file gave me an unmodified URL. A DOC file gave me an unmodified URL. Files with Apple specific extensions of MOV, MOVIE, MOOV, MOVIEPROJ, QT, and QTCH gave the modified URL. What was going on? Firefox, Safari, and Opera all gave me the unmodified URLs for every file. Therefore, there are only two options: either Google is giving IE7 a modified URL or Microsoft has coded IE7 to look for a list of extensions within Gmail and modify the attachment URL. The first option seemed highly unlikely. Changing the user agent of Firefox to IE7 and testing pointed directly at Microsoft. Sending 14037 files to myself showed me what IE7 was looking for.
Submission + - ISPs should not become "internet cops" (pcpro.co.uk)
MattSparkes writes: The proposed "three strikes" system in the UK is under fire from law professors. The scheme would give illegal filesharers three chances to stop before being kicked offline forever. This would give ISPs far too much power, argue some.
"They are providers of internet services, they are not internet cops. It has to be said that removal of access to the internet looks like a criminal sanction," said a professor talking at the London School of Economics.
The government has said that unless the record industry and ISPs can stop filesharers quickly then it will step in and legislate.
Submission + - New Futurama Movie in June (animationmagazine.net) 1
walterbyrd writes: "Just in case anybody didn't already know. "As Bender's Big Score gets set to air in four installments on Comedy Central later this month, Fox Home Entertainment ahs announced that the next adventure in the series of Futurama DVD movies will be available at retail this summer.""
Tolkien Trust Sues New Line, May Kill "Hobbit" 450
oboreruhito writes "The AP is reporting that the Tolkien Trust and HarperCollins are suing New Line Cinema for $150 million in compensatory damages, unspecified punitive damages, and a court order revoking New Line's rights to produce any more films on Tolkien properties. The Tolkien Trust says that New Line paid them only $62,500 to make 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy of films — instead of the agreed-upon 7.5 percent of gross receipts of all film-related revenue. The suit may set back, if not kill, a film adaptation of Lord of the Rings prequel 'The Hobbit,' which Peter Jackson had recently signed up to make after his own legal row with the studio over payment for the sequels."
i-Snake, a New Robotic Surgeon 58
Roland Piquepaille noted coverage of the iSnake Robotic Surgeon which is basically a super flexible robot that can travel through blood vessels and repair the heart. Of course the article isn't exactly clear on what happens if they gain control of the city's sewage system and take over.
