This is precisely the type of HARDWARE that AI SOFTWARE needs to reach maximum performance. They are making this technology more accessible, which means more developers have the tools they need to start working in the AI field. How is this a bad thing?

As you can see from these posts, Slashdot's allowance of anonymous posts is to its detriment. End Anonymous Cowards, and put in a real vote up/down system that allows everyone to vote on every post.

All that needs to happen is that new radio chipsets need to have a write-once register that can be used to lock the chip to a specific radio band. They could manufacture one chip for global use, and a simple write to that register by the router manufacturer would lock it down to a region. No need to deal with locked firmware at all.

The construction industry has been around for thousands of years. Software Development? Little more than fifty. Software Development will reach the same level of rigor that is applied to other engineering fields, and will reach it in far less time than those other fields took.

I've been calling Sudafed PE "Sudafed Placebo Edition" for years.

The real answer to the issue that concerns the FCC is to have the chipset manufacturers add write-once registers that can be used to lockout frequencies and power levels that are illegal in certain regions. That way, the manufacturers can make one hardware design, and still ensure compliance with regional regulations. This is such an easy solution to implement, and would completely eliminate the "need" to DRM the firmware.

I am the owner of the domain OSVISTA.COM. You would probably think "he must really like Windows Vista", followed by "how has Microsoft not sued him for that domain?" Thing is, I bought that domain years before Microsoft announced Vista; I just liked how it sounded. I use the domain for email, and I don't host any Windows related websites. Microsoft has never even contacted me about it, presumably because once they saw the registration date and that I am not using it in a way that conflicts with their trademark, they decided to leave me alone.

As long as you don't deliberately conflict with someone else's trademark, they have a very tough time arguing that they should be given the domain. Combine that with the fact that domain related cases are not heard through the regular court system, but under UDRP, and most companies won't bother.

We already know how to create biodiesel and other fuels from non fossil sources. If we limited their use to critical needs, and had everything else using renewable electric sources, then we probably could do without oil. The biggest challenge appears to be the lack of tar and asphalt for road construction; we'd have to find a workable substitute. For everything else, suitable engineered substitutes exist.

Why is it that literally EVERY physics related article has at least one nut-job who thinks all of the (sane) physicists are wrong, and that his incoherent ramblings are the one true theory of everything.

Nothing. It's not ionizing radiation.

So $1000 gets me 3+ months of Lindsay Lohan? Where do I sign up...

Figuring out a better way to create and manage passwords is only a stopgap, and a suboptimal solution at best. What we really need is a straightforward and easy way to use client certificates. You should be able to receive a signed client certificate when you pick up your driver's license. You should be able to receive a signed client certificate when you visit your bank. You should be able to receive a signed client certificate at your local library. Certificate in hand, it should be easy to install that certificate on your devices, with a certificate management system that grandma can use.

The technology is already here, it would eliminate so much of this grief, and set the stage for the next level of secure monetary transactions as well.

In the comments for any article related to physics, on any website, there will always be at least one comment from someone who mistakes their schizophrenia for a PhD in Physics.

I advise you, pay them no heed.

Maybe most of it is in a form that has a different spectral profile, maybe crystalline, and maybe it's "warpy"

Microsoft Lightswitch is a great example of just such a tool. Visual Basic is still around, and the Express versions available for free today are better than Visual Basic 1-6 ever were. Mac has been stuck with Objective-C for years, but it looks like Apple is finally addressing that.

Web Programming? Yes, its the spawn of Satan. But if you want to point the blame for that look to Brendan Eich for the monstrosity that is JavaScript, and the idiots that decided that CSS needed to be so alien and broken compared to HTML.