Comment Re:Hm (Score 1) 383
And what if the airplane mode doesn't do anything? It would be trivial to modify a device's firmware so that the airplane mode says it's on but isn't really.
Comment Re:Two senses of "closed." (Score 4, Informative) 850
No, Apple wanted to not use DRM from the beginning, but the record labels were too afraid to do that (the selling music online industry was in its infancy, especially for the mainstream). Once Apple got too big, it got to call the shots because it controlled the iTunes Music Store (and thus almost all of downloadable music) and the record labels resented that because they wanted to increase prices. The industry only gave way on the DRM issue because they needed to create a competitor to Apple, so they did so by giving Amazon permission for DRM-free distribution. Then Apple negotiated and had a trade-off: they got rights to higher quality files without DRM in exchange for giving the labels the variable pricing scheme that iTunes now has.
Comment They forgot the beeping interfaces (Score 5, Insightful) 874
That's one thing that always drives me nuts when I'm watching computers being used on TV or in the movies... EVERY user interface element BEEPS. Text will scroll on the screen (no idea why it won't just show all at once) and as the computer renders each and every single character, it lets out a beep. That sort of machine would drive me nuts after about 3 minutes of use.
Comment Re:Great for 1st world situations too... (Score 3, Interesting) 413
That's the case here in New Orleans, too. You can suck off another dude on Bourbon St. during Mardi Gras right in front of a cop, but as soon as you start to piss in an alley, you're going down.
Comment Re:Or Whatever the SEC version is. . . (Score 1) 265
Except the Commodores did quite well last season...
How about, "haha, Bama lost to a MWC team in a bowl game!"
Netscape Founder Backs New Browser 243
wirelessjb writes to share that after a resounding defeat at the hands of Microsoft in the first major browser war of the mid 1990s, Marc Andreessen is looking to have another go at the market by backing a new startup called "RockMelt." "Mr. Andreessen suggested the new browser would be different, saying that most other browsers had not kept pace with the evolution of the Web, which had grown from an array of static Web pages into a network of complex Web sites and applications. 'There are all kinds of things that you would do differently if you are building a browser from scratch,' Mr. Andreessen said.
RockMelt was co-founded by Eric Vishria and Tim Howes, both former executives at Opsware, a company that Mr. Andreessen co-founded and then sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2007 for about $1.6 billion. Mr. Howes also worked at Netscape with Mr. Andreessen."
Comment Re:August (Score 1) 1146
I have a pretty high tolerance for clothes shopping, but it's starting to get annoying sometimes as my girlfriend promises boobies and I keep getting kicked out of her booth before the door is even closed. The employees who do this are always rude, too, firing me a dirty look as though I'm walking off the street trying to get a quickie fuck and not just trying to get a little boobage happiness to make a loooooong annoying walk through the store looking for clothes worth it. Victoria's Secret just flat out told me that men are not allowed near the fitting room sections at all. *sigh*..
Comment Internet access is scarce at Google? (Score 1) 130
That's weird, considering they're an internet services company...
Comment Re:Poll results (Score 1) 387
I eat food and stay cancer-free so I can stay alive so I can watch film and TV, read books, look at art, and listen to music.
If everyone focused on creating food and curing cancer, there would be no reason to eat food or cure cancer.
Comment Re:FLAC (Score 0) 292
Then just convert the FLAC to Monkey's Audio...
Comment Re:Ding, ding, ding (Score 2, Insightful) 139
They aren't replacing Apple at all. The iPhone isn't the only smartphone AT&T sells now, you know...
Steve Wozniak Predicts Death of the IPod 573
Slatterz writes "Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, better known in the industry as 'Woz,' believes that the iPod is on its way out and has revealed his discomfort with some aspects of the iPhone. Wozniak said that the iPod has had a long time as the world's most popular media player, and that it will fall from grace due to oversupply. Wozniak also commented on the iPhone's proprietary nature and locked service provider, and compared it to Google's open Android platform. 'Consumers are not getting all they want when companies are very proprietary and lock their products down,' he said. 'I would like to write some more powerful apps than what you're allowed.'"
Smart Self-Service Scales 279
Roland Piquepaille writes "German researchers have developed intelligent self-service scales for supermarkets, able to recognize fruit or vegetables placed on them (photo). The scales automatically recognize the item being weighed and ask the customer to choose between only those icons that are relevant, such as various kinds of tomatoes. The scales are equipped with a camera and an image evaluation algorithm that compares the image of the item on the scale with images stored in its database. Store managers can add items to the database. The scales are now being tested in about 300 supermarkets across Europe."
Bash Cookbook 278
Chad_Wollenberg writes "Anyone who has used a derivative of Unix over the past 20 years has used Bash, which stands for Borne Again Shell. The geek in all of us makes us want to extend our ability to rule the command line. To truly master a Unix environment, you need to know a shell, and Bash is easily the most popular of them. Any Unix/Linux/BSD administrator knows the power at your fingertips is fully extended by what you can do within the Bash environment, and all of us need the best recipes to get the job done." Keep reading for the rest of Chad's review.
Logged In or Out, Facebook Is Watching You 336
kaos07 links to this ZDNet story, according to which "Researchers at software vendor CA have discovered that social networking site Facebook is able to track the buying habits of its users on affiliated third-party sites even when they are logged out of their account or have opted out of its controversial 'Beacon' tracking service. Responding to privacy concerns, Facebook has since moved to reassure users that it only tracks and publishes data about their purchases if they are both logged in to Facebook and have opted-in to having this information listed on their profile. But in 'extremely disconcerting' findings that directly contradict these assurances, researchers at CA's Security Advisory service have found that data about these transactions are sent to Facebook regardless of a user's actions."
