theVP - Slashdot User

Submission + - Bill To Let Telemarketers Call Mobile Phones (nydailynews.com)

Submitted by esocid on Friday December 09, 2011 @12:15PM

esocid writes: Current law bars telemarketing calls to cell phones unless the customer has given approval. The proposed change would allow prerecorded “informational” calls to be made to cell phones without consent, called the “Mobile Information Call Act” and would allow all sorts of nuisance calls to cell phones.
The sole Democratic sponsor stated
"Do we really want to stop FedEx or UPS using modern technology to deliver your holiday gifts on time? Of course not, but that is what we heard at the hearing is one consequence of this 20-year old law."

His statement is still at odds with the ability to give consent to receive such calls.

Comment Doctor Who Exposure (Score 1) 357

by theVP on Wednesday November 16, 2011 @11:11AM (#38073356) Attached to: <em>Doctor Who</em> To Become Hollywood Feature Film

I don't know about anyone else, but I regularly encounter people who have never heard of Doctor Who. I'm not saying a bad Doctor Who film would be fine, but any Doctor Who film will help expose the show, especially to Americans.

And it deserves more exposure.

Comment Re:Unlicensed band? (Score 1) 77

by theVP on Monday June 27, 2011 @03:36PM (#36587996) Attached to: Forty-Five Mile Wireless Tech For the Smart Grid

Because when it stops working in some communities thanks to the interference that this supposedly slides under, you'll stop selling it in others.

However, if you were to start off in a licensed spectrum right off the bat, you could sell the tech to just about every utility company in America.

I am, of course, assuming they intend to make more than one in the future, and have more than just one customer.

Comment Re:Unlicensed band? (Score 1) 77

by theVP on Monday June 27, 2011 @02:46PM (#36587452) Attached to: Forty-Five Mile Wireless Tech For the Smart Grid

Okay, but, again, why an unlicensed band? If this is for utility companies to use, and has a large over-reaching benefit to all sorts of communities (many of them owning or running the utilities), why wouldn't there be cause for a licensed band? I understand the intention, and the expectation that this will work anyways, but why not just make sure by using a licensed band instead?

Comment Unlicensed band? (Score 1) 77

by theVP on Monday June 27, 2011 @02:27PM (#36587208) Attached to: Forty-Five Mile Wireless Tech For the Smart Grid

I don't understand why you would use something with this kind of range in an unlicensed band.

You are basically setting yourself up to fail when you get interference all over your supposed coverage area.

Submission + - Notch Announces Minecraft 'Adventure Update' (tumblr.com)

Submitted by

jjp9999

on Monday June 13, 2011 @11:05AM

jjp9999 writes: "Notch announced that Minecraft 1.7 will include the long awaited “Adventure Update.” In an E3 roundup on his blog, Notch wrote “The idea with this update is to flesh out the game a bit, making it reward exploration and combat more.” Although he added, “We’re keeping the details secret so people can get surprises,” Notch wrote back on July 7, 2010, that Adventure Mode would be one of the three game modes in Minecraft (the other two being Survival and Creative), and would include a health bar and an inventory, but would remove the player’s ability to place or destroy blocks. He said the value of this is that “people can design ‘challenge maps’ in creative or survival mode, then share them with people so that they can try to beat them in Adventure mode.” Interestingly, Notch also announced the release of the Minecraft source code to a small group of mod developers, in his latest blog post."

Submission + - Spanish police website hit by Anonymous (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by arisvega on Monday June 13, 2011 @10:47AM

arisvega writes: The website of Spain's national police force has been briefly knocked offline by hacker collective Anonymous.

The attack on the site was carried out in retaliation for the arrest of three Spanish men the police claimed were 'core' members of the group.

The hackers managed to keep www.policia.es offline for about an hour from 2130 GMT on 12 June.

Spanish authorities would not confirm that Anonymous was behind the attack, saying only that the site was offline.

However, a statement was posted on a website linked to Anonymous, claimed responsibility for the hack, which it called #OpPolicia.

Submission + - Nintendo Announces New Console: Wii U (reuters.com)

Submitted by _xeno_ on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @01:07PM

_xeno_ writes: Nintendo has announced the official name for what had been known as "Project Cafe:" the Wii U. It is an HD console, it remains backwards compatibility with the Wii (it's unclear if this includes GameCube software), and the controller does, in fact, have a touch screen on it. Nintendo demoed moving a game off the TV and play it solely on the Wii U controller.

Comment Light Source? (Score 1) 132

by theVP on Monday April 11, 2011 @05:27PM (#35786164) Attached to: New Medical Camera the Size of a Grain of Salt

Okay, the tiny camera is good, but I didn't see any mention of a light source.

It's kinda, you know, dark in there.

Comment Re:First You need Internet, not phone, access. (Score 1) 247

by theVP on Monday April 11, 2011 @04:02PM (#35785242) Attached to: The End of Content Ownership

Speaking as an ISP employee (Wireless), you are almost certainly looking to the wireless folks to save you. We are almost exclusively servicing customers that will NEVER be served by cable/DSL providers. And it has a lot less to do with greed, and a lot more to do with return on investment. Some of the towers we put up, we don't start profiting on until a good 4-5 years after we've done so. I can't even imagine what the rate of return would be for other technologies. Obviously not enough for them to feel it's worth it.

Comment Use more bandwidth to enjoy media? (Score 5, Insightful) 247

by theVP on Monday April 11, 2011 @03:19PM (#35784750) Attached to: The End of Content Ownership

At a time when ISPs are moving to cap bandwidth usage, and these companies are moving to streaming-only ideas, am I the only one cringing?

Don't get me wrong, I love my streaming media, but ISPs seem to really hate it.

Submission + - Fukushima: What happened and what needs to be done (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by IndigoDarkwolf on Monday April 11, 2011 @01:44PM

IndigoDarkwolf writes: The sometimes confused media coverage around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant left me wont for a good summary. Apparently the BBC felt the same way, and delivers with an overview starting from the earthquake and concluding with the current state of the troubled reactors.

Comment Re:You know I lost a friend to banana allergy (Score 1) 256

by theVP on Friday March 25, 2011 @02:43PM (#35614708) Attached to: I estimate my radiation dose for my day as ...

Relax. At least you didn't lose your friend to a banana allegory.

Buuuzziiiiiiiiiiing!

Comment Re:He saves the human race time and time again . . (Score 1) 615

by theVP on Thursday August 05, 2010 @01:58PM (#33152412) Attached to: Churchill Accused of Sealing UFO Files, Fearing Public Panic

"Have a cigar!"

Tech Specs Leaked For French Spyware 212

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday August 05, 2010 @12:09PM from the i-see-what-you-did-there dept.

An anonymous reader writes "With the 'three strikes' law now in effect in France, the organization tasked with implementing it, Hadopi, has been working on technology specs for making the process work — and those specs have now leaked. It appears to involve client-side monitoring and controlling software, that would try to watch what you were doing online, and even warn you before you used any P2P protocol (must make Skype phone calls fun). It's hard to believe people will accept this kind of thing being installed on their computers, so I can't wait to see how Hadopi moves forward with it. It also appears to violate EU rules on privacy."

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