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Comment Cue moving to Home Assistant, the best alternative (Score 1) 86

by BalrogZed (#61453828) Attached to: Samsung Will Shut Down the v1 SmartThings Hub This Month

I predict the poor souls being ditched by this moving over to the opensource Home Asssitant, which has gotten increasingly better since last year - it's now even a supported "Alternate install" by Raspberry PI. Even better is that for anything that can be kept local instead of being an IoT device, you can keep network traffic, to a minimum.
Lord of the Rings

LoTR Lawsuit Threatens Hobbit Production 427

Posted by CmdrTaco from the but-we-wantsss-it dept.
eyrieowl writes "J.R.R.'s heirs are suing for royalties on the LoTR films. Apparently they haven't gotten any money due to some creative accounting. Peter Jackson ought to understand...he had to sue the studio for much the same reason. As for The Hobbit? FTFA: 'Tolkien's family and a British charity they head, the Tolkien Trust, seek more than $220 million in compensation...[and]...the option to terminate further rights to the author's work.'"

Comment Re:OpenStreetMap the future for local knowledge (Score 1) 519

by BalrogZed (#28636999) Attached to: Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge?

Being lucky has nothing to do with it if you use OpenStreetMap. Sure you might initially drive down blank space on your GPS/map - but only the once if you upload your traces and data afterwards. If the map is wrong [say a road has been partially destroyed due to road upgrades] you can correct it.

Don't have a GPS and want to join in the fun anyway? Using http://walking-papers.org/ will help - print out the map, draw in what needs to be added and either scan or *post* it and someone will add in that info for you.
Cellphones

Standalone GPS Receivers Going the Way of the Dodo 422

Posted by CmdrTaco from the why-did-you-program-me-to-feel-pain dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that more than 40 percent of all smartphone owners and 80 percent of iPhone users use their mobile devices to get turn-by-turn directions driving down sales of traditional standalone GPS units from companies like TomTom, Garmin and Magellan. During the first quarter, TomTom said it shipped 29 percent fewer GPS units compared with the period in 2008 while Garmin's unit sales fell 13 percent from the previous year. While smartphones are susceptible to interruptions from incoming phone calls and using the mapping features for a long time can chew through battery power, the list of the smartphone's shortcomings is dwindling as some of the latest navigation applications offer voice navigation and take advantage of the phone's always-connected state to offer real-time traffic updates, directions to contacts in the phone's address book and more. 'I've not stopped using a GPS because I never bought one in the first place — they are expensive and inconvenient,' says Steve Weller. 'Now with the iPhone, I will actually use GPS — and the 10 other functions it replaces.' The traditional GPS device companies are trying to adapt, seeking to expand their reach into the smartphone market. TomTom recently announced that it would introduce a portable navigation application for the iPhone that would feature turn-by-turn directions and audio prompts. 'The simplicity of having one device and not needing to pull the Garmin out of my glove compartment is enough,' says Andrew DiMarcangelo. 'I want to get into my car and do as few things as possible.'"
Transportation

Is Sat-Nav Destroying Local Knowledge? 519

Posted by samzenpus from the go-where-now dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Joe Moran writes in the BBC News Magazine that Sat-Nav clearly suits an era in which 'map-reading may be going the way of obsolete skills like calligraphy and roof-thatching.' Sat-Nav 'speaks to our contemporary anxieties and preoccupations about the road,' writes Moran. 'More roads and better cars mean we can travel further, and so the risk of getting lost is all the greater.' But do real men use sat-nav? Moran says that men seem to recoil from being given digital instructions by a woman, and read the satnav woman's pregnant pauses, or her curt phrases like 'make a legal U-turn' and 'recalculating the route', as stubborn or bossy. Still we don't quite trust the electronic voice to get us where we want to go. 'Since before even the arrival of the car, people have worried that maps sever us from real places, render the world untouchable, reduce it to a bare outline of Cartesian lines and intersections,' writes Moran. 'Sat-nav feeds into this long-held fear that the cold-blooded modern world is destroying local knowledge, that roads no longer lead to real places but around and through them.'"

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