Comment Re:I carry it with me (Score 1) 306
Please site your source for the "mic can be remotely activated on a cell phone." I believe this to be an urban legend and have never seen proof of this.
OS X Mountain Lion Review 424
John Siracusa at Ars Technica has published a lengthy and detailed review of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. (Lengthy enough that the review garnered a review of its own.) Siracusa methodically goes through all of the changes in the new version, covering everything from the minor new features to the overarching goals. Quoting:
"Despite the oft-cited prediction that Mac will eventually be subsumed by iOS, that's not what's happening here. Apple is determined to bring the benefits of iOS to the Mac, but it's equally determined to do so in a way that preserves the strengths of the Mac platform. Where we Mac nerds go wrong is in mistaking traditions for strengths. Loss aversion is alive and well in the Mac community; with each 'feature' removed and each decision point eliminated from our favorite OS, our tendency is to focus heavily on what's been lost, sometimes blinding ourselves to the gains. But the larger problem is that losses and gains are context-dependent. A person who never uses a feature will not miss it when it's gone. We all pay lip service to the idea that most users never change the default settings in software, but we rarely follow this through to its logical conclusion. The fact is, we are not the center of the market, and haven't been for a long time. Three decades ago, the personal computer industry was built on the backs of technology enthusiasts. Every product, every ad was created to please us. No longer. Technology must now work for everyone, not just 'computing enthusiasts.'"
A somewhat briefer review is available at ComputerWorld, and there's a quick one from John Gruber.
Comment Re:Bad enough I pay for microtransactions in MMO's (Score 1) 734
I think H.264 is the preferred playback codec on iOS.
Comment Re:Barring? (Score 1) 416
Microsoft makes Office for the Mac. They could even be running Windows on a Mac as well.
Comment Beacons have been received (Score 5, Informative) 146
According to this: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats/nanosaild.html the beacons they asked amateur radio operators to listen for have been received and the satellite appears to be operating normally.
Comment Re:Torvalds children are NOT citizens. (Score 1) 654
The Supreme Court disagrees with you.
Comment Re:The Boy Scouts' take on prayer (Score 1) 895
Schools in Arizona (at least the high school I went to) do have a "moment of silence" in the morning. This always seems to be a thinly-disguised prayer time. What other purpose does a compulsory "moment of silent" have?
California's Santa Clara County Bans Happy Meal Toys 756
WrongSizeGlass writes "The L.A. Times is reporting that Santa Clara County officials have voted to ban toys and other promotions that restaurants offer with high-calorie children's meals. 'This ordinance prevents restaurants from preying on children's love of toys' to sell high-calorie, unhealthful food, said Supervisor Ken Yeager, who sponsored the measure. 'This ordinance breaks the link between unhealthy food and prizes.' Supervisor Donald Gage, who voted against the measure, said, 'If you can't control a 3-year-old child for a toy, God save you when they get to be teenagers.' The vote was 3 - 2 in favor of the ban."
Comment Huge impact where I work (Score 1) 233
At a certain large semi-conductor manufacturer this false positive wreaked havoc. Most of our IT-supported laptops are running XP. Fortunately I figured out what was going on pretty quickly and knew how to fix it. Other people here weren't so lucky and it took the IT department at least half the day to figure out a solution. Most people were down the entire day.
Comment Re:Lawyer? (Score 3, Informative) 554
The FCC has ruled that condo/homeowner associations cannot restrict the installation of (small) satellite dishes or antennas for receiving television or Internet services. There are certain exemptions for historical preservation and such but other than that they must make reasonable accommodations.
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html
How the Internet Didn't Fail As Predicted 259
Lord Byron Eee PC writes "Newsweek is carrying a navel-gazing piece on how wrong they were when in 1995 they published a story about how the Internet would fail. The original article states, 'Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure.' The article continues to say that online shopping will never happen, that airline tickets won't be purchased over the web, and that newspapers have nothing to fear. It's an interesting look back at a time when the Internet was still a novelty and not yet a necessity."
Comment Re:APPLE ][ (Score 1) 371
I think the Terminator's point-of-view vision in the first Terminator movie did have Apple assembly code scrolling through as an example to what you said.
Comment Exorcism for Windows viruses (Score 3, Funny) 154
They need an exorcism ritual for Windows viruses as well.
Comment Warrant required? (Score 5, Interesting) 315
That's great that they have a web interface to service the law enforcement needs to track people by the GPS in their cell phone. How does the web site verify a valid warrant? Does the web site ask them to hold it up to the screen for verification?
Comment Re:And the slant comes out (Score 1, Flamebait) 435
Apple didn't block the Pre from anything. The Pre was using the iPod/iPhone USB identifier. It was the USB Working Group that told them to stop.
