Comment Possibly the original smartwatch? (Score 5, Informative) 260
There was once a smartwatch called the Timex Datalink. I remember when it came out. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Datalink for more information.
Comment This is wrong. (Score 4, Insightful) 418
Companies should honor requests for people to be able to opt out of their text messaging programs. I used to work in a call center supporting a major cellular carrier and their devices. The most common problem people called about was text messages they did not want and needed help in stopping. All we could do was educate the customer on how to opt out of the text messaging spam.
This was one year ago. I left and never looked back.
Comment Re:IMO.IM (Score 1) 121
Check out http://imo.im/. It has integration of practically every messaging service, as well as a great and android app.
Yeah, I too use imo on my Android. Low battery consumption, works quite well.
A Wrinkle For Biometric Systems: Irises Change Over Time 59
scibri writes "The iris scanners that are used to police immigration in some countries, like the UK, are based on the premise that your irises don't change over your lifetime. But it seems that assumption is wrong. Researchers from the University of Notre Dame have found that irises do indeed change over time, enough so that the failure rate jumps by 153% over three years. While that means a rise from just 1 in 2 million to 2.5 in two million, imagine how that will affect a system like India's — which already has 200 million people enrolled — over 10 years."
Australian IT Price Hike Inquiry Kicks Off: Submissions Wanted 70
New submitter wirelessduck writes "After some recent complaints from a Labor MP about price markups on software and technology devices in Australia, Federal Government agencies decided to look in to the matter and an official parliamentary inquiry into the issue was started. 'The Federal Parliament's inquiry into local price markups on technology goods and services has gotten under way, with the committee overseeing the initiative issuing its terms of reference and calling for submissions from the general public on the issue.'"
Court Ruling Shuts Down Australian Cloud TV Recorders 46
joshgnosis writes "In the wake of an Australian Federal Court ruling last month that free-to-air TV recording app Optus TV Now was infringing on the copyright of some of the country's biggest sports broadcasts, two other services — Beem and MyTVR have also been forced to suspend their services. Beem lashed out at the ruling, telling customers that their rights had been 'diminished' by the judgment and rights owners were 'scared' of cloud-based TV recording services in the same way they once were of VCRs."
Photographer Threatened With Legal Action After Asserting His Copyright 667
New submitter JamieKitson writes "Photographer Jay Lee got more than he bargained for after sending some DMCA takedown notifications out to hosts of sites using one of his pictures. One Candice Shwagger accused him of everything from conspiracy over local sheriff elections to child abuse. Since Candice is now threatening legal action, Jay has said he'll take down the post, so here's a snap shot. After reading the story, I checked for use of my own pictures and found one of them being used on a review site without even a credit."
Higher Hard Drive Prices Are the New Normal 268
An anonymous reader tips an article looking at the state of HDD pricing now that the market has had time to recover from the flooding in Thailand and a round of consolidation among manufacturers. Prices have certainly declined from the high they reached during the flooding, but they've stabilized a bit higher than they were beforehand. Quoting:
"Are things going to change any time soon? We doubt it. WD and Seagate both reported record profits this past quarter. In Q1 2011, Western Digital reported net profit of $146M against sales of $2.3B while Seagate recorded $2.7B in revenue and $93 million in net income. That’s a net profit margin of 6% and 3%, respectively. For this past quarter, Western Digital reported sales of $3B (thanks in part to its acquisition of Hitachi) and a net income of $483 million, while Seagate hit $4.4B in revenue and $1.1B in profits. Net margin was 16% and 37% respectively. With profit margins like this, the hard drive manufacturers are going to be loath to cut prices. After years of barely making profits, the Thailand floods are the best excuse ever to drive record income for a few quarters. All of this means that while we expect prices to gradually decline, holding off on a necessary purchase doesn’t make much sense."
Who Sends Google the Most Takedown Notices? Microsoft 148
nk497 writes "Google has released details on the copyright takedown notices it's received over the past year, and the most requests by far have been from Microsoft. Over the past year, Google has received DMCA takedown notices for 2,544,209 URLs over Microsoft-related piracy, with NBC and the RIAA ranking second and third. Many of the reports do not come directly from companies such as Microsoft, but via firms set up only to chase copyright issues. The most popular targets appear to be file-sharing sites. 'These days it's not unusual for us to receive more than 250,000 requests each week, which is more than what copyright owners asked us to remove in all of 2009,' said Fred von Lohmann, Google senior copyright counsel, adding it takes on average 11 hours for Google to take action."
Comment Gonna miss you CmdrTaco (Score 1) 1521
Slashdot just won't be the same without 'ya :'(
Comment Re:Freedom! (Score 2, Insightful) 253
I agree with you, in that freedom to do what you will with what you own should be a right.
This is why I, and many others, jailbreak my iPhone. Unix shell and root privileges? Why, thank you, iPwn!
Yes, it would be a much nicer world if Apple let us have more freedom from the start, but it's Apple's right, I guess, to do what they want with the product they make. I take it as a good gesture, though, that Apple is not actively discouraging jailbreaking. Now, unlocking, on the other hand...
I see it as the same as the content locks on the Xbox 360, or the Wii. They'll only play approved content, before you hack them open. Which I do, and love. But you never hear of people whining that the Wii won't let you run arbitrary content. Is the iPhone very much different?
Comment Good idea (Score 1, Interesting) 215
This sounds like a good idea.
A lot of the immigrants from Mexico and Somalia that have settled here (northern Colorado) could use this. We have a local clinic that is always so busy that you have to call first thing in the morning to get an appointment. I'd think that if they did offer this service, it'd be a big help.
Comment Re:Does it run on Fedora? (Score 0) 2
Hehe, that would be funny - Fedora digital object repository on Fedora Linux...
Comment Re:This is just baffling! (Score 1) 549
This is very true. Especially in media companies, people have been fired on the spot when outed as "conservative". There's no recourse for that.
Comment Re:A cake is in order (Score 1) 252
Wait a minute, if you're going to go back that far, I thought at that time (1996 or so) Netscape ruled and IE3 was the up-and-comer in a desperate attempt to catch up?
Netscape was supposed to be free but ended up being free only to educational/nonprofit, and many would contend that IE's being free is the primary reason it took over.
(and, I cannot resist, though it's FFox's 5-year anniversary, it's also 20-years for the Berlin Wall, and I want to announce that I danced on it that very night as a Russian linguist in the USAF!)
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