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Comment Plastic is the past (Score 1) 118

by aacool (#45961045) Attached to: Target Hackers Have More Data Than They Can Sell
To borrow from the Graduate, plastic has no future - is it really necessary to possess physical plastic cards and scan them? Not at all, the future is biometric/electronic/e-wallets and in at least one large retailer's case, regular customers will be able to walk out of the door without ever approaching a cash register.

Submission + - Apple Devices to Reach Parity with Windows PCs in 2014

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Horace Dediu writes at Aymco that in 2013 there were 18.8 times more Windows PCs sold than Macs, a reduction in the Windows advantage from about 19.8x in 2012. But the bigger story is how Apple’s mobile platform including iOS devices has nearly reached the sales volume of Windows. In 2013 there were only 1.18 more Windows PCs than Apple devices sold. Odds are that in 2014 Apple and Windows will be at parity. Dediu says that the Windows advantage itself came from the way computing was purchased in the period of its ascent in the 1980s and 1990s "when computing platform decisions were made first by companies then by developers and later by individuals who took their cues from what standards were already established. As these decisions created network effects, the cycle repeated and the majority platform strengthened." There was concentration in decision making in the 80s so a platform could win by convincing 500 individuals who had the authority (as CIOs) to impose through fiat a standard on the centers of gravity of purchasing power. Today, with mobile products there are billions of decision makers. and the decision making process for buying computers, which began with large companies IT departments making decisions with multi-year horizons, has changed to billions of individuals making decisions with no horizons. Companies have become the laggards and individuals the early adopters of technology. "Ultimately, it was the removal of the intermediary between buyer and beneficiary which dissolved Microsoft’s power over the purchase decision," concludes Dediu. "The computer has become personal not just in the sense of how it’s used but in the sense of how it’s owned." Finally, all the above is almost moot, given the rise of Android, something that is beating both Cupertino and Redmond alike.

Submission + - OpenBSD In Financial Survival Crisis

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: Today the OpenBSD mailing list carried a plea from Theo de Raadt for much needed financial aid: 'I am resending this request for funding our electricity bills because it is not yet resolved. We really need even more funding beyond that, because otherwise all of this is simply unsustainable. This request is the smallest we can make.' Bob Beck, of the OpenBSD Foundation, added: 'the fact is right now, OpenBSD will shut down if we do not have the funding to keep the lights on.'

Submission + - Snowden joins Daniel Ellsberg on board of Freedom of the Press Foundation (pressfreedomfoundation.org)

Submitted by sunbird
sunbird writes: Edward Snowden is joining the board of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit committed to defending public-interest journalism which exposes law-breaking in government. The foundation is presently raising money and awareness for a variety of open-source encryption tools. Please consider donating to my favorite: the LEAP Encryption Access Project.

Submission + - Incandescent Bulbs Get a Reprieve (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new budget deal reached today by the U.S. Congress walks back the energy efficiency standards that would have forced the phase out of incandescent bulbs. 'These ideas were first enacted during the Bush administration, via the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Incandescent bulbs were unable to meet the standards, so they would eventually be forced off the market in favor of LEDs and compact fluorescent bulbs. But Republicans have since soured on the bill, viewing it as an intrusion on the market and attempting to identify it with President Obama. Recent Congresses have tried many times to repeal the standards, but these have all been blocked. However, U.S. budgets are often used as a vehicle to get policies enacted that couldn't pass otherwise, since having an actual budget is considered too valuable to hold up over relatively minor disputes. The repeal of these standards got attached to the budget and will be passed into law with it.'

Submission + - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Announce 2014 position of Doomsday Clock (thebulletin.org) 1

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: The Science and Security Board explains their decision on today's announcement of the position of the Doomsday Clock. In a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and members of the UN Security Council, the Bulletin announced its decision and how it was made.The decision to move (or to leave in place) the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is made every year by the Bulletin's Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 18 Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world's vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and new technologies emerging in other domains.

Comment Re:Those aren't the same. (Score 0) 263

by aacool (#37651798) Attached to: Was the iPod Accessory Port Inspired By a 40-Year-Old Camera?

That slot on a Polaroid camera was actually an edge connector. The flash bar was printed on a PCB and had gold trace "fingers" on a protruding section, like an ISA card. These are very cheap, as only one side of the connector even is a connector at all, the other is just a PCB. But they also aren't physically very strong and aren't good for a lot of insertion/removal cycles.

The iPod 30-pin has a metal shelled connector on both mating pieces. These are more precise, last longer and with the a latch system (present on some iPod cables, not others) physically strong. You can hang an iPod Mini easily from a latched 30-pin connector while the Polaroid flash bars fell out without even putting weight on them.

Also note Steve Jobs didn't design Apple's 30-pin connector, Donald J Novotney did.

Interesting update - thanks very much for the info
Books

Submission + - B&N Yanks DC Titles After Exclusive Amazon Dea

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In response to DC Entertainment's agreement to exclusively offer digital versions of certain titles in Amazon Kindle format, Nook maker Barnes & Noble has begun pulling DC Entertainment's graphic novels off its shelves. Confirming the decision, B&N said in a statement, 'To sell and promote the physical book in our store showrooms, and not have the eBook available for sale would undermine our promise to Barnes & Noble customers to make available any book, anywhere, anytime.' Nice to see the pair is still able to keep their feud fresh on the 11th anniversary of the 1-Click patent infringement lawsuit.
Censorship

Submission + - World of Starcraft Mod Gets C&D from Blizzard (pixelatedgeek.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: If you've been following the team who created World of Starcraft (an amazing mod of Starcraft to be more like World of Warcraft), their youtube video of what they've done so far has already resulted in a cease and desist from Activision/Blizzard. Evidently when you are given tools to make custom mods to games you should be careful about making something too good. The author of the mod is hopeful that it's just a trademark problem with the name of his mod but few details are out.
Facebook

How Facebook Ships Code 314

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wish-i-had-hundreds-of-engineers dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The two largest teams at Facebook are Engineering and Ops, with roughly 400-500 team members each, together making up about 50% of the company. All engineers go through 4 to 6 week 'Boot Camp' training where they learn the Facebook system by fixing bugs. After boot camp, all engineers get access to the live DB and any engineer can modify any part of Facebook's code base and check-in at-will so that engineers can modify specs mid-process, re-order work projects, and inject new feature ideas anytime. Then arguments about whether or not a feature idea is worth doing or not generally get resolved by spending a week implementing it and then testing it on a sample of users, e.g., 1% of Nevada users. 'All changes are reviewed by at least one person, and the system is easy for anyone else to look at and review your code even if you don't invite them to,' writes yeegay. 'It would take intentionally malicious behavior to get un-reviewed code in.' What is interesting for a company this size is that there is no official QA group at Facebook but almost every employee is dogfooding the product every day."
Iphone

Submission + - Verizon Finally Unveils Apple iPhone (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: The most asked question in all of technology finally has an answer. When will Verizon get the iPhone? The answer: early next month. Verizon COO Lowell McAdam unveiled a new iPhone Tuesday during a presentation in New York that was short on surprises as most of the tech press already knew what was coming. “If the press writes about something long enough and hard enough, eventually it comes true,” McAdam joked. Nevertheless, the move clears a major hurdle for Apple as they face increasing competition in smartphones, particularly from devices based on Google Inc.'s Android software which has exploded in popularity. Verizon’s Lowell McAdam described the unveiling as a “great day for wireless customers across the U.S.”
Businesses

Record Labels To Pay For Copyright Infringement 235

Posted by Soulskill from the of-pots-and-kettles dept.
innocent_white_lamb writes "Sony Music Entertainment Canada Inc., EMI Music Canada Inc., Universal Music Canada Inc. and Warner Music Canada Co. have agreed to pay songwriters and music publishers $47.5 million in damages for copyright infringement and overdue royalties to settle a class action lawsuit. 'The 2008 class action alleges that the record companies "exploited" music owners by reproducing and selling in excess of 300,000 song titles without securing licenses from the copyright owners and/or without paying the associated royalty payments. The record companies knowingly did so and kept a so-called "pending list" of unlicensed reproductions, setting aside $50 million for the issue, if it ever arose, court filings suggest.'"
Programming

Submission + - Why Teach Programming with BASIC (kickstarter.com) 3

Submitted by
chromatic
chromatic writes: "To answer the perennial question "How can we teach kids how to program?", we created a web-based programming environment. As we began to write lessons and examples, we surprised ourselves. Modern languages may be powerful and useful for writing real programs, but BASIC and Logo are great languages for demonstrating the joy of programming."

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