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Handhelds

Apple Removes Wi-Fi Finders From App Store 461

Posted by timothy from the you've-been-very-very-naughty dept.
jasonbrown writes "Apple on Thursday began removing another category of apps from its iPhone App Store. This time, it's not porn, it's Wi-Fi. Apple removed several Wi-Fi apps commonly referred to as stumblers, or apps that seek out available Wi-Fi networks near your location. According to a story on Cult of Mac, apps removed by Apple include WiFi-Where, WiFiFoFum, and yFy Network Finder."
Games

Revisiting the "Holy Trinity" of MMORPG Classes 362

Posted by Soulskill from the or-druid-as-the-case-may-be dept.
A feature at Gamasutra examines one of the foundations of many MMORPGs — the idea that class roles within such a game fall into three basic categories: tank, healer, and damage dealer. The article evaluates the pros and cons of such an arrangement and takes a look at some alternatives. "Eliminating specialized roles means that we do away with boxing a class into a single role. Without Tanks, each class would have features that would help them participate in and survive many different encounters like heavy armor, strong avoidance, or some class or magical abilities that allow them to disengage from direct combat. Without specialized DPS, all classes should be able to do damage in order to defeat enemies. Some classes might specialize in damage type, like area of effect (AoE) damage; others might be able to exploit enemy weaknesses, and some might just be good at swinging a sharpened bit of metal in the right direction at a rapid rate. This design isn't just about having each class able to fill any trinity role. MMO combat would feel more dynamic in this system. Every player would have to react to combat events and defend against attacks."

Comment They're not all bad (Score 2, Insightful) 82

by geoffeg (#27370797) Attached to: Charter Files For "Prearranged Bankruptcy"

I know a lot of comments here are going to be about their horrible customer service, unreliable network problems, etc. I know cause I've heard a lot of friends' (in St. Louis, where I live) horror stories. Maybe I'm the only customer that has been pleased with their services. Calling customer service has always been surprisingly pleasant and my issues resolved impressively quickly.

AT&T's U-verse just became available in my area (when I moved here cable was the only option for high-speed internet, DSL didn't reach this far) but I really do not want to deal with the pain of switching my TV, DVR, internet and phone over to a different company. I already give AT&T too much money each month for my cell phone.

Charter has done good by me (so far), they're a local company and I hope they come out of this stronger. Options and competition are a good thing for the kinds of services they offer.

Comment Does ANYONE read EULAs? (Score 1) 399

by Deven (#24873589) Attached to: The 5 Most Laughable Terms of Service On the Net

"According to Ars Technica, Google's EULA for Chrome was just copy-and-pasted from its EULA for other services [CC], a practice that is apparently common at Google."

Let me get this straight. If a company (even a "good" company like Google) can't even be bothered to read and understand their own EULA, how can all the users be expected to? What a joke. Even the lawyers forcing these EULAs down our throats pay no more attention than the average user. Where is the "meeting of the minds" that a (valid) contract supposedly represents, when nobody thinks through the details?

Comment Colors in eclipse (Score 1) 763

by geoffeg (#24043837) Attached to: Best Color Scheme For Coding, Easiest On the Eyes?

It still amazes me that after all these years Eclipse does not have an *easy* way to change the text editor color scheme. There don't appear to be any good plugins that let you apply pre-defined color schemes. Eclipse is one of the most popular Java IDEs out there, used in many other products, when will they fix this problem?
Communications

Google, Sun Headed for Showdown Over Android 124

Posted by Zonk from the immovable-object-vs.-nuclear-furnace dept.
narramissic writes "There may be trouble brewing between Google and Sun. Google has written its own virtual machine for Android, 'most likely as a way to get around licensing issues with Sun.' If Google used any of Sun's intellectual property to build Dalvik, Sun could sue Google for patent infringement. But here's where it gets interesting - Sun is a vocal advocate for open source and it would 'hardly appease the open source community to sue Google over an open source software stack.'"
Security

AACS Revision Cracked A Week Before Release 346

Posted by Zonk from the damned-time-traveling-pirates dept.
stevedcc writes "Ars Technica is running a story about next week's release of AACS, which is intended to fix the currently compromised version. The only problem is, the patched version has already been cracked. From the article: 'AACS LA's attempts to stifle dissemination of AACS keys and prevent hackers from compromising new keys are obviously meeting with extremely limited success. The hacker collective continues to adapt to AACS revisions and is demonstrating a capacity to assimilate new volume keys at a rate which truly reveals the futility of resistance. If keys can be compromised before HD DVDs bearing those keys are even released into the wild, one has to question the viability of the entire key revocation model.'"
Caldera

SCO Stock In Danger of Delisting, Again 188

Posted by kdawson from the pennies dept.
hweimer writes "In 2005, SCO got into delisting trouble because they failed to file their annual 10-K report in a timely manner. SCO seems to be headed the same way again for a different reason: the stock price is too low to meet Nasdaq's requirements. Quoting: '[W]hat can a company do to boost its share price? Besides stopping to burn money and come up with a working business model, I mean.'"
The Internet

Internet Radio May Stream North to Canada 73

Posted by Zonk from the enjoy-your-soundtracks-eh dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With U.S. copyright royalties threatening to kill Internet radio in the U.S., Michael Geist explains why webcasters considering a move to Canada will find that the legal framework for Internet radio trades costs for complexity. There are two main areas of concern from a Canadian perspective — broadcast regulation and copyright fees. The broadcast side is surprisingly regulation-free, but there are at least three Canadian copyright collectives lining up to collect from Internet radio stations."

Voting Machine Glitches Already Being Reported 742

Posted by Zonk from the go-vote dept.
Neovanglist writes "CNN, FOX, and MSNBC are reporting that voting machines in three states (Ohio, Indiana, and Florida) have already been showing issues, both in the machines themselves and in the training of poll attendants, causing many districts to switch to paper ballots." From the article: "Voters put the Republican congressional majority and a multitude of new voting equipment to the test Tuesday in an election that defined the balance of power for the rest of George W. Bush's presidency. Both parties hustled to get their supporters out in high-stakes contests across the country, Democrats appealing one more time for change, and appearing confident the mood was on their side. Republicans conceded nothing as their vaunted get-out-the-vote machine swung into motion." If you're in the U.S., and you haven't voted already, go do it!

The CVS Cop-Out 486

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the keep-the-users-happy dept.
NewsForge (also owned by VA) has a short piece attempting to call into focus one of the major complaints of end users, the "CVS cop-out". From the article: "One of my biggest pet peeves with open source software is what I call the CVS cop-out. It works like this: I criticize (accurately) some shortcoming of an open source application either in an article or in conversation, and someone responds with, 'That's not true! That feature was fixed in CVS four weeks ago!' [...] I bring up the CVS cop-out not because I have an answer for it, but to air it out. Sometimes, giving a problem a name helps to foster discussion that leads to resolution."

Ruby On Rails Goes 1.1 255

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the still-traveling-at-breakneck-speeds dept.
MrByte420 writes "The Ruby On Rails team today released version 1.1 of the web framework. From the announcement: 'Rails 1.1 boasts more than 500 fixes, tweaks, and features from more than 100 contributors. Most of the updates just make everyday life a little smoother, a little rounder, and a little more joyful.' New features were examined back in February at Scottraymond.net and include Javascript/AJAX integration, enhancements to active record, and enhanced testing suites. Not to mention upgrading this time promises to be a piece of cake."

Getting on Top of Spam Down Under 128

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the sudden-increase-in-spam-drone-numbers dept.
The Register is reporting that Australia has implemented a new industry code for the regulation of email with respect to spam. From the article: "Under the new code, internet service providers (ISPs) will bear some of the responsibility for helping fight spam. Service providers must offer spam-filtering options to their subscribers and advise them on how to best deal with and report the nuisance mail. ISPs will also be compelled to impose 'reasonable' limits on subscribers' sending email."

Bloggers Exempted From Campaign Laws 230

Posted by Zonk from the bloggers-look-up-then-return-to-linking dept.
MaceyHW writes "The Federal Election Commission ruled today that the only online political activity subject to Campaign Finance Laws are paid advertisements on a third party site. Today's ruling extended the regulations to paid advertising as required by a 2004 Federal Court ruling, but explicitly exempted all other forms of online activity: 'For example, the rule says individuals can use union or corporate computers or other electronic devices for political activity, as long they do it on their own time and are not coerced to engage in such activity by the union or corporation. Bloggers would be entitled to the same exemption from the campaign finance law that newspapers and other traditional forms of media receive. "There will be no second class citizens among members of the media," [FEC Chairman Michael T.] Toner said.'"

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