jbreckman - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Some combination of both would be nice... (Score 1) 429

by jbreckman on Monday March 23, 2009 @09:25AM (#27297093) Attached to: Universal Remote's Days Are Numbered

Not to mention that a tighter integration of your phone and TV would allow you to potentially interact with your friends regarding live TV shows you are all watching.

I think Facebook did something like this with the inauguration.

Comment Some combination of both would be nice... (Score 1) 429

by jbreckman on Monday March 23, 2009 @09:21AM (#27297047) Attached to: Universal Remote's Days Are Numbered

The problem with remotes is that they don't give the user any context. A smartphone as a remote could solve this very nicely.

Imagine an app that could let you view stills/descriptions/scheduling of all shows on right now on your iPhone. You could scroll through them. Maybe read reviews of them on your phone. Interact with it like you'd interact with any other app. When you are ready, you just press a button and your cable box tunes to it.

Imagine DVDs that could display meta information about what you were watching on your phone while you were watching it. (If that interested you).

Imagine if your TV/movie paused automatically when you got a phone call

One person could watch a show, while the other person see's what else is on without interrupting the display.

What functions do remotes provide anyway? It's pretty much selecting channels, managing volume, selecting devices, managing the DVR and turning it on and off.

As for the lack of physical buttons on touchscreens - the iPhone already has a volume button. Who's to say that it can't someday control the volume of an entertainment system it is synced to. Or have it's power button affect the tv instead of the phone. (Give you two options of things to turn off).

Everything else you do with a TV, a touchscreen would be MUCH better suited for.

Comment Re:Not a chance (Score 1) 600

by jbreckman on Friday September 12, 2008 @12:52PM (#24980529) Attached to: Best Buy + Windows Guru = Apple Store Experience?

I was at an Apple store looking to buy Logic Express 8 (which I love), and was talking to an employee about the stuff I would be missing by not having Logic Studio 8.

It was a $300 difference and I only really wanted 10% of the added stuff that Studio had, so I said "Hey, is there a way to just get that one plug-in pack?"

The response? "No... you could always just go find a torrent with it and download that"

I was very impressed :)

Group Wants Wi-Fi Banned, Citing Allergy 525

Posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday May 24, 2008 @09:49AM from the oh-you-gotta-be-kidding-me dept.

54mc writes "A small group in Santa Fe, New Mexico is claiming that the city is discriminating against them by having wireless networks in public buildings. How are these buildings discriminatory? Simple. These people are allergic to Wi-Fi. And they're suing the city." I've been trying to sue people for the streetlights that I'm allergic to as well.

Sun Buys MySQL 588

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday January 16, 2008 @09:03AM from the didn't-see-that-coming dept.

Krow alerted me that MySQL has been bought by Sun. Right now there is only a brief announcement but it discusses what the acquisition will mean for the core developers, community etc.

Programmer's Language-Aware Spell Checker? 452

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @05:12AM from the hands-off-my-camelcase dept.

Jerry Asher writes "Not all of my coworkers are careful about spelling errors. Sometimes this causes real embarrassment as spelling errors creep into software interfaces. Does anyone know of spell checkers for programming languages? I don't want a text spell checker, I want a programming-language-aware spell checker. A spell checker that I can pass all of my code through and will flag spelling errors in function names, variable names, and comments, but will ignore language keywords, language constructs and expressions, and various programming styles (camel code, or underscores, or...). I want a spell checker that knows that void *functionSigniture(char *myRoutine) contains one spelling error. Does anyone have such a thing for Java or C++? Are there any Eclipse plugins that do this?"

Submission + - Girl faces year in prison for 20 second film clip

Submitted by PizzaFace on Thursday August 02, 2007 @06:04AM

PizzaFace writes: It's Jhannet's 19th birthday, so her boyfriend borrows a camcorder to memorialize the occasion, and they head to the mall. They goof around, recording each other and the Chick-fil-A cows in the food court, then decide to catch the Transformers matinee, which started a few minutes earlier. During a big action scene, Jhannet takes the camcorder and records a 20-second clip to show her little brother. A few minutes later, cops who were called by the manager come in with flashlights, arrest Jhannet, confiscate the camcorder, and, at the behest of Regal Cinemas, charge her with film piracy. "I was terrified," said Jhannet. "I was crying. I've never been in trouble before." If convicted, she could be sentenced to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. The police say they lack discretion because Regal Cinemas chose to prosecute: "They were the victim in this case, and they felt strongly enough about it." The National Association of Theatre Owners supports Regal's "zero-tolerance" prosecution standard: "We cannot educate theater managers to be judges and juries in what is acceptable. Theater managers cannot distinguish between good and bad stealing."

Star Wars Virgin Takes the Plunge 397

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday November 15, 2006 @06:30PM from the losin-it dept.

Entertainment Weekly is running a short account of one Star Wars virgin who recently sat down to watch all six Star Wars movies in their originally intended order while recording his thoughts. From the article: "So after watching the sun set on all six of the Star Wars (or sun rise, in my case), what do these movies mean to me? I have to be careful where I tread here, because people's love of these movies is passionate to say the least. (Personal note: My friends had a Star Wars-themed wedding.) The cynical and tired side of me wants to say that George wanted Episode I to be shown first because after watching 14 straight hours of Star Wars, my memories of young Anakin and Jar Jar are almost long forgotten. I've tossed them aside along with my package of caffeine pills and bottle of Coke."

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