Comment Re:The next step is WiFi calling (Score 2) 102
Most T-Mobile android phones have wifi calling built into them. great for calling when outside the US and not paying roaming fee's.
Comment Re:I don't get it... (Score 1) 190
I believe the contract includes nonrecurring engineering costs. Basically the engineering time to meet NASA requirements for docking to the station that wouldn't have been there just to launch into orbit. SpaceX's website puts per launch costs at around $45-50 million.
Comment Re:Pico (Score 2, Informative) 74
Picosatellite is just a general classification in the satellite community of 1kg. "Small" satellites are anything from 500kg down. Notice it's not Pico- kg but pico-satellite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_satellite
Comment Re:Looking forward to more inflammatory articles (Score 3, Interesting) 174
Maybe because VOIP has NEVER BEEN A GOOD 911 OPTION.
What happens when the power goes out?
My UPS kicks in supporting the modem, the VOIP router and the phone.
What happens when the internet goes out?
I assume you mean when your internet connection goes out. I've got DSL and I've had it go out once in three years and that was during a pretty nasty storm. I'm pretty sure the phone was out also though I had no way of checking. So as long as the phone system works my DSL and VOIP are probably up.
What happens when...
The list goes on and on and on and on which is why if you're really concerned about 911 you should have at least one land line phone plugged into an outlet. Why? Because the FBI doesn't need to worry about VOIP service. You should have a 911 phone available.
Why should I be forced to subsidize an out of date POTS when I don't use it? Maybe we should all be forced to buy and maintain emergency radios so we can call first responders when the phone system goes out.
If 911 was REALLY a problem then Comcast shouldn't be able to cut anyone's internet access... ever.
Because the phone company has never disconnected anyone before either.
Submission + - Google's $30,000,000 Lunar X PRIZE (googlelunarxprize.org) 1
chroma writes: "It's been a long time since anyone has explored the surface of the moon. But now Google has teamed up with the X PRIZE Foundation to offer a $30,000,000 bounty to the first privately funded organization to land a robotic rover on the moon. Google, of course, has offered the free Google Moon mapping service for a few years now. Looks like the other search engines have some catching up to do in the space exploration department."
Submission + - Diebold rebrands what noone wants.
Irvu writes: Diebold has apparently failed in their bid to sell their tainted elections systems unit. Unable to find a buyer the CEO of Diebold promised that the system will be run more "openly and independently." To prove that they are serious, they renamed it. Diebold Election Systems is now Premiere Election Solutions. They still sell GEMS, AccuVote OS and the ever-unpopular AccuVote-TSX which performed so disastrously in California's Top-to-Bottom Review under the same names. Apparently their rebranding effort only goes so far.
Submission + - Best Buy Confirms 'secret' Website
Iberian writes: Courant.com confirms Best Buy does indeed maintain a second website for what one could only assume is for fraudulent purposes.
State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered the investigation into Best Buy's practices on Feb. 9 after my column disclosed the website and showed how employees at two Connecticut stores used it to deny customers a $150 discount on a computer advertised on BestBuy.com.
State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered the investigation into Best Buy's practices on Feb. 9 after my column disclosed the website and showed how employees at two Connecticut stores used it to deny customers a $150 discount on a computer advertised on BestBuy.com.
Journal Journal: "Street kids raid poverty summit" 1
A funny story, if the kids don't wind up facing nasty retribution from the police, which they probably will...
You know that "World Social Forum" that runs as an anti-capitalist World Economic Forum? We usually get a story or two about it every year, about how Stallman gave a speech about how free software is good and Microsoft is bad and people who don't say "GNU/Linux" are even worse, and then responded to questions by pretending he doesn't know what "open source" is.
Feed Privacy Board Veils Wiretap Docs (wired.com)
Journal Journal: Consumer Reports retracts infant car seat study 2
Consumer Reports is retracting its car seat report after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had found flaws in its side-impact testing methods.
Submission + - Senate bill S.256 aims to restrict internet radio
JAFSlashdotter writes: If you enjoy MP3 or OGG streams of internet radio, it's time to pay attention. This week US Senators Lamar Alexander, Joseph Biden, Dianne Feinstein, and Lindsey Graham in their collective wisdom have decided to reintroduce the "Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music (PERFORM) Act". This ARS Technica article explains that PERFORM would restrict our rights to make non-commercial recordings under the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, and require satellite and internet broadcasters to use "technology to prevent music theft". That means goodbye to your favorite streaming audio formats, hello DRM. The EFF said pretty much the same when this bill last reared its ugly head in April of 2006. It's too soon to get the text of this year's version (S.256) online, but it likely to resemble last year's S.2644, which is available through Thomas. Last year's bill died in committee, but if at first you don't succeed...
Journal Journal: "Scientists prepare to move Doomsday Clock forward"
Reuters reports that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says conditions are closer to doomsday than the used to be:
When it was created by the magazine's staff in 1947, it was initially set at seven minutes to midnight and has moved 17 times since then.
