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I'm really confused. I just read there was no reason not to update (!)

NO, they do not.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2...

try again.

At least for half the population.

Whom you're blocking with the piece of tape is pretty unimportant. The tape works against perverts, Microsoft, and the NSA all the same. There is simply no reason not to do it. (Which is equivalent to there being no for reason laptop vendors to not put a sliding cover over their camera, except it got eliminated as a cost-cutting measure.)

ars technica — there's no reason not to update — http://arstechnica.com/apple/2...

MS should thus leverage the business side and Continuum. Allow employees to hot desk by docking their phone with a full size keyboard, a mouse and external screens - why do cubicle bound workers need a laptop exactly when they have a company supplied phone already? Monitor them 24/7 and encourage them to take work to their dwelling with a dock for home so they can VPN from home using their existing peripherals.

The caps are not put in place by ISPs to make people pay for TV as the summary claims. (Why would an ISP that has no video services at all have caps if that were truly the reason? What is T-Mobile's TV service?) They're put in place to keep people who think they ought to have 100% fulltime use of a shared resource from keeping other users from getting what they are paying for.

So this is just about network management?

Comcast VP: 300GB data cap is “business policy,” not technical necessity
http://arstechnica.com/busines...

Another Broadband CEO Admits: Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Capacity
https://consumerist.com/2016/0...

Leaked Comcast memo reportedly admits data caps aren't about improving network performance
http://www.theverge.com/smart-...

Comcast Admits Broadband Usage Caps Are A Cash Grab, Not An Engineering Necessity
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

Researchers use synchrotron to read ancient, burned scrolls from Rome 3/22/2016
http://arstechnica.com/science...
"But now, a massive X-ray microscope at the European Radiation Synchrotron Facility has allowed researchers to see what was written on these ruined documents."
More at http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc... too.

Not everything is about "SJWs"

Not everything. But Mozilla getting worse — is.

If adherence to Social Justice values becomes one of the deciding criteria, you begin to disqualify some otherwise best people. I would testify in front of any investigating committee, that Firefox started getting worse, when Brendan Eich was ousted — an achievement of SJWs and nobody else's. Memory consumption became worse and one of my FreeBSD computers lost the ability to play web-videos — because it runs a 32-bit firefox. Searching online confirms, this is neither an isolated case nor is it OS-specific.

On other fronts, now Mozilla wants to drop Thunderbird...

Having been involved with Mozilla for many years, I don't blame all of their problems on the new, politically-correct, management. Yet, some things did get worse without appreciable improvements to compensate elsewhere.

Some things really are about SJWs — and none of them good. If you count yourself among them, you should consider improving this world by killing yourself. (Erynk, guvf ynfg bar jnf n gebyy...)

(some might say their phones are contributing to cancer)

No, no, and no. Not only did that "one major study" that supposedly proved it have all sorts of problems, but a much longer, human study found the exact opposite to all those years of supposition. Cell phones don't cause any more cancer than your car radio.

Wrong.

Seagate has dramatically improved the reliability of their drives.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/hgst-hard-disks-still-super-reliable-seagates-have-greatly-improved/

Too bad they didn't put that same level of effort into their security model when disallowing the end user to secure a NAS device properly.

Tends to highlight the best practice of inviting Common F. Sense to your design meetings.

Got a 5 when they first came out. When is the crippling update supposed to happen?

Next week, isn't it? If history is anything to go by.

Wrong.

Seagate has dramatically improved the reliability of their drives.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/hgst-hard-disks-still-super-reliable-seagates-have-greatly-improved/

PS: because of the way Android runs, apps written back for Android 2.0 still work. Do apps written for the 3GS still run without issue? Or does the author have to recompile first?

Depends. Sometimes they do. Generally they do not. Apple tends to not really care about backwards compatibility, so it's a complete crapshoot. I remember that a 2-factor authentication app had to warn people about upgrading to iOS 9.3 because it would break the authenticator requiring a complete reinstall of the app.

Anyway, it doesn't matter: Apple is going to remove access to apps that old entirely.

DS9 discussion recently on Ars Technica.

> Schiller says that AirPod users can expect five hours of playtime http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Oh Schiller you stupid dumb fuck. I hope your greed backfires and this kills the iPhone and your name and resignation letter are forever attached to this debacle.

> Android remained the world's most widely used smartphone operating system with 80.7 percent market share, while iOS recorded 17.7 percent market share. http://www.macrumors.com/2016/...

Do you really think $159 earbuds are going to lift your market share? Yeah Hipsters are stupid but they are not that stupid.

Roll your own ( software)

That's sort of difficult when makers of networking appliances Tivoize their hardware in order to comply with national radio regulators' requirements for robustness of the radio against user modification to use frequencies or power levels not authorized in a particular country, and hardware makers aren't eager to advertise how locked down a networking appliance is against user-made software. See the TP-Link case.

Does that mean 92.4% of all Android users are idiots too?

There are many benefits to the open web as we know it. However, technology and usage always change and its' about adapting, not wishing people weren't using apps. Ideally almost all info would be on the open web. But the open web has drawbacks that cause people to prefer Apps - until this changes we will continue to see the traditional web decline. The open web needs to improve at the pace of apps or faster if it is to survive. How far has HTML and other related tech come since the release of HTML5 (started in 2008 - and wasn't a finalized spec until 2014) ... how far have phones and their apps improved since then? It feels like we are in the 90's, when each browser was so different that websites needed to be optimized for one browser or another - now we have apps that render web content in incompatible ways and hides the data to boot. Web browsers are better now, but things still don't render the same way in every browser... this should not be an issue still. The web was never designed for the modern things we are doing with information - yes web technologies have evolved, but its all built on a system that started only with text and hypertext. Everything else after that was tacked on (CSS and Javascript), and although we can do amazing things with today's web - apps were built from the ground up to handle multimedia and complex interactions in a more straightforward, elegant, and sophisticated way. Yes, there are many examples of building complex application like experiences like GDocs or web-based photoshop alternatives - https://pixlr.com/editor/ - but these are less appealing and capable than native apps. Flash used to cause the same problems for SEO and hiding info from the world - and it sucked for many reasons, didn't evolve much over the years, but it did more than the web could for years because it was built to do something the web couldn't' at the time - provide immersive experiences that were not limited by the confines of traditional web technologies. Lest we forget plugins existed because they filled the gap left by the web. There are many reasons why the web as we know it today is failing users http://arstechnica.com/informa... It sucks that Apps will hide data that ideally would be open - for uses today - and for posterity in the future. I will never argue the ideal that the open web should prevail. I'm not sure what the solution should or could even be - nor will I try to come up with one that will never come to fruition. The whole point of this post is to say that the average person does not care about these issues. They want slick, fast, engaging experiences that fit their needs - the open web isn't doing as well as Apps are at doing just that. If web standards evolved faster - we wouldn’t be talking about this. I love the open web and the benefits it provides for humanity. I have lost a lot of hope in the pure implementation many of you speak f though. Web browsers should be platforms upon which the world operates - and in many cases, they are just that - indeed, thats what Chrome OS was created for. As we speak Chromebooks are rolling out that now run Android apps natively. This is at odds with the original goals of the Chromebook concept. But think about this: Mobile devices usage has surpassed desktops a while ago: https://searchenginewatch.com/... Android is the most widely used mobile OS https://www.netmarketshare.com... and Android apps can now stream to your phone http://www.pocket-lint.com/new... Google is now able to search within apps

I would have no objection to the FDA demanding accurate labeling including "This product contains chemicals that have not been proven safe for human use and have no proven benefit" and let the people decide from there.

Which is blatantly false... http://arstechnica.com/science...

Though the agency ruled years ago that triclosan and other antimicrobials are safe, it’s now revisiting claims that the chemicals make soaps and other personal care products better.

Kinda like the ATF arbitrary deciding to ban stuff overnight while it previously considered them legal for years / decades before.

Is this just a campaign to make a service that provides true anonymity too expensive to operate? It seems a bit reminiscent of the cock.li drive seizures which themselves seemed designed to disrupt operations as much as possible.

http://arstechnica.com/science...

...and counting backwards!

If your entering the USA for any reason create a work account now. Import work ready emails going back years so it looks used. A few emails a week for a few years so sort by date looks good.
If its social media, add your company coworkers that can be seen on any front page, homepage or have some publicity surrounding them.
Thats your new travel web 2.0 social media.
If asked for any other accounts say your company policy only allows the work accounts and they can be fully accessed.
Compliance will allow all names and contacts to be cloned during the inspection and that is all the US gov will want.
Make sure your laptop is 100% new, new storage media, new OS, new work applications only, some work needed for that trip and the web 2.0, email accounts, ensure no wireless devices.
The MAC and any other unique hardware numbers will also be collected. Try to use wired networks, VPN via a new router to cover the laptops ethernet.
Do not store anything related to the VPN use.
If you can only use wifi, buy a new cheap card or device in the USA for that trip only.
Return home with the same laptop and expect another inspection, deep media scan, to show accounts, clone of all data, have a few new work related emails to show, a search for any encrypted partitions ect.
Really its just the same security any traveller would take when entering any nation with a digital domestic collect it all policy.
Be aware of any offers of fews wifi, hotel wifi, cafe wifi near hotel. SIM cards are also a huge risk.
"New Snowden docs show Canadian spies tracked thousands of travellers"
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
"SIM card makers hacked by NSA and GCHQ leaving cell networks wide open"
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

If your entering the USA for any reason create a work account now. Import work ready emails going back years so it looks used. A few emails a week for a few years so sort by date looks good.
If its social media, add your company coworkers that can be seen on any front page, homepage or have some publicity surrounding them.
Thats your new travel web 2.0 social media.
If asked for any other accounts say your company policy only allows the work accounts and they can be fully accessed.
Compliance will allow all names and contacts to be cloned during the inspection and that is all the US gov will want.
Make sure your laptop is 100% new, new storage media, new OS, new work applications only, some work needed for that trip and the web 2.0, email accounts, ensure no wireless devices.
The MAC and any other unique hardware numbers will also be collected. Try to use wired networks, VPN via a new router to cover the laptops ethernet.
Do not store anything related to the VPN use.
If you can only use wifi, buy a new cheap card or device in the USA for that trip only.
Return home with the same laptop and expect another inspection, deep media scan, to show accounts, clone of all data, have a few new work related emails to show, a search for any encrypted partitions ect.
Really its just the same security any traveller would take when entering any nation with a digital domestic collect it all policy.
Be aware of any offers of fews wifi, hotel wifi, cafe wifi near hotel. SIM cards are also a huge risk.
"New Snowden docs show Canadian spies tracked thousands of travellers"
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
"SIM card makers hacked by NSA and GCHQ leaving cell networks wide open"
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

They're only doing their job if you have a reason to use them. If you spend your time avoiding visiting unsavoury websites and have the knowledge not to downloading/open questionable files, then they're just costing you space on your PC (or in your wallet).

Also, sometimes they break.

This completely ignores the fact that sometimes (often?) advertising networks are used to spread viruses on completely legit sites. Or those sites could be exploited themselves and start spreading malware.
Just because you only check your email and read the news doesn't make you completely safe. Safer, sure. But not completely safe.

They're only doing their job if you have a reason to use them. If you spend your time avoiding visiting unsavoury websites and have the knowledge not to downloading/open questionable files, then they're just costing you space on your PC (or in your wallet).

Also, sometimes they break.

This completely ignores the fact that sometimes (often?) advertising networks are used to spread viruses on completely legit sites. Or those sites could be exploited themselves and start spreading malware.
Just because you only check your email and read the news doesn't make you completely safe. Safer, sure. But not completely safe.

They're only doing their job if you have a reason to use them. If you spend your time avoiding visiting unsavoury websites and have the knowledge not to downloading/open questionable files, then they're just costing you space on your PC (or in your wallet).

Also, sometimes they break.

This completely ignores the fact that sometimes (often?) advertising networks are used to spread viruses on completely legit sites. Or those sites could be exploited themselves and start spreading malware.
Just because you only check your email and read the news doesn't make you completely safe. Safer, sure. But not completely safe.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2...

After all, you have millions of people looking over source code, so any bugs and vulnerabilities are guaranteed to be found and repaired quickly.

The fact that this is modded "insightful" despite truly technologically competent people knowing how false it is along with the ridiculousness of the statement that "millions of people" are looking at the code just shows how ignorant and out of touch so much of the slashdot audience is with the real world.

The security of Linux has been very much security through obscurity and its growth in usage (particularly in the mobile space) has begun to reveal this. The bigger problem is that whenever a bug is discovered in Linux the apologists immediately come out and start saying "Oh but Windows this or Windows that" or in the mobile space "iOS this or iOS that" as if any Linux user gives two shits about what Windows or iOS does. It's time you supposed Linux users climbed out of your own asses and stop obsessing over Windows and iOS all the time.

I have no idea why T-Mobile has so many fanboys hearing only what they want to hear, but their press release isn't exactly ambiguous:

With T-Mobile ONE, even video is unlimited at standard definition [...] For customers who want higher definition video, T-Mobile ONE has you covered too with an HD add-on for $25 a month per line.

Ars has the same take on T-Mobile charging $25 extra for "HD."

how can T-Mobile stop people from getting full HD streams from that provider without paying the extra $25 charge

They use some form of DPI to detect video content, and throttle everything that matches--even non-streaming downloads of video files--to 1.5 Mbps. If your video provider of choice feels like sucking T-Mobile's cock, there's an API approved providers can implement to serve <1.5Mbps streams to the "Binge-On" customer instead.

If your video provider of choice has not written any T-Mobile-specific code, they better be able to dynamically degrade to a <1.5Mbps stream, or the video will buffer or not load at all. A VPN might be able to evade that, except a VPN would probably be detected as "hotspot" or "tethering" usage, which is throttled to 128Kbps on the new "unlimited" plans.

Anyone claiming the video throttling ("Binge-On") is optional or can be turned off hasn't read TFA or TFS. That used to be the case, and still is on the old plans, but it's mandatory on the new "unlimited" plans in order to prevent you from actually using any data.

how can T-Mobile stop people from getting full HD streams from that provider without paying the extra $25 charge

They use some form of DPI to detect video content, and throttle everything that matches--even non-streaming downloads of video files--to 1.5 Mbps. If your video provider of choice feels like sucking T-Mobile's cock, there's an API approved providers can implement to serve <1.5Mbps streams to the "Binge-On" customer instead.

If your video provider of choice has not written any T-Mobile-specific code, they better be able to dynamically degrade to a <1.5Mbps stream, or the video will buffer or not load at all. A VPN might be able to evade that, except a VPN would probably be detected as "hotspot" or "tethering" usage, which is throttled to 128Kbps on the new "unlimited" plans.

Anyone claiming the video throttling ("Binge-On") is optional or can be turned off hasn't read TFA or TFS. That used to be the case, and still is on the old plans, but it's mandatory on the new "unlimited" plans in order to prevent you from actually using any data.

Stop using the "batterystaplehorse" or whatever... years ago ars technica made a few simple test on cracking password with gpu and turn out those are easily cracked with combined dictionaries attack. And moderate gpu array can brute force any password under 8 characters (including with symbol) http://arstechnica.com/securit...

According to this article, Gawker Media also owns Gizmodo, Deadspin, Jezebel, Lifehacker, Kotaku, and Jalopnik.

They look safe for now, but I actually like Kotaku and Gizmodo. It's probably really shitty to work at these companies, which had nothing to do with leaking pr0n, but who's employees are still affected by it.

AC Re you "Other than that nothing Snowden released resulted in any changes being made by the NSA operations."
NSA aims to plug holes that sprang Snowden leaks (9/19/2013)
http://arstechnica.com/securit...
The new costs are in new teams of two contractors walking around with each other at any NSA site globally.
Twice the cost or half the projects with the same budgets....
The other change was to "remove anonymity from the network". Thats two huge and very expensive changes needing a vast number of new cleared staff.
The mind set of the staff has also changed, they are now been logged.
Think of the performance based reports logging can generate. Are they taking too many breaks, not working long hours? Not sharing time and insights internally or with other 5 nations at an average rate as their co workers are...
New logging systems have to be created, data collected, secured and tracked. Thats more contractors and rented software solutions.

The days of a big spike in signal bars, a drop to an older standard was often talked about online and apps built to map such network strangeness.
This machine catches stingrays: Pwnie Express demos cellular threat detector (4/21/2015)
http://arstechnica.com/informa...
The new devices offered to police will try and harmonise to any signal strength in the local area and stay with any modern telco networks detected. The hand over would now be more seamless, to try and mimic just another new tower or smaller tower like telco service.

What lawsuit? This is the label requesting the information, not a judge.

The lawsuit that was filed in New York State Supreme Court, Manhattan Justice Joan Kenney presiding, that is linked to in the 2nd paragraph of the article with bright orange letters is what lawsuit.

Passwords are covered under the 5th amendment, assuming USA: http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... Big reason to avoid using bio-metric locks.

"I don't know the password" will likely get your device seized.

"I don't know the password" falls under the 5th amendment right, assuming you're in the USA: http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

Here's the URL for the an article on Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... (Disclaimer: I have no relationship w/ Ars Technica. I just happened to read the article there.)

Sure, public email addresses are just that: public. Apparently the released info goes further:

For the Reps:

• Home addresses
• Home phone numbers
• Names of family members

If I read the article right, similar personal info for aides and support staff was released. And this was only done for the Democrats. No information, personal or public, about the Republicans was released.

We are less than three months from election day. Campaigns need functioning, reliable communication channels to coordinate, to share information, to organize events, etc. If they're inundated w/ spam, they won't be able to work effectively. If they start changing their email addresses, phone numbers, etc., their communication can easily be impacted. It's likely that the dox will make it more difficult for the Democrats to compete in the upcoming election.

Further, "Guccifer 2.0" claimed in the announcement that this is evidence that the election is a "farce" (from G's blog)... that everything is done "behind the scenes". Thus, Guccifer 2.0 isn't just broadcasting information; he/she/they are trying to sow doubt about the validity of the electoral process. This isn't an attack on the Democrats. It's really an attack on a key element of our republic.

https://fuchsia.googlesource.c...

the consequences that we've seen from google's failure to use a self-protecting license includes:

* companies incorporating GPL'd code into Android (particularly video players) and not releasing the source
* performing DRM or other lock-downs ("Tivoisation") and in the case of qualcomm ending up with 900 million devices that are basically landfill
* causing confusion in the minds of corporations over the fact that the linux KERNEL (and u-boot) is still GPL'd

do i need to continue the list? i don't but i believe a reference to mjg59's list is appropriate:
http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59...

google seems unable to comprehend the severe detrimental consequences of its actions, and the effects that their decisions have on the rest of the software libre community. i appreciate that they're an advertising company so are required to maximise the effective distribution of devices so that they can thus maximise the number of devices through which they can advertise, but pissing all over the free software community that MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR THEM TO HAVE A BUSINESS AT ALL is completely unethical, not to mention the detrimental consequences and money that users have to throw away when devices turn out to have major security flaws that the designers CAN'T FIX IN THE FIELD. http://arstechnica.com/securit...

Apple may not care about DRM one way or the other but they do care about people bypassing their cash generating MFi program and their proprietary lightning connector and using the "audio" jack as a data connection interface. I'm sure they're still trying to figure out how to make Square pay the fee.

Bullshit. Apple looks the other way on NON-MFI devices ALL the time. Or do you really think all those $2.99 Lightning cables on Amazon are MFI-registered? Wait, you're probably stupid enough to actually think they are.

You can buy a spindle of the chips required to make a Lightning cable at less than $0.50 a chip at a quantity as low as 1000 units. The price obviously decreases with volume. Then it's another $10,000 to join the MFI program. So, yes, I bet you could ship a $2.99 lightning cable from China to the US if you have the right volume.

Apple may not care about DRM one way or the other but they do care about people bypassing their cash generating MFi program and their proprietary lightning connector and using the "audio" jack as a data connection interface. I'm sure they're still trying to figure out how to make Square pay the fee.

Bullshit.

Apple looks the other way on NON-MFI devices ALL the time.

Or do you really think all those $2.99 Lightning cables on Amazon are MFI-registered? Wait, you're probably stupid enough to actually think they are.

Apple may not care about DRM one way or the other but they do care about people bypassing their cash generating MFi program and their proprietary lightning connector and using the "audio" jack as a data connection interface. I'm sure they're still trying to figure out how to make Square pay the fee.

Mars is also losing atmosphere due to solar wind - see article on MAVEN probe results on Ars - they claim a loss rate of 100 grams per second.

Both Venus and Mars lack magnetic fields, and so both lose atmosphere.
But suddenly the politically correct physicists- who just relocated their conference from NC to Florida, because NC would not allow equal access to female toilets - tell us "Venus may represent a near Earth example of what is in store for the future of our world if we don't make it a _number one_ priority to address".

The "car analogy part"? Back to broadband options then:
Hows that muni broadband going?
ISPs and FCC Republicans celebrate FCC’s court loss on muni broadband (8/12/2016)
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
"States rightly can limit government-operated broadband networks ... "

It would be nice if the media would 1. dig more into the content of the leaks and 2. investigate the source of the leaks and give us facts rather than try to spin some kind of "Trump is a Russian plant" conspiracy theory.

Like these? http://motherboard.vice.com/re...
http://arstechnica.com/securit...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Disagree with the conclusions all you like, but there's certainly not a lack of facts or investigation going on. I also haven't seen any serious suggestions of Trump being a Russian plant (outside of biased partisan stuff at least). I have seen lots of speculation that Russia/Putin have a strong interest in backing Trump, or that Trump is favorable towards Russian interests, but that's hardly the same thing.

I'm wondering how close and feasible this technology is, and if it could be used with simple antennas mounted externally and one microcell every block? would it be comparable to fiber and have most of the speed and bandwidth? That would make the cost of rolling it out drop quite a bit wouldn't it?

In-app streaming is garbage, get an AVerMedia Gamer Portable

The first thing on the product description page is a boxed, all-caps notice:

RECORDING PROTECTED HD CONTENT
WITH A SPLITTER IS PROHIBITED BY LAW.

Because video games are audiovisual works, their output is protected by copyright. Nintendo used copyright against MLG in 2010, and other publishers have the right to use it again in the future. Even with publishers that are willing to license their games for streaming, such as Nintendo nowadays, a royalty for the game itself is a cost that esport leagues have and physical sport leagues do not.

Further down on the page is

* LGP does not support viewing/recording/streaming of HDCP protected signals

Do the major video game consoles use HDCP on their output? I know OUYA does, and in my opinion, inability to share gameplay videos was a significant part of what caused OUYA to fizzle out.

In-app streaming is garbage, get an AVerMedia Gamer Portable

The first thing on the product description page is a boxed, all-caps notice:

RECORDING PROTECTED HD CONTENT
WITH A SPLITTER IS PROHIBITED BY LAW.

Because video games are audiovisual works, their output is protected by copyright. Nintendo used copyright against MLG in 2010, and other publishers have the right to use it again in the future. Even with publishers that are willing to license their games for streaming, such as Nintendo nowadays, a royalty for the game itself is a cost that esport leagues have and physical sport leagues do not.

Further down on the page is

* LGP does not support viewing/recording/streaming of HDCP protected signals

Do the major video game consoles use HDCP on their output? I know OUYA does, and in my opinion, inability to share gameplay videos was a significant part of what caused OUYA to fizzle out.