Slashdot Mirror

Safari in the next version of macOS will block all autoplay videos unless you whitelist the site. I tested the beta and it seems to work well; CNN being the biggest offender.

https://www.cnet.com/news/wwdc...

They brought "depth of field" to small-sensor photography, and that is no easy task.

Oh, you mean the thing Google did on Android back in 2014...

Their bottom line is:

If you tend to shoot portraits and that's what matters to you most, the iPhone 7 Plus is an obvious choice. Portrait mode is dSLR-esque, and we only expect it to improve by the time it gets a public release. But if brighter colors, sharper detail throughout the backgrounds of photos and capable low-light photography is more important, it's the Pixel. I have to admit, I initially thought Google over-promised on its new flagship -- especially after those disappointing Nexus cameras -- but I was wrong. It's a new chapter for Google phones and this one earned its name.

Android Flip Phones are again available. I'm considering this for one of the two phones i carry as it's easier to differentiate. Also like being able to position the mic closer. A physical keyboard is MUCH better for numeric keypunch entry. https://www.cnet.com/news/sams... What I am ALWAYS scanning for is a modern Android keyboard phone. Because I won't use an NSA-Berry.

...because the poster apparently didn't.
It wasn't a hack at all.
https://www.cnet.com/news/ever...

You do know that Foxconn made a similar announcement in 2013 during the Obama Administration tregarding a plant in Pennsylvania.

https://www.cnet.com/news/foxc...

So yeah I think that could have easily happened since it fucking did.

If you want to know how this will probably end:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Now admit you were wrong.

All well and good until Foxconn realizes they could increase their profits by manufacturing overseas. And...IT'S GONE!

You do know that Foxconn made a similar announcement in 2013 during the Obama Administration tregarding a plant in Pennsylvania.
https://www.cnet.com/news/foxc...

So yeah I think that could have easily happened since it fucking did.

If you want to know how this will probably end:

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Now admit you were wrong.

I predict the mindless consumer crowd will be all over this like stink on shit, just like they signed up for data merchants (of YOUR data) like Facebook in droves. Just like they happily install the DeluxeFlashLight932 app that demands permission to scrape your call history and contact list, sending it to who knows where. Just like they'll buy a "Smart TV" with a microphone and connect it to the internet, in the face of warnings from the TV maker not to have "sensitive conversations" in front of the bloody thing. Just like... oh fuck it. We could be here forever.

If there's one lesson to take away from the entire non-techie-driven computing revolution so far, it's that there is nothing they won't consider a bad idea.

Samsung phones are built in Korea not China.

Fool

The point a lot of people don't know is that Intel (Basis) bought back a bunch of the watches

https://www.cnet.com/news/basi...

My wife had one and really liked how it worked. It seemed to really work from our limited testing.

So Intel - bought the company and then killed the product and bought back a bunch of the already sold products.

Actually, you can't do it at all with Apple as it turns out, but it sure was fun watching you make a fool of yourself. Thanks!

WTF does that article have to do with automatically recognizing Bluetooth Keyboards on a Mac?

I genuinely didn't see anything about that in my (admittedly fast) skimming of the linked article. So, if you'd like to continue your tirade, please point to the text in that article that has anything to do with Keyboard recognition on the Mac.

Actually, you can't do it at all with Apple as it turns out, but it sure was fun watching you make a fool of yourself. Thanks!

Use the latest internal parts.*
Revert to including headphone jack.
Go crazy on edge-to-edge screen.
Make an "SE" version.
For the love of storage include a MicroSD slot.
Please revise / update iTunes, it's horrible.

Apple's success will depend on how much of this fantasy they can bring to reality. I've used both iOS and Android for some time now; they each have their foibles. The above phone would get me to buy an iPhone in spite of Apple's OS path diverging from my personal preference (i.e. Trust everything in our cloud! No 3rd party cloud allowed!)
*I don't personally care about touch ID sensor.

No 3rd party cloud allowed?

You mean like this?

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/ho... ...or this?

https://venturebeat.com/2015/0...

In fact, it looks like most, if not all, of the major "Cloud Storage" providers work with iOS:

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/on...

And when iOS 11 drops in a few weeks, the built-in "Files" App will make 3rd party Cloud storage quite simple:

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2...

So, you MIGHT want to revise your meme to comport with REALITY...

Use the latest internal parts.*
Revert to including headphone jack.
Go crazy on edge-to-edge screen.
Make an "SE" version.
For the love of storage include a MicroSD slot.
Please revise / update iTunes, it's horrible.

Apple's success will depend on how much of this fantasy they can bring to reality. I've used both iOS and Android for some time now; they each have their foibles. The above phone would get me to buy an iPhone in spite of Apple's OS path diverging from my personal preference (i.e. Trust everything in our cloud! No 3rd party cloud allowed!)
*I don't personally care about touch ID sensor.

No 3rd party cloud allowed?

You mean like this?

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/ho... ...or this?

https://venturebeat.com/2015/0...

In fact, it looks like most, if not all, of the major "Cloud Storage" providers work with iOS:

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/on...

And when iOS 11 drops in a few weeks, the built-in "Files" App will make 3rd party Cloud storage quite simple:

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2...

So, you MIGHT want to revise your meme to comport with REALITY...

What am I missing. Who thought we already had funding in place to go to Mars?

Trump supporters.

Of course maybe if he'd given his $15 billion military budget increase to NASA instead it would actually happen...

You have to have an actual plan and actual proposals and actual funding and actual equipment developed. The equipment development is taking place at a fair pace, but the others await.

What am I missing. Who thought we already had funding in place to go to Mars?

Trump supporters.

Of course maybe if he'd given his $15 billion military budget increase to NASA instead it would actually happen...

3 ISPs Have Spent $572 Million to Kill Net Neutrality Since 2008

Well shit, that sounds scary. But "net neutrality" as we know it know wasn't around til 2013. How could they have been spending money lobbying to kill net neutrality since 2008?

Three of the largest internet service providers and the cable television industry’s primary trade association have spent more than a half-billion dollars lobbying the federal government during the past decade on issues that include net neutrality, according to a MapLight analysis. (emphasis is mine)

Ah. There it is. Had to go to the tertiary source to find it. This includes the lobbying money spent on everything that the cable companies want to bend a congress-critter's ear about, not just net neutrality. Nice work on bending MapLight's reasonably less click-bait-y headline.

If your interested, my google-fu on net neutrality history came up with this article from c-net: https://www.cnet.com/news/net-...

May 17: Google Home can now make phone calls for free

She basically repeated what she saw on an episode of "60 minutes" linked in the thought identification article on Wikipedia.

In reality... half of it is computer guessing which one of the ten pre-calibrated images the subject is being shown - while the other half is just bullshit mixed with wishful thinking.
Then she "expanded" on that.

For now, it's impossible to force someone to have his or her brain scanned, because the subject has to lie still and cooperate, but that could change.

"There are some other technologies that are being developed that may be able to be used covertly and even remotely.
So, for example, they're trying to develop now a beam of light that would be projected onto your forehead.
It would go a couple of millimeters into your frontal cortex, and then receptors would get the reflection of that light.
And there's some studies that suggest that we could use that as a lie detection device," Wolpe said.

If you look at it closely, that paragraph consists of nothing but woulda-couldas and maybes.
Sprinkled with a weasel word or two.

Apple has ignored patents and plundered tech before (Samsung comes to mind - 5,579,239, 6,226,449).

Qualcomm is likely to have sufficient legal standing to prevail where Samsung failed - Qualcomm is a domestic company with stronger patents and a stronger legal department, and not quite so much corporate scandal.

I also hope that Qualcomm wins. An Apple victory limits the market and drives up costs. While Qualcomm has its problems, it helps the market much more than Apple does. Between them, Apple should suffer before Qualcomm.

Apple also has it coming.

A handheld gaming device has a political stance?

OP is making a bad joke in reference to https://www.cnet.com/news/wind...

(I work at Netflix, but am not speaking here officially as a Netflix employee) Reed Hastings, Netflix's CEO and someone who does in fact speak for Netflix, has gone on record to say Netflix doesn't care about people sharing passwords (as long as it's not a business). https://www.cnet.com/news/netf...

See e.g. here or here and there are tons more - I can't remember it being actually advertised by Sony as such, but many HDTV enthusiasts at the time knew about it. It also played Super Audio-CD (SACD) which was another plus.

"Get that premium feel with our stick-on shag carpet, with exclusive 3M adhesive. It comes in all the colors of the rainbow, including the wildly popular Stanky Bean."

They already have a warehouse in NY. They already have to collect. I'm sure when they started out they put their NYC area warehouses in New Jersey to attract tax-free buyers, but the demand is just so high.

Touch id maybe a new thing (be nice to really know what they are talking about), but Apple are definitely not 1st with Bezel-less displays . Apple should stick to innovating luxury new pizza box containers, they are clearly the leaders in that niche market.

This is my shocked face that Samsung would be named in a lawsuit alleging intellectual property theft...

Oh right, Microsoft and Apple never would be, oh no deary me, perish the thought.

It's funny, this article acts like Microsoft is about to take the classroom, and the article doesn't even mention Google:

https://www.cnet.com/news/why-...

They also made pretty good software for fighting against child porn

It's actually pretty interesting if true since it is yet another example of a useful service that followed the "first get popular then get permission" model and would not have made it to profitability if it had to go through all the proper legal channels.

Youtube, did it and it worked (bought by Google).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

Imeem did it and got popular, but sold itself to Myspace to avoid the legal hole it dug itself into.
https://www.cnet.com/news/repo...

By contrast, Grooveshark was sued into oblivion (bought by no one).
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

That deal gave Hulu access to all four major broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. The new live service also includes popular cable networks such as CNN, ESPN, FX, Fox News, TBS, TNT, and the Disney Channel.

Here are the channel lineups for YouTube TV, Sling, DirecTV Now, and Playstation Vue.

• YouTube TV does not include CNN, TBS, TNT.
• Sling offers all those cable channels except Fox News in their $25/mo plan.
• DirecTV Now offers all those cable channels in their cheapest ($35/mo) plan.
• Playstation Vue offers all those cable channels in their cheapest ($40/mo) plan.

The main difference is CBS. Only YouTubeTV and Playstation Vue offer CBS; Sling and DirecTV Now do not. But most people can get CBS with an OTA antenna.

If they want to compete, they're gonna have to do so with other features, like DVR and on-demand streams. A tall order since Playstation Vue Access is priced the same, offers 45+ channels, supports 6 simultaneous streams, has full DVR and on-demand support.

I thought non-poaching agreements were found to be against the law.

Such agreements between two companies are generally not legal, but no-compete clauses or similar wording in employment contracts that limits and employee from taking talent with them if they leave are not necessarily covered by that same ruling.

I thought non-poaching agreements were found to be against the law.

Having lots of fibre and vitamins in your diet is good. But a juicer is basically a machine for separating the fibre from the juice, and it also separates the skin of the fruit which often contains a lot of vitamins.

Juice by itself is sweet and tasty, but it basically gets all of its calories from carbohydrates, and without any fibre the carbs will hit your system quickly. The glycemic index of carrot juice is very high, while eating carrots will not usually have much effect on your blood sugar. (See the difference between glycemic index and glycemic load: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_load)

If you want to enjoy a tasty beverage that is better for you than juice, I recommend you get a VitaMix. The VitaMix company has been around for decades, and their product is an extremely expensive blender that is IMHO worth the expense. A VitaMix is so much more powerful than a cheap blender that it can do things the cheap blender cannot do.

So a typical fruit smoothie will start with some juice or even water and then throw fruit in, where the 2 horsepower motor at full speed breaks the fibre, skin, and even seeds down to the point where you don't really even know they are there. If you want to add a pleasing orange color to a smoothie, throw in some carrots; the texture will be a bit thicker and the color will be orange but you won't find any carrot chunks.

VitaMix has competitors, and some of the competitors may be as good. BlendTec and Ninja seem to have similar horsepower. I'm only recommending VitaMix since I have had one in my house for like two decades now. We use it so much that, despite the high purchase cost, it has a very low cost per operating minute... our food processor cost less but we hardly use the thing.

My favorite recipe: put a cup of plain yogurt into the blender, and add a spoonful of sugar and a squeeze of lime juice. Then dump a 10-ounce bag of frozen organic strawberries in (still frozen!), and run the blender on "high" while using the "tamper" to push the berries down into the blades. When the texture is smooth, serve. Don't overblend because you don't want to heat up the mixture. It's a tasty sweet dessert, and much healthier than any strawberry frozen yogurt you can buy.

Here's an example of throwing various hunks of vegetables into the thing to make a vegetable smoothie. After that demo the next demo is a sweet fruit smoothie. https://youtu.be/1qemLSu63d0?t=1m36s

P.S. LOL, YouTube appears to have a channel called "Blender Babes" where young females demonstrate blenders. I wonder what would happen if they tried to get a booth at a conference that bans "booth babes"... would they not be allowed at their own booth? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXG65NgmrIM

Apart from the similarities in name is this CloudBook anything like the Chromebook. A long time ago something similar happened when Microsoft confused the market with its own version of the 'Palm Pilot' the 'Palm-PC'. ref

July 2, 2009 was the day that Tim Berners-Lee abandoned a free and open web.

https://www.cnet.com/news/an-epitaph-for-the-web-standard-xhtml-2

That was the day that he announced the termination of his XHTML2 standard, and allowed Apple, Google, and others to dictate the HTML5 "standard". (And I place "standard" in scare quotes because it isn't really a standard. In fact, they acknowledge this fact, and prefer to use the deliberately deceptive term living standard .)

The fight against DRM in the HTML standard is already lost. Tim Berners-Lee gave up 8 years ago, it's just that most people didn't notice until now.

Net Neutrality was overreach, that instead of helping the people who wanted it, made sure it was harder than ever to compete agains the big ISP's like Comcast.

Are you on crack? Net Neutrality helped to kill the Comcast-Time Warner merger.

Stopping Comcast and Time Warner from merging into a super-company makes it easier, not harder, to compete against them.

Last nail in the coffin for Apple... now Donald Trump owns one.

I haven't seen a Windows upgrade (note: UPGRADE) destroy data in a meaningful way in.....I don't even know how long.

Because YOU haven't seen one does not mean it did not happen ever.

That's a neat trick, unless they mean their IDEA of their computer rather than the physical hardware. Windows is shitty, not malicious.

Well the summary already told you that the HD was destroyed. It's possible an update does that. Some Windows 10 update horror stories have had the machine on a continuous reboot loop. That would trash a weak HD pretty quick. So yes physical hardware can be damaged.

Wait. So, are they claiming it was the forced upgrade that caused it, or.....?

Er what?

Sorry, unrelated. Though, if she could show otherwise, I would actually be shocked beyond belief.

Hello, continuous reboot?

Yes, in the same way that I would have to buy a new car if my starter gave out.

This relies on the premise that replacing your starter is not more than the cost of the car. Your analogy is not great as there are cars on the road today that replacing the starter is more than the car. Now in computers it is more likely because how valueless older computers are compared to new ones. It may not be worth it to the user to repair an old computer as opposed to replacing it.

I'm torn between hoping she succeeds (as I consider Microsoft a bad actor in the whole upgrade situation) and hoping she gets laughed out of court so hard she ends up with skid-marks that spell out "LOL".

I would say you learn about the exact details of the situation otherwise people will be laughing at you for not knowing them.

Really? People are still parroting the defensive "It's your laws!" after Apple has been found guilty of breaching the law on so many occasions?

Time and time again people say these companies are just following the laws, time and time again we find out they're not as they get hit with record fines:

Japan: http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

Ireland: https://www.theguardian.com/bu...

France: http://www.cultofmac.com/45566...

China: https://www.cnet.com/news/appl...

It's not just Apple of course, but can we stop pretending these companies are merely following the law when they do this? It's pretty clear they're not given the number of occasions they've been demonstrated to be guilty of outright tax evasion, not mere simple avoidance.

I'm amazed given how dead the "They're just following the law!" line is that people are still parroting it, obviously they're not, hence the constant barrage of fines that are now catching up with years of criminal tax evasion by large tech companies.

If anything needs changing with national laws it's that the penalties need to be increased substantially to act as a real deterrent which they're clearly not now, but that doesn't change the fact that companies like Apple, Google, et. al. have been engaging in outright illegal tax evasion. The idea they have gets parroted a lot, but it's based on the assumption that because they haven't been caught yet they're innocent, but it doesn't mean they actually are innocent as we keep finding out now that the multi-year investigations are finally catching up with them.

This guy shot down a drone spying on his daughter with a shotgun - way cheaper than a Patriot missile.

https://www.cnet.com/news/judg...

The whole nvidia thing is a moot point; you don't even need to get that far to see the ads. Here's a collection of ads that have been found on Windows 10:

Ad to install Microsoft's shopping extension:
https://www.cnet.com/news/wind...

Ad to buy tomb raider from Windows store:
https://www.howtogeek.com/2432...
(Side note: This is why Microsoft no longer allows you to disable the lock screen on desktop systems. Yes, you can turn the lock screen ads off, but Microsoft wants you to get used to seeing it there meanwhile.)

Ad to browse bing for rewards points:
http://core0.staticworld.net/i...

Ad to install Office:
http://images.techhive.com/ima...

Ads to buy Solitaire:
http://images.techhive.com/ima...
(Side note: Windows 10 now includes lots of freemium and trialware apps in general, like Candy Crush, which is another form of advertising. Also, didn't solitaire used to be totally free?)

Ads in the share tool:
https://betanews.com/wp-conten...
(In that screenshot, most of these apps aren't installed, thus these are ads to install these apps.)

Ads in the ink workspace:
http://cdn.windowsreport.com/w...

Ad telling you to stop using firefox:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/l6JL...

Ad telling you to stop using chrome:
http://www.laptopmag.com/image...

Another ad telling you to switch to edge for bing rewards:
https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-c...

Ad telling you to subscribe to onedrive:
http://images.techhive.com/ima...

Ad to buy apps on the start menu:
https://davescomputertips.com/...

So TFA is correct, windows 10 IS an ad platform.

Debian is a decentralized, global, volunteer-run organization. Anyone can organize a BSP. There is no "they" that you can speak of so uniformly. I do imagine however (though I do not know for sure since I am not a Debian developer) that Debian conferences are held outside of the U.S. because of incidents like this.

And see where it gets us. BTW, it's VERY hard to disable the automatic updates (which are sometimes disruptive or take far longer than many anticipate) but it is possible: In Home edition you have to set the connection to "metered" mode:

https://www.cnet.com/au/how-to...
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/...

Note; the new "surface" edition keeps you from stopping it this way.
It appears that MS doesn't want a potential lawsuit for running up Internet overages so they have this safeguard against litigation.

In Win 10 professional they give the standard "turn off automatic updates" they had in ALL previous versions of Windows. (funny how you are getting less in Windows 10).

This trying to force automatic updates in home edition is in my opinion quite dangerous and this isn't the first update to have serious issue pushed on on suspecting people.

Best thing to do in my opinion is to give MS the "finger" by switching to Linux: Linux Mint, ElementaryOS, or Debian are my top choices.

There have been journalists who tried to cover this beat before and been charged with child pornography and sent to jail. Depending on who the prosecutor is, this is the untouchable story. There is no safe harbor when it comes to kids and sex.

PS/2 ports needed to be killed because weren't hot pluggable. If you unplugged a PS/2 keyboard or mouse and plugged in a new one while the computer was on, it could hang or crash or even damage the computer. Not many users knew that because it worked as if it were hot pluggable about 9 times out of 10. But most techies knew it could hang the computer, and the developers of USB certainly knew it - USB was designed specifically to be hot pluggable.

And USB supplanted Firewire on the Apple side. Firewire was good tech for its time, but it flopped because Apple wanted $1 per port (not per device). USB was free to implement.

The AC is correct here. The MMWA requires the manufacturer to prove the warranty isn't valid. Here's an example case where this happened:
Apple claimed, and continues to claim, that they can detect water damage to a phone.
Yet Apple knows that the sensors don't work and paid a settlement over it. Yet they only had to pay the settlement when enough people got together and brought a class-action lawsuit.

Under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, apple can claim whatever terms they want. But ultimately, Apple had to prove to the court that the strips were indeed proof of water damage. When they failed to do so, they had to honor the warranty.

Kerala is india's hotspot for open source software: https://www.cnet.com/news/indi...

Just think back to 2008, when Microsoft offered $44.6 billion for Yahoo, but was rejected because Yahoo thought it undervalued their worth. https://www.cnet.com/news/yahoo-rejects-microsofts-bid/ If I was a shareholder, I would be pissed.