Slashdot Mirror

From the article:

An user contacted by Wired News who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that while he was optimistic about the prospects of the Linux operating system and noted how his unit had a capable IT support staff, he was not too happy with OpenOffice. He said he missed MS Office, even though it is designed by a company run by people he considers to be "thieves." "(OpenOffice) is complicated. It is atrocious," the Gendarme said. "We save money but the advantages of its use are not terribly clear."

You mean like this?

It's obviously legal to sell (and purchase) an unlocked cell phone in the US. If you learned this in training, you were told incorrectly.

The absence of physical stores that carry unlocked phones means nothing with regard to the legality. It does, however, say volumes about low demand for unlocked phones. An average customer of yours would find little use for a cell phone without service, which is why you don't sell unlocked phones.

The legality of unlocking a phone you received from a specific carrier, however, *has* been called into question before. Here is an interesting article regarding locked phones and how it is now completely legal to unlock a phone you received from your carrier.

The ozone hole is a perfect example of what we're talking about. 2002: The ozone hole is shrinking.

And I repeat, Bullshiat. Ringtones cost more than a full song from iTunes (Cingular = $2.49, iTunes = $.99). As a matter of fact, a story from February, 2006 states:

"Record labels love it when fans buy a ring tone of a song they already own -- the industry claims $4 billion in ring-tone sales to date. But in fairness, you shouldn't have to pay separately just to hear your CD tracks or legally acquired MP3s as ring tones."

I say give that money to the artists. They're not swimming in extra money from lawsuits and they're the actual creators of the music. Stop dicking them over!

I doubt it would have much effect, the RIAA already tried tricking them into 'work for hire' contracts - http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,38129,00 .html - and they still keep coming back for lack of any viable distribution alternatives.

In the past month, I've learned about how a robot has developed a taste for human flesh (tastes like bacon, says the robot) and now this. I'm excited for the future, sure, but I'm also a little concerned. It's safe to assume that in another 20 years, robots will be everywhere. It'll likely be the next giant technological leap, now that we've all grown to adopt the personal computer and the Internet. As a general rule I like technological progress, not to mention the fact that I've always thought robots were pretty cool.

But it's becoming apparent that tomorrow's robots won't be polite and gay, like C3P0. They're going to end up crude and destructive, like Bender from Futurama. We're already at the point where we have to worry about robots eating us. According to this article, we now have to worry about robots throwing food at us, trying to make time with our women, questioning our sexuality in public, and stealing our booze and cigarettes. In tomorrow's world, it won't be factory workers concerned about losing their jobs to robots, it'll be our hard working slackers. The day will come when my scrounging buddy asks to bum a smoke or for another beer, and we'll have to tell him 'Oh, sorry man. I gave my last one to the robot'. Then he'll try to punch the robot in the stomach but will break his hand on the hard steel while the robot flings insulting remarks at him followed by cherries.

Some day I hope to have kids. Can you imagine how difficult it will be if I discover my daughter is dating a robot? I can see it now, as my sweet child looks up to me with her innocent wide eyes and says "Daddy, I want you to meet my boyfriend Altair 3814". The frustration will be maddening. If I say a single disparaging remark about her new beau, my robot heart and liver will think I'm prejudiced and refuse to work. "I ain't going to keep some asshole humey (yes, they'll call us 'humies') alive if he's gonna put down my robot brothers" they'll say. So I'll have to just smile nervously as my beautiful baby girl displays her affection towards some machine in my home, and live in constant fear of her getting zapped with lasers by some female robot pissed off because "all the good robot men are chasing humey tail. I'll show those bio-sacks not to mess with our boys"

Really.

My only hope now is that Skynet becomes self aware before my daughter reaches puberty, and slaughters us all in the first wave of the robot wars. Sure, we'll all be dead, but at least I'll never have to suffer countless indignities at the hands of uppity robots.

Three years ago, Wired had an article written by a guy who does tech support for the Mafia.

Allow me to expand the concept here:

The Attorney General in question here is Bill Lockyer, who in 2004 was found to be shopping around draft legislation provided to him by the MPAA:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/digiwood/0,62665 -0.html ... the same MPAA whose seven members were contributors to Bill Lockyer's 2006 campaign ...
http://www.slumdance.com/blogs/brian_flemming/arch ives/000809.html .. and, yes, that's the same MPAA that killed the anti-pretexting bill:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72214-0.htm l

So the California A.G. has just taken statuatory damages levied against H.P. for infringing upon the rights of the individual ... and instead of using them to, I don't know, help protect the rights CA citizens - he has reserved them for use in anti-piracy litigation.

Heck of a job, Lockyer.

Allow me to expand the concept here:

The Attorney General in question here is Bill Lockyer, who in 2004 was found to be shopping around draft legislation provided to him by the MPAA:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/digiwood/0,62665 -0.html ... the same MPAA whose seven members were contributors to Bill Lockyer's 2006 campaign ...
http://www.slumdance.com/blogs/brian_flemming/arch ives/000809.html .. and, yes, that's the same MPAA that killed the anti-pretexting bill:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72214-0.htm l

So the California A.G. has just taken statuatory damages levied against H.P. for infringing upon the rights of the individual ... and instead of using them to, I don't know, help protect the rights CA citizens - he has reserved them for use in anti-piracy litigation.

Heck of a job, Lockyer.

There's this theory that the power level is less important than the frequency.

Think relativity: the frequency is proportional to the quantum energy; specific frequencies act as catalysts to particular reactions.

Spectroscopy is well used in science and medicine, but it seems that using RF to influence metabolic pathways is either unstudied or well suppressed, unless you include the recent announcement of the US army deploying http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72134-0.htm l?tw=wn_index_1/ high power 94GHz weapons for crowd control.

Not having been in the path of the US army for at least a few years that doesn't worry me as much as the diathermy I've suffered during surgery. It would take a few cellphones to cook you medium rare. I won't talk about youthful explorations of transmitting masts.

Call me paranoid but I've been playing with radio transmitters for a long time and I prefer my transmitting antennae to be on top of tall poles on the other side of my metal roof.

Neurological damage from exposure to electrical energy has been well documented but is practically impossible to prove in a being it doesn't kill.

...maybe we should ask Diebold how that works out.

Ms. Schwartz needs a stern talking to.

DHS has received a whopping 59 comments about the system before the December 4th deadline and so they extended the deadline for comments to Dec 29th. Details are in this WIRED article

The finest Mashup I've seen to date. Worthy of some sort of prize... Is there a "Mashup Awards Banquet"?

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,72045-0.html

Soghoian claims that he wanted to demonstrate the vulnerability. You could argue that he went about it in a stupid way, but I don't think what he did is substantively worse than what I wrote in 2003. Or what Schumer described in 2005. Why is it that the person who demonstrates the vulnerability is vilified while the person who describes it is ignored? Or, even worse, the organization that causes it is ignored? Why are we shooting the messenger instead of discussing the problem?

Because they couldn't take down the big fish, that's why.

The "proper" solution would be to find the jackass repsonsible for all this shit and beat him with in a inch of his fucking life.

One down, 124 to go.

Not that I'd ever advocate anyone doing anything illegal, of course. But I just can't seem to be able to shed any tears for Mr. Kashnir. I doubt many are.

Flywheel batteries at the substation, and even at the house.
This way the whole grid could be backed up for a short time. Also don't for get the effiecy can be increased by using mirror array
to focus more light on the cell. Ahh the combination of solutions.

There are two articles, this one has links to documents: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72236-0.htm l?tw=wn_index_2

Yeah, and they (Wired) didn't make them available to the public, as some decent news sources do. Would have been nice if they made them available in their article - because "everyman" trying to obtain gov. docs via the sunshine laws is like pulling teeth. I've done it.

Here is a companion article from Wired with some of the documents: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72236-0.htm l?tw=rss.index

Apparently not!

You're assuming that everyone who criticises Wikipedia hasn't had much to do with it. This isn't exactly the case.

There's communities that have had articles deleted for 'notability' reasons when they've been notable to the community, while articles on similar subjects have stayed intact. They start to wonder that if it happens to them, how many other subjects does it happen to? Is notability defined by how much that one editor cares about a subject?

There are people who have seen Wikipedia arguments spill out into their little corners of the Internet, and people who have read Lore's excellent sendup of Wikipedia, and others who have had edits reverted for no apparent reason other than the editor in question didn't like it, leaving a big blank space in the article that your paragraph used to fill.

There are people who have found that 'consensus' comes not from two factions settling their differences and finding common ground, but when one faction gives up and lets the other faction put their 'truth' on the page. There are those that have watched featured articles degrade in quality until they stop being worthy of feature status as all the truth leaks out.

There's plenty of criticisms of Wikipedia that only become apparent when you've had something to do with Wikipedia. A lot of them, though, wouldn't have been so bad if Wikipedia wasn't striving to be accurate. If it was called "WikiTrivia: The Internet's largest resource of interesting information" then it would have been a rousing success and probably would have served the same purpose it does now, without people being so concerned about Wikipedia being correct.

A separate mic wouldn't be necessary for a Bluetooth phone. A Bluetooth phone could even be hacked to surreptitiously spy on close-by conversations.

From University of Washington. And a good writeup from Wired.

Please mod parent down.

"Every time I check my email, I am flooded with spam from compromised Windows zombies. Every time I try to purchase new MacOS X software, I am limited in my selection due to Windows monopolization driving competing developers out of business. I could go on and on."

A) If they were not windows zombies, they would be some other platforms zombies. There is of course no way to prove this, but every month vulnerabilities are discovered in every operating system in use. It takes a lazy or ill informed end user to provide a hole to exploit by not patching. There are many, many people out there that fall into this category.

B) "I am limited in my selection" ... Are you referring to an office suite for Mac? Or maybe games such as Halo. That's the only area where MS could directly compete. However, there are a number of alternatives to word and excel available on the Mac. You know you should really be complaining about apple killing off your choice of software providers. Every time Apple chooses to roll in a new feature to their OS they kill off an entire development segment. Take for example the widgets from dashboard, originally implemented on the Mac by Konfabulator now a yahoo company. Apple claims that the implementation is different, however the product is effectively the same. A once paid for product is now free.

C) Bill Gates AND Microsoft are both far more of philanthropists than Apple, or Jobs can ever hope to be. What was the last significant charitable gift from apple to the world? Jobs? http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70072-0.html

Point C I find most aggravating. Hundreds of Millions of dollars are being re-invested in the world to fight important issues that for the large part the developed world doesn't give a crap about. Give credit where credit is due.

As always, I should mention that the National Federation for the Blind took $1 million from Diebold back in 2000 so that they could pretend they were being sympathetic to the disabled, while screwing the rest of us. Probably the best million Diebold ever spent.

If they have framed the debate in terms of innovation or "catch up" they have overlooked the destructive results of Microsoft's domination and "improvements." The third of the three Es is Extinguish. This is played out by breaking competitor's programs on their platform. Once M$ has driven their competitors out they stagnate. XP was behind the free world when it was released and today it's pathetic. Vista has not even close to having caught up. The world of M$ PDAs is much the same outside of Japan. Fortunately they have not been able to push the Xbox, media PC and Zune onto the world but you can see how grossly inferior they are to their competitors. Microsoft will never innovate because they waste time and resources thinking of ways to put others out of business.

Witness the Bad Attitude:

Allard and the rest of the Xbox senior executives gathered to write brief statements on what motivates them to come to work every morning. The mission: to inspire the group's rank and file. "Most people put down flowery, make-the-world-a-better-place, Miss America types of things," Allard says. "I wrote: What gets me out of bed and into the office every day is the thought of Ken Kutaragi's resignation letter, framed, hanging next to my desk."

What an asshole.

The fact that Microsoft isn't an innovator is known for a long time. Their "commitment to innovation" is just PR, and people know it since the 90's.

See, for instance:

MS: Innovator or Integrator? - June 10, 2000
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,36902,00 .html

Saluting 25 Years of Microsoft 'Innovation' - June 14, 2000
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,17180-page,1-c,o fficesuites/article.html

BTW, I know of many companies whose slogan includes "paradigm shift", "a new way of ...", "innovation comes first" or anything else along the same lines. As always, they offer the very same things as everyone else.

The article: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71115-0.htm l?tw=rss.index

The Slashdot discussion: http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/ 09/1731249

-dave

RFID, which is much like barcode except for the (far more insecure) scanning method is supposed to correct the "problem"? I smell an ulterior motive.

Bob Lazar!

Yes! THAT Bob Lazar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar

This is the second time United Nuclear made the news this year-there was a story in Wired about them being raided, several months ago.

http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/chemistry.htm l

Somebody should do an interview with that guy, he sure sounds interesting!

Very little risk you say? What about this guy?

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2006/11/boarding_ pass_h.html

Check this out: http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/chemistry.htm l

It has publicly come out that they are wiretapping domestic calls.

From the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy article article at wikipedia:

"On May 22, 2006, it was reported by Seymour Hersh and Wired News that under this authority, the NSA had installed monitoring and interception supercomputers within the routing hubs of almost all major US telecoms companies capable of intercepting and monitoring a large proportion of all domestic and international telephone and Internet connections, and had used this to perform mass eavesdropping and order police investigations of tens of thousands of ordinary Americans without judicial warrants. " [Emphasis mine]

Here is the link to the Hersh article, and here is the link to the Wired article.

Please, wake up.

Interesting story of United Nuclear, raided by FBI, etc...

http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/chemistry_pr. html

...because we all live inside one. Well OK technically it's not a box but beige container of unknown size and shape isn't quite so catchy.

In 1994 Microsoft signed a "consent decree" because of their "per processor" agreements with the OEM's.

So it would seem that Microsoft already owned the desktop market prior to 1995.

http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,35212,0 0.html

What's the tag for "olde news"?

Craig Wallace. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/start.htm l?pg=6 I tried building my own once, but stopped about $400 in when I realized that I still needed another $600 or so. There is a fair bit of technical knowledge required, but if you search fusor.net you can find step-by-step instructions for everything from spot welding inner grids to diffusion pumping to machining your custom-made 8" conflats. It's all about how much money you have.

Wired recently wrote a story related to this and I posted my reaction (as to why I believe the entire world cannot become atheist at this point in human history). The Wired article can be found here. Also, if anybody is interested, I have an semi-atheist stage play online (currently under copyright, although I may put it under Creative Commons later) here. And my reaction is reposted here (originally posted on MikeOren.com):

The other day, I read an interesting piece in Wired about New Atheism. Like many scientifically minded individuals, I realize how various religious beliefs can get in the way of scientific study, objectivity, and in general hold back the advance of civilization. I have also had my periods of doubt as to whether or not there is a God (after all, there is no way of proving that God exists, and by scientific reasoning you normally don't trust something exists simply because you can't disprove it--the fact that it can't be disproven simply means that there is a possibility). Still, I have not fallen in with atheism in general and still hold my belief in God and that Jesus is the savior. This article about the New Atheists though claims that such a belief is detrimental and even seems to be inclined to declare that the very notion of belief in God(s) is a great evil. It declares that we must throw away our beliefs in anything that is rooted in superstition and ancient beliefs in favor of reason. The logic behind this argument is, of course, very reasonable. Important points that are brought up are things like the Pope speaking for millions/billions of Catholics and that having weight, even though millions/billions of Catholics don't necessarily agree with the statement--so he is being given more influence/power by those on the outskirts who aren't fundamentalist Catholics. The negative effects of this are, of course, dire. Especially in the spread of AIDS/HIV throughout Africa because the Pope says that using contraception is a sin (something millions of Catholics don't agree with), but the majority of the Catholic population of Africa (and most of Africa is Catholic) take that as the word of God and refrain from the use of condoms--leading to the spread of AIDS.

Then of course we have the United States, where fundamentalist Christians have continually tried to put an end to stem cell research, which is incidentally making our nation fall behind in medical and biological science research. It should be noted that proposals to only use stem cells from fertility clinics (that are just going to be destroyed any way) have also been rejected (although the last attempt to pass it was vetoed by President Bush, since enough Congressional members had a change in thought from the original passage of the stem cell research laws). Furthermore, homosexual individuals have had their rights taken away from them due to religious beliefs. While I do not agree with that lifestyle, I do think that every person should have the right to live their life the way they choose to do so and as such I feel our nation has broken from our charter of separating church and State (although if you look at the history of the United States, we have always been a Christian nation and have always failed miserably at separating church and state--but that doesn't mean it's right to do that). Then, of course, you have the Muslims in the middle east who die in a holy war for the promised after life with virgins and all of that. Religion is clearly a problem for the advance of society. A problem for peace.

BUT religion IS necessary. The New Atheists, the majority of which are in the top 5% of the population (whether that be by social, economic, or education status--or a little bit from all three) seem to forget some basic tenants of humanity, as often happens when you're at the top and loo

Wired recently wrote a story related to this and I posted my reaction (as to why I believe the entire world cannot become atheist at this point in human history). The Wired article can be found here. Also, if anybody is interested, I have an semi-atheist stage play online (currently under copyright, although I may put it under Creative Commons later) here. And my reaction is reposted here (originally posted on MikeOren.com):

The other day, I read an interesting piece in Wired about New Atheism. Like many scientifically minded individuals, I realize how various religious beliefs can get in the way of scientific study, objectivity, and in general hold back the advance of civilization. I have also had my periods of doubt as to whether or not there is a God (after all, there is no way of proving that God exists, and by scientific reasoning you normally don't trust something exists simply because you can't disprove it--the fact that it can't be disproven simply means that there is a possibility). Still, I have not fallen in with atheism in general and still hold my belief in God and that Jesus is the savior. This article about the New Atheists though claims that such a belief is detrimental and even seems to be inclined to declare that the very notion of belief in God(s) is a great evil. It declares that we must throw away our beliefs in anything that is rooted in superstition and ancient beliefs in favor of reason. The logic behind this argument is, of course, very reasonable. Important points that are brought up are things like the Pope speaking for millions/billions of Catholics and that having weight, even though millions/billions of Catholics don't necessarily agree with the statement--so he is being given more influence/power by those on the outskirts who aren't fundamentalist Catholics. The negative effects of this are, of course, dire. Especially in the spread of AIDS/HIV throughout Africa because the Pope says that using contraception is a sin (something millions of Catholics don't agree with), but the majority of the Catholic population of Africa (and most of Africa is Catholic) take that as the word of God and refrain from the use of condoms--leading to the spread of AIDS.

Then of course we have the United States, where fundamentalist Christians have continually tried to put an end to stem cell research, which is incidentally making our nation fall behind in medical and biological science research. It should be noted that proposals to only use stem cells from fertility clinics (that are just going to be destroyed any way) have also been rejected (although the last attempt to pass it was vetoed by President Bush, since enough Congressional members had a change in thought from the original passage of the stem cell research laws). Furthermore, homosexual individuals have had their rights taken away from them due to religious beliefs. While I do not agree with that lifestyle, I do think that every person should have the right to live their life the way they choose to do so and as such I feel our nation has broken from our charter of separating church and State (although if you look at the history of the United States, we have always been a Christian nation and have always failed miserably at separating church and state--but that doesn't mean it's right to do that). Then, of course, you have the Muslims in the middle east who die in a holy war for the promised after life with virgins and all of that. Religion is clearly a problem for the advance of society. A problem for peace.

BUT religion IS necessary. The New Atheists, the majority of which are in the top 5% of the population (whether that be by social, economic, or education status--or a little bit from all three) seem to forget some basic tenants of humanity, as often happens when you're at the top and loo

Wired recently wrote a story related to this and I posted my reaction (as to why I believe the entire world cannot become atheist at this point in human history). The Wired article can be found here. Also, if anybody is interested, I have an semi-atheist stage play online (currently under copyright, although I may put it under Creative Commons later) here. And my reaction is reposted here (originally posted on MikeOren.com):

The other day, I read an interesting piece in Wired about New Atheism. Like many scientifically minded individuals, I realize how various religious beliefs can get in the way of scientific study, objectivity, and in general hold back the advance of civilization. I have also had my periods of doubt as to whether or not there is a God (after all, there is no way of proving that God exists, and by scientific reasoning you normally don't trust something exists simply because you can't disprove it--the fact that it can't be disproven simply means that there is a possibility). Still, I have not fallen in with atheism in general and still hold my belief in God and that Jesus is the savior. This article about the New Atheists though claims that such a belief is detrimental and even seems to be inclined to declare that the very notion of belief in God(s) is a great evil. It declares that we must throw away our beliefs in anything that is rooted in superstition and ancient beliefs in favor of reason. The logic behind this argument is, of course, very reasonable. Important points that are brought up are things like the Pope speaking for millions/billions of Catholics and that having weight, even though millions/billions of Catholics don't necessarily agree with the statement--so he is being given more influence/power by those on the outskirts who aren't fundamentalist Catholics. The negative effects of this are, of course, dire. Especially in the spread of AIDS/HIV throughout Africa because the Pope says that using contraception is a sin (something millions of Catholics don't agree with), but the majority of the Catholic population of Africa (and most of Africa is Catholic) take that as the word of God and refrain from the use of condoms--leading to the spread of AIDS.

Then of course we have the United States, where fundamentalist Christians have continually tried to put an end to stem cell research, which is incidentally making our nation fall behind in medical and biological science research. It should be noted that proposals to only use stem cells from fertility clinics (that are just going to be destroyed any way) have also been rejected (although the last attempt to pass it was vetoed by President Bush, since enough Congressional members had a change in thought from the original passage of the stem cell research laws). Furthermore, homosexual individuals have had their rights taken away from them due to religious beliefs. While I do not agree with that lifestyle, I do think that every person should have the right to live their life the way they choose to do so and as such I feel our nation has broken from our charter of separating church and State (although if you look at the history of the United States, we have always been a Christian nation and have always failed miserably at separating church and state--but that doesn't mean it's right to do that). Then, of course, you have the Muslims in the middle east who die in a holy war for the promised after life with virgins and all of that. Religion is clearly a problem for the advance of society. A problem for peace.

BUT religion IS necessary. The New Atheists, the majority of which are in the top 5% of the population (whether that be by social, economic, or education status--or a little bit from all three) seem to forget some basic tenants of humanity, as often happens when you're at the top and loo

These are also the same people who forgot to standardize between metric and U.S. measurements for a Mars probe http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,31631, 00.html and installed an accelerometer backwards in the Genesis probe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_(spacecraft). Smart people make simple mistakes all of the time. Is that the case here? Probably not, but it is always worth taking a second look.

"Moderates give a power base to extremists," Slade says. "A lot of Catholics use condoms, a lot of Catholics are divorced, and a lot don't have a particular opinion about whether you are homosexual. But when the Pope stands up and says, 'This is what Catholics believe,' he still gets credit for speaking for more than a billion people."

http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/atheism.html

No, you're wrong. In fact, these 3D projection monitors already exist and have already been sold for a couple of years.

In top middle of the panel (or at the edges) there is an eye motion sensor that tracks the viewer's eye movements and then adjust the view on the screen accordingly.

For instance, have a look at This product from Philips.

But there are also 3D projection systems that use drops of vapor that are illuminated via laser: Wired Article

Google is your friend!

The assertion of the proponents of this, that less traffic rules means more safety, is not supported by the evidence.

Wired magazine had an article a couple years ago saying this exact same thing. I remember thinking at the time, "I hope this doesn't ever actually happen." Who'd've (I just invented a new contraction!) guessed it would?

Ah, found the article. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.h tml

UPDATA

A Call to Phones
When the first Internet telephone hit the market last spring, the response was enormous - at least according to VocalTec Inc. The maker of the mercurial Internet Phone, VocalTec claimed 150,000 downloads from its Web site in the first three months of the software's release. The barbarians were at the gate, ready to topple the telco monarchs. A flurry of other, less polished computer- to-computer telephony products followed. Soon enough, folks with IPhones and similar permutations would be barking up and down the Net, and old Ma Bell would have to fall in line with lower long-distance rates. Yet, across jumpy, static-filled connections it was most often the uncomfortable, fuzzy silence of communication delays that resounded across the ether.

And guess what? A year later, the transmission delay is still there (yes, even in full duplex conversations), and Internet telephony - with all its "hang-ups" - has yet to revolutionize telecommunications. But no matter: International Discount Telecommunications Corp. (http://www.ios.com/), a Hackensack, New Jersey, Internet access provider and callback service, is positioning itself to become the first company to market with a computer-to-telephone product early this summer.

The company's Net2Phone software will soon enable users to dial any phone number - straight from their computers. Howard Jonas, Discount Telecommunications Corp.'s president, points out that while the typical international call runs at approximately US$120 an hour, the figure will be closer to $6 with Net2Phone. What will telephone companies worldwide say about this? "I'm sure nobody likes it, but there's nothing they can do," he says. "They hated the callback business, too." Jonas pioneered the squirrelly and very profitable callback service in 1991, much to the chagrin of telcos that stood to make money in IDT's place.

International Discount Telecommunications won't be alone in the campaign to cheapen international calls. A project called Free World Dialup (http://www.pulver.com/fwd/), which launched in January and will run through April, is accomplishing exactly what its title suggests: providing people with free links from the Net to international phone lines. Jeff Pulver, one of the volunteer organizers of Free World Dialup, says the project is simply an experiment for proof of concept. Pulver, who also moderates the NetWatch mailing list, a discussion group for Internet telephony issues, adds that he wouldn't mind rattling some chains in the process. "It's the spirit of the Net," he says. Problem is, the Net is also marked by bandwidth limitations that keep Internet telephony quality down - a prime reason telecom execs aren't up at night sweating bullets. Until the arrival of technology that will create real competition, Pulver says, "there's a coolness factor to Internet telephony, and then it just goes away."

Flamebait funny...

I could say really critical things about the Linux kernel, the BSD kernel, or even question some of the 'accepted' OSS concepts people hold quite dear.

Yet the only time my posts get modded down is if I say anything that is non-supportive of Apple.

Keep modding the post down without one counter fact or argument, you are only proving my point about the fanatic mindset...

Is Steve Jobs really that good looking or what is it I am missing about the blind following?
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70072-0.html

But maybe I am the strange one, I personally like to stick to facts, technology, and strange things like science.