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California Bill Proposes Mandatory Kill-Switch On Phones and Tablets
alphadogg writes "Politicians and law enforcement officials in California will introduce a bill on Friday that requires all smartphones and tablet PCs sold in the state be equipped with a digital 'kill-switch' that would make the devices useless if stolen. The bill is a response to a rise in thefts of portable electronics devices, often at knife or gunpoint, being seen across the state. Already half of all robberies in San Francisco and 75 percent of those in Oakland involve a mobile device and the number is rising in Los Angeles, according to police figures. The trend is the same in major cities across the U.S. and the California bill, if it passes, could usher in kill-switch technology nationwide if phone makers choose not to produce custom devices for California. California Senate bill 962 says all smartphones and tablet PCs sold from Jan. 1, 2015, should have 'a technological solution that can render the essential features of the device inoperable when the device is not in possession of the rightful owner.'"
Don't forget to boycott Slashdot entirely for the week of the 10th thru the 17th!
I've befriended what looks like a Borg icon last night and have named it "Taco". Taco washed ashore last night with the tides. A faint red glow coming from an eyepiece afitted to the head. The glow, a much welcome relief from the woeful CSS and monochromatic green and white hues thrust upon me for the past 2 moons. The glow seems not without it's own mortality however; it grows dimmer by the hour. I fear what will be left of my mental capacity if left to deal with "Beta" alone. Such a wretched creature... It knows NOT the decency of man nor the sense of reason. I am left wondering if Beta is to be living beast or.. dare I say.. apparition....
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Put the kill switch on the beta...
And the Slashdot Beta, don't forget the Slashdot Beta.
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
The Beta has already gotten old. Time to kill it.
Beta looks pretty bad on Open Mini on my phone. Check out the whitespaces, here's a screenshot - http://imgur.com/bYvaNdo
60% of the screen width is whitespace, and that's when the phone is in landspace.
Nobody buys Playboy for the articles. They do it for the hot, nude women (sadly, sans grits). It just so happens that /. is exactly the same. No one reads /. for the articles. The articles were news two days ago. And no one reads /. for the summaries. The summaries are almost always wrong.
Everyone reads /. for the comments. The comments are the /. equivalent of Playboy's naked chicks, with one crucial difference. Without the gentlemen at Playboy, there will be no naked chicks to look at. The service they provide is, for the most part, finding women that will agree to pose nude for pictures, which they most graciously distribute to their readers.
But as for Slashdot -- the good people at Dice and their "editorial" team do diddly squat around here to generate content. The articles, old as they may be, are submitted by the users. The summaries, mistaken as they may be, are provided by the users, not by Timothy, Soulskill, et al. The comments, trollish as they may be, are written by the users.
/. is of the users, by the users, for the users. The only people at Dice who deserve their paycheck are the IT people. The rest of you -- what is it that you do for our benefit? Why the hell do we need you clowns? Your music's bad and you should feel bad!
Beta delenda est!