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User: djrogers

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  1. It's more complicated than that - Siri does 2 things, speech-to-text, and AI/Assistant. The speech to text can be done on the phone directly (seriously - put your phone in airplane mode and use the dictation key, it'll work), but the AI/assistant part must be done on Siri servers in the cloud.

  2. Re:Ransomware Insurance Is Coming... on Ransomware Insurance Is Coming (onthewire.io) · · Score: 1

    And unlike so many other forms of insurance fraud, this would be easy to do, near-impossible to prove, and without the nasty long-term repercussions that things like arson come with...

  3. Re:I'm sure it will have an impact. on Apple's Siri As Revolutionary As the Mac? · · Score: 2

    You mean multi-touch? Yeah, nobody bought into the capacitive screen/multi-touch thing....

  4. Re:speech recognition is noisy. on Apple's Siri As Revolutionary As the Mac? · · Score: 1

    Duck - there's a whoosh train flying over your head...

  5. Re:Mud and water on Boston Dynamics Unveils AlphaDog Quadruped Robot · · Score: 1

    This is designed to augment a fire team - i.e. 4 armed men, with 100lb backpacks, on foot. I think if a guy with a firehose gets close enough to the squad to hose this guy off, either the squad or he will have more pressing issues to worry about... As for the mud, the previous version did very well in snow tests - I'd imagine mud will get worked out eventually as well.

  6. Re:trolling vs free speech on UK Man Jailed For Being a Jerk On the Internet · · Score: 1

    being offensive and posting 'hate-speech' needs to be punished

    Really? Offensive to whom? Who decides what is 'hate-speech'? You should have a right to hate someone, and have the right to proclaim your hatred.

    Well, the Thought Police, obviously...

  7. Re:Does Not Compute on Mr. President, There Is No (US) Engineer Shortage · · Score: 1
    "facts on the ground" in the valley disprove your assertions - the unemployment rate among College educated individuals in the valley right now is about 4.5%, compared to a general population unemployment rate of 12-15% in some other parts of the state. I happen to work for one of many companies in the valley that are growing at an amazing rate, and our #1 problem is that we can't hire people fast enough.

    It's pretty clear that there is a contingent of recently 'overemployed' individuals around here that feel that they still deserve that $130k salary they lucked into in 2007, even though their skills and work history don't back that up...

  8. Re:I'm curious... on The Fanless Spinning Heatsink · · Score: 1

    But I am curious how this alleviates that boundary layer

    The exceedingly high shearing force on the thin layer of air that reduces the boundary layer by a significant enough amount that it becomes much less consequential.

  9. Re:Tax Principle #1: Minimized Disruptive Impact on Amazon Drops California Associates to Avoid Sales Tax · · Score: 1

    And how exactly would one calculate the tax to impose o a shipping company? By 'declared value'? Good luck - try to force an out-of-state company to 'declare' a true value on a shipped good entering your state. See how well that works.
    Tax by weight? So an engagement ring worth $20 gets taxed pennies, and a hardback book worth $20 gets taxed a buck? Not gonna work either.
    And if you just tax at a flat rate for all shipments entering your state, all you've done is raised the cost of doing business to those in your state and given them one more incentive to move to nevada, arizona, or oregon.
    the real solution here is to stop spending more money as a state than we have. This state collects a historically high amount of tax money, and still wastes more money than we take in. The budget needs to be balanced, and it can't be balanced on the backs of the tax payer alone.

  10. Re:4000 1000? on Android App Quality Pathetically Low Says Developer · · Score: 1

    You're missing the time scale here - the iOS app has been out for a long time, sold far more copies, and has gathered 4000 reviews, while the newly released Android app already has 1000 reviews. The rate of reviews/sales and reviews/time are much higher on their Android app. Or you could have just read the whole article...

  11. It'd only be obstruction of justice if she were being accused of a crime. Did I miss something?

  12. Re:And the value of this is ... nil? on Apple's iOS 4 Hardware Encryption Cracked · · Score: 1

    The real advantage to encrypting your iOS backups is that when you do iTunes will then back up WEP/WPA passwords, mail passwords, and possibly some other sensitive stuff I've never noticed before. For obvious reasons these are normally left out of the unencrypted backup, so encrypting makes the restoration process much smoother.

  13. Re:If it compromises a bundled runtime... on Google Engineers Deny Hack Exploited Chrome · · Score: 1

    Adobe didn't have a working version of flash available for mobile devices for ~3 years after the first iPhone shipped and ~2 years after the G1 shipped. It took almost a year after that for it to come out of beta and ship in a reasonable stable manner. During that time all Adobe did was whine and cry that "Apple is blocking flash"... Yeah, right.... Put a fork in it - please.

  14. Re:Really? on Apple Announces New iPods, iTunes 10, Social Network, AppleTV · · Score: 1

    iOS 4.2 will add printing to the iPad... About. Fracking. Time!

    No kidding - all those Android tablets have been printing for YEARS... Yup, Apple's way behind the curve on this one - totally missed the boat. I mean, really - it should have been obvious to anyone that a media/web tablet would need printing capability! Printing out web pages and emails to compressed dead tree material is TEH FUTURE.

  15. Re:Atom on How Neuros Built Their Nearly Silent HTPC · · Score: 1

    "Noone needs a fscking 2.8Ghz dual core processor just to run flash video, all you need is a better OS and a little optimization." An Atom alone is fine for the 360/480p YouTube stuff, and low res hulu, but try watching some 720/1080p flash on that n270 and you'll learn what a slideshow is.

  16. Re:HandBrake? on HandBrake Abandons DivX As an Output Format · · Score: 1

    Actually, handbrake doesn't use ffmpeg...

  17. Re:And an NGO is what? on Tech NGOs Working In Haiti · · Score: 1

    Why? I'm 34, have been to college, have a family, 2 kids, have a 156 IQ, and subscribe to the SF Chronicle, and keep up on current events. This is the first time I've seen the term NGO used in any context. Why would you expect an international audience from a multitude of backgrounds to have acquired your specific set of knowledge? Seriously self centered thinking there bucko...

  18. Re:OS X needs VLC on Lack of Manpower May Kill VLC For Mac · · Score: 1

    Perian solves all of the quicktime problems you list above, and as for the default media player, that's just a user education issue - not an OS fault.

  19. Re:Can I quit the government? on US Fed Gov. Says All Music Downloads Are Theft · · Score: 4, Informative
    Troll - you lose. iTunes has never been capable of making DRM encumbered copies of CDs. Windows Media Player on the other hand has been capable of it, and in fact that was the default setting for several versions.

    All music ripped via iTunes goes into non-DRM'd MP3, AAC, or ALC (Apple Lossless Codec). Any or all of the above formats can also be burned back to CD by iTunes. in fact, even the old DRM'd FairlPlay AAC files from the iTunes Music Store could be burned to CD.

  20. Outperform? on MIT Electric Car May Outperform Rival Gas Models · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't see a single stat there that 'outperforms' a 1994 Honda Civic - in fact it falls short on every aspect. Don't get me wrong, those specs would make the car great on paper, and I am totally behind electric powered cars, I just hate it when headlines lie.

  21. Re:But would it avoid roaming charges? on UK Gets Europe's First 3G Femtocell · · Score: 1

    Not sure about the one in question, but the Femtocells that have been profiled here in the past have all had a GPS receiver on them to ensure that you are in an area where the provider is legally allowed to provide coverage, ie your own country...

  22. Re:Boxee is not good. on Linux Boxee Users Get Hulu Relief · · Score: 1

    Try PLEX - all of the hulu, eye candy, and high performance goodness of boxee, without all the social networking junk.

  23. Twitter? on Norwegian Websites Declare War On IE 6 · · Score: 1

    Really? What's the incidence of correlation between twitter users and IE6 users? I'm guessing pretty damn close to zero.

  24. Re:this geek is clearly breaking the rules... on Man Robs Convenience Stores With Klingon "Batleth" · · Score: 2, Informative

    No, but armed robbery will land him in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

    No, it will land him in a county jail. If it were a repeat or significant enough offense, he would likely end up in a state prison. Federal prison is for thos who violate federal laws - armed robbery that doesn't cross state lines is a local/state crime.

  25. Re:Cut taxes, then on Obama Team Considers Cancellation of Ares, Orion · · Score: 5, Informative

    I second this. IMO, the only way to significantly put a dent in the budget would be to cut back on defense spending.

    Then you have no actual knowledge of the Federal budget. Defense spending has decreased as a percentage of discretionary spending every year for the past 42 years, while entitlement programs have ballooned to make up the vast majority of the federal budget. Cutting more defense spending would be cutting a small chunk off of a small chunk.

    Now I'm not saying we couldn't/shouldn't cut back on defense spending, but to imply or state that it would be the *only* effective measure in reducing the deficit is just not factual.

    http://perotcharts.com/category/federal-budget-charts/page/9/

    2007 Defense spending is approx 20% of federal spending as a whole, so even a 25% cut in defense spending would only have a net effect of a 5% reduction in spending. Not nearly enough to put a 'significant dent' in the budget.