The extra server provisioning is to record all those cameras and mics. In all seriousness I won't be buying one, but you -can- tape over a camera or remove power when not in use.
And stuff cotton in the listening port?
If nothing else, MS can monetize the audio recording portion by simply logging what television shows you are watching at any one time and selling that info to the Nielson Company...or anyone else who's interested, really. If they can see and count the number of viewers in the room, even better...
"Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you"
1982-ish and previous pennies were 97.5% copper. You can tell the difference by the sound they make when dropped on a hard surface.
Or by trying to pick them up with a magnet
Ah, no. Modern US pennies will not pick up with a magnet. Modern pennies(post 1982) are 97.5% Zinc with the remaining 2.5% being electrolytically plated copper.
The only pennies you could pick up with a magnet were made during World War II, due to copper shortages. They were zink coated steel.
Huh, well then. A person really does learn something new every day:)
I guess it's just Canadian pennies (and nickels, dimes, quarters) that can be date-sorted by dragging magnets through the pile, then. Not that useful, but fun for the kids;o)
Never put anything online you wouldn't want you mum to. Goes doubly so for social networks.
...mum to see.
Well, to be fair, the original wording also applies. As in: "would I want my Mom posting pics of her doing bellybutton shooters with the local cheerleading squad? No? Hmm...better not post that one..."
Bigger trouble is: idiot 'friends' who oh-so-helpfully post their own pics of you doing stupid things, or even normal things that you don't necessarily want the entire world to see. I make sure that my friends know that I'm not okay with that, and so far it hasn't been a problem, cause I have good friends...not because I don't do stupid things that get caught on camera:)
The protocol will have 300 different signal methods to tell the other car it's driver is an idiot. Then 99% of all use cases are covered.
Yeah, I was curious about this too...how will the car know if the driver is about to swerve wildly while texting or yelling at the kids in the back seat?
I suppose they're just getting a mesh network protocol prepared for use with the long-anticipated auto-piloting vehicles...can't see this as very useful as long as a human is still controlling the gas, brakes and steering wheel. I suppose the other vehicles could theoretically cut in and assume crash avoidance maneuvers with faster reaction speeds than their drivers, but if they can do all that, why not let them have control for the boring bits too?
In pre-paid phones what is pre-paid for is the service: the minutes, data, etc..
Just as printer manufacturers can sell printers at a discount knowing that there is a high likelihood (but no contract) that you will buy ink from them, phone companies can discount a locked phone, knowing that there is a high likelihood that you will buy more minutes from them.
Oh, that's an interesting business model...I don't think that's how it works up here in Canada though. The phones with a prepaid or pay as you go plan are (as far as I've seen) only available at full price, or maybe a *slight* discount if you find a sale. Could be that some of our carriers do the same, I've just never seen that before:) Very weird.
Okay, scratch that. I just double checked with some Canadian carriers: looks like if you go 'prepaid', you get the phone for about half the price that they claim it's worth when you're paying it off through a plan. Not sure if that's an accurate reflection of the phone's cost, though, or more a way to 'encourage' people to lock in to a term plan. I wonder what the carrier actually pays for the hardware? Googling for unlocked versions of the same models, looks like the average asking prices are much closer to the prepaid hardware price, so I'm thinking that the 'value' they claim for the term-locked phone is just a tad inflated...
Seriously, read it. It starts out by truly fixing some of the most egregious brain damage and expansiveness of DMCA, making it into a legitimate copyright law. The cellphone unlocking technicality is just one a thousand bugs this fixes; the bill would also legalize making/selling/using ink cartridges, legalize the playing the DVDs that you have bought, etc. If DMCA had passed originally in this form, it would be much less destructive and hated.
Hence the reason they didn't do it this way in the first place.
"Hey, WTF man? You're cutting my whole leg off here!" "Oh, sorry, how about just a foot then? Or, tell you what, let's just take the big toe and we'll call it even, okay?" "Ahh, that's so much better, thanks!"
By making a big show of generously granting people rights that they already had, they can paper over the rest of the shoddy framework (takedown notice abuses, copyright trolling, etc., etc.) For bonus points, they'll have people feeling downright grateful about not being thrown in jail for treating their own purchased media as if they actually own it.
Exactly. I never understood why they bother to lock the phones in the first place. If you have a 2 year contract, they have your money already for that long. Locking the phone doesn't gain them anything.
What about pre-paid plans where there is no contract?
Umm...they're pre paid? As in, already paid for?
You certainly can't get a hardware subsidy for a prepaid phone, and if you choose not to use your remaining purchased time on the carrier before switching to someone else, why would they care?
The only thing locking the hardware does for them is make it very difficult for their customers to rate shop.
I gave both of my kids iTouch devices a few years ago. They still love them and game on them, but it pisses me off how every f'ing game has popups to download and install a new level, unlock, or companion game from the istore (for additional money). I have an android phone an see it slightly less often on my games.
If I could load up a kids store account with tokens or credits like on the Wii store that would be perfect.
See my post just above. No need to give them incidental access to a typical, no holds barred credit card: there are self-limiting options out there. They may have to track their own expenditures in order to know how much is left on the card, but hey, excellent learning opportunity! Balancing books is something most adults can't manage...
Do your kids have credit cards? It requires CC info and an online update before they can even use it. Afterwards they can charge up in-game-transactions at the press of a button. Just FYI, the system might not be what you expect.
So? Register with a $25 Visa or Mastercard gift card: self limiting, and who cares if the black hats scrape the number? When that runs out, update with a new card, if they got one for their birthday or whatever...
I look at this as a good way to teach them to be cautious and discriminating shoppers. They have a fixed amount: if they want to spend it all on Minecraft bling or the equivalent, that's fine, but when it runs out it's gone until their next birthday or Christmas or they spend their own money on a new card.
If you don't want to go through the hassle of re-registering a new card number each time they run out, there is also a reloadable pre-paid option. If the kids receive or earn cash, they can choose whether or not to load it on their card (or you might have to do it for them, depending on the T&C), but it's still self-limiting and much more secure than a 'normal' credit card.
BTW, the same principle applies to any micro-transaction site: Google certainly doesn't have my real CC number, yet I can still buy apps for my phone and tablet to my hearts content, worry free. I don't care if they share the number with app developers or get scraped or whatever: I think my remaining balance right now is about $15. Woo hoo, go to town...;o)
Perhaps you are the one who doesn't get it. Why should a fully capable PC and a tablet be two different experiences?
Same reason automobile and airplane controls are different. Different use cases, even though they're both 'transportation devices'.
Trying to force desktop or laptop users to dumb down creation tasks to fit the restrictions of a tablet gui is like asking the pilot to fly without aileron controls...technically possible, but hardly comfortable.
At least it keeps the kids from having to swap discs on long car rides...but even that use case is quite hindered if you're restricted to 10 GB, unless your kids want to watch nothing but, say, the same three seasons of spongebob...over...and over...and over... On the other hand, give me a USB or SDHC port (and something behind the dash that can read what I put on there) and I'm happy as a clam on a long road trip:o)
Ford's implementation doesn't support video loading to the hard drive. You can only rip CDs. No, there is no way to directly copy MP3 or other media files, and although it will play a DVD, it won't play video files. Luckily, it rips at about 5x, and you can be listening to other things while it works. I loaded about 250 CDs during my commmute. Ford does have USB connections, and you can plug in pretty much any sized device, but the software for reading the tags from the tracks tends to get confused after about 5000 or so. So, I just load up old time radio shows, which take up a lot of time per track.
This kind of problem will never really be solved until car companies just bite the bullet and use Android as the controlling software. This would allow the user to add apps to extend functionality.
Allrighty then. Even less useful than I had imagined, although I suppose it would be nice to have instant access to my Weird Al albums whenever I'm in the car. Or, you know, I can use my phone and an aux plug, then I can listen to them everywhere!:)
unless your kids want to watch nothing but, say, the same three seasons of spongebob...over...and over...and over...
I can tell YOU never had kids...:)
At certain ages kids are quite willing to (and sometimes insistent on) watch the same material over and over. My oldest watched Aristocats and Aladin as many times as we allowed (or could stand) when she was young and my nephew insisted on watching specific parts of Mary Poppins repeatedly. (I still cannot stand to even listen to any of these movies.) Having three seasons of Sponge Bob would be *GREAT* for that age....
Yeah, that was a bit tongue in cheek:o) I don't have kids, but I babysat my nieces and nephews a lot a few years back while they were on a huge spongebob kick...to this day, I still cringe at the sound of the theme music.
No. The difference is that digital streaming like YouTube or Netflix must compete. Cable systems own their regions and milk their subscribers. Streaming systems will never be able to jack rates like cable because they're fungible.
Had to actually look that one up, never ran across it before. Thanks for broadening my vocabulary!;o)
Every single level? That's a bit over the top. I hit Windows-D to see the standard desktop and suddenly things are more familiar. When I want to launch something that I don't have a link for already on the traditional desktop, I hit windows and start to type the name of the program. It quickly finds it, I hit Enter and it launches. Maybe I'm more keyboard-centric than the average user, but I've found Win8 to be non-issue. If users are simply shown how to get away from the metro interface, it's really not so different.
Yeah...especially if you install Classic Shell*, so you don't have to ever deal with the 'Start Page' at all.
After getting my new laptop, I played around for a couple of hours, honestly trying to give the Windows 8 interface a fair shake. Sheer frustration drove me to find something that would stop Windows 8 from dicking me around, found and installed Classic Shell, and voila! Suddenly Windows 8 is useful, sleek (well, mostly) and intuitive again (as long as you don't want to work with any sort of system settings, that is...). No more jarring, uselessly-full-page-how-the-f$&k-do-I-get-rid-of-this-crap-again-aaagh! accidental mouse clicks, no more need to memorize a ridiculously long list of incredibly non-intuitive keyboard shortcuts just to be able to navigate in the basic interface, I know at a glance what applications are open or minimized and can close them easily, I have (mostly) full control over my screens real estate again, etc.
I don't think that Windows 8 performs better than Windows 7 for the most part, but it's at least comparable (and bearable) with that little bit of outside help. No way would I ever buy a standalone copy of Windows 8 in its current condition, though; it's simply not ready for production yet. If this laptop starts getting goofy, I'll throw Windows 7 on it instead of even trying to piss around restoring 8...
*That's right, forgot to donate to the project! Now where'd I put my PayPal login again? Ahh...there we go. More than worth it!
Office 2010 - not a whole lot different from 2007, but a lot more popular now that people are familiar with the Ribbon
I'm sorry, but no. Just because people are complaining vocally anymore about something originally done five years ago and another screw-up that took place three years ago doesn't mean things are ok now.
I got use to the ribbon, but I still hate it and it is still way less productive than the file menu.
Where are mod points when I want them? People lost the choice as it was use 2003 software or use the ribbon. Businesses eventually migrate as support and features in 2003 got dropped.
Productivity wise, 2003 file menus >>>>>> ribbon.
Heh, sez you. My company's still on Office 2003...and I am not looking forward to the planned Win 7 rollout this year, which will (I assume, but haven't confirmed it) include one of the crappy new Office platforms...*sigh*, say goodbye to office productivity for a couple of months, at the very least.
At home it's Libre Office all the way, even when I had a chance to get a home copy of Office 2007 at some ridiculous employee discount. Why mess with what works? Seems like MS never quite learns that lesson...
I would be very displeased if I bought a car that uses a mechanical drive that is going to get bumped around and severely damaged by a cars movement. I would expect that the car uses flash memory. 10GB of flash is still incredibly cheap (~$10) so I would expect more, but comparing desktop HDD capacity to that of a car's is asinine.
Agreed.
I do wonder, however, how well your average flash storage stands up to severe, sometimes rapid temperature cycling? My Google-fu must be a bit foggy today, since I can't seem to find any independent testing data, and I'm sure it's out there somewhere...
Meh. I could see permanent on-board storage being useful for movies in minivans, maybe. At least it keeps the kids from having to swap discs on long car rides...but even that use case is quite hindered if you're restricted to 10 GB, unless your kids want to watch nothing but, say, the same three seasons of spongebob...over...and over...and over...
On the other hand, give me a USB or SDHC port (and something behind the dash that can read what I put on there) and I'm happy as a clam on a long road trip:o)
Slashdot Mirror
The extra server provisioning is to record all those cameras and mics. In all seriousness I won't be buying one, but you -can- tape over a camera or remove power when not in use.
And stuff cotton in the listening port?
If nothing else, MS can monetize the audio recording portion by simply logging what television shows you are watching at any one time and selling that info to the Nielson Company...or anyone else who's interested, really. If they can see and count the number of viewers in the room, even better...
"Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you"
Toronto is in Canada but not all of Canada is in Toronto. Thanks for living up to the stereotype though...
Yeah...don't forget, the rest of Canada is in Vancouver :oP
1982-ish and previous pennies were 97.5% copper. You can tell the difference by the sound they make when dropped on a hard surface.
Or by trying to pick them up with a magnet
Ah, no. Modern US pennies will not pick up with a magnet.
Modern pennies(post 1982) are 97.5% Zinc with the remaining 2.5% being electrolytically plated copper.
The only pennies you could pick up with a magnet were made during World War II, due to copper shortages. They were zink coated steel.
Huh, well then. A person really does learn something new every day :)
I guess it's just Canadian pennies (and nickels, dimes, quarters) that can be date-sorted by dragging magnets through the pile, then. Not that useful, but fun for the kids ;o)
1982-ish and previous pennies were 97.5% copper. You can tell the difference by the sound they make when dropped on a hard surface.
Or by trying to pick them up with a magnet
Never put anything online you wouldn't want you mum to. Goes doubly so for social networks.
...mum to see.
Well, to be fair, the original wording also applies. As in: "would I want my Mom posting pics of her doing bellybutton shooters with the local cheerleading squad? No? Hmm...better not post that one..."
Bigger trouble is: idiot 'friends' who oh-so-helpfully post their own pics of you doing stupid things, or even normal things that you don't necessarily want the entire world to see. I make sure that my friends know that I'm not okay with that, and so far it hasn't been a problem, cause I have good friends...not because I don't do stupid things that get caught on camera :)
Elizabeth Báthory actually had it right??
Specifically, 'Math and reading ability at age 7 may be linked with socioeconomic status several decades later.'
Not necessarily.
The protocol will have 300 different signal methods to tell the other car it's driver is an idiot. Then 99% of all use cases are covered.
Yeah, I was curious about this too...how will the car know if the driver is about to swerve wildly while texting or yelling at the kids in the back seat?
I suppose they're just getting a mesh network protocol prepared for use with the long-anticipated auto-piloting vehicles...can't see this as very useful as long as a human is still controlling the gas, brakes and steering wheel. I suppose the other vehicles could theoretically cut in and assume crash avoidance maneuvers with faster reaction speeds than their drivers, but if they can do all that, why not let them have control for the boring bits too?
Now to update the auto-targeting system for my turret gun...they can run, but they can't hide anymore!
In pre-paid phones what is pre-paid for is the service: the minutes, data, etc..
Just as printer manufacturers can sell printers at a discount knowing that there is a high likelihood (but no contract) that you will buy ink from them, phone companies can discount a locked phone, knowing that there is a high likelihood that you will buy more minutes from them.
Oh, that's an interesting business model...I don't think that's how it works up here in Canada though. The phones with a prepaid or pay as you go plan are (as far as I've seen) only available at full price, or maybe a *slight* discount if you find a sale. Could be that some of our carriers do the same, I've just never seen that before :) Very weird.
Okay, scratch that. I just double checked with some Canadian carriers: looks like if you go 'prepaid', you get the phone for about half the price that they claim it's worth when you're paying it off through a plan. Not sure if that's an accurate reflection of the phone's cost, though, or more a way to 'encourage' people to lock in to a term plan. I wonder what the carrier actually pays for the hardware? Googling for unlocked versions of the same models, looks like the average asking prices are much closer to the prepaid hardware price, so I'm thinking that the 'value' they claim for the term-locked phone is just a tad inflated...
Seriously, read it. It starts out by truly fixing some of the most egregious brain damage and expansiveness of DMCA, making it into a legitimate copyright law. The cellphone unlocking technicality is just one a thousand bugs this fixes; the bill would also legalize making/selling/using ink cartridges, legalize the playing the DVDs that you have bought, etc. If DMCA had passed originally in this form, it would be much less destructive and hated.
Hence the reason they didn't do it this way in the first place.
"Hey, WTF man? You're cutting my whole leg off here!"
"Oh, sorry, how about just a foot then? Or, tell you what, let's just take the big toe and we'll call it even, okay?"
"Ahh, that's so much better, thanks!"
By making a big show of generously granting people rights that they already had, they can paper over the rest of the shoddy framework (takedown notice abuses, copyright trolling, etc., etc.) For bonus points, they'll have people feeling downright grateful about not being thrown in jail for treating their own purchased media as if they actually own it.
What about pre-paid plans where there is no contract?
Umm...they're pre paid? As in, already paid for?
You certainly can't get a hardware subsidy for a prepaid phone, and if you choose not to use your remaining purchased time on the carrier before switching to someone else, why would they care?
The only thing locking the hardware does for them is make it very difficult for their customers to rate shop.
I would think the usual order of things is BANG-> CRUNCH... :o)
^^^^^ This.
I gave both of my kids iTouch devices a few years ago. They still love them and game on them, but it pisses me off how every f'ing game has popups to download and install a new level, unlock, or companion game from the istore (for additional money). I have an android phone an see it slightly less often on my games.
If I could load up a kids store account with tokens or credits like on the Wii store that would be perfect.
Here you go.
See my post just above. No need to give them incidental access to a typical, no holds barred credit card: there are self-limiting options out there. They may have to track their own expenditures in order to know how much is left on the card, but hey, excellent learning opportunity! Balancing books is something most adults can't manage...
Do your kids have credit cards? It requires CC info and an online update before they can even use it. Afterwards they can charge up in-game-transactions at the press of a button. Just FYI, the system might not be what you expect.
So? Register with a $25 Visa or Mastercard gift card: self limiting, and who cares if the black hats scrape the number? When that runs out, update with a new card, if they got one for their birthday or whatever...
I look at this as a good way to teach them to be cautious and discriminating shoppers. They have a fixed amount: if they want to spend it all on Minecraft bling or the equivalent, that's fine, but when it runs out it's gone until their next birthday or Christmas or they spend their own money on a new card.
If you don't want to go through the hassle of re-registering a new card number each time they run out, there is also a reloadable pre-paid option. If the kids receive or earn cash, they can choose whether or not to load it on their card (or you might have to do it for them, depending on the T&C), but it's still self-limiting and much more secure than a 'normal' credit card.
BTW, the same principle applies to any micro-transaction site: Google certainly doesn't have my real CC number, yet I can still buy apps for my phone and tablet to my hearts content, worry free. I don't care if they share the number with app developers or get scraped or whatever: I think my remaining balance right now is about $15. Woo hoo, go to town... ;o)
Just a word of advice to these engineering redshirts; stay well away from the laser lab...and the biology lab, for that matter.
Really, just don't go there. In fact, try to stay out of those buildings altogether...and make sure everyone knows your last name. :p
Perhaps you are the one who doesn't get it. Why should a fully capable PC and a tablet be two different experiences?
Same reason automobile and airplane controls are different. Different use cases, even though they're both 'transportation devices'.
Trying to force desktop or laptop users to dumb down creation tasks to fit the restrictions of a tablet gui is like asking the pilot to fly without aileron controls...technically possible, but hardly comfortable.
At least it keeps the kids from having to swap discs on long car rides...but even that use case is quite hindered if you're restricted to 10 GB, unless your kids want to watch nothing but, say, the same three seasons of spongebob...over...and over...and over... On the other hand, give me a USB or SDHC port (and something behind the dash that can read what I put on there) and I'm happy as a clam on a long road trip :o)
Ford's implementation doesn't support video loading to the hard drive. You can only rip CDs. No, there is no way to directly copy MP3 or other media files, and although it will play a DVD, it won't play video files. Luckily, it rips at about 5x, and you can be listening to other things while it works. I loaded about 250 CDs during my commmute. Ford does have USB connections, and you can plug in pretty much any sized device, but the software for reading the tags from the tracks tends to get confused after about 5000 or so. So, I just load up old time radio shows, which take up a lot of time per track.
This kind of problem will never really be solved until car companies just bite the bullet and use Android as the controlling software. This would allow the user to add apps to extend functionality.
Allrighty then. Even less useful than I had imagined, although I suppose it would be nice to have instant access to my Weird Al albums whenever I'm in the car. Or, you know, I can use my phone and an aux plug, then I can listen to them everywhere! :)
unless your kids want to watch nothing but, say, the same three seasons of spongebob...over...and over...and over...
I can tell YOU never had kids... :)
At certain ages kids are quite willing to (and sometimes insistent on) watch the same material over and over. My oldest watched Aristocats and Aladin as many times as we allowed (or could stand) when she was young and my nephew insisted on watching specific parts of Mary Poppins repeatedly. (I still cannot stand to even listen to any of these movies.) Having three seasons of Sponge Bob would be *GREAT* for that age....
Yeah, that was a bit tongue in cheek :o) I don't have kids, but I babysat my nieces and nephews a lot a few years back while they were on a huge spongebob kick...to this day, I still cringe at the sound of the theme music.
It will go the same way as cable.
No. The difference is that digital streaming like YouTube or Netflix must compete. Cable systems own their regions and milk their subscribers. Streaming systems will never be able to jack rates like cable because they're fungible.
Had to actually look that one up, never ran across it before. Thanks for broadening my vocabulary! ;o)
Every single level? That's a bit over the top. I hit Windows-D to see the standard desktop and suddenly things are more familiar. When I want to launch something that I don't have a link for already on the traditional desktop, I hit windows and start to type the name of the program. It quickly finds it, I hit Enter and it launches. Maybe I'm more keyboard-centric than the average user, but I've found Win8 to be non-issue. If users are simply shown how to get away from the metro interface, it's really not so different.
Yeah...especially if you install Classic Shell*, so you don't have to ever deal with the 'Start Page' at all.
After getting my new laptop, I played around for a couple of hours, honestly trying to give the Windows 8 interface a fair shake. Sheer frustration drove me to find something that would stop Windows 8 from dicking me around, found and installed Classic Shell, and voila! Suddenly Windows 8 is useful, sleek (well, mostly) and intuitive again (as long as you don't want to work with any sort of system settings, that is...). No more jarring, uselessly-full-page-how-the-f$&k-do-I-get-rid-of-this-crap-again-aaagh! accidental mouse clicks, no more need to memorize a ridiculously long list of incredibly non-intuitive keyboard shortcuts just to be able to navigate in the basic interface, I know at a glance what applications are open or minimized and can close them easily, I have (mostly) full control over my screens real estate again, etc.
I don't think that Windows 8 performs better than Windows 7 for the most part, but it's at least comparable (and bearable) with that little bit of outside help. No way would I ever buy a standalone copy of Windows 8 in its current condition, though; it's simply not ready for production yet. If this laptop starts getting goofy, I'll throw Windows 7 on it instead of even trying to piss around restoring 8...
*That's right, forgot to donate to the project! Now where'd I put my PayPal login again? Ahh...there we go. More than worth it!
Office 2010 - not a whole lot different from 2007, but a lot more popular now that people are familiar with the Ribbon
I'm sorry, but no. Just because people are complaining vocally anymore about something originally done five years ago and another screw-up that took place three years ago doesn't mean things are ok now.
I got use to the ribbon, but I still hate it and it is still way less productive than the file menu.
Where are mod points when I want them? People lost the choice as it was use 2003 software or use the ribbon. Businesses eventually migrate as support and features in 2003 got dropped.
Productivity wise, 2003 file menus >>>>>> ribbon.
Heh, sez you. My company's still on Office 2003...and I am not looking forward to the planned Win 7 rollout this year, which will (I assume, but haven't confirmed it) include one of the crappy new Office platforms...*sigh*, say goodbye to office productivity for a couple of months, at the very least.
At home it's Libre Office all the way, even when I had a chance to get a home copy of Office 2007 at some ridiculous employee discount. Why mess with what works? Seems like MS never quite learns that lesson...
I would be very displeased if I bought a car that uses a mechanical drive that is going to get bumped around and severely damaged by a cars movement. I would expect that the car uses flash memory. 10GB of flash is still incredibly cheap (~$10) so I would expect more, but comparing desktop HDD capacity to that of a car's is asinine.
Agreed.
I do wonder, however, how well your average flash storage stands up to severe, sometimes rapid temperature cycling? My Google-fu must be a bit foggy today, since I can't seem to find any independent testing data, and I'm sure it's out there somewhere...
Meh. I could see permanent on-board storage being useful for movies in minivans, maybe. At least it keeps the kids from having to swap discs on long car rides...but even that use case is quite hindered if you're restricted to 10 GB, unless your kids want to watch nothing but, say, the same three seasons of spongebob...over...and over...and over...
On the other hand, give me a USB or SDHC port (and something behind the dash that can read what I put on there) and I'm happy as a clam on a long road trip :o)
If it can't, then Rachel on Alphas still has it beat!
Man that's a good show, can't wait for season three! Oh, wait...
...buy a monthly book bundle from Baen! :o)