Secure?? how?
on
Secure PDAs
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
How does the fact that it uses Biometrics make it secure? We all know that biometrics can be defeated rather easily. So what's the point? fingerprinting is easy to defeat. So are voice prints and eye scans. So someone please tell me how exactly this is more secure than the average linux PDA?
As long as you can play the audio back, you can record it.
Nowadays, most audio systems come with digital audio out capabilities and most PC sound cards come with digital audio IN capabilities.
So you can get the music with no loss of quality onto your PC. Once it's on your PC, you can make mp3s, oggs, mix it...whatever.
The only thing it's really blocking is the retrieval of CDDB info. Even the tracks can be split up from the track lengths as the data comes in. And guess what? It hardly takes a few minutes to get the track info off the web given the CD name and then copy-paste into your favorite tag editor.
So what is all this copy-protection accomplishing? Nothing but irritation. It's not preventing ANYONE from copying music. Also, I am curious to know whether the law about making a personal backup would apply here? If it does, would that not make copy prevention illegal?
The article mentions phased array antennas. You can do some really wonderful things with phased arrays, so I don't doubt their claim. The problem is that they are usually quite expensive, take up a lot of space, AND usually require considerable processing (note that they do mention the antenna must be placed in "the corner of a large office"). It remains to be seen how these guys plan to work around those obstacles. Another thing ofcourse is the question as to whether the range on the antennas is programmable. It's quite natural for a business organization not to want someone a few blocks away to be able to take a crack at network security
About time somebody did something like this. I mean, to the average Joe, the advantages of FOSS are obvious. But the DoD need documents, papers...anything written. It's similar to businesses WANTING to pay for software and therefore keeping away from FOSS.
I guess everyone was waiting for somebody to basically do a "study" or write a paper that could be quoted or "fallen back upon" if you will.
Then again, this report is about the fact that FOSS already plays a more critical role. My point is, it's high time somebody came out and recognised the fact. Great job on the paper.
This is what happens when you increase defense spending by a huge amount - they don't know what to do with it, so at that point, crazy little applications like smart paint start getting approved. How about worrying about improving the 50% chance that the National Missile Defense program has of intercepting an incoming nuke? And even THAT's assuming that the missile follows a plain vanilla trajectory with no fancy moves. Flame me if you want, but this is what you get when you put a kiddish idiot who likes to play with guns in the white house.
Sure, less than a buck a song sounds good...UNTIL...
You realise it'll take you 20 bucks to burn one CD's worth - ie. 20 Mp3s, which won't fill up a CD - so now, for one Mp3 CD which can hold, say 100 songs at a conservative estimate, you're paying 100 bucks! Think about that.
The idea, however, is good. It gives the customer a little more choice. The price, however, is NOT. This is not an example of businesses meeting the customer...it's an example of businesses MILKING the customer. Wait, don't flame me yet - I have justification: The recording studios are already charging say...between $14 and $18 for an audio CD - we're talking uncompressed, high-quality music.
Now, they want me to shell out more for something that is of lower quality? I'm sorry, but this sucks. Also, what about copyright information embedded in the Mp3? I bet there'll be some. Or even water-marking perhaps. Do I, as a customer, have control of that? I don't think so.
Give me the same thing for about 50 cents a song with the choice of what format i want it and I might consider it. After all, this is lower quality audio that won't sound better no matter what i do since it is lossy compression in the first place.
Automatic climate control: Temperature and moisture sensor with wireless capabilities embedded into your clothes. They monitor your skins reactions to the temperature of the room and automatically adjust the room temperature so you feel comfortable:)
Side effect : Geeks fighting over who gets a higher priority in a multi-user environment:)
Wait a while to see if any errors/security holes pop-up. THEN go out and download it. Chances are you've already patched the version you have. Don't replace it with the new one until you're sure that's a good thing. It'll just save you a lot of extra work.
Depends on what you're doing with the server
on
Going Itanium 2?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
1) Does the server work with quantities of data that would make it inconvenient to use a 32-bit proc? If so, yes you need an Itanium. I'd say wait for the AMD-Hammer too and the inevitable price drop;) 2) Have you looked at clustering? This might be a good alternative too if you have a lot of number-crunching to do. 3) If you're looking at databases, I'd suggest looking at "a 64 bit proc", not necessarily the Itanium.
to cut a long story short - what you REALLY want to look is if you really do need a 64 bit proc and if you do, don't necessarily look at Intel - check out the competition too and go for the one that gives you the best performance for your particular application- I'm assuming price doesn't matter that much here.
You talk about Palladium being trusted and secure computing. Are there any provisions for backdoors so any content generated by the "secure" technologies can be monitored? If so, how secure will these backdoors be from malicious hackers?
I just got back from India a month ago and had advised a guy over there who was going to start his BE to start learning Linux as by the time he graduated, it'd be pretty big. Who knew something like this was over the horizon?:)
Anyway, on a more serious note, it's a really good thing. Previously software piracy was rampant basically because of the reason that buying software legally was just working out TOO expensive to the home user. Shifting to open source and Linux will kill two birds with one stone :
1) It will drastically reduce piracy since students will now want Linux on their home machines and the majority of the home computer purchases in India are done "so my kids can use it".
2) It will produce a HUGE amount of software solutions for Linux in the long run (when these kids graduate) that will go a long way to helping the idea of open source.
India has always been known for their contributions to the software world and I have a feeling that this is finally a chance for something realy good to come out of it - why there's even talk of developing an Indian version of Linux!
DRM is wrong. Given the fact that it's a law that the person who buys the software has the right to make a backup copy, it's a perfect example of corporate America pushing the envelope on what they can get away with - as in, keep making it more difficult to make a backup. What DRM SHOULD be is a technology that allows the purchaser to make a backup, but not distribute that backup - something along the lines of authentication that the person installing the software from backup is who he says he is (using smart cards comes to mind here). In it's current form, we need to fight DRM as it is nothing but another monopoly tool.
On a different note, Fritz is going to get a thorough beating. Why? Because Kramnik is known for his defensive play and he even bested Karparov using the Berlin Defense. Now, what is needed is either a LOT more processing power to search for the right moves, or a little unpredictability (which I think would be better). GMs and IMs use programs like Fritz everyday for practice and hence know it's playing style. Though you can train Fritz depending on what game databases you feed it, it still plays like a computer. Contrast this with the fact that a program called Arasan beat Vishwanathan Anand (currently no. 2) in a best of three Blitz tournament, because it had trained on Anand's games, AND, the programming team drastically changed it's playing style before the match. It is easy for a computer to change it's playing style and still play well - not so for a human. I feel this is what they should be concentrating on - unpredictability.
If you look at how long it has taken Linux to evolve versus how long it has taken MS to evolve Windows, I think everyone will agree that the pace has been faster on the OSS side.
The moment you can get the average joe to move to a free OS like Linux, and the moment you can do it on a large scale, you're also fighting other MS technologies like DRM and other "customer experience enhancing" technologies because they get lower acceptance.
Now, don't flame me yet. This is looking at the long term and unifying KDE and Gnome is one way to really accelarate it. It'll take some time to do it, but if you really look at it, it just might be for the better good.
Sorry to say it, but it's high time the KDE - Gnome squabble stopped and both teams started concentrating on a unified desktop.
Consider this : given the fact that both are so refined already, if both worked together, you'd have a UI that easily bypasses anything MS can come up with and Linux becomes a viable desktop for Joe and Jane user (it already is for Joe and Jane techie).
Again, Linux NEEDS a unified desktop. I can't say it more. It may sound sad, but it has to be done.
Though radial context menus are supposed to be faster than mouse gestures, I disagree for one simple reason:
You need to click twice - once to start the radial menu, and once more to confirm your choice. Also the fact that the menu moves with the mouse is a tad dis-orienting when you're trying to learn them (compared to this, mouse gestures have a much smaller learning curve).
I've tried both for quite some time now and gestures definitely win. Ofcourse, that's because I'm using a mouse.
I could definitely see trackball users getting a lot of good use out of radial context menus.
Anyway, both these features go a LONG way in bringing converts into the mozilla camp and that's a good thing for Open Source.
Question is, AOL now has a reputation of being "the software bad boy" due to it's incessant advertising, unrequested desktop shortcuts and irritating banners.
So is it really a good thing having AOL associated with Linux? On the one hand, you have a HUGE potential user base, while on the other you have an automatic aversion to AOL.
You then effectively have "Open XM" digital radio. This would also boost the demand for hardware OGG decoders and give OGG some much needed exposure. Ofcourse, after that, "Open TV" won't be far behind.
Slashdot Mirror
How does the fact that it uses Biometrics make it secure? We all know that biometrics can be defeated rather easily. So what's the point? fingerprinting is easy to defeat. So are voice prints and eye scans. So someone please tell me how exactly this is more secure than the average linux PDA?
MP3 and OGG are essentially based on filtering OUT audio that would be not be heard due to psychoacoustic masking :) ..... so.....guess what? :)
:) OSS to the rescue fighting unwanted ads again!
Just chain a realtime OGG encoder to the incoming music stream and it should strip the info! HEHE
As long as you can play the audio back, you can record it.
Nowadays, most audio systems come with digital audio out capabilities and most PC sound cards come with digital audio IN capabilities.
So you can get the music with no loss of quality onto your PC. Once it's on your PC, you can make mp3s, oggs, mix it...whatever.
The only thing it's really blocking is the retrieval of CDDB info. Even the tracks can be split up from the track lengths as the data comes in. And guess what? It hardly takes a few minutes to get the track info off the web given the CD name and then copy-paste into your favorite tag editor.
So what is all this copy-protection accomplishing? Nothing but irritation. It's not preventing ANYONE from copying music. Also, I am curious to know whether the law about making a personal backup would apply here? If it does, would that not make copy prevention illegal?
The article mentions phased array antennas. You can do some really wonderful things with phased arrays, so I don't doubt their claim. The problem is that they are usually quite expensive, take up a lot of space, AND usually require considerable processing (note that they do mention the antenna must be placed in "the corner of a large office"). It remains to be seen how these guys plan to work around those obstacles.
Another thing ofcourse is the question as to whether the range on the antennas is programmable. It's quite natural for a business organization not to want someone a few blocks away to be able to take a crack at network security
About time somebody did something like this. I mean, to the average Joe, the advantages of FOSS are obvious. But the DoD need documents, papers...anything written. It's similar to businesses WANTING to pay for software and therefore keeping away from FOSS.
I guess everyone was waiting for somebody to basically do a "study" or write a paper that could be quoted or "fallen back upon" if you will.
Then again, this report is about the fact that FOSS already plays a more critical role. My point is, it's high time somebody came out and recognised the fact. Great job on the paper.
This is what happens when you increase defense spending by a huge amount - they don't know what to do with it, so at that point, crazy little applications like smart paint start getting approved.
How about worrying about improving the 50% chance that the National Missile Defense program has of intercepting an incoming nuke? And even THAT's assuming that the missile follows a plain vanilla trajectory with no fancy moves.
Flame me if you want, but this is what you get when you put a kiddish idiot who likes to play with guns in the white house.
Sure, less than a buck a song sounds good...UNTIL...
:
You realise it'll take you 20 bucks to burn one CD's worth - ie. 20 Mp3s, which won't fill up a CD - so now, for one Mp3 CD which can hold, say 100 songs at a conservative estimate, you're paying 100 bucks! Think about that.
The idea, however, is good. It gives the customer a little more choice. The price, however, is NOT. This is not an example of businesses meeting the customer...it's an example of businesses MILKING the customer. Wait, don't flame me yet - I have justification
The recording studios are already charging say...between $14 and $18 for an audio CD - we're talking uncompressed, high-quality music.
Now, they want me to shell out more for something that is of lower quality? I'm sorry, but this sucks. Also, what about copyright information embedded in the Mp3? I bet there'll be some. Or even water-marking perhaps. Do I, as a customer, have control of that? I don't think so.
Give me the same thing for about 50 cents a song with the choice of what format i want it and I might consider it. After all, this is lower quality audio that won't sound better no matter what i do since it is lossy compression in the first place.
Automatic climate control : :)
:)
Temperature and moisture sensor with wireless capabilities embedded into your clothes. They monitor your skins reactions to the temperature of the room and automatically adjust the room temperature so you feel comfortable
Side effect : Geeks fighting over who gets a higher priority in a multi-user environment
One organ transplant and a plate of pork chops to go please!
A guy with a heart problem caused by cholestrol getting a heart that came from a fat pig!
This.
:)
Sadly, it's been discontinued, which is why you'll only find it in Google's cache.
Cool idea though.
On a lighter note, you could now have water cooling linked to a nice decorative fish tank - hell you don't even need real fish
slashdotito ergo sum.
Wait a while to see if any errors/security holes pop-up. THEN go out and download it. Chances are you've already patched the version you have. Don't replace it with the new one until you're sure that's a good thing. It'll just save you a lot of extra work.
1) Does the server work with quantities of data that would make it inconvenient to use a 32-bit proc? If so, yes you need an Itanium. I'd say wait for the AMD-Hammer too and the inevitable price drop ;)
2) Have you looked at clustering? This might be a good alternative too if you have a lot of number-crunching to do.
3) If you're looking at databases, I'd suggest looking at "a 64 bit proc", not necessarily the Itanium.
to cut a long story short - what you REALLY want to look is if you really do need a 64 bit proc and if you do, don't necessarily look at Intel - check out the competition too and go for the one that gives you the best performance for your particular application- I'm assuming price doesn't matter that much here.
You talk about Palladium being trusted and secure computing. Are there any provisions for backdoors so any content generated by the "secure" technologies can be monitored? If so, how secure will these backdoors be from malicious hackers?
I just got back from India a month ago and had advised a guy over there who was going to start his BE to start learning Linux as by the time he graduated, it'd be pretty big. Who knew something like this was over the horizon? :)
Anyway, on a more serious note, it's a really good thing. Previously software piracy was rampant basically because of the reason that buying software legally was just working out TOO expensive to the home user. Shifting to open source and Linux will kill two birds with one stone :
1) It will drastically reduce piracy since students will now want Linux on their home machines and the majority of the home computer purchases in India are done "so my kids can use it".
2) It will produce a HUGE amount of software solutions for Linux in the long run (when these kids graduate) that will go a long way to helping the idea of open source.
India has always been known for their contributions to the software world and I have a feeling that this is finally a chance for something realy good to come out of it - why there's even talk of developing an Indian version of Linux!
DRM is wrong. Given the fact that it's a law that the person who buys the software has the right to make a backup copy, it's a perfect example of corporate America pushing the envelope on what they can get away with - as in, keep making it more difficult to make a backup. What DRM SHOULD be is a technology that allows the purchaser to make a backup, but not distribute that backup - something along the lines of authentication that the person installing the software from backup is who he says he is (using smart cards comes to mind here). In it's current form, we need to fight DRM as it is nothing but another monopoly tool.
On a different note, Fritz is going to get a thorough beating. Why? Because Kramnik is known for his defensive play and he even bested Karparov using the Berlin Defense. Now, what is needed is either a LOT more processing power to search for the right moves, or a little unpredictability (which I think would be better). GMs and IMs use programs like Fritz everyday for practice and hence know it's playing style. Though you can train Fritz depending on what game databases you feed it, it still plays like a computer. Contrast this with the fact that a program called Arasan beat Vishwanathan Anand (currently no. 2) in a best of three Blitz tournament, because it had trained on Anand's games, AND, the programming team drastically changed it's playing style before the match. It is easy for a computer to change it's playing style and still play well - not so for a human. I feel this is what they should be concentrating on - unpredictability.
Another thing :
If you look at how long it has taken Linux to evolve versus how long it has taken MS to evolve Windows, I think everyone will agree that the pace has been faster on the OSS side.
The moment you can get the average joe to move to a free OS like Linux, and the moment you can do it on a large scale, you're also fighting other MS technologies like DRM and other "customer experience enhancing" technologies because they get lower acceptance.
Now, don't flame me yet. This is looking at the long term and unifying KDE and Gnome is one way to really accelarate it. It'll take some time to do it, but if you really look at it, it just might be for the better good.
Sorry to say it, but it's high time the KDE - Gnome squabble stopped and both teams started concentrating on a unified desktop.
Consider this : given the fact that both are so refined already, if both worked together, you'd have a UI that easily bypasses anything MS can come up with and Linux becomes a viable desktop for Joe and Jane user (it already is for Joe and Jane techie).
Again, Linux NEEDS a unified desktop. I can't say it more. It may sound sad, but it has to be done.
Though radial context menus are supposed to be faster than mouse gestures, I disagree for one simple reason :
You need to click twice - once to start the radial menu, and once more to confirm your choice. Also the fact that the menu moves with the mouse is a tad dis-orienting when you're trying to learn them (compared to this, mouse gestures have a much smaller learning curve).
I've tried both for quite some time now and gestures definitely win. Ofcourse, that's because I'm using a mouse.
I could definitely see trackball users getting a lot of good use out of radial context menus.
Anyway, both these features go a LONG way in bringing converts into the mozilla camp and that's a good thing for Open Source.
Question is, AOL now has a reputation of being "the software bad boy" due to it's incessant advertising, unrequested desktop shortcuts and irritating banners.
So is it really a good thing having AOL associated with Linux? On the one hand, you have a HUGE potential user base, while on the other you have an automatic aversion to AOL.
You then effectively have "Open XM" digital radio. This would also boost the demand for hardware OGG decoders and give OGG some much needed exposure.
Ofcourse, after that, "Open TV" won't be far behind.
Take the machine away from him and put it in a museum! :)
It's the only machine we know that runs Windows successfully
What's the battery life? It's not mentioned anywhere and I'm curious for how long you'd be able to play with these cars - 10? 15 mins?
:)
I think these things would need a "page" button too
Is it possible that Apple may be considering some form of DRM too?