Sure, now that you know about gait detection you know that you will have to spoof it should the need ever arise. Did you know that prior reading about it here? Chances are, very few people know about it.
Perhaps the most interesting and disturbing development in surveillance is gait detection systems. While a disguise will prevent facial recognition from working, and not saying anything will prevent lip reading from doing its job, there are systems being tested and deployed that can identify an individual by the way they walk (their gait). There are so many ways to positively identify people that implantable chips won't be necessary before long.
When using Apple's Boot Camp to install Windows, the Apple system will burn you a drivers disk with everything you need for the hardware on the machine to run just fine in Windows. What's to stop them from doing the same thing but for Linux? Granted, I'm not sure why you would want to abandon a slick BSD-derived O/S for Linux, but I'm sure there are lots of folks out there who would, and would love to have the built-in iSight and two-finger scroll Just Work(tm) with Ubuntu, Fedora Core, or whatever flavor of Linux Apple would want to support.
This will happen as soon as Apple makes it possible to compile Linux-native applications from XCode. The persistent rumor is that this functionality has been there all along, just as being able to run on Intel chips was there all along. The code name for this ability back in NextStep days was "yellowbox." It would be ironic if Apple made yellowbox available for *nix and not Windows!
Open sourcing Flex is nice and all, but if Adobe really wants to score points with the F/OSS community they will release Linux-native versions of their development environments for Flex development, including a free or community version like Microsoft's "Express" developer products for dotNET.
Leave it to Microsoft to throw a price cutting party where for "only $495 (per TFA) you can upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate!" How in the world does this make any sense at all when you can already buy full (not upgrade) OEM copies of Vista Ultimate for $199?
That makes no sense. Microsoft primarily makes their money from Windows and Office; with Linux making progress toward a usable desktop and OpenOffice.org already at the state where it can replace MS Office for most tasks, what can Microsoft use to lock people onto their platform? IIS? There's Apache. MSSQL? There are MySQL and PostgeSQL..NET? There is Mono and Java. There are two reasons why MS still exists: the huge amount of legacy code and applications that cannot run on any other systems, and the lack of corporate hand-holding for customers considering the jump to Linux (though this is rapidly changing). For companies that don't rely on legacy business applications, the ability to roll out Linux desktops to the bulk of their users can be done today. As the state of Linux apps business progress, there will be ever less reason for customers to play Microsoft's game.
This looks like it came out of the "French Headlines" section of a journalist's template guide:
1. French (insert object name here) a Catastrophe! 2. French (insert object name here) a Fiasco! 3. French (insert object name here) a Miserable Failure! 4. French (insert object name here) Surrendered!
Does TimeWarner indemnify themselves in case you get prosecuted for crimes committed on your open access point that they encouraged/paid you to open up? Considering the recent legal precedent on this question, who in their right mind would leave an access point open, even if they could be paid for doing so?
What would be interesting is an RSS feed highlighting all of the idiots who got busted for crimes they blogged about on their myspace page. I don't have the link but there was some knucklehead who just got busted for growing pott; the looser actually wrote about his in-house pott farm -- pictures and all -- on his myspace page. Assuming he's locked up until he his procreative powers expire, this would qualify him for a Darwin award...
With MS dropping the price, and with Apple/EMI selling non-DRM AAC tracks (which the Zune supports), MS should be able to sell literally DOZENS more of these bad boys!
My understanding is that modern processors don't run x86 natively either, but are doing highly optimized translations of x86 instructions on the fly. The path for this way of doing things was blazed by the likes of Transmeta and HP. Read Ars Technica's CPU theory and praxis articles for more information.
After reading over the Lua home page as well as the wikipedia entry, I'm left wondering if Lua is merely a language for writing extensions or if it's intended for building things (like, say, application frameworks?). The other thing I hope someone here can answer is this: are there no other languages designed for extending other applications? Why can't this be done in Ruby or Python or Perl or JavaScript? Not to offend the tens of Lua programmers reading this, but what's the point? What is it that Lua does better than other languages available for the task?
Adobe and MS should be happy about this
on
Web 2.0 Under Siege
·
· Score: -1, Flamebait
Or anyone else who would have a vested interest in seeing "Web 2.0" technology fail in order that they might sell us things like Flash developer platforms or WPF(/e) to solve our Web 2.0 woes.
It seems like every time we hear about a patent application on Slashdot it's usually followed up with lots of evidence of prior art, be it Google's Web Toolkit or something else. The US Patent and Trademark office doesn't have the manpower or expertise to thoroughly research every patent submission which seems to embolden schmucks to patent things they shouldn't or couldn't if there were competent safeguards in place. That being the case, let's "slsashdot" Congress with petitions to enact penalties ranging from administrative fees for honest mistakes to criminal charges -- and jail time for egregious offenders -- for frivolous applications in cases where someone is clearly in the wrong in filing for a patent. As long as there is no possibility of punishment to deter a flood of patents in the hopes of suing for royalties, this crap is only going to get worse.
Doesn't anyone use Google anymore? Do a quick search on AAC and do a little reading; you'll find that the same wonderful people who created MP3 also had a huge hand in creating AAC. Like MP3, it's a technology available to anyone who wants to pay a licensing fee. And like MP3, you should be able to create a LAME-like codec that doesn't infringe upon anyone's copyright. Suspecting you won't take the time to look this up either, I decided to do the research for you.on this point too. Guess what? FFMPEG has an AAC decoder and the code is non-infringing! Moreover, the iPod isn't the only portable player supporting AAC -- there are lots of them. Heck, even the Zune supports AAC! Do you think that would happen if Apple owned all of the rights to file format?
Of course, if you're using KDE on Windows as a migration step towards KDE on Linux, once you move to Linux the WIN32 API disappears along with the windows apps. If you're using KDE on Windows as a migration step toward Linux, then the disappearance of the Win32 API is the goal, not a problem. Hey Gnome developers -- I know you read these posts, Miguel! -- how much longer before you have something like Gnome/Win32 available? Y'all keep wondering when Linux on the desktop will be ready for prime time... As soon as you can deliver KDE/Win32 and/or Gnome/Win32, allow OpenOffice, Firefox, and all of the other F/OSS apps to run on these frameworks instead of the Win32 API stack, then sysadmins will be able to deprecate the Win32 apps one at a time in favor of the Linux apps (Evolution for Outlook, for example) until no more native Windows apps are left and you can nuke Windows & repave the hard drive with your favorite flavor of Linux. Moreover, if these frameworks actually WORK on Win32 and work well, then companies like Adobe will have a reason to make version of their products for KDE/Gnome/Linux, which means more momentum for Linux and more nails in Windows' coffin.
KDE for Windows would be nice, as well as Gnome for Windows. But what would really be helpful is an EASY way to set up a Linux application environment on Windows similar to Wine on Linux. That way users can get used to not only OpenOffice and Firefox, but also programs like Evolution, Grip, gEdit/KEdit, etc. so that when they finally switch over to Linux they won't have to figure out such things as "now what program do I use to replace iTunes that doesn't run on Windows and therefore I couldn't use/get frustrated with until now?" Does such a thing as "inverted Wine" exist, or is it going to be a by-application experience?
Is there something about RFID that allows only a certain set of RFID readers to be able to read the chip? What I want to know is: how do I get an RFID reader? I want mount an RFID reader in front of my house and log all of the cars that come by, when they come by, if they are staying within "view" of the RFID reader for a certain amount of time (like, say, arriving an hour after I leave for work and leaving an hour before I return), etc. Pretty much every car is going to have RFID tagging in the near future, if only by way of the RFID chips being placed in new tired these days, so the only "hard" part will be correlating the RFID to a person's identity, but if the RFID can trigger a video recorder then this challenge is narrowed down. Also, I want RFID stickers and/or micro-darts I can surreptitiously plant/shoot onto the neighborhood brat's skateboard so I can log and record their presence and what they're doing around my house... and above all else: I want an RFID jammer! Why? BECAUSE I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!!!
I realize Apple traditionally plays to the musical and artistic types (among others), but where did the long haired, dope smoking, rock and roll types at Rolling Stone get the idea that this was a two-way street on which they could be competent journalists of matters of IT and the tech industry? Apparently the drugs are affecting their grasp of reality more than they realized. What's next: VIBE giving a breakdown of Windows Vista's security and performance issues, or Cat Fanciers magazine explaining why Ruby on Rails will eclipse Java, PHP, Perl, and ASP.NET as the web platform for the next fifty years?
Actually, scratch that last one -- there isn't enough drugs or catnip in the world to come to a conclusion like that...
Modern politics is just too bizarre. The Republicans used to be the ones who were for less government involvement in an individuals life, then the Democrats appeared to have taken up that flag, but now with the National ID card (papers please), both parties seem to be endorsing this movement. It's not bizarre at all, you're just not looking at it from the right perspective. The republicans and democrats aren't about liberalism or conservatism; they are about globalism both economically and politically.
Take organized crime as an example. The Gambino family and the Genovese family have their own interests, but they will collectively go after anti-mob activity or petty gangsters encroaching on their turf. It's the same with the republicans and democrats, and it's why you don't see anyone from parties like the Greens, Libertarian, Constitution, etc making it anywhere in politics.
Why not establish a slashdot-style moderation system, requiring the mods to be backed by rational explanation and not just "I like language X therefore this is cool."
Why can't they set up a proper clone of the iTunes store and simply allow folks who aren't already paying the franchise fee to buy shows -- like Top Gear, for example -- for a nominal fee?
Speaking of shows for a nominal fee, does anyone know of any legality or reason why Apple can't sell BBC shows on the US iTunes store, or is it just a matter of the BBC or Apple not wanting to sell shows?
When they get done fixing the broken system for certifying voting machines, how about an effort to screen the certifiable morons who keep getting onto the ballot?
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, now that you know about gait detection you know that you will have to spoof it should the need ever arise. Did you know that prior reading about it here? Chances are, very few people know about it.
Perhaps the most interesting and disturbing development in surveillance is gait detection systems. While a disguise will prevent facial recognition from working, and not saying anything will prevent lip reading from doing its job, there are systems being tested and deployed that can identify an individual by the way they walk (their gait). There are so many ways to positively identify people that implantable chips won't be necessary before long.
When using Apple's Boot Camp to install Windows, the Apple system will burn you a drivers disk with everything you need for the hardware on the machine to run just fine in Windows. What's to stop them from doing the same thing but for Linux? Granted, I'm not sure why you would want to abandon a slick BSD-derived O/S for Linux, but I'm sure there are lots of folks out there who would, and would love to have the built-in iSight and two-finger scroll Just Work(tm) with Ubuntu, Fedora Core, or whatever flavor of Linux Apple would want to support.
This will happen as soon as Apple makes it possible to compile Linux-native applications from XCode. The persistent rumor is that this functionality has been there all along, just as being able to run on Intel chips was there all along. The code name for this ability back in NextStep days was "yellowbox." It would be ironic if Apple made yellowbox available for *nix and not Windows!
Open sourcing Flex is nice and all, but if Adobe really wants to score points with the F/OSS community they will release Linux-native versions of their development environments for Flex development, including a free or community version like Microsoft's "Express" developer products for dotNET.
Leave it to Microsoft to throw a price cutting party where for "only $495 (per TFA) you can upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate!" How in the world does this make any sense at all when you can already buy full (not upgrade) OEM copies of Vista Ultimate for $199?
That makes no sense. Microsoft primarily makes their money from Windows and Office; with Linux making progress toward a usable desktop and OpenOffice.org already at the state where it can replace MS Office for most tasks, what can Microsoft use to lock people onto their platform? IIS? There's Apache. MSSQL? There are MySQL and PostgeSQL. .NET? There is Mono and Java. There are two reasons why MS still exists: the huge amount of legacy code and applications that cannot run on any other systems, and the lack of corporate hand-holding for customers considering the jump to Linux (though this is rapidly changing). For companies that don't rely on legacy business applications, the ability to roll out Linux desktops to the bulk of their users can be done today. As the state of Linux apps business progress, there will be ever less reason for customers to play Microsoft's game.
This looks like it came out of the "French Headlines" section of a journalist's template guide:
1. French (insert object name here) a Catastrophe!
2. French (insert object name here) a Fiasco!
3. French (insert object name here) a Miserable Failure!
4. French (insert object name here) Surrendered!
Does TimeWarner indemnify themselves in case you get prosecuted for crimes committed on your open access point that they encouraged/paid you to open up? Considering the recent legal precedent on this question, who in their right mind would leave an access point open, even if they could be paid for doing so?
What would be interesting is an RSS feed highlighting all of the idiots who got busted for crimes they blogged about on their myspace page. I don't have the link but there was some knucklehead who just got busted for growing pott; the looser actually wrote about his in-house pott farm -- pictures and all -- on his myspace page. Assuming he's locked up until he his procreative powers expire, this would qualify him for a Darwin award...
With MS dropping the price, and with Apple/EMI selling non-DRM AAC tracks (which the Zune supports), MS should be able to sell literally DOZENS more of these bad boys!
My understanding is that modern processors don't run x86 natively either, but are doing highly optimized translations of x86 instructions on the fly. The path for this way of doing things was blazed by the likes of Transmeta and HP. Read Ars Technica's CPU theory and praxis articles for more information.
After reading over the Lua home page as well as the wikipedia entry, I'm left wondering if Lua is merely a language for writing extensions or if it's intended for building things (like, say, application frameworks?). The other thing I hope someone here can answer is this: are there no other languages designed for extending other applications? Why can't this be done in Ruby or Python or Perl or JavaScript? Not to offend the tens of Lua programmers reading this, but what's the point? What is it that Lua does better than other languages available for the task?
Or anyone else who would have a vested interest in seeing "Web 2.0" technology fail in order that they might sell us things like Flash developer platforms or WPF(/e) to solve our Web 2.0 woes.
It seems like every time we hear about a patent application on Slashdot it's usually followed up with lots of evidence of prior art, be it Google's Web Toolkit or something else. The US Patent and Trademark office doesn't have the manpower or expertise to thoroughly research every patent submission which seems to embolden schmucks to patent things they shouldn't or couldn't if there were competent safeguards in place. That being the case, let's "slsashdot" Congress with petitions to enact penalties ranging from administrative fees for honest mistakes to criminal charges -- and jail time for egregious offenders -- for frivolous applications in cases where someone is clearly in the wrong in filing for a patent. As long as there is no possibility of punishment to deter a flood of patents in the hopes of suing for royalties, this crap is only going to get worse.
Doesn't anyone use Google anymore? Do a quick search on AAC and do a little reading; you'll find that the same wonderful people who created MP3 also had a huge hand in creating AAC. Like MP3, it's a technology available to anyone who wants to pay a licensing fee. And like MP3, you should be able to create a LAME-like codec that doesn't infringe upon anyone's copyright. Suspecting you won't take the time to look this up either, I decided to do the research for you.on this point too. Guess what? FFMPEG has an AAC decoder and the code is non-infringing! Moreover, the iPod isn't the only portable player supporting AAC -- there are lots of them. Heck, even the Zune supports AAC! Do you think that would happen if Apple owned all of the rights to file format?
Then kindly explain how to install and run gedit on Windows.
KDE for Windows would be nice, as well as Gnome for Windows. But what would really be helpful is an EASY way to set up a Linux application environment on Windows similar to Wine on Linux. That way users can get used to not only OpenOffice and Firefox, but also programs like Evolution, Grip, gEdit/KEdit, etc. so that when they finally switch over to Linux they won't have to figure out such things as "now what program do I use to replace iTunes that doesn't run on Windows and therefore I couldn't use/get frustrated with until now?" Does such a thing as "inverted Wine" exist, or is it going to be a by-application experience?
Is there something about RFID that allows only a certain set of RFID readers to be able to read the chip? What I want to know is: how do I get an RFID reader? I want mount an RFID reader in front of my house and log all of the cars that come by, when they come by, if they are staying within "view" of the RFID reader for a certain amount of time (like, say, arriving an hour after I leave for work and leaving an hour before I return), etc. Pretty much every car is going to have RFID tagging in the near future, if only by way of the RFID chips being placed in new tired these days, so the only "hard" part will be correlating the RFID to a person's identity, but if the RFID can trigger a video recorder then this challenge is narrowed down. Also, I want RFID stickers and/or micro-darts I can surreptitiously plant/shoot onto the neighborhood brat's skateboard so I can log and record their presence and what they're doing around my house... and above all else: I want an RFID jammer! Why? BECAUSE I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!!!
I realize Apple traditionally plays to the musical and artistic types (among others), but where did the long haired, dope smoking, rock and roll types at Rolling Stone get the idea that this was a two-way street on which they could be competent journalists of matters of IT and the tech industry? Apparently the drugs are affecting their grasp of reality more than they realized. What's next: VIBE giving a breakdown of Windows Vista's security and performance issues, or Cat Fanciers magazine explaining why Ruby on Rails will eclipse Java, PHP, Perl, and ASP.NET as the web platform for the next fifty years?
Actually, scratch that last one -- there isn't enough drugs or catnip in the world to come to a conclusion like that...
Take organized crime as an example. The Gambino family and the Genovese family have their own interests, but they will collectively go after anti-mob activity or petty gangsters encroaching on their turf. It's the same with the republicans and democrats, and it's why you don't see anyone from parties like the Greens, Libertarian, Constitution, etc making it anywhere in politics.
Why not establish a slashdot-style moderation system, requiring the mods to be backed by rational explanation and not just "I like language X therefore this is cool."
Why can't they set up a proper clone of the iTunes store and simply allow folks who aren't already paying the franchise fee to buy shows -- like Top Gear, for example -- for a nominal fee?
Speaking of shows for a nominal fee, does anyone know of any legality or reason why Apple can't sell BBC shows on the US iTunes store, or is it just a matter of the BBC or Apple not wanting to sell shows?
When they get done fixing the broken system for certifying voting machines, how about an effort to screen the certifiable morons who keep getting onto the ballot?