What I have not seen, however, is anyone actually buying them.
Actually, I've thought about it, but always balked at adding yet another device and associated charger to my travel bag of tricks. Converge it with my iPod, however, so I have music, movies, and audiobooks all in the same device, and I'm in like Flint. Add an ebook reader and I'd be in seventh heaven.
Yeah, I haven't seen at least a dozen or so different portable DVD players over at Best Buy. People aren't building portable screens into the back of their SUV/minivan car seats. Practically every notebook produced today with an internal media drive doesn't have DVD capabilities. Every airport I wander through doesn't have a kiosk or three renting DVDs and portable players.
I totally agree. No trend here. People don't want 'em at all.
We can agree to disagree, but if you think someone nuking Washington is going to improve things, that people aren't going to demand that things become locked down to the point where it never, ever, happens again, then I have to wonder what Hans Christian Andersen fairytale version of history you and your fellow anarchists been feeding yourselves.
Soviet Russia managed to lock things down for over half a century, without the 24/7 eyes-and-ears-everywhere monitoring technology we could have now.
Yeah, they eventually took themselves down, but only because they overspent trying to keep up with us. And I don't know about you, but I have no wish to live the rest of my life in "that" half-century.
You're missing the point. It doesn't matter if someone halfway across the worlds hacks an encrypted DVD, as if you want it, you still need to receive it.
It doesn't matter if they encrypt the crack and scatter all the pieces among all the different p2p servers out there, as you, sitting at home, still need to receive all of those pieces.
So to an ISP's data monitoring system, downloading an aac (known data) from iTunes (known source) is one thing. In a word, legal. Downloading a ton of obscure encrypted data from N number of unknown and potentially suspect sources gives an entirely different signature.
One that could be used to "flag" an account for future notice...
Of course, you're totally immersed in other activities sitting on a plane, train, or bus. Or if you're a passenger in a car on a trip. Or peddling away at the gym. Or sitting in a waiting room. Or hotel room. Or sitting around somewhere on a night shift. Or...
You get the idea. There's a ton of dead time in which such a thing could be useful, in addition to the fact that you can STILL use it to play music the rest of the time.
As to battery life, that's an unknown assumption. But really, all it needs to do is exceed the current 3-4 hours you get spinning a DVD in existing players and/or notebooks.
Since the device doesn't yet exist (commercially at least), and we don't know how big the files would be for watching strictly on the pod, I have to question your "all that energy" comment.
Or to put it another way, yeah, I'd spend ten minutes or so transferring a movie and some TV shows I haven't seen yet to a pod so I can watch them on an airplane. Especially since my time is just dragging them to the pod, and walking away while it does its thing.
Oh yeah. New Mac mini's as the best way to download and store that music and video. Firewire video input devices so you can also use it as a DVR. AirPort systems throughout the house so you stream said music and video where ever you want it.
You're right. They have a HUGE target market in mind...
I disagree. If you know where you're going, and you're positive it's a place worth going, then just do it.
Better, like Apple, to take the big step all at once so people see how it all fits together and everything works together in a consistent fashion.
Otherwise, if you spread it out over a long series of releases, people are going to become skittish. "What are they breaking this time?"
Even forcing ISPs to not transmit DRM-protected media won't help because after being cracked and encrypted...
Huh. You're right. It can't be identified. Of course, you're now receiving an awful lot of data that can't be identified as trusted data coming from a trusted source.
No, they're supposed to study a half-dozen different distro's to determine what's best for them, replace all non-compliant hardward, Google for drivers (on another computer), learn a dozen or so CLI and configuration file languages, learn to rebuild the kernel, find FOS software replacements for all the programs Linux will no longer run, and then download, install, and configure those as well.
Since the tracker "tracks" the ip addresses of BT clients that are interested in the file, would it not also need to save and track the port number? Or is anyone that hits my machine for a portion of the file expected to scan all of the ports first looking for the one used by the BT client?
Division and diversity is the strength of the opensource community. If people still can not see that that is why linux is still alive, and others who tried... have failed...
Utter nonsense. Linux is alive for two main reasons: it, and most of the applications that run on it, are free and they tend to work. Take away either of those two and we would not be having this conversation.
Free means that the TCO is low enough to make learning a new system and supporting it worthwhile. But no OS is worth anything if there are no stable applications on that platform. If Apache and mySQL were flakey and crash prone Linux would never have gained enough momentum to get out of the gate.
The other systems mentioned had issues, never had a large and stable base of applications, and wanted people to pay for those things to boot. Look at Apple, they have an equally stable OS, but had to go and write most of the applications that people use on their platform.
But look at any market (autos, consumer electronics) and you'll see that, eventually, controls and media and connectors and whatnot do consolidate and standardize, because people also tend to want things to work, and to work the way that they're used to.
People who buck that trend better have a VERY good reason for doing so. And Linux, unfortunately, with KDE/Gnome, multiple installers, kernels, drivers, and so on, tends to have way too many people who want to do things differently just because they are different.
Consider, "Nature likes three (3) in primaries, as color in light (additive - red, blue, green) and paint (subtractive - blue, yellow, red) from which we can create all other colors in the rainbow. This applies to abstraction physics as well, as there are three primary user interfaces."
So "nature" likes threes, and created three primary user interfaces...
Right. I mean, with such pseudo-scientific "logic" as this on our side, how can we loose?
According to Silkejr above, "Yes, they are. But they've been doing that for more than a year now."
Be that as it may be, this is the first I've heard of people being targeted in that fashion. And not to discredit BT, but if hackers are reverse-targeting P2P machines, then the people that use such software need to know about it.
I have av, a firewall, and am current on updates, so I'm about as "safe" as one can be. However, my system shows NO probes over the past week, up until the point where I fired up BT and hit a tracker. Suddenly I'm hit with over two dozen probes to ports other than 6881, the BT port.
I manage a site with a mere 20,000 members, and I get phish attempts bounced back from people pretending to be from my site on a daily basis. You don't have to be one of the "bigs" to have the problem, but according to you each one of us with a mail server should spend their hours collecting all of that information...
...which, if you're doing it the way you say you are, makes you a piss-poor system administrator. Yeah, MS could, like you, GUESS which servers ebay is using today to send it's e-mail. Which doesn't mean that they'd actually find all of them, nor would they (nor you) know where ebay's backups and secondaries may reside, nor will you know when they suddenly change them or use them.
Unlike SPF, which exists to TELL you (and me, and everyone else) precisely and exactly where they are, currently in use or not.
You're not "solving" anything, and probably screwing up your user's e-mail to boot...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I've thought about it, but always balked at adding yet another device and associated charger to my travel bag of tricks. Converge it with my iPod, however, so I have music, movies, and audiobooks all in the same device, and I'm in like Flint. Add an ebook reader and I'd be in seventh heaven.
Yeah, I haven't seen at least a dozen or so different portable DVD players over at Best Buy. People aren't building portable screens into the back of their SUV/minivan car seats. Practically every notebook produced today with an internal media drive doesn't have DVD capabilities. Every airport I wander through doesn't have a kiosk or three renting DVDs and portable players.
I totally agree. No trend here. People don't want 'em at all.
Soviet Russia managed to lock things down for over half a century, without the 24/7 eyes-and-ears-everywhere monitoring technology we could have now.
Yeah, they eventually took themselves down, but only because they overspent trying to keep up with us. And I don't know about you, but I have no wish to live the rest of my life in "that" half-century.
True. But that in turn assumes I want to give such people my credit card number to start with...
It doesn't matter if they encrypt the crack and scatter all the pieces among all the different p2p servers out there, as you, sitting at home, still need to receive all of those pieces.
So to an ISP's data monitoring system, downloading an aac (known data) from iTunes (known source) is one thing. In a word, legal. Downloading a ton of obscure encrypted data from N number of unknown and potentially suspect sources gives an entirely different signature.
One that could be used to "flag" an account for future notice...
BTW, did you see today's announcement regarding Apple's video iPods?
You get the idea. There's a ton of dead time in which such a thing could be useful, in addition to the fact that you can STILL use it to play music the rest of the time.
As to battery life, that's an unknown assumption. But really, all it needs to do is exceed the current 3-4 hours you get spinning a DVD in existing players and/or notebooks.
Or to put it another way, yeah, I'd spend ten minutes or so transferring a movie and some TV shows I haven't seen yet to a pod so I can watch them on an airplane. Especially since my time is just dragging them to the pod, and walking away while it does its thing.
So what? Even if hacked, you still need to buy one...
Oh yeah. New Mac mini's as the best way to download and store that music and video. Firewire video input devices so you can also use it as a DVR. AirPort systems throughout the house so you stream said music and video where ever you want it.
You're right. They have a HUGE target market in mind...
I disagree. If you know where you're going, and you're positive it's a place worth going, then just do it.
Better, like Apple, to take the big step all at once so people see how it all fits together and everything works together in a consistent fashion. Otherwise, if you spread it out over a long series of releases, people are going to become skittish. "What are they breaking this time?"
Oh, wait, I see what you mean. Okay guys, the next Viagra e-mail you receive, eveyone go to the site and buy something.
The vast flood of orders will overload their system and stress their payment systems. That'll teach them...
Cool! How much are they paying me?
Huh. You're right. It can't be identified. Of course, you're now receiving an awful lot of data that can't be identified as trusted data coming from a trusted source.
Hmmmmmmmmm...... no red flags there.
Your grandmother could do it, easy.
Un huh. And the end that plugs into the wall?
Just shows that the longer such things and systems stick around, the more likely they are to standardize.
Since the tracker "tracks" the ip addresses of BT clients that are interested in the file, would it not also need to save and track the port number? Or is anyone that hits my machine for a portion of the file expected to scan all of the ports first looking for the one used by the BT client?
Utter nonsense. Linux is alive for two main reasons: it, and most of the applications that run on it, are free and they tend to work. Take away either of those two and we would not be having this conversation.
Free means that the TCO is low enough to make learning a new system and supporting it worthwhile. But no OS is worth anything if there are no stable applications on that platform. If Apache and mySQL were flakey and crash prone Linux would never have gained enough momentum to get out of the gate.
The other systems mentioned had issues, never had a large and stable base of applications, and wanted people to pay for those things to boot. Look at Apple, they have an equally stable OS, but had to go and write most of the applications that people use on their platform.
But look at any market (autos, consumer electronics) and you'll see that, eventually, controls and media and connectors and whatnot do consolidate and standardize, because people also tend to want things to work, and to work the way that they're used to.
People who buck that trend better have a VERY good reason for doing so. And Linux, unfortunately, with KDE/Gnome, multiple installers, kernels, drivers, and so on, tends to have way too many people who want to do things differently just because they are different.
Personally, I think the Cringe is on target, as the "iFlicks" version of iTunes has been on the radar for years now.
Of course, being on /., I suppose we have to support the conspiracy theorists...
So "nature" likes threes, and created three primary user interfaces...
Right. I mean, with such pseudo-scientific "logic" as this on our side, how can we loose?
This was addressed just the other day. Sysadmin's requested a standardized release schedule so they could schedule patch installation and downtime.
Damned if you do and...
So true. Well, I gotta run. I need to install the latest version of Firefox... ;)
Be that as it may be, this is the first I've heard of people being targeted in that fashion. And not to discredit BT, but if hackers are reverse-targeting P2P machines, then the people that use such software need to know about it.
I have av, a firewall, and am current on updates, so I'm about as "safe" as one can be. However, my system shows NO probes over the past week, up until the point where I fired up BT and hit a tracker. Suddenly I'm hit with over two dozen probes to ports other than 6881, the BT port.
Unlike SPF, which exists to TELL you (and me, and everyone else) precisely and exactly where they are, currently in use or not.
You're not "solving" anything, and probably screwing up your user's e-mail to boot...