I was expecting a hamster wheel being used as a generator and thought "Really? That's something new?"
This technology seems a lot more useful as long as they can get it to scale up nicely. It'd be nice to be able to charge a cell phone from the clothing you wear.
With the Mac, not Linux, apparently eating into Microsoft's Windows market share, what is it about desktop Linux, and specifically Ubuntu, that has Microsoft spooked?"
Mac OS X doesn't run natively on all PCs, so Microsoft doesn't have anything to be afraid of. Plus Microsoft has software already developed for the Mac, so they could still make money even if Macs dominate PC sales.
Microsoft doesn't have that with Ubuntu, not only does it run on the same hardware as Windows, but it's being offered as an alternative to Windows by a major player in the PC market.
If the console makers actually use full keyboard and mouse support for their new consoles they could do a lot of damage to the pc gaming market. I mean A LOT. Really, I mean it.
You do realize that a lot more software is sold for consoles than PCs right? The console gaming market is huge, mostly because you just buy a console and any game out for that console will work out of the box. I haven't bought a PC game in a long time, but I'm always buying new games for my PS3 or Wii. Plus I'm the only person I know that has a computer capable of playing the latest games (most people I know have a cheap dell with integrated video that couldn't handle something as simple and old as Quake III.)
Now, if for whatever reason your prints are in the database (which they usually aren't) they will get your data as a result, no doubt. The thing is these sets of data will be taken from everyone arrested even if they are released with no charges afterwards. These records stay on file indefinitely. That's a bad practice (maybe convenient and practical for investigators).
I think what you're missing is that they already take fingerprints and mugshots (which do stay in a database indefinitely) even if the person is released with no charges. The only thing different is instead of having two identifiers on record they'll have three.
But isn't it also true that some criminal cases are based solely on DNA evidence?
Not quite, they don't have your DNA unless they think your a suspect, which means there's some other evidence that points you to the crime, and the DNA just helps back up that evidence.
Okay, the DNA database will not help in a case where a father rapes his daughter (since the daughter will be able to easily recognize her father.) It will help in a case where a complete stranger rapes someone (generally your semen doesn't accidentally land in a rape victims panties.) It will NOT help falsely convict someone in a murder case when the only thing tying you to the crime was a single hair found on the scene.
Yes, agreed. On the other hand once you have a database that you can run cross-checks on that will spit out all potential matches for a set of DNA you will consider questioning them. And that's where it gets dangerous. You find DNA at a crime scene, ask the computer for potential matches, computer says Joe X. lives two blocks away. So you go down and ask him questions or arrest the guy only to find out later on that he didn't do anything. Yet he's in all the legal trouble for getting arrested and has to explain himself to neighbors and employers. These are usually the problems that people suffering from misconduct in investigation suffer from. I'm not trying to defend actual criminals here but the risk of false positives grows by a magnitude if you gain unquestioned access to such tools.
Yes the chance of false positives increases, but so the chance of finding and convicting the actual criminal increases by a lot more than the chance of convicting a false positive. There has to be more than just DNA evidence tying you to a crime, so it's not likely Joe the retired war veteran is going to be arrested for a murder case just based on the fact that he lives close and they found one of his hairs at the scene.
Let's be honest. No one is going to delete the DNA records once they are on file. They don't even take people off their No-Fly/Anti-Terror lists even after they're proven to be innocent. The claim that they will dispose of the DNA evidence is bogus. Once the data is in the computer why, as an investigator, would you ever erase it? Someday, at some point, that guy you arrested for not wearing a shirt at the zoo will commit a serious crime and then you'll have all his stuff on file. The mugshot and prints are only useful if you have any indication the person was actually at the scene. DNA evidence will look like they've been there even though they never were. That's what is so dangerous.
Matching DNA isn't enough to convict someone, they have to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused committed the crime. Finding one hair isn't enough.
Have you never watched these "unsolved muders" things late at night? Again stupid media outlets but if you look at actual case proceedings you can see their pretty accurate. Investigators will swipe a crime scene for clothing fibers, hair, blood, other body liquids, cigarette butts etc to gather DNA evidence. That's how so many suspects are convicted. So if one of your hairs shows up at the scene of a murder they will probably find it and try to make sense. If your DNA is on file yo
If you dont want to fight, retreat. If you keep retreating you will lose a war without a single battle being fought, a cowards way to go out.
This isn't a war... If you don't like Google's policy don't install the software. That's not retreating, that's taking power away from Google (the less people using their software the less power they have.) If everyone "retreats" Google loses (it's hard to maintain a company with no customers), it's as simple as that.
If a company is acting abusively you need to punish it via the government.
What is Google doing that's worthy of government intervention? Google isn't breaking into your home and installing their software on your computer. You make the choice whether you want to use their software or not, if you don't like what the software does then don't install it.
If you `vote with your feet they will take away every right you have. Companies should not be able to modify your computer at their discretion, EULA or not.
I'm sorry but what rights do you have as far as Google's concerned? Software companies can't take away your "rights" since your rights aren't granted by the software companies. As long as you aren't being forced to install Google's software (and you're not) you still have your rights.
My concern isn't the needle (I donate blood frequently), but that this DNA is going in a database that the police "faithfully promise" will "be whipped if the suspect isn't charged".
Yes and my point is what malicious acts can they do with a database of DNA that they can't do with mugshots or fingerprints (both of which they take right after you're arrested, and they DO NOT delete them from the database if you're not found to be guilty)?
Friend gets new car. You're in town on other matters but meet your friend at a local bar/restaurant/whatever. Your friend says "Come check out my new car." You go outside and see it. Then you notice that you're running late and hug your friend goodbye. While doing so, a hair falls off of your head and onto your friend's shoulder. You leave. Your friend gets back into their car and turns on the AC (or heat depending on the weather) and the hair blows over to the passenger seat. Friend is murdered, police find your hair and question you. You say you were never in their car but witnesses say they saw you two talking and saw you two head out together. Your DNA is found in the car (from the hair). Another witness reports seeing you heading somewhere in a hurry. Doesn't look too good for you now as the police slap on the handcuffs.
Yes but you'd be a suspect in that case even without the DNA evidence. If witnesses say that you were the last person they saw your friend talking with, the police are going to come talk to you whether or not they found hair in the car.
At least they'll have to break into your house first. That's a little more effort than bumping into you in the street.
But someone is far more likely to rob a gun from me and use it, or sell it to someone who will use it, than to randomly pick up one of my hairs somewhere, transport it to a future crime scene and drop only the hair that is mine (if they drop their own hair then they'll be the suspect.) As far as picking up DNA from me sneezing, the minuscule amount of saliva left on the bus from me sneezing wouldn't be enough to get onto someones hand, be transported elsewhere, then be picked up by a forensic scientist for DNA testing (I would have to basically spit in that persons hand for them to have enough DNA on them to transfer it somewhere else where it will be noticed and picked up by a forensic investigator.)
So you think it's alright for someone that looks a bit like a criminal should be arrested for that?
No, not at all, I'm only pointing out that having a photo or video of someone that looks like you committing a crime is about the same amount of evidence as DNA that matches yours (actually it's probably worse as the jury can see that you look exactly like the person in the video, whereas DNA evidence is a lot more confusing.)
Sure it doesn't but how often is that actually a valuable defense in court? If trials were held on that premise nobody would ever be able to use DNA evidence because there's only a ~3% chance that the murderer isn't a chimp.
I don't think you fully understand how DNA matching works, DNA is far less unique than a fingerprint. A sampling of DNA left at a crime scene could potentially match yours, and unless there's some reason to believe that you were involved in the crime, NO ONE would come looking for you. There's no reason to round up everyone whose DNA could match, especially if there's no reason to believe that person could in any way be connected to the crime.
Hold up, we're discussing this because they want to take DNA samples off of people for mere suspicion.
No, they want to take DNA samples off of people who have been arrested, just like they take fingerprints and mugshots. The difference is they're claiming they'll destroy the DNA samples if you're not convicted of anything. So if you're arrested for shop lifting, they'll print you, take your mug shot, and collect some DNA evidence. If it's later ruled in court that you weren't guilty of shoplifting, they'll destroy the DNA evidence but keep the fingerprints and mugshots in their database. If you're found guilty they'll keep the DNA in their database, along with the fingerprints and mugshots.
Even if they choose not to destroy the DNA sample, it's no worse than keeping the existing fingerprint or mugshot databases. They want this so if someone gets raped they can search the database, if you have a history of committing crimes (if you're found not guilty you won't have a history), your DNA is a match, you're living in the area around the crime, the victim has no recollection of what the person looked like, and they have no other suspects, they MIGHT consider you a suspect. But then they would do that if photo or fingerprint evidence came up of yours anyway.
I didn't offer this as evidence, just as a potentially entertaining work of fiction to get a certain idea across. Next you'll tell me I can't quote from 1984 anymore because that's all literature bullshit and no real evidence for oppression and infringements on human rights. Calm down.
My point was more that forensic investigators don't vacuum a crime scene like that and dump it all into a computer to see whose DNA they matched. I know there's a lot of stuff that comes off your body that contains DNA in it, but it's very rare that anyone can get a good DNA test result from any of it.
You don't seem to realize that to leave your fingerprints you actually have to touch something.
Yes, and there's no way someone can steal something from your home with your fingerprints on it (like a knife or a gun) and kill someone else with it.
To have you face being photographed in some place you need to be there.
Or someone who looks like you has to be there...
For your DNA to show up in some place you've never heard of you just have to sneeze on the Bus or scratch you head in the subway. Someone treads on one of the hairs that fell out of your nose or from your eyebrows and his shoe carries that to wherever. All of a sudden your DNA from the sneeze is found on the doorknob of a dealers apartement and one of your hairs is collected at the scene of a murder.
1. DNA is not entirely unique, so even if they found DNA that matched yours, it didn't necessarily have to come from you
Then YOU have to prove you've never been there despite the genetic evidence indisputably linked to you.
You've got that backwards, THEY have to prove that you've not only been there, but have done the crime, despite the fact that you have no connection to the person or the crime whatsoever.
To me that's a LOT worse than fingerprints and mugshots. We spread our DNA involuntarily everywhere. Watch Gattaca then you'll start to understand.
At least if you pointed me to an actual case where someone who had no ties to a person was convicted based on DNA evidence I'd understand (and I know there have been wrongful convictions based on DNA evidence before), but Gattaca? Really? That's the best evidence you can think of?
You say goodbye to a friend by leaning inside his car; a hair falls off of your head onto the passenger seat.
Later, he's murdered. In questioning you, you're asked if you were ever in the victim's car; you say no, because you forgot that you leaned in.
Congratulations, you are now serving time for the murder of a person you cared about!
Why would you have NEVER been inside of your friends car?
If it was new, why didn't your friend say "Hey come for a ride in my new car!"
If you didn't know them that well, why would you even be considered a suspect in the murder (yes, I know the hair, but if you didn't know the person that well they'd have no motive.)
Plus what if you put your hand on the door when you leaned in, now they've got your fingerprints too! Should we stop fingerprinting everyone now too?
"So what kind of power source is this robot likely to use?"
Since it has to use an anchor point they could just make the tether carry electric with it, collect solar power at the anchor and send it to the "climber" through the tether.
"NASA researchers today said they had built and tested a robot that can rappel off cliffs, travel over steep and rocky terrain, and explore deep craters."
I immediately thought "How does this robot know what a good anchor is?" and after watching the video I have the second question "How does the robot get it's tether detached from the anchor?" I had to read the article and watch the video, that's not a "mountain climbing robot", it's a winch with a motor.
At first I thought "No way am I going to let them take blood from me if I'm arrested!", but after reading the article all they do is swab the inside of your cheek. It really is less invasive than fingerprinting.
I've been fingerprinted twice, once after being arrested and once after applying for a federal job. The first time was the worst, the machine couldn't read my print AT ALL, so the officer tried pressing harder. That registered a faint image of a finger print. So they gave me some gel to clean my fingers, that did nothing to help so the officer continued to press harder and harder. We finally got one print to show up after a few minutes when the officer forced all of his body weight onto my finger. ONE PRINT, then it was on to the next 9 fingers...
Second time didn't require as much force, but we had other issues, my finger wasn't rolling right. The person operating the machine had to do each finger 5+ times to get the machine to actually accept the print.
I know they're not going to do away with fingerprinting and replace it with DNA samples (DNA isn't a unique identifier), but they already take fingerprints and mugshots before you're found guilty. So what's the problem with taking a little bit of spit?
When I've been shot in a combat zone, the first thing I want to see is a nice, reassuring ROBOT SNAKE to tend my wounds.
A nice, reassuring, bullet-proof snake, that isn't an easy target about to get shot and land in the same situation as yourself, requiring medical attention and unable to move to safety.
This technology is a good thing, I don't want my doctor drawing fire from the enemy, or getting injured and unable to save my life. Yes I know it's illegal to shoot at a medic, but it's a lot easier having a virtually indestructible robot snake than asking the enemy to play fair.
enough about some other guy's sexual fantasy life being destroyed
can we get back to the urgent need to make fully human women with four breasts and two vaginas now please?
Unless you want to share with your friends, two vaginas and four breasts are useless.
The key is to give men four arms and hands, that way even if the woman only has two breasts you can still use the other two hands to grab her ass. As an added bonus if they ever develop a four breasted woman humanity would be ready for it.
So, if they don't want to run an expensive ad campaign they just upload strategically crippled clips through a straw-man, "discover" them and then allow them to stay (in exchange for free advertisement they embed and a share of the advertising revenue from those clips).
Not even close, they still have to pay for the advertising, the only difference is they don't have to go through the trouble of uploading the video if someone already did it. They would require even more work going through a third party and claiming copyright infringement than they would if they just uploaded the videos themselves, with no benefit at all. The only way it would help them if someone else uploaded the video, would be if that video had a lot of views (it's easier to sell ad space for something a lot of people are watching.)
The summary seems to be describing this as if it's a bad thing.
FTA:
The firms will also be able to take advantage of YouTube's Content ID system which attempts to identify copyrighted material which has been uploaded without permission. Firms taking part in the scheme can opt for such clips, rather than being taken offline as normal, to remain on the site but with advertising added.
So rather than youtube deleting every TV show/music video/sports clip/etc. uploaded by users that violates copyright, the company that owns the copyrights to the video can now sell ad space on the video. It's not like they're selling ad space to CBS for someone's video blog, the person doesn't legally have the right to upload a video that someone else owns, at least now the videos can stay up, but with annoying ads.
...And if they pay, say, $5000 to maintain each, isn't that a substantial financial burden?
And if it isn't - shouldn't it be?
That would probably hurt more than it would help. If we make maintaining patents cost prohibitive to a company like IBM, who does that benefit? If you've got a really good idea it shouldn't be too expensive to patent it, otherwise you're completely defeating the purpose of the patent system. Yes I know there are flaws in the system, but making it more expensive to patent things only helps the large companies that can afford it, not the small companies that might have some big ideas.
It's like giving a gun to a baby - if the baby shoots itself it's not the gun's fault, right?
It's not the guns fault, it's the fault of the idiot that gave the gun to the baby. If you give a baby a knife and it stabs itself, is that the fault of the knife? Does that mean no one should have knives?
"No silly registry BS, no complicated digging and wondering where the hell it put your files, etc. It is a joy to use it as a generic use computer."
Until you actually want to delete the program in question and then wonder why the installation took up more room than the delete freed up. Then you do a search to find where it put other files (especially for any large program) and see there's a bunch of documentation lying around, some library files, a couple of random directories that will never be used again, all things that most uninstalls (especially for any large program) should take care of.
Well, the most obvious things that a clueless user would notice are Integrated search (available for XP, but not quite as well integrated)
I've never seen anyone but a power user (who has tons of programs installed) use the integrated search. Most people will either use a word processor and a web browser. They only know how to get to their documents from inside the word processor so the search is useless to them as they don't know what their files are called unless they see them in the browse dialog from their word processor.
New games
... Which add exactly what functionality to the windows experience? Especially given the fact that Microsoft sells most of it's products to businesses where they don't want the majority of employees wasting their time playing the latest version of solitare.
"the sidebar gadgets
Which takes up CPU, RAM and screen space while adding nothing of any real value to the computer. I've disabled it for a lot of people and all were grateful that I did.
Built-in DVD maker
Which most people will never realize exists (look at the Widows Movie Maker, I've never met a user that found a use for it especially since most PCs don't come with any method of transferring video onto them and if you finally do get some way to transfer video to the PC it generally comes with far better software.
Built-in Media Center (though some people bought XP with Media center, most didn't and the most common version of Vista sold is Home Premium that has Media Center)
Again, more worthless software that the average person will never use or even know exists. I've used Media Center for a week to share movies from my computer to my XBox 360. I haven't figured out how to get it to play anything in something more than one of Microsoft's formats even though the computer plays the formats I'm trying to watch just fine. I switched to TVersity on my PS3 which does on the fly transcoding (it's also free as in beer.)
Vastly improved email client
Most people have some form of webmail account (gmail, hotmail, yahoo, or even AOL) and anyone with a business e-mail address generally uses the Outlook client that comes with Office.
Snippng tool
I have no idea what that is.
All those things are pretty obvious to anyone who's non-technical even.
No, they really aren't, and the ones that are generally aren't needed (and are sometimes despised) by the general public.
Number one, "it keeps bothering me" (the UAC dialog is probably the worst feature I've ever seen, people just tend to ignore it because they don't know what it means)
Number two, "it's slow" (hardware that runs XP great has trouble with Vista.)
Number three, "nothing works" (a lot of my customers had some old custom software or very expensive older printers that didn't have Vista support. Or even just newer software and hardware drivers that had no Vista support without an expensive upgrade)
Those were the most common reasons people wanted to remove Vista for at my shop, although not every area will be the same.
How does it know what illegal activity on the computer is from you? If you're infected with some nasty worm that's been spreading all around the world would it consider that something illegal? What if someone just wanted to plant some evidence on you? It would be extremely easy and for most people would go completely unnoticed. Most people don't routinely go through their file system to check if anything is out of place, most people wouldn't even know what to look for.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't think they would ever get rid of the electoral college during my lifetime, I'd be very impressed if it actually happens.
I was expecting a hamster wheel being used as a generator and thought "Really? That's something new?"
This technology seems a lot more useful as long as they can get it to scale up nicely. It'd be nice to be able to charge a cell phone from the clothing you wear.
With the Mac, not Linux, apparently eating into Microsoft's Windows market share, what is it about desktop Linux, and specifically Ubuntu, that has Microsoft spooked?"
Mac OS X doesn't run natively on all PCs, so Microsoft doesn't have anything to be afraid of. Plus Microsoft has software already developed for the Mac, so they could still make money even if Macs dominate PC sales.
Microsoft doesn't have that with Ubuntu, not only does it run on the same hardware as Windows, but it's being offered as an alternative to Windows by a major player in the PC market.
If the console makers actually use full keyboard and mouse support for their new consoles they could do a lot of damage to the pc gaming market. I mean A LOT. Really, I mean it.
You do realize that a lot more software is sold for consoles than PCs right? The console gaming market is huge, mostly because you just buy a console and any game out for that console will work out of the box. I haven't bought a PC game in a long time, but I'm always buying new games for my PS3 or Wii. Plus I'm the only person I know that has a computer capable of playing the latest games (most people I know have a cheap dell with integrated video that couldn't handle something as simple and old as Quake III.)
Now, if for whatever reason your prints are in the database (which they usually aren't) they will get your data as a result, no doubt. The thing is these sets of data will be taken from everyone arrested even if they are released with no charges afterwards. These records stay on file indefinitely. That's a bad practice (maybe convenient and practical for investigators).
I think what you're missing is that they already take fingerprints and mugshots (which do stay in a database indefinitely) even if the person is released with no charges. The only thing different is instead of having two identifiers on record they'll have three.
But isn't it also true that some criminal cases are based solely on DNA evidence?
Not quite, they don't have your DNA unless they think your a suspect, which means there's some other evidence that points you to the crime, and the DNA just helps back up that evidence.
Okay, the DNA database will not help in a case where a father rapes his daughter (since the daughter will be able to easily recognize her father.) It will help in a case where a complete stranger rapes someone (generally your semen doesn't accidentally land in a rape victims panties.) It will NOT help falsely convict someone in a murder case when the only thing tying you to the crime was a single hair found on the scene.
Yes, agreed. On the other hand once you have a database that you can run cross-checks on that will spit out all potential matches for a set of DNA you will consider questioning them. And that's where it gets dangerous. You find DNA at a crime scene, ask the computer for potential matches, computer says Joe X. lives two blocks away. So you go down and ask him questions or arrest the guy only to find out later on that he didn't do anything. Yet he's in all the legal trouble for getting arrested and has to explain himself to neighbors and employers. These are usually the problems that people suffering from misconduct in investigation suffer from. I'm not trying to defend actual criminals here but the risk of false positives grows by a magnitude if you gain unquestioned access to such tools.
Yes the chance of false positives increases, but so the chance of finding and convicting the actual criminal increases by a lot more than the chance of convicting a false positive. There has to be more than just DNA evidence tying you to a crime, so it's not likely Joe the retired war veteran is going to be arrested for a murder case just based on the fact that he lives close and they found one of his hairs at the scene.
Let's be honest. No one is going to delete the DNA records once they are on file. They don't even take people off their No-Fly/Anti-Terror lists even after they're proven to be innocent. The claim that they will dispose of the DNA evidence is bogus. Once the data is in the computer why, as an investigator, would you ever erase it? Someday, at some point, that guy you arrested for not wearing a shirt at the zoo will commit a serious crime and then you'll have all his stuff on file. The mugshot and prints are only useful if you have any indication the person was actually at the scene. DNA evidence will look like they've been there even though they never were. That's what is so dangerous.
Matching DNA isn't enough to convict someone, they have to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused committed the crime. Finding one hair isn't enough.
Have you never watched these "unsolved muders" things late at night? Again stupid media outlets but if you look at actual case proceedings you can see their pretty accurate. Investigators will swipe a crime scene for clothing fibers, hair, blood, other body liquids, cigarette butts etc to gather DNA evidence. That's how so many suspects are convicted. So if one of your hairs shows up at the scene of a murder they will probably find it and try to make sense. If your DNA is on file yo
If you dont want to fight, retreat. If you keep retreating you will lose a war without a single battle being fought, a cowards way to go out.
This isn't a war... If you don't like Google's policy don't install the software. That's not retreating, that's taking power away from Google (the less people using their software the less power they have.) If everyone "retreats" Google loses (it's hard to maintain a company with no customers), it's as simple as that.
If a company is acting abusively you need to punish it via the government.
What is Google doing that's worthy of government intervention? Google isn't breaking into your home and installing their software on your computer. You make the choice whether you want to use their software or not, if you don't like what the software does then don't install it.
If you `vote with your feet they will take away every right you have. Companies should not be able to modify your computer at their discretion, EULA or not.
I'm sorry but what rights do you have as far as Google's concerned? Software companies can't take away your "rights" since your rights aren't granted by the software companies. As long as you aren't being forced to install Google's software (and you're not) you still have your rights.
My concern isn't the needle (I donate blood frequently), but that this DNA is going in a database that the police "faithfully promise" will "be whipped if the suspect isn't charged".
Yes and my point is what malicious acts can they do with a database of DNA that they can't do with mugshots or fingerprints (both of which they take right after you're arrested, and they DO NOT delete them from the database if you're not found to be guilty)?
Friend gets new car. You're in town on other matters but meet your friend at a local bar/restaurant/whatever. Your friend says "Come check out my new car." You go outside and see it. Then you notice that you're running late and hug your friend goodbye. While doing so, a hair falls off of your head and onto your friend's shoulder. You leave. Your friend gets back into their car and turns on the AC (or heat depending on the weather) and the hair blows over to the passenger seat. Friend is murdered, police find your hair and question you. You say you were never in their car but witnesses say they saw you two talking and saw you two head out together. Your DNA is found in the car (from the hair). Another witness reports seeing you heading somewhere in a hurry. Doesn't look too good for you now as the police slap on the handcuffs.
Yes but you'd be a suspect in that case even without the DNA evidence. If witnesses say that you were the last person they saw your friend talking with, the police are going to come talk to you whether or not they found hair in the car.
At least they'll have to break into your house first. That's a little more effort than bumping into you in the street.
But someone is far more likely to rob a gun from me and use it, or sell it to someone who will use it, than to randomly pick up one of my hairs somewhere, transport it to a future crime scene and drop only the hair that is mine (if they drop their own hair then they'll be the suspect.) As far as picking up DNA from me sneezing, the minuscule amount of saliva left on the bus from me sneezing wouldn't be enough to get onto someones hand, be transported elsewhere, then be picked up by a forensic scientist for DNA testing (I would have to basically spit in that persons hand for them to have enough DNA on them to transfer it somewhere else where it will be noticed and picked up by a forensic investigator.)
So you think it's alright for someone that looks a bit like a criminal should be arrested for that?
No, not at all, I'm only pointing out that having a photo or video of someone that looks like you committing a crime is about the same amount of evidence as DNA that matches yours (actually it's probably worse as the jury can see that you look exactly like the person in the video, whereas DNA evidence is a lot more confusing.)
Sure it doesn't but how often is that actually a valuable defense in court? If trials were held on that premise nobody would ever be able to use DNA evidence because there's only a ~3% chance that the murderer isn't a chimp.
I don't think you fully understand how DNA matching works, DNA is far less unique than a fingerprint. A sampling of DNA left at a crime scene could potentially match yours, and unless there's some reason to believe that you were involved in the crime, NO ONE would come looking for you. There's no reason to round up everyone whose DNA could match, especially if there's no reason to believe that person could in any way be connected to the crime.
Hold up, we're discussing this because they want to take DNA samples off of people for mere suspicion.
No, they want to take DNA samples off of people who have been arrested, just like they take fingerprints and mugshots. The difference is they're claiming they'll destroy the DNA samples if you're not convicted of anything. So if you're arrested for shop lifting, they'll print you, take your mug shot, and collect some DNA evidence. If it's later ruled in court that you weren't guilty of shoplifting, they'll destroy the DNA evidence but keep the fingerprints and mugshots in their database. If you're found guilty they'll keep the DNA in their database, along with the fingerprints and mugshots.
Even if they choose not to destroy the DNA sample, it's no worse than keeping the existing fingerprint or mugshot databases. They want this so if someone gets raped they can search the database, if you have a history of committing crimes (if you're found not guilty you won't have a history), your DNA is a match, you're living in the area around the crime, the victim has no recollection of what the person looked like, and they have no other suspects, they MIGHT consider you a suspect. But then they would do that if photo or fingerprint evidence came up of yours anyway.
I didn't offer this as evidence, just as a potentially entertaining work of fiction to get a certain idea across. Next you'll tell me I can't quote from 1984 anymore because that's all literature bullshit and no real evidence for oppression and infringements on human rights. Calm down.
My point was more that forensic investigators don't vacuum a crime scene like that and dump it all into a computer to see whose DNA they matched. I know there's a lot of stuff that comes off your body that contains DNA in it, but it's very rare that anyone can get a good DNA test result from any of it.
You don't seem to realize that to leave your fingerprints you actually have to touch something.
Yes, and there's no way someone can steal something from your home with your fingerprints on it (like a knife or a gun) and kill someone else with it.
To have you face being photographed in some place you need to be there.
Or someone who looks like you has to be there...
For your DNA to show up in some place you've never heard of you just have to sneeze on the Bus or scratch you head in the subway. Someone treads on one of the hairs that fell out of your nose or from your eyebrows and his shoe carries that to wherever. All of a sudden your DNA from the sneeze is found on the doorknob of a dealers apartement and one of your hairs is collected at the scene of a murder.
1. DNA is not entirely unique, so even if they found DNA that matched yours, it didn't necessarily have to come from you
Then YOU have to prove you've never been there despite the genetic evidence indisputably linked to you.
You've got that backwards, THEY have to prove that you've not only been there, but have done the crime, despite the fact that you have no connection to the person or the crime whatsoever.
To me that's a LOT worse than fingerprints and mugshots. We spread our DNA involuntarily everywhere. Watch Gattaca then you'll start to understand.
At least if you pointed me to an actual case where someone who had no ties to a person was convicted based on DNA evidence I'd understand (and I know there have been wrongful convictions based on DNA evidence before), but Gattaca? Really? That's the best evidence you can think of?
Think of it like this:
You say goodbye to a friend by leaning inside his car; a hair falls off of your head onto the passenger seat.
Later, he's murdered. In questioning you, you're asked if you were ever in the victim's car; you say no, because you forgot that you leaned in.
Congratulations, you are now serving time for the murder of a person you cared about!
Why would you have NEVER been inside of your friends car?
If it was new, why didn't your friend say "Hey come for a ride in my new car!"
If you didn't know them that well, why would you even be considered a suspect in the murder (yes, I know the hair, but if you didn't know the person that well they'd have no motive.)
Plus what if you put your hand on the door when you leaned in, now they've got your fingerprints too! Should we stop fingerprinting everyone now too?
"So what kind of power source is this robot likely to use?"
Since it has to use an anchor point they could just make the tether carry electric with it, collect solar power at the anchor and send it to the "climber" through the tether.
When I read
"NASA researchers today said they had built and tested a robot that can rappel off cliffs, travel over steep and rocky terrain, and explore deep craters."
I immediately thought "How does this robot know what a good anchor is?" and after watching the video I have the second question "How does the robot get it's tether detached from the anchor?" I had to read the article and watch the video, that's not a "mountain climbing robot", it's a winch with a motor.
At first I thought "No way am I going to let them take blood from me if I'm arrested!", but after reading the article all they do is swab the inside of your cheek. It really is less invasive than fingerprinting.
I've been fingerprinted twice, once after being arrested and once after applying for a federal job. The first time was the worst, the machine couldn't read my print AT ALL, so the officer tried pressing harder. That registered a faint image of a finger print. So they gave me some gel to clean my fingers, that did nothing to help so the officer continued to press harder and harder. We finally got one print to show up after a few minutes when the officer forced all of his body weight onto my finger. ONE PRINT, then it was on to the next 9 fingers...
Second time didn't require as much force, but we had other issues, my finger wasn't rolling right. The person operating the machine had to do each finger 5+ times to get the machine to actually accept the print.
I know they're not going to do away with fingerprinting and replace it with DNA samples (DNA isn't a unique identifier), but they already take fingerprints and mugshots before you're found guilty. So what's the problem with taking a little bit of spit?
When I've been shot in a combat zone, the first thing I want to see is a nice, reassuring ROBOT SNAKE to tend my wounds.
A nice, reassuring, bullet-proof snake, that isn't an easy target about to get shot and land in the same situation as yourself, requiring medical attention and unable to move to safety.
This technology is a good thing, I don't want my doctor drawing fire from the enemy, or getting injured and unable to save my life. Yes I know it's illegal to shoot at a medic, but it's a lot easier having a virtually indestructible robot snake than asking the enemy to play fair.
enough about some other guy's sexual fantasy life being destroyed
can we get back to the urgent need to make fully human women with four breasts and two vaginas now please?
Unless you want to share with your friends, two vaginas and four breasts are useless.
The key is to give men four arms and hands, that way even if the woman only has two breasts you can still use the other two hands to grab her ass. As an added bonus if they ever develop a four breasted woman humanity would be ready for it.
Making a human-animal hybrid is a waste of time, the real challenge is making something far superior to man.
The five-assed monkey.
So, if they don't want to run an expensive ad campaign they just upload strategically crippled clips through a straw-man, "discover" them and then allow them to stay (in exchange for free advertisement they embed and a share of the advertising revenue from those clips).
Not even close, they still have to pay for the advertising, the only difference is they don't have to go through the trouble of uploading the video if someone already did it. They would require even more work going through a third party and claiming copyright infringement than they would if they just uploaded the videos themselves, with no benefit at all. The only way it would help them if someone else uploaded the video, would be if that video had a lot of views (it's easier to sell ad space for something a lot of people are watching.)
The summary seems to be describing this as if it's a bad thing.
FTA:
The firms will also be able to take advantage of YouTube's Content ID system which attempts to identify copyrighted material which has been uploaded without permission. Firms taking part in the scheme can opt for such clips, rather than being taken offline as normal, to remain on the site but with advertising added.
So rather than youtube deleting every TV show/music video/sports clip/etc. uploaded by users that violates copyright, the company that owns the copyrights to the video can now sell ad space on the video. It's not like they're selling ad space to CBS for someone's video blog, the person doesn't legally have the right to upload a video that someone else owns, at least now the videos can stay up, but with annoying ads.
...And if they pay, say, $5000 to maintain each, isn't that a substantial financial burden?
And if it isn't - shouldn't it be?
That would probably hurt more than it would help. If we make maintaining patents cost prohibitive to a company like IBM, who does that benefit? If you've got a really good idea it shouldn't be too expensive to patent it, otherwise you're completely defeating the purpose of the patent system. Yes I know there are flaws in the system, but making it more expensive to patent things only helps the large companies that can afford it, not the small companies that might have some big ideas.
It's like giving a gun to a baby - if the baby shoots itself it's not the gun's fault, right?
It's not the guns fault, it's the fault of the idiot that gave the gun to the baby. If you give a baby a knife and it stabs itself, is that the fault of the knife? Does that mean no one should have knives?
"No silly registry BS, no complicated digging and wondering where the hell it put your files, etc. It is a joy to use it as a generic use computer."
Until you actually want to delete the program in question and then wonder why the installation took up more room than the delete freed up. Then you do a search to find where it put other files (especially for any large program) and see there's a bunch of documentation lying around, some library files, a couple of random directories that will never be used again, all things that most uninstalls (especially for any large program) should take care of.
Well, the most obvious things that a clueless user would notice are Integrated search (available for XP, but not quite as well integrated)
I've never seen anyone but a power user (who has tons of programs installed) use the integrated search. Most people will either use a word processor and a web browser. They only know how to get to their documents from inside the word processor so the search is useless to them as they don't know what their files are called unless they see them in the browse dialog from their word processor.
New games
... Which add exactly what functionality to the windows experience? Especially given the fact that Microsoft sells most of it's products to businesses where they don't want the majority of employees wasting their time playing the latest version of solitare.
"the sidebar gadgets
Which takes up CPU, RAM and screen space while adding nothing of any real value to the computer. I've disabled it for a lot of people and all were grateful that I did.
Built-in DVD maker
Which most people will never realize exists (look at the Widows Movie Maker, I've never met a user that found a use for it especially since most PCs don't come with any method of transferring video onto them and if you finally do get some way to transfer video to the PC it generally comes with far better software.
Built-in Media Center (though some people bought XP with Media center, most didn't and the most common version of Vista sold is Home Premium that has Media Center)
Again, more worthless software that the average person will never use or even know exists. I've used Media Center for a week to share movies from my computer to my XBox 360. I haven't figured out how to get it to play anything in something more than one of Microsoft's formats even though the computer plays the formats I'm trying to watch just fine. I switched to TVersity on my PS3 which does on the fly transcoding (it's also free as in beer.)
Vastly improved email client
Most people have some form of webmail account (gmail, hotmail, yahoo, or even AOL) and anyone with a business e-mail address generally uses the Outlook client that comes with Office.
Snippng tool
I have no idea what that is.
All those things are pretty obvious to anyone who's non-technical even.
No, they really aren't, and the ones that are generally aren't needed (and are sometimes despised) by the general public.
"What are their complaints from XP to Vista?"
Number one, "it keeps bothering me" (the UAC dialog is probably the worst feature I've ever seen, people just tend to ignore it because they don't know what it means)
Number two, "it's slow" (hardware that runs XP great has trouble with Vista.)
Number three, "nothing works" (a lot of my customers had some old custom software or very expensive older printers that didn't have Vista support. Or even just newer software and hardware drivers that had no Vista support without an expensive upgrade)
Those were the most common reasons people wanted to remove Vista for at my shop, although not every area will be the same.
How does it know what illegal activity on the computer is from you? If you're infected with some nasty worm that's been spreading all around the world would it consider that something illegal? What if someone just wanted to plant some evidence on you? It would be extremely easy and for most people would go completely unnoticed. Most people don't routinely go through their file system to check if anything is out of place, most people wouldn't even know what to look for.