A lot of info in the "game," lots of text, very little gameplay. Felt too Super Paper Mario. It would be nice to see NASA open source this so it could play more like Civ 1, trickling out the education as you focus on the gameplay, rather than blasting you with endless text and doing a very poor job of clarifying why you need a Space Network and how much of it to get a given Research item. The win condition is pretty weak as well... you just research one more thing.
The only valid statement here is.Net developers in demand. By the way, we're one of the companies contributing to that demand - if you're good with ASP.Net, we'd like to hear from you.
"Windows 8 certification does not require that the user be able to disable UEFI secure boot, and we've already been informed by hardware vendors that some hardware will not have this option."
From which they conclude:
"The end user is no longer in control of their PC."
So they admit that some hardware vendors are considering not offering the user the option to turn this off, then overextend that to conclude all users have lost control of their PC if they buy one with Windows 8 on it, which Microsoft is "misusing to gain tighter control over the market."
To be clear: Microsoft does not require that the user not be given the option to disable Secure Boot. The decision is up to the hardware vendor. These hardware vendors sell the same motherboards to a lot of places, some running Windows some running Linux. They have little incentive to remove a Secure Boot option.
Talk about making a big issue out of nothing. Find something else to get angry about people, like US law viewing corporations as people.
An ARM-only desktop seems silly, but I'd be interested in an ARM/x86 system that can use both with a single OS. With Windows 8 supporting both it would be cool to run mobile and desktop apps natively on the same machine. It would likely ease the transition away from x86, ultimately. But the blurred line would really give consumers a lot of options. It might also be interesting to see such a device running Ubuntu and supporting Android apps.
I'd rather see that parking lot underground and the space used for useful things or trees. The ugliest part of most establishments is the paved, oil slicked, "is that gum or McDonald's?" parking lot. I'm told Madrid actually has a law on the books preventing ground-level lots. It's a more attractive city for it.
MSAA looks awful - and Intel's CEO famously knocked antialiasing as being a stupid blurring technique not long ago. So, he goes with the only form of AA that literally adds no value. Cutting off their nose to spite their face?
This is just a problem of networks trying to make some extra cash. OTAs weren't designed to have optional features. You can't "ask" the user if they want parts or not. You update or don't, in a linear fashion. If something is optional then it should be a free download in the Market instead, but I'm sure the deal Sprint signed says they get paid for putting these apps directly on the Home screen, not as an opt-in. Basically Sprint is asking Google to add marketing features to Android.
Yeah I'd say just use Sprint - the 4G is easy to tether whatever to, and you get everything you asked for.
If you really want to be difficult about it and demand there's no cell minutes for calling phones, you're forced to add Skype Out or Google Voice, one charges by the minute and the other is signaling they will next year, so it's pretty arbitrary.
That was prior to Harmonix selling Guitar Hero to Activision. Guitar Hero 3 was Activision's first title - it brought a lot more big name bands to the game than Harmonix had mustered, and a slightly worse interface. Each subsequent title somehow managed to make the interface more and more infuriating to deal with, while Harmonix kept making Rock Band easier and easier to deal with.
In which a software developer at IBM/Lenovo moans about how the software he works on is treated as "junk in the preload." You kinda feel bad for the guy, and he makes a convincing argument that there are proprietary features in LiIon batteries that really could tell you more if you had the software to go with it.
So I go and re-enable the Lenovo Power Manager at startup... and my RAM usage increases by FIVE HUNDRED MEGS! A half gig for a battery readout! Unbelievable! I wanted so badly to throttle the guy that wrote that blog post for not mentioning that critical failure of his crap software that IS junk and DESERVES the removal he whines about.
(For the skeptical, I measured the memory of the app in a few different ways because it just seemed impossible... I got between 501mb and 513mb every which way.)
Point being, there is some small legitimate purpose to this kind of software - but there needs to be some sort of pressure on them to be efficient and either useful or not present. I blame PC review websites. Their reviews are so far off and focused on barely-relevant details that I wonder how many of them are paid for by the manufacturer.
A strong review site that's free to read would make an impact, and a tool that cleans things out that you can trust (perhaps on said review site) would help too - you could offer manufacturers the opportunity to be removed from the "cleanup" list if they get within certain metrics.
This is a misinformed lawsuit that will likely go before a tech-unsavvy judge and jury and potentially win. And how will AT&T pay for it? With customer money - that's where businesses get their money, remember?
Another pointless lawsuit in America that makes everything more expensive to make a few lawyers richer.
This isn't labeled porn yet? They'd obviously jump on it before anyone else.
Technology like this has the most immediate useful impact on Windows Tablet devices that are just the touchscreen and essentially no other UI. You could make a raised keyboard with the screen, which would really be best of both worlds.
The next step is a revolution in UI design. An alpha layer representing the texture of every UI feature could be part of every image displayed, and you could have an infinite number of interfaces that are customized to a particular task, but you would get the ergonomic benefits of a normal keyboard. For example, you could handle multiple languages more effectively by adding entire new keys to the on-screen keyboard instead of doubling-up and making it difficult to type common characters as is done today in many languages. Games could present a set of "keys" that are just the movement and action keys, clearly labeled as such, instead of WASD.
And of course, porn would run rampant, as always.
Since it's just a patent, presumably this technology won't exist for ages. My bets have always been on Apple putting this in a future iPad before anyone else gets to it - not a big fan of Apple, but their ownership of the entire technology stack and the premium price they can levy for their devices puts them in the best position to introduce something like this with the fewest hurdles.
This is at least somewhat irresponsible journalism. I mean, obviously Google needs time to consider first, how to deal with China, and second if it comes to it, how to handle it adequately. They should have the opportunity to plan and deliver the bad news themselves rather than some kneejerk reporter trying to make a name for themselves. Imagine how depressing this must be for Google China employees.
As you demonstrate you already know, cancer prevention is partly about restricting the uncontrolled growth of cells; a tumor is cells growing without controls, so many natural defenses against cancer place controls on cell growth, sometimes by inhibiting healthy cell growth as well.
Turning off a gene like p21 is probably going to impact your body's ability to control and respond to cancer:
In particular, in that search is a powerpoint presentation discussing the body's immunoresponse to cancer, in which p53 initiates and governs several important responses, one of which involves turning on p21 to begin replacing it with healthy cells.
Obviously, that observed response goes away if you knock out p21; it's likely that without the aid of that process, the process is impacted and cancer is more likely to succeed.
There are numerous other examples of p21 aiding cancer prevention, removal, and replacement in that search - have a look.
I'd like to see the comparative cancer rates of normal mice and p21-knockout mice.
Don't know why you posted a question as an Anonymous Coward, but... .
1) Comcast's filters notice you're infected; for example they see your machine send 200,000 emails in a day.
2) You request a webpage.
3) Regardless of the webpage, they can intercept the HTML on its way to your browser and insert something like (don't know how much code Slashdot will let me post but here goes)
(wait for HTML tag and body tag)
document.writeln('');
(send the rest of the page)
With that inserted, your browser will now call out to Comcast's servers and load that.js file. That.js file runs inside the page, so it can do anything any other script could do, like:
var div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = "You've got a virus! You've sent 200,000 emails a day non-stop for a week - or at least your infected machine has without your knowing. To fix it take the following instructions... blah blah... to validate this message is a legitimate Comcast notice... (this is going to be the really difficult part for them)"; div.style = 'position:absolute;left:50%;top:50%;margin:-100px 0 0 -200px;width:400px;top:200px;background:#fff;border:3px solid #00f;z-index:1000'; document.body.appendChild(div);
That puts a nice large box up in the middle of the page with that message. What's going to be really difficult is making it clear this is real, and doing it in a less-obtrusive way - for example stuffing it up at the top of the page and giving you an easy way to make it go away.
I think email and free antivirus software are better ways of notifying you (make a deal with McAfee to be able to send your own antivirus alerts via their software)
Why did you link to a song as proof you remove viruses? I'm not anymore confident you remove viruses regularly, but now also find your song-writing skills suspect.
I think everything Comcast did in the above situation was appropriate except:
1) They should have notified you somehow of being part of a spam network. If they can't get ahold of you or you ignore notifications, I don't see blocking outbound SMTP as wrong on their part.
2) They should have offered you as much data as possible on that. I'm betting they offered you no data not because they didn't have it, but because they people *you can reach on the phone* don't. The people you're talking to are buried in a call center with call scripts about how to reset your modem and reboot Vista. They don't have access to the data Comcast found, but you can bet it's somewhere. It just takes software - and a decision to invest in it - to get it to you. That seems like something they definitely should invest in.
I think if they can say to customers, clearly, "Here's the amount of spam you've sent for the past month," you'll get a MUCH stronger response from technical and non-technical people alike. Say it in real terms, especially if you've already got all the numbers.
Yes, that's an interesting point - if they detect malware on your system, they could do several things:
1) Notify you. I think a small Comcast notifier installed on your system would actually be more trustworthy than a message inserted into a webpage, but it would cover a lot fewer customers. Since Comcast has a deal with McAfee to deliver free antivirus software, they could co-brand the software and send messages through that instead, which would feel even more appropriate and trustworthy to the customer - anti-virus software notifying them they have a virus. Very reasonable.
2) Block SMTP traffic coming out of your machine. That would prevent any chance of your machine being used to send spam, which is the majority of what these bot networks are built to do. You may not even need to notify customers they're getting SMTP blocked; the set of users that run their own legitimate SMTP and the set of users letting a bot carry on on their system is likely a very SMALL overlap. But the notification catches that small overlap nonetheless.
At the same time I think Comcast might be missing a critical opportunity here. By automating this they reduce the "taken care of" feel to helping you through a computer virus. Statistics show that a customer you treat well is happy, but your happiest customers are the ones that had something go wrong, and you took the time to help fix it. An automated webpage message takes Customer Service out of the loop. That doesn't mean it can't still feel like Comcast is helping you through it, but it's more difficult to pull off.
I think Comcast's best move would be for whatever notification they show you to take you to a log of what horrors your computer's been up to - "247,000 spam emails sent in the past month" - things like that. Give the user the full diagnosis and what awful things are going on underneath their fingers. Then help them fix it with antivirus that has strong auto-remove features.
Agree as well. Go Comcast for trying to do something about the massive bot networks in the world. If we can take American machines out of the mix we might take a lot of horsepower out of these massive networks.
Going to vote the other way here - I had Comcast in Boston and the Silicon Valley area and they were excellent in both locations. I'm stuck with Time Warner now and miss them every time Time Warner's service goes down, which has been once a month for the past 5.
Comcast has been very effective in many areas, including reasonable channel selections instead of some of the insane stuff you have to pick over on other companies, getting a lot of last mile wired up over fibre optic and then delivering just the last smigeon over normal cable lines, and just generally doing a good job. Maybe people complaining about them need to live with another cable internet provider to see how bad it can get... .
This is a very good solution but it can still paralyze you if someone: * Opens an important record * Gets distracted * Leaves for vacation for 2 weeks
Now their PC is locked with the page open and constantly polling, the record is locked forever, and people are angry. This can be solved with a message like "This record is locked. _Take Control of this record_" - Clicking it would up-end the equasion - in order to keep control the other user has to click a "I'm still editing" link within a minute. This would solve not only the vacation disaster, but the lunch annoyance.
Depending on your resources and how large a "Record" is, you may consider getting more granular as well. You could lock by field, or form section, to capture use cases where for example "I'll type up the client notes, you update their contact info to fix any errors you find, and we'll call them about this as soon as possible."
"we saw a retrofitted Dell Adamo hit the Windows desktop in 20 seconds, while a Lenovo T400s with a fast SSD got there in under 10."
It's frustrating that this is what we're supposed to get excited about. I have a Win XP box I built years ago that boots in 10 seconds. It uses hardware that might cost you $400 today. All I did was pick a Bios that didn't have a lot of silly prompts you couldn't turn off, put in a fast hard drive, and, well - ran XP which doesn't eat up every last resource like 7 and Vista do.
What's even sadder about these numbers is that seeing the "Windows desktop" in XP means I can begin browsing the web or watching Hulu right now; in Windows 7 it means you've still got a long road ahead of you before anything actually WORKS.
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of info in the "game," lots of text, very little gameplay. Felt too Super Paper Mario. It would be nice to see NASA open source this so it could play more like Civ 1, trickling out the education as you focus on the gameplay, rather than blasting you with endless text and doing a very poor job of clarifying why you need a Space Network and how much of it to get a given Research item. The win condition is pretty weak as well... you just research one more thing.
The only valid statement here is .Net developers in demand. By the way, we're one of the companies contributing to that demand - if you're good with ASP.Net, we'd like to hear from you.
This is from the article itself:
"Windows 8 certification does not require that the user be able to disable UEFI secure boot, and we've already been informed by hardware vendors that some hardware will not have this option."
From which they conclude:
"The end user is no longer in control of their PC."
So they admit that some hardware vendors are considering not offering the user the option to turn this off, then overextend that to conclude all users have lost control of their PC if they buy one with Windows 8 on it, which Microsoft is "misusing to gain tighter control over the market."
To be clear: Microsoft does not require that the user not be given the option to disable Secure Boot. The decision is up to the hardware vendor. These hardware vendors sell the same motherboards to a lot of places, some running Windows some running Linux. They have little incentive to remove a Secure Boot option.
Talk about making a big issue out of nothing. Find something else to get angry about people, like US law viewing corporations as people.
An ARM-only desktop seems silly, but I'd be interested in an ARM/x86 system that can use both with a single OS. With Windows 8 supporting both it would be cool to run mobile and desktop apps natively on the same machine. It would likely ease the transition away from x86, ultimately. But the blurred line would really give consumers a lot of options. It might also be interesting to see such a device running Ubuntu and supporting Android apps.
I'd rather see that parking lot underground and the space used for useful things or trees. The ugliest part of most establishments is the paved, oil slicked, "is that gum or McDonald's?" parking lot. I'm told Madrid actually has a law on the books preventing ground-level lots. It's a more attractive city for it.
MSAA looks awful - and Intel's CEO famously knocked antialiasing as being a stupid blurring technique not long ago. So, he goes with the only form of AA that literally adds no value. Cutting off their nose to spite their face?
Slashdot: Like StackOverflow, but with more insults and less answers.
This is just a problem of networks trying to make some extra cash. OTAs weren't designed to have optional features. You can't "ask" the user if they want parts or not. You update or don't, in a linear fashion. If something is optional then it should be a free download in the Market instead, but I'm sure the deal Sprint signed says they get paid for putting these apps directly on the Home screen, not as an opt-in. Basically Sprint is asking Google to add marketing features to Android.
Hiring former Expensify CEOs clearly a liability.
Yeah I'd say just use Sprint - the 4G is easy to tether whatever to, and you get everything you asked for.
If you really want to be difficult about it and demand there's no cell minutes for calling phones, you're forced to add Skype Out or Google Voice, one charges by the minute and the other is signaling they will next year, so it's pretty arbitrary.
You can already make this sort of call via the Gmail interface.
That was prior to Harmonix selling Guitar Hero to Activision. Guitar Hero 3 was Activision's first title - it brought a lot more big name bands to the game than Harmonix had mustered, and a slightly worse interface. Each subsequent title somehow managed to make the interface more and more infuriating to deal with, while Harmonix kept making Rock Band easier and easier to deal with.
I own a Thinkpad, and I recall reading this blog entry:
http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/2007/01/thinkpad-power-manager/
In which a software developer at IBM/Lenovo moans about how the software he works on is treated as "junk in the preload." You kinda feel bad for the guy, and he makes a convincing argument that there are proprietary features in LiIon batteries that really could tell you more if you had the software to go with it.
So I go and re-enable the Lenovo Power Manager at startup... and my RAM usage increases by FIVE HUNDRED MEGS! A half gig for a battery readout! Unbelievable! I wanted so badly to throttle the guy that wrote that blog post for not mentioning that critical failure of his crap software that IS junk and DESERVES the removal he whines about.
(For the skeptical, I measured the memory of the app in a few different ways because it just seemed impossible... I got between 501mb and 513mb every which way.)
Point being, there is some small legitimate purpose to this kind of software - but there needs to be some sort of pressure on them to be efficient and either useful or not present. I blame PC review websites. Their reviews are so far off and focused on barely-relevant details that I wonder how many of them are paid for by the manufacturer.
A strong review site that's free to read would make an impact, and a tool that cleans things out that you can trust (perhaps on said review site) would help too - you could offer manufacturers the opportunity to be removed from the "cleanup" list if they get within certain metrics.
There. Fixed that title for you.
This is a misinformed lawsuit that will likely go before a tech-unsavvy judge and jury and potentially win. And how will AT&T pay for it? With customer money - that's where businesses get their money, remember?
Another pointless lawsuit in America that makes everything more expensive to make a few lawyers richer.
This isn't labeled porn yet? They'd obviously jump on it before anyone else.
Technology like this has the most immediate useful impact on Windows Tablet devices that are just the touchscreen and essentially no other UI. You could make a raised keyboard with the screen, which would really be best of both worlds.
The next step is a revolution in UI design. An alpha layer representing the texture of every UI feature could be part of every image displayed, and you could have an infinite number of interfaces that are customized to a particular task, but you would get the ergonomic benefits of a normal keyboard. For example, you could handle multiple languages more effectively by adding entire new keys to the on-screen keyboard instead of doubling-up and making it difficult to type common characters as is done today in many languages. Games could present a set of "keys" that are just the movement and action keys, clearly labeled as such, instead of WASD.
And of course, porn would run rampant, as always.
Since it's just a patent, presumably this technology won't exist for ages. My bets have always been on Apple putting this in a future iPad before anyone else gets to it - not a big fan of Apple, but their ownership of the entire technology stack and the premium price they can levy for their devices puts them in the best position to introduce something like this with the fewest hurdles.
This is at least somewhat irresponsible journalism. I mean, obviously Google needs time to consider first, how to deal with China, and second if it comes to it, how to handle it adequately. They should have the opportunity to plan and deliver the bad news themselves rather than some kneejerk reporter trying to make a name for themselves. Imagine how depressing this must be for Google China employees.
Screw you, CNet.
As you demonstrate you already know, cancer prevention is partly about restricting the uncontrolled growth of cells; a tumor is cells growing without controls, so many natural defenses against cancer place controls on cell growth, sometimes by inhibiting healthy cell growth as well.
Turning off a gene like p21 is probably going to impact your body's ability to control and respond to cancer:
http://www.google.com/search?q=p21+cancer
In particular, in that search is a powerpoint presentation discussing the body's immunoresponse to cancer, in which p53 initiates and governs several important responses, one of which involves turning on p21 to begin replacing it with healthy cells.
Obviously, that observed response goes away if you knock out p21; it's likely that without the aid of that process, the process is impacted and cancer is more likely to succeed.
There are numerous other examples of p21 aiding cancer prevention, removal, and replacement in that search - have a look.
I'd like to see the comparative cancer rates of normal mice and p21-knockout mice.
Why is banning the solution to everything? I don't get it. People love to ban anything with legislation, it's completely illogical.
Don't know why you posted a question as an Anonymous Coward, but... .
1) Comcast's filters notice you're infected; for example they see your machine send 200,000 emails in a day.
2) You request a webpage.
3) Regardless of the webpage, they can intercept the HTML on its way to your browser and insert something like (don't know how much code Slashdot will let me post but here goes)
(wait for HTML tag and body tag)
document.writeln('');
(send the rest of the page)
With that inserted, your browser will now call out to Comcast's servers and load that .js file. That .js file runs inside the page, so it can do anything any other script could do, like:
var div = document.createElement('div'); ... blah blah ... to validate this message is a legitimate Comcast notice ... (this is going to be the really difficult part for them)";
div.innerHTML = "You've got a virus! You've sent 200,000 emails a day non-stop for a week - or at least your infected machine has without your knowing. To fix it take the following instructions
div.style = 'position:absolute;left:50%;top:50%;margin:-100px 0 0 -200px;width:400px;top:200px;background:#fff;border:3px solid #00f;z-index:1000';
document.body.appendChild(div);
That puts a nice large box up in the middle of the page with that message. What's going to be really difficult is making it clear this is real, and doing it in a less-obtrusive way - for example stuffing it up at the top of the page and giving you an easy way to make it go away.
I think email and free antivirus software are better ways of notifying you (make a deal with McAfee to be able to send your own antivirus alerts via their software)
Why did you link to a song as proof you remove viruses? I'm not anymore confident you remove viruses regularly, but now also find your song-writing skills suspect.
I think everything Comcast did in the above situation was appropriate except:
1) They should have notified you somehow of being part of a spam network. If they can't get ahold of you or you ignore notifications, I don't see blocking outbound SMTP as wrong on their part.
2) They should have offered you as much data as possible on that. I'm betting they offered you no data not because they didn't have it, but because they people *you can reach on the phone* don't. The people you're talking to are buried in a call center with call scripts about how to reset your modem and reboot Vista. They don't have access to the data Comcast found, but you can bet it's somewhere. It just takes software - and a decision to invest in it - to get it to you. That seems like something they definitely should invest in.
I think if they can say to customers, clearly, "Here's the amount of spam you've sent for the past month," you'll get a MUCH stronger response from technical and non-technical people alike. Say it in real terms, especially if you've already got all the numbers.
Yes, that's an interesting point - if they detect malware on your system, they could do several things:
1) Notify you. I think a small Comcast notifier installed on your system would actually be more trustworthy than a message inserted into a webpage, but it would cover a lot fewer customers. Since Comcast has a deal with McAfee to deliver free antivirus software, they could co-brand the software and send messages through that instead, which would feel even more appropriate and trustworthy to the customer - anti-virus software notifying them they have a virus. Very reasonable.
2) Block SMTP traffic coming out of your machine. That would prevent any chance of your machine being used to send spam, which is the majority of what these bot networks are built to do. You may not even need to notify customers they're getting SMTP blocked; the set of users that run their own legitimate SMTP and the set of users letting a bot carry on on their system is likely a very SMALL overlap. But the notification catches that small overlap nonetheless.
At the same time I think Comcast might be missing a critical opportunity here. By automating this they reduce the "taken care of" feel to helping you through a computer virus. Statistics show that a customer you treat well is happy, but your happiest customers are the ones that had something go wrong, and you took the time to help fix it. An automated webpage message takes Customer Service out of the loop. That doesn't mean it can't still feel like Comcast is helping you through it, but it's more difficult to pull off.
I think Comcast's best move would be for whatever notification they show you to take you to a log of what horrors your computer's been up to - "247,000 spam emails sent in the past month" - things like that. Give the user the full diagnosis and what awful things are going on underneath their fingers. Then help them fix it with antivirus that has strong auto-remove features.
Agree as well. Go Comcast for trying to do something about the massive bot networks in the world. If we can take American machines out of the mix we might take a lot of horsepower out of these massive networks.
Going to vote the other way here - I had Comcast in Boston and the Silicon Valley area and they were excellent in both locations. I'm stuck with Time Warner now and miss them every time Time Warner's service goes down, which has been once a month for the past 5.
Comcast has been very effective in many areas, including reasonable channel selections instead of some of the insane stuff you have to pick over on other companies, getting a lot of last mile wired up over fibre optic and then delivering just the last smigeon over normal cable lines, and just generally doing a good job. Maybe people complaining about them need to live with another cable internet provider to see how bad it can get... .
This is a very good solution but it can still paralyze you if someone:
* Opens an important record
* Gets distracted
* Leaves for vacation for 2 weeks
Now their PC is locked with the page open and constantly polling, the record is locked forever, and people are angry. This can be solved with a message like
"This record is locked. _Take Control of this record_" - Clicking it would up-end the equasion - in order to keep control the other user has to click a "I'm still editing" link within a minute. This would solve not only the vacation disaster, but the lunch annoyance.
Depending on your resources and how large a "Record" is, you may consider getting more granular as well. You could lock by field, or form section, to capture use cases where for example "I'll type up the client notes, you update their contact info to fix any errors you find, and we'll call them about this as soon as possible."
"we saw a retrofitted Dell Adamo hit the Windows desktop in 20 seconds, while a Lenovo T400s with a fast SSD got there in under 10."
It's frustrating that this is what we're supposed to get excited about. I have a Win XP box I built years ago that boots in 10 seconds. It uses hardware that might cost you $400 today. All I did was pick a Bios that didn't have a lot of silly prompts you couldn't turn off, put in a fast hard drive, and, well - ran XP which doesn't eat up every last resource like 7 and Vista do.
What's even sadder about these numbers is that seeing the "Windows desktop" in XP means I can begin browsing the web or watching Hulu right now; in Windows 7 it means you've still got a long road ahead of you before anything actually WORKS.