I've been toying with the idea of building a digital picture frame myself for some time now. We had a/. article on that very subject earlier this year (it appears the 'Popular Science' article referenced in the story is now gone, but it was all very similar to this step-by-step guide).
Basically, you take an old discarded laptop and build a picture frame around it.
I'm pretty sure I can build one for less than $160. Plus, it sounds like a fun project. OTOH, I really like the idea of having a seperate remote like the AV Tech picture frame and similar models have. And having a WiFi picture frame would be neat, I guess (remind me to adjust the firewall rules;).
In the future, someone could easily compile all of it, do quality assurance and fact checking, choose the best revisions, etc. and then release that with their name behind it with the tag "as correct as any other encyclopedia, but with a whole lot more."
Yes, in theory that's possible. But you would need to have a lot of people with expertise in a lot of fields to do that. I guess a big company could that do.
The problem here is that doing so is "economically expensive".
Let me explain what I mean by that: yes, it's expensive to actually employ people to do your fact checking, at least if you hire people who know what they're doing.
That's not what I'm getting at though. There are two factors:
Your whole business model is based on your reputation. A few bad apples will kill your business unless you're one of the big guys. That makes it economically expensive. You screw up just a few times and nobody will pay for your content. And since your providing an online service and not selling volumes of a real world paper encyclopedia, people will just take their business elsewhere or use one of the free alternatives.
Wikipedia is awesome if your looking for a definition or a quick explanation. In the pre-Wikipedia days, when you came across some term or concept that you weren't familiar with you had basically two options: a) write it down and look it up later, or b) forget about it.
These days, you can just check Wikipedia and chances are you'll find some information. And that's really the beauty of it. Stuff that most people would have ignored is right there, at your fingertips. Hell, you can load the Wikipedia bookmarklet into Firefox (ie. the search dialog in the upper right corner) and you literally have millions of pages of encyclopedia information at your fingertips.
Sadly, Wikipedia sucks for doing scientific research though. Yes, you cannot cite any encyclopedia in a scientific paper anyway. But commercial encyclopedias usually reference sources that you can cite. And those are the sources your professor will expect to see in your footnotes.
Wikipedia won't be able to compete with commercial encyclopedias anytime soon. And, personally, I don't think that's something we should even attempt to do. Wikipedia is fine as it is. If I want details about nuclear physics, I'll read a book or ask someone who knows about that sort of thing.
Approaching a problem from a "as cheap as possible" DYI angle will often lead to technological improvements, too. If you're on a budget you tend to make sure things just work and in order for them to just work (ie. not break) you have to keep things simple.
After watching last week's "CSI: New York" episode (click here for a synopsis), I was pretty impressed with the idea of having a robot lift prints from an explosive ordinance before detonating it. Turns out that robot really exists and was build as a DYI project by a Canadian law enforcement officer.
The fact that Halo is usually played on big screen TVs and very few people play HL2 on anything other than their computer monitors might have something to do with this.
I can only speculate since neither game makes me naseous or dizzy. A slight headache after playing too long, yes but that's normal, I guess.
Another factor might be the way people play. Consoles are usually in people's living rooms and hooked up to big screen TVs. That means you'll probably be sitting on a comfy couch, at least several feet away from your television. Very few PC gamers use their TVs to play (for obvious reasons). So if you're playing HL2, chances are you're basically sitting at your desk, sometimes literally just a few inches away from your monitor.
- You should be able to give your team the order "STAY HERE AND DON'T FUCKING MOVE!"
I wish I could tell you how much I concur. It's so unbelievably frustrating to have a great plan and have one of your teammates totally screw it up. And this problem isn't limited to HL2 at all. I've found myself frustrated with the Halo series AI more than once.
And you know your teammate's AI isn't perfect when the only chance you have to make a silent tactical approach is too off your own team.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not asking for "Rainbow 6" like control over your team (even though I really liked that game). That would take the whole spontaneous fun factor out of most FPS games (you know, pick up the controler(s), play for a while and then move on). But having some real control over the people that are supposed to be helping you and that you're inevitably stuck with would be really nice.
A service for which it is clearly stated that you need an unmodified XBox, if I may add that.
This is nothing new. They have been banning people for signing on to Live with modified hardware or software since the very beginning. The only difference is that they're now actively and aggressively pushing their agenda (which has been 'allow only stock hardware on Live' since the very beginning to discourage cheating and piracy).
And Live is not without competition. If your game has a system-link option, you can play it online, period. There's XBC, there's XLink and a few others. Yes, it's not XBox Live. But it works.
This is not such a big deal.
[...] I rather the adverts be relevant (and discrete) as in Gmail that annoying flashy banner ads in some services.
I agree. And those Google text ads make a lot sense from business perspective, too.
They're using targeted ads which makes a lot of sense since people perceive them as less intrusive. Personally, I complete ignore them. I usually focus on the content of the email itself so the ads are mostly white noise to me. But a lot of people consider them a welcome addition. Sort of like a not-so-obnoxious, helpful Clippy.
Another major selling point is that they're harder to block and there's less incentive to do so. With tools like Firefox Adblock not just readily available but also easy to use and really effective (wanna block Flash, done; wanna block Quicktime, done) it really pays off to have unintrusive ads. There's a growing understanding that people own their desktop real estate. If something is flashy and annoying, people no longer have to ignore it. They can just block it, and two clicks later never ever have to see that banner ad again. And what's even worse for those ad companies that rely on banner ads is, that the user can not only choose to not display their ad. They can with the click of a button choose to not download it. And that cuts directly into their bottom line.
So overall, I think Google's text ads are not just the most user-friendly way to run an ad-based service. They're also the future.
Of course it was a matter of time - as it's a matter of time with any OS.
Like there could be an OS which is absolutely secure and then we wouldn't have to read stupid articles like these.
Well, in a way, you're absolutely right. The very first thing you have to realize before you even do a preliminary security screening/threat assement is that security is always a trade-off. That's the major point that most managers fail to understand.
Basically, there are three elements that you need to balance: security, usability and costs (there a re also lot of other relevant factors like existing infrastructre, resistance to change, scalability, etc. that make real security work, ie. more breaking out the pen test kit and print a report, so damn expensive).
There is no such thing as a 100% secure system. That's the common wisdom and that's true. But you can design a 98% secure system. The only problem is that this system will require a huge overhead and be so cumbersome that your employees will spend most of their time doing anything but actual work. That way they'll either avoid it and use something else (ie. something less secure and more usuable), if given the choice. Or they'll be largely unproductive, which in turn means you'll have to spend a lot of money to even keep things running. Which of course means you'll not be able to compete (that's one of the reasons a lot of secure systems are designed for government use only because they government doesn't really have to compete or be efficient).
Multics implemented usuable security exceptionally well. You could get the job done in a timely but relatively secure manner. For some more information about user centered security check out this paper or "Multics Security Evaluation: Vulnerability Analysis" by Karger & Schell (1974). The latter is available online too.
It's really a shame there's no "Open Multics". I wouldn't really run it in a secure production envionment but I'd sure like to have my own Multics machine.
Re:10 hour single-player?
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Halo 2 Released
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· Score: 2, Informative
Well, it depends. There are still four different difficulty modes, AFAIR. If you enjoyed playing Halo 1 on normal and then beat it again on heroic or legendary, you will like this game. It's easy to breeze through it on normal in 11 hours but it will be a challenge to beat it at all on heroic, even if you're an experienced FPS player (and they made legendary even tougher).
If you just want to see what all the fuzz is about and beat the game, I would recommend you rent it first. Otherwise, go for it. I assume the price tag is similar in the UK (it's around $50 here) so you're not spending your kid's college money. Plus there's always XBConnect and Xlink which allow you to play online should you ever feel like it without having to pay for XBox Live.
Has anyone successfully updated their browser to 1.0 using the built-in update function (you know, Tools - Options - Advanced - Software Update - Check Now)?
It either times out (95% of the time) or gives me a message saying that there are no updates available. Given the latter message, I gather that I'll probably have to update manually. It's really no biggie but it would be nice if they made the "auto update" thing work. I have a bunch of 1.0 PRs running here (as in three or four dozen or so) and it would be nice to not have to roll out the update myself. (Disclaimer: I don't really maintain these machines. This is just volunteer work. I know how to do centralized software rollouts but these are not my machines.)
It's definitely becoming more of a "mainstream problem". Afterall, the whole identitity theft problem is perfect Dateline/60 Minutes material.
Has anyone else noticed that the folks at Gmail have added a "report phishing" feature? When you view a message, click "More Options" and you'll see it.
Then again, maybe it's been there for some time and I just haven't noticed (it definitely wasn't there when I first got my Gmail account though and it doesn't appear to be listed as a new feature).
I wonder if VC companies would consider investing in an X-Prize-like endeavour now that Burt Rutan and his crew have proven that it's not just doable but also possible to do it in a manner that attracts prime-time media attention.
I guess it won't happen since a VC company would very likely be concerned about X-Prize Spinoff Inc.'s 5-year-return (basically, the way it works is that VC companies focus on return-on-investment; as a rule of thumb that should happen in a 3-7 year timeframe (5 being the median), at least if you want to be taken seriously). That's unless you have plan to develop new technology that you could use to make money in a licensing deal (eg. license your technology to the government/NASA). Or if there were some serious tax incentives.
And this actually is one of those areas were tax breaks could, at least in my opinion, significantly stimulate growth.
Microsoft didn't invent this game though. They're just playing it. And as usual, they're a tad bit late and have to play hardball to catch up with the competition. And of course, as usual, they throw at a lot of money at the (perceived) problem (which, sadly, I have to admit has usually worked for them in the past more often than not).
IBM has been doing this for decades and they are exceptionally good at this. The difference is that, at least at this point in time, they do not actively do anything with their patents - at least not beyond the point of what's necessary to keep them. They just keep filing new patents to keep their asses covered. And, in a way, they have to do that to ensure the survival of the company. Think about it: it's way cheaper to just file for and receive a patent than to challenge somebody else's patent and to try and have that invalidated (something that hardly ever happens). It also helps with ligigation. If another company is suing you, you first check your database to see if they have violated one of your patents.
In 2003, IBM received 3,415 U.S. patents from the USPTO. This is the eleventh consecutive year that IBM has received more U.S. patents than any other company in the world. In addition to delivering these innovations through its products and services, IBM maintains an active patent and technology licensing program.
And, believe me, they're covering all their bases (last time, I checked they had 23k+ active patents and they have some exceptionally good lawyers). Please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying IBM is the bad guy here. I like the fact that they're supporting Linux as much as the next guy. I'm not even saying what they're doing is inherently evil. I'm merely trying to point out that patents are becoming a priority issue everywhere and that it's becoming increasingly important to CYA.
From reading all the threads and flame wars going on here, it appears that WEP, WPA and even MAC address filtering is easy to crack, if someone was determined enough to do it.
Well, there are different schools of thought when it comes to SoHo/low bandwidth WAN access security.
You are attempting to lock your network down so that a potential attacker cannot use your connection. The other approach lock your network down just enough to make a cracker not want to bother and to move on to the next, easier target (ie. your neighbors' access points).
The former approach generally works just fine if your goal is to deny a potential attacker access to your network bandwidth. It won't really stop a determined attacker who isn't just in it for a free-ride but who wants to steal specific data. If that's part of your threat model, chances are wireless isn't really for you. The downside is that this is pretty inconvenient. And since convenience is the big selling point when it comes to wireless networking, most people just won't take that route.
Those people who have WEP and MAC address filtering enabled, basically want to protect themselves against random, unsophisticated wardriving. It won't help defend against a determined attacker and probably won't even scare off the teenager next door with too much time on his hands. The point isn't really to have good access security. It's just to raise the bar enough to be unatractive enough of a target. Think of it as a "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you" scenario.
Frankly, I'm not sure viewing TV, the music and video industry and the video game genre as strictly seperate and independent businesses is all that smart.
Just look at the major video game releases: one of GTA Vice City's major features was its licensed soundtrack. Halo 2 has not just one, but two official soundtracks. The Halo franchise rivals most Hollywood blockbusters with regard to its script, its score and its marketing.
Remember the Wing Commander franchise? Wing Commander 3 (which was a three CD release, IIRC) had professional grade blue-screen cutscenes that were groundbreaking at that time. Remeber the movie?
Remember Resident Evil? There have also been rumours about an movie studios being more than willing to bring "The Sims" and the Halo franchises to the big screen.
That's why I'm inclined to believe that it's not really fair to compare different forms of presentation any more - at least when it comes to major blockbuster titles. They become less and less separable. Video games incorporate technology that just a decade ago was unavailable to anyone but major movie studios. TV is becoming increasingly interactive (the American Idol type of shows being one example). Video game background music is produced by professionals.
There's really no point in doing "we're doing better than you are" comparisons. We're talking genre cross-over here (at least at the high end of the spectrum).
No, it indeed is not (it can be used as one though).
Konfabulator is a pretty amazing and very versatile little utility. If you've never used it you should definitely check out this list of Konfabulator widgets over at Widgetgallery.com.
I do something similar. I use Firefox's Cookieculler extension.
It basically allows you to mark certain cookies as "protected". Now, if you don't want to keep track of what cookies you need (ie. you expect your browser to handle the cookie management instead of doing it yourself), you just set those few cookies that you need (in my case that's Gmail, Ebay, Slashdot, Amazon and a select few semi-trusted sites) as "protected". Then you enable cookies. At the end of the day, you pull up the Cookieculler dialog, select the "don't allow sites that set removed cookies to set future cookies" option, select all cookies and hit delete. Cookieculler automatically makes sure that you don't accidently delete any important cookie and won't ever be bothered by a website that requires cookies to access the site.
Of course, this doesn't really solve the problem which is the cookie system itself but it addresses the issue of end users just clicking "yes" because they don't want to be bothered. And since you checked the "don't allow sites that set removed cookies to set future cookies" option, you're basically compiling a blacklist without any hassle at all.
I don't this this is such a big deal. As I understand it - and I might be wrong on this - these limitations only apply to new features (ie. remote access to recorded TV programming). So, I suppose this is basically a CYA maneuver to limit TiVo's liability and to stop costly litigation in its tracks.
Plus, TiVos are indeed pretty hackable. In contrast to other manufacturers (eg. Microsoft put in a lot of effort to make sure the XBox was "unhackable"), TiVo doesn't really seem to mind people modifying their hardware all that much. And there are a lot of people who have "modded" their TiVos, even if it's just to swap out the harddrive for a bigger one. If you really want to permanently record a show, there's really nothing they can do to stop you. All they can do, is make it harder.
Well, at least in theory, you could use low-bitrate mono MP3s without any loosing any quality. With bone conduction, there is only a single source of transmission and not two (ie. your ears).
A MP3 played on this player will sound like it's "all around you", coming from all directions. It's omniphonic sound. That's why there's not really a point in having stereo MP3s. You could convert them to mono and squeeze in more songs.
... military technology eventually being used in civilian applications. The SEALs have used bone conduction for a while now. And according to the Navy Wire Service this technology has already been transfered to other fields, namely, to be used by emergency response personell. So this is just the next step...
Bone conduction is actually a pretty good idea: the ear drum is too close to the density of the water to stop any sound wave when in immersion. The bones are hard enough to stop the fast sound waves though. Basically the bones from the neck and skull resonate and carry the vibrations.
There will be a catered presentation on the new management bonuses, buyouts, reserved parking, options and 300% salary increases by a blow-dried, phone flipping asshole in the conference room.
If I were a HR manager at Apple, I seriously would consider offering these guys a job. They obviously know what they're doing... their 'CT scanning' approach just might turn out to be the most creative job application ever.
God - really common sense has to occasionally be used. Though I'm not in favour of censorship, such a blatant and unrealistic article should have at least been delayed a day or so before release.
Well, in my humble opinion, that's the real beauty. You not only get to make up your own mind. You get to read what others think about a statement, an assertion or a broader concept and make up your mind based on that.
It's a two-way approach, if you will. Unlike a newspaper, not a single entity decides if a story is "true" (if there even is such a thing). Sure, the editors decide if it's newsworthy, ie. if it gets approved and if it makes the frontpage. But the determination if what the story is about is non-sense or not is left to the reader.
And since Slashdot has such a wide-ranging readership, there are usually plenty of people to point out mistakes, misconceptions and straight-out lies and add insight to a story. That's actually why I keep coming here - because I'm interested in other people's views. I usually already have an opinion before I read the first comments (I actually do the articles, at least most of the time). But there's always a comment that makes me go "hmm, I never looked at it like that".
That's what's so cool about having a global readership - diversity and perspective.
Y'know what'd be better - Apple putting the (presumably patented, since we haven't seen it on anyone else's hardware) iPod scroll wheel into a keyboard or even on a standalone USB panel.
That's an interesting idea. According to this article, Apple did not invent the iPod scroll wheel though. Apparently it was designed by Synaptics.
It's minor. A very minor thing and yet people act like Valve is asking for the their first born child!
It very well may be minor but it's still an annoyance. I can understand their desire to protect their IP, especially after their ridiculous security policies have resulted in several breaches.
But this will simply not prevent determined people from pirating or leaking the game. It will, however, inconvenience those people who buy a legitimate copy of the game.
I guess the old "some people don't have Internet/broadband/whatever access" argument doesn't hold a lot of water anymore, especially with regard to the intended HL2 audience. But the fact remains that some people simply don't want to forced to active their software because they're opposed to the idea of having to give out private information in general, or just don't want to be bothered or simply find the whole concept of treating a paying customer like a criminal unless he or she proves otherwise iniquitous.
Yes, I suppose you could give Valve fake information. But I why am I supposed to give them any personal information in the first place? Compare it to Windows XP. Microsoft's product activation scheme hasn't prevented one determined individual from pirating their software. Sure, it has raised the bar so-to-speak for some "casual, wannabe software pirates" (which was probably what they were trying to do). They also managed to piss off millions of legitimate users in the process.
I sure hope they put a big fat red warning sticker on the boxes. Hardcore gamers will still want to play HL2, even if they have to give their firstborn to Valve (and that probably goes for a lot of not-so-hardcore gamers, too). But that way, people at least have a choice and don't have to find out the hard way (ie. after installing the game) that they can't play the game they just purchased without Valve's blessing.
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Basically, you take an old discarded laptop and build a picture frame around it.
I'm pretty sure I can build one for less than $160. Plus, it sounds like a fun project. OTOH, I really like the idea of having a seperate remote like the AV Tech picture frame and similar models have. And having a WiFi picture frame would be neat, I guess (remind me to adjust the firewall rules ;).
Yes, in theory that's possible. But you would need to have a lot of people with expertise in a lot of fields to do that. I guess a big company could that do.
The problem here is that doing so is "economically expensive".
Let me explain what I mean by that: yes, it's expensive to actually employ people to do your fact checking, at least if you hire people who know what they're doing.
That's not what I'm getting at though. There are two factors:
- Your whole business model is based on your reputation. A few bad apples will kill your business unless you're one of the big guys. That makes it economically expensive. You screw up just a few times and nobody will pay for your content. And since your providing an online service and not selling volumes of a real world paper encyclopedia, people will just take their business elsewhere or use one of the free alternatives.
- Wikipedia is awesome if your looking for a definition or a quick explanation. In the pre-Wikipedia days, when you came across some term or concept that you weren't familiar with you had basically two options: a) write it down and look it up later, or b) forget about it.
Wikipedia won't be able to compete with commercial encyclopedias anytime soon. And, personally, I don't think that's something we should even attempt to do. Wikipedia is fine as it is. If I want details about nuclear physics, I'll read a book or ask someone who knows about that sort of thing.These days, you can just check Wikipedia and chances are you'll find some information. And that's really the beauty of it. Stuff that most people would have ignored is right there, at your fingertips. Hell, you can load the Wikipedia bookmarklet into Firefox (ie. the search dialog in the upper right corner) and you literally have millions of pages of encyclopedia information at your fingertips.
Sadly, Wikipedia sucks for doing scientific research though. Yes, you cannot cite any encyclopedia in a scientific paper anyway. But commercial encyclopedias usually reference sources that you can cite. And those are the sources your professor will expect to see in your footnotes.
Approaching a problem from a "as cheap as possible" DYI angle will often lead to technological improvements, too. If you're on a budget you tend to make sure things just work and in order for them to just work (ie. not break) you have to keep things simple.
After watching last week's "CSI: New York" episode (click here for a synopsis), I was pretty impressed with the idea of having a robot lift prints from an explosive ordinance before detonating it. Turns out that robot really exists and was build as a DYI project by a Canadian law enforcement officer.
I can only speculate since neither game makes me naseous or dizzy. A slight headache after playing too long, yes but that's normal, I guess.
Another factor might be the way people play. Consoles are usually in people's living rooms and hooked up to big screen TVs. That means you'll probably be sitting on a comfy couch, at least several feet away from your television. Very few PC gamers use their TVs to play (for obvious reasons). So if you're playing HL2, chances are you're basically sitting at your desk, sometimes literally just a few inches away from your monitor.
I wish I could tell you how much I concur. It's so unbelievably frustrating to have a great plan and have one of your teammates totally screw it up. And this problem isn't limited to HL2 at all. I've found myself frustrated with the Halo series AI more than once.
And you know your teammate's AI isn't perfect when the only chance you have to make a silent tactical approach is too off your own team.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not asking for "Rainbow 6" like control over your team (even though I really liked that game). That would take the whole spontaneous fun factor out of most FPS games (you know, pick up the controler(s), play for a while and then move on). But having some real control over the people that are supposed to be helping you and that you're inevitably stuck with would be really nice.
This is nothing new. They have been banning people for signing on to Live with modified hardware or software since the very beginning. The only difference is that they're now actively and aggressively pushing their agenda (which has been 'allow only stock hardware on Live' since the very beginning to discourage cheating and piracy).
And Live is not without competition. If your game has a system-link option, you can play it online, period. There's XBC, there's XLink and a few others. Yes, it's not XBox Live. But it works.
This is not such a big deal.
I agree. And those Google text ads make a lot sense from business perspective, too.
They're using targeted ads which makes a lot of sense since people perceive them as less intrusive. Personally, I complete ignore them. I usually focus on the content of the email itself so the ads are mostly white noise to me. But a lot of people consider them a welcome addition. Sort of like a not-so-obnoxious, helpful Clippy.
Another major selling point is that they're harder to block and there's less incentive to do so. With tools like Firefox Adblock not just readily available but also easy to use and really effective (wanna block Flash, done; wanna block Quicktime, done) it really pays off to have unintrusive ads. There's a growing understanding that people own their desktop real estate. If something is flashy and annoying, people no longer have to ignore it. They can just block it, and two clicks later never ever have to see that banner ad again. And what's even worse for those ad companies that rely on banner ads is, that the user can not only choose to not display their ad. They can with the click of a button choose to not download it. And that cuts directly into their bottom line.
So overall, I think Google's text ads are not just the most user-friendly way to run an ad-based service. They're also the future.
Well, in a way, you're absolutely right. The very first thing you have to realize before you even do a preliminary security screening/threat assement is that security is always a trade-off. That's the major point that most managers fail to understand.
Basically, there are three elements that you need to balance: security, usability and costs (there a re also lot of other relevant factors like existing infrastructre, resistance to change, scalability, etc. that make real security work, ie. more breaking out the pen test kit and print a report, so damn expensive).
There is no such thing as a 100% secure system. That's the common wisdom and that's true. But you can design a 98% secure system. The only problem is that this system will require a huge overhead and be so cumbersome that your employees will spend most of their time doing anything but actual work. That way they'll either avoid it and use something else (ie. something less secure and more usuable), if given the choice. Or they'll be largely unproductive, which in turn means you'll have to spend a lot of money to even keep things running. Which of course means you'll not be able to compete (that's one of the reasons a lot of secure systems are designed for government use only because they government doesn't really have to compete or be efficient).
Multics implemented usuable security exceptionally well. You could get the job done in a timely but relatively secure manner. For some more information about user centered security check out this paper or "Multics Security Evaluation: Vulnerability Analysis" by Karger & Schell (1974). The latter is available online too.
It's really a shame there's no "Open Multics". I wouldn't really run it in a secure production envionment but I'd sure like to have my own Multics machine.
If you just want to see what all the fuzz is about and beat the game, I would recommend you rent it first. Otherwise, go for it. I assume the price tag is similar in the UK (it's around $50 here) so you're not spending your kid's college money. Plus there's always XBConnect and Xlink which allow you to play online should you ever feel like it without having to pay for XBox Live.
It either times out (95% of the time) or gives me a message saying that there are no updates available. Given the latter message, I gather that I'll probably have to update manually. It's really no biggie but it would be nice if they made the "auto update" thing work. I have a bunch of 1.0 PRs running here (as in three or four dozen or so) and it would be nice to not have to roll out the update myself. (Disclaimer: I don't really maintain these machines. This is just volunteer work. I know how to do centralized software rollouts but these are not my machines.)
Has anyone else noticed that the folks at Gmail have added a "report phishing" feature? When you view a message, click "More Options" and you'll see it.
Then again, maybe it's been there for some time and I just haven't noticed (it definitely wasn't there when I first got my Gmail account though and it doesn't appear to be listed as a new feature).
I guess it won't happen since a VC company would very likely be concerned about X-Prize Spinoff Inc.'s 5-year-return (basically, the way it works is that VC companies focus on return-on-investment; as a rule of thumb that should happen in a 3-7 year timeframe (5 being the median), at least if you want to be taken seriously). That's unless you have plan to develop new technology that you could use to make money in a licensing deal (eg. license your technology to the government/NASA). Or if there were some serious tax incentives.
And this actually is one of those areas were tax breaks could, at least in my opinion, significantly stimulate growth.
IBM has been doing this for decades and they are exceptionally good at this. The difference is that, at least at this point in time, they do not actively do anything with their patents - at least not beyond the point of what's necessary to keep them. They just keep filing new patents to keep their asses covered. And, in a way, they have to do that to ensure the survival of the company. Think about it: it's way cheaper to just file for and receive a patent than to challenge somebody else's patent and to try and have that invalidated (something that hardly ever happens). It also helps with ligigation. If another company is suing you, you first check your database to see if they have violated one of your patents.
And to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, check out this quote from IBM's IP & Licensing website:
And, believe me, they're covering all their bases (last time, I checked they had 23k+ active patents and they have some exceptionally good lawyers). Please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying IBM is the bad guy here. I like the fact that they're supporting Linux as much as the next guy. I'm not even saying what they're doing is inherently evil. I'm merely trying to point out that patents are becoming a priority issue everywhere and that it's becoming increasingly important to CYA.
Well, there are different schools of thought when it comes to SoHo/low bandwidth WAN access security.
You are attempting to lock your network down so that a potential attacker cannot use your connection. The other approach lock your network down just enough to make a cracker not want to bother and to move on to the next, easier target (ie. your neighbors' access points).
The former approach generally works just fine if your goal is to deny a potential attacker access to your network bandwidth. It won't really stop a determined attacker who isn't just in it for a free-ride but who wants to steal specific data. If that's part of your threat model, chances are wireless isn't really for you. The downside is that this is pretty inconvenient. And since convenience is the big selling point when it comes to wireless networking, most people just won't take that route.
Those people who have WEP and MAC address filtering enabled, basically want to protect themselves against random, unsophisticated wardriving. It won't help defend against a determined attacker and probably won't even scare off the teenager next door with too much time on his hands. The point isn't really to have good access security. It's just to raise the bar enough to be unatractive enough of a target. Think of it as a "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you" scenario.
Just look at the major video game releases: one of GTA Vice City's major features was its licensed soundtrack. Halo 2 has not just one, but two official soundtracks. The Halo franchise rivals most Hollywood blockbusters with regard to its script, its score and its marketing.
Remember the Wing Commander franchise? Wing Commander 3 (which was a three CD release, IIRC) had professional grade blue-screen cutscenes that were groundbreaking at that time. Remeber the movie?
Remember Resident Evil? There have also been rumours about an movie studios being more than willing to bring "The Sims" and the Halo franchises to the big screen.
That's why I'm inclined to believe that it's not really fair to compare different forms of presentation any more - at least when it comes to major blockbuster titles. They become less and less separable. Video games incorporate technology that just a decade ago was unavailable to anyone but major movie studios. TV is becoming increasingly interactive (the American Idol type of shows being one example). Video game background music is produced by professionals.
There's really no point in doing "we're doing better than you are" comparisons. We're talking genre cross-over here (at least at the high end of the spectrum).
Konfabulator is a pretty amazing and very versatile little utility. If you've never used it you should definitely check out this list of Konfabulator widgets over at Widgetgallery.com.
It basically allows you to mark certain cookies as "protected". Now, if you don't want to keep track of what cookies you need (ie. you expect your browser to handle the cookie management instead of doing it yourself), you just set those few cookies that you need (in my case that's Gmail, Ebay, Slashdot, Amazon and a select few semi-trusted sites) as "protected". Then you enable cookies. At the end of the day, you pull up the Cookieculler dialog, select the "don't allow sites that set removed cookies to set future cookies" option, select all cookies and hit delete. Cookieculler automatically makes sure that you don't accidently delete any important cookie and won't ever be bothered by a website that requires cookies to access the site.
Of course, this doesn't really solve the problem which is the cookie system itself but it addresses the issue of end users just clicking "yes" because they don't want to be bothered. And since you checked the "don't allow sites that set removed cookies to set future cookies" option, you're basically compiling a blacklist without any hassle at all.
Plus, TiVos are indeed pretty hackable. In contrast to other manufacturers (eg. Microsoft put in a lot of effort to make sure the XBox was "unhackable"), TiVo doesn't really seem to mind people modifying their hardware all that much. And there are a lot of people who have "modded" their TiVos, even if it's just to swap out the harddrive for a bigger one. If you really want to permanently record a show, there's really nothing they can do to stop you. All they can do, is make it harder.
A MP3 played on this player will sound like it's "all around you", coming from all directions. It's omniphonic sound. That's why there's not really a point in having stereo MP3s. You could convert them to mono and squeeze in more songs.
Bone conduction is actually a pretty good idea: the ear drum is too close to the density of the water to stop any sound wave when in immersion. The bones are hard enough to stop the fast sound waves though. Basically the bones from the neck and skull resonate and carry the vibrations.
*Lumbergh voice* What's haaaaaaaaappening, Peter?
If I were a HR manager at Apple, I seriously would consider offering these guys a job. They obviously know what they're doing... their 'CT scanning' approach just might turn out to be the most creative job application ever.
Well, in my humble opinion, that's the real beauty. You not only get to make up your own mind. You get to read what others think about a statement, an assertion or a broader concept and make up your mind based on that.
It's a two-way approach, if you will. Unlike a newspaper, not a single entity decides if a story is "true" (if there even is such a thing). Sure, the editors decide if it's newsworthy, ie. if it gets approved and if it makes the frontpage. But the determination if what the story is about is non-sense or not is left to the reader.
And since Slashdot has such a wide-ranging readership, there are usually plenty of people to point out mistakes, misconceptions and straight-out lies and add insight to a story. That's actually why I keep coming here - because I'm interested in other people's views. I usually already have an opinion before I read the first comments (I actually do the articles, at least most of the time). But there's always a comment that makes me go "hmm, I never looked at it like that".
That's what's so cool about having a global readership - diversity and perspective.
That's an interesting idea. According to this article, Apple did not invent the iPod scroll wheel though. Apparently it was designed by Synaptics.
Apple does, however, have a patent that covers mice with a rotary dial.
It very well may be minor but it's still an annoyance. I can understand their desire to protect their IP, especially after their ridiculous security policies have resulted in several breaches.
But this will simply not prevent determined people from pirating or leaking the game. It will, however, inconvenience those people who buy a legitimate copy of the game.
I guess the old "some people don't have Internet/broadband/whatever access" argument doesn't hold a lot of water anymore, especially with regard to the intended HL2 audience. But the fact remains that some people simply don't want to forced to active their software because they're opposed to the idea of having to give out private information in general, or just don't want to be bothered or simply find the whole concept of treating a paying customer like a criminal unless he or she proves otherwise iniquitous.
Yes, I suppose you could give Valve fake information. But I why am I supposed to give them any personal information in the first place? Compare it to Windows XP. Microsoft's product activation scheme hasn't prevented one determined individual from pirating their software. Sure, it has raised the bar so-to-speak for some "casual, wannabe software pirates" (which was probably what they were trying to do). They also managed to piss off millions of legitimate users in the process.
I sure hope they put a big fat red warning sticker on the boxes. Hardcore gamers will still want to play HL2, even if they have to give their firstborn to Valve (and that probably goes for a lot of not-so-hardcore gamers, too). But that way, people at least have a choice and don't have to find out the hard way (ie. after installing the game) that they can't play the game they just purchased without Valve's blessing.