Considering she was a reporter for NBC's Dateline, I really expected the story to end up on CBS or ABC's evening news. Or possibly on Fox or CNN. I can't believe their competitors wouldn't jump at the chance to expose a sleazy shock tactic being used by an NBC employee... unless, of course, they feel it would expose their own sleazy shock tactics.
Honestly, unless you have a legitimate reason to run Java applets, I don't see why to keep it enabled. I have found very few legitimate Java applets during the course of my normal browsing; most of them are something like "rippling water effect" or "annoying site counter".
So every form of content that exists will require a mandatory rating by some sort of standards body? Because, after all, that's how the V-chip works at the moment.
Does nobody read TFA anymore? It's the Intellectual Property Enhanced Criminal enforcement Act of Congress... IPECAC for short. Well, it sure makes me want to throw up.
Second, you haven't been to XMLTV's website lately. They have plans to start their own listings website. http://schedulesdirect.org/ Two of the MythTV developers are involved.
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. Mods, please mod that parent up.
Now I just hope somebody writes a MediaPortal plugin that can support it...
Re:TiVo's future: a content provider of their own?
on
The Trouble With TiVo
·
· Score: 1
You don't even technically need a fast pipe, if you have plenty of local storage and don't mind queuing things to download in the background. Even a relatively slow DSL connection could grab plenty while you're asleep.
That's why Comcast, RCN, DirecTV, Dish, and anybody else responsible for television distribution would fight this tooth and nail. If TiVo actually even proposed something similar to what I've outlined, I can envision those other companies banding together and creating a cartel similar to the RIAA or MPAA -- maybe the Electronic Media Distributors Association of America, or something of that sort.
In any case, something similar can be accomplished with MediaPortal (or MythTV, or any other media gateway program you desire), Azureus (or another BT client), and ted, the torrent episode downloader. Problem is, that method, while free, is basically illegal right now. If a paid subscription service could let people do it legally, would people pay a monthly fee? I know I would, if I was guaranteed excellent encodes and a huge selection of media. Would everybody pay? Of course not, because some folks will always freeload even if there's a convenient and reasonable alternative. But I think enough people would see the usefulness of the service to pony up the dough.
The trick would be for TiVo to convince the networks that it is in their best interest to partner with them, which means the networks would have to get revenue comparable to the advertising fees and kickbacks from the cable/satellite companies that carry them. That means TiVo would have to pass those costs on to their subscribers, which means they would need enough subscribers to make the per-household cost feasible. Chicken-and-egg scenario... TiVo would need some sort of VC funding or loan to get such a project off the ground, and the way the markets seem to be headed I doubt that's very likely in the near future.
And MythTV's recording stability is going to be seriously negatively impacted by Zap2It Labs shutting down. Yes, MythTV's dev team has stated they can go back to website scraping, but that will break every single time the website's format is slightly altered.
Don't get me wrong, I really like MythTV, but when it loses its only source of reliable guide data, I anticipate some serious problems.
TiVo's future: a content provider of their own?
on
The Trouble With TiVo
·
· Score: 2, Informative
No, it doesn't, if you have Comcast and no other options for cable. The firmware on their Motorola boxes is hideously buggy, and people just accept the fact that it will randomly crash, freeze up, miss recordings, et cetera. (Much like people accepting the BSoD back in Win3.1/95/98 days.) But you're right: some folks in other cable markets have noted their DVRs work just fine, and in those markets TiVo really has to something that sets it apart from these others.
I think that what TiVo needs is greater TV/Net integration. So far, TiVo partners with Unbox to deliver movies over the Net, and you can use Home Network Applications to do things like browse Flickr, listen to podcasts, et cetera. This is neat (except that HNA is awfully slow on S2 units), but it is mostly a nifty but unessential toy. Nobody says, "Hey, I've gotten have a TiVo so I can run the Hot or Not Browser HNA application!"
Like many other TiVo owners, I find that I rarely, if ever, watch live television. What TiVo ought to be doing is direct competition with On-Demand offerings, by partnering directly with NBC, ABC, Fox, et cetera. These networks already offer their shows to be streamed over the Internet -- why not allow a TiVo to download shows directly? Then the ability to integrate other Web features seamlessly becomes really cool.
For example, right now you can already set up Wishlists by actor or director. But with Internet On-Demand, they could take it a step further: say you're watching an episode of Law and Order, and there's this guest star that you know you've seen before, but just can't place, and it's driving you nuts. You pause the show, bring up the show information which lists the cast, move the cursor to that actor's name, click, and you get something like an IMDB biography including other things the actor has done. And if those other things are available as downloads, you can choose to get them and watch them. Or perhaps you're watching an old rerun of Leave It To Beaver on TVLand? They could serve up interesting trivia about the show (maybe via "Pop-Up Trivia" that can be enabled or disabled at will by the viewer), or link to a documentary about it.
Networks worried about DVR customers skipping commercials? Change the way advertising is done, perhaps by providing a list of products seen on the show with links to further information about them. (Anything but making ads unskippable, which would basically be a poison pill for consumer acceptance.)
Now, make standard TV downloads free of charge (the way On-Demand usually is) and recoup the costs through a higher subscription cost. Make subscription costs per household, not per unit, and make show transfers between units trivial or transparent. They can still charge for On-Demand PPV offerings, which would probably be used more often since people could say "Hey, I liked Christopher Walken in this movie -- hey, the TiVo says he's in this other one, so I think I'll purchase that movie too!"
There are plenty of other things they could do too. They need to take a page from Apple's book: the goal is not just to provide neat services, but to make those services as easy to understand and use as possible. They could set up "TiVo Addresses" for subscribers that let them pass home videos and photos between each other as simply as possible (i.e. "Grandma-friendly interface"). Since customers won't be watching live television anymore, they could partner with the National Weather Service (or The Weather Channel, or Intellicast, or whomever) to provide on-screen weather alerts, or even CNN/MSNBC/etc. for big news alerts if people so chose. (Consider: a "Press Thumbs Up for more" that took you to a radar screen, or a short video clip about a news event, and then let you seamlessly return to what you were watching when you're done.)
This is what I'd love to see TiVo evolve into. This sort of thing could turn TiVo into a cable, satellite, or hell, IPTV killer, by making them the sole delivery mech
try and hit f8 to boot into single user mode on windows in ANY version with a usb keyboard.
Gee, I do this all the time. Funny how this "BIOS" thing handles standard USB human interface devices these days, and has for years...
My own parts recommendations...
on
Project Arcade
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The I-Pac from Ultimarc is a really nice screw-terminal-to-keyboard interface board, and the one I've used in my own arcade console. Its biggest benefit over a hacked-up keyboard is that it uses discrete I/O for all of its inputs, rather than matrix scanning like a keyboard does, so there's absolutely no limit to the number of simultaneous keypresses it can process.
I'd also like to recommend the Opti-Pac to connect trackballs, spinners, or optical joysticks that don't have built-in USB or PS/2 mouse interfaces.
Yes, this is redundant, but I don't care. Every minute that Slashdot keeps this "story" up on the web page is another minute that they are providing free advertising for scam artists.
I'm sure that Slashdot's sponsors would love to know that they are accomplices to fraud.
Agreed there, but that doesn't really work for a remote interface. I'd say the next best thing is a knob hooked to a digital encoder -- my Harmon Kardon's volume control is like that, although the knob is on the cabinet, not the remote. My dad's old A/V receiver took the "potentiometer with built-in stepper motor" route, and I'll admit, it's cool to see the knob move itself when you hit up or down on the remote.
Knobs are extremely superior to buttons, since you have control over both position and speed.
Actually, it's a TiVo-branded firmware replacement for the old Motorola DVRs, and yes, I absolutely can't wait until it debuts in the Chicagoland area. (Provided it is relatively bug-free, but from what I've seen, a three-year-old relating his account of what happened on the show is more reliable than the current Motorola firmware.)
Ability to speed up shows without affecting speech tone (plug-in).
I'm surprised you have to do this yourself. Most syndicated shows on television these days are sped up 110 to 120 percent by default. You can usually tell whenever music is playing, as the rhythm will be stilted and shaky (since the algorithm they use alters the speed dynamically based on the soundtrack, speeding things up the most during lulls in conversation).
Sure, if you don't mind your box occasionally locking up, rebooting, and "forgetting" to record things. Comcast's DVR boxes, at least, have firmware that is so incredibly buggy, it makes Windows 3.11 seem rock solid by comparison. In fact, TiVo has written new firmware for one of Comcast's Motorola STBs, and from what I've heard it is currently in beta testing.
However, there are three big things TiVo needs to have operational on this box to really make it worthwhile: Multi-Room Viewing, Home Media Option, and TivoToGo. Well, okay, MRV and TTG for sure -- HMO is nice, but not really essential. On Demand content would be nice, but could be replaced by On Demand shows streaming off the net in time. TiVo is already partnered with Amazon Unbox, but man, it would be nice if Comcast dumped their crap DVRs, rented out S3Ls instead, and offered On Demand shows as downloadable content.
Oh, don't worry... Vonage makes sure people can't quit their service by keeping you on hold for over a half-hour, claiming that their "computers are down" when you finally get to a person, and then hanging up on you.
This is always brought up when anybody mentions piracy or "stealing" MP3s, so I just have to point out that the Geek Squad employee isn't stealing anything. He is copying data off somebody's computer, private or not.
I can see why that worked, and it was a failure of the system. The UIUC ResNet allocation system not only tracked MAC addresses, but also which hardware ports the addresses were plugged into. Whenever it saw a new MAC appear on a port, it added it to that port, with a maximum of five MACs allowed. (I don't remember what happened once you reached that limit, but I remember having to ask the NOC to reset the MAC list on a port a number of times.)
However, I don't think the system was smart enough to see if a MAC was already assigned to a different port, so a MAC could be in several places at once.
A better solution would be for URH to monitor bandwidth by hardware port, and say "hey, if your bandwidth is all used up by your roommate, tough". Of course, this requires hardware capable of doing that.
Disclaimer: I worked for ResNet over seven years ago, and I know the network had changed significantly (and had a half-dozen things renamed) since then.
This is horrible! Now, when I search for "software interrupt," I won't see "Looking for software interrupt? Find new and used software interrupt and thousands more items on eBay!"
Slashdot Mirror
Given China's recent record, I expect them to be painted with lead paint, filled with propylene glycol, have a case that falls apart, and kill people horribly when it crashes.
But let's all keep buying these unregulated, untested imported products because, wow, look at the savings!
Considering she was a reporter for NBC's Dateline, I really expected the story to end up on CBS or ABC's evening news. Or possibly on Fox or CNN. I can't believe their competitors wouldn't jump at the chance to expose a sleazy shock tactic being used by an NBC employee... unless, of course, they feel it would expose their own sleazy shock tactics.
If you're too lazy to install NoScript:
Tools -> Options -> Content -> Uncheck "Enable Java"
Honestly, unless you have a legitimate reason to run Java applets, I don't see why to keep it enabled. I have found very few legitimate Java applets during the course of my normal browsing; most of them are something like "rippling water effect" or "annoying site counter".
So every form of content that exists will require a mandatory rating by some sort of standards body? Because, after all, that's how the V-chip works at the moment.
Yeah, good luck with that, folks.
I think you mean "Sweet zombie (lips moving with no sound because network censors are too scared to say 'Jesus' on television)".
The libraries will be the next to go.
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. Mods, please mod that parent up.
Now I just hope somebody writes a MediaPortal plugin that can support it...
You don't even technically need a fast pipe, if you have plenty of local storage and don't mind queuing things to download in the background. Even a relatively slow DSL connection could grab plenty while you're asleep.
That's why Comcast, RCN, DirecTV, Dish, and anybody else responsible for television distribution would fight this tooth and nail. If TiVo actually even proposed something similar to what I've outlined, I can envision those other companies banding together and creating a cartel similar to the RIAA or MPAA -- maybe the Electronic Media Distributors Association of America, or something of that sort.
In any case, something similar can be accomplished with MediaPortal (or MythTV, or any other media gateway program you desire), Azureus (or another BT client), and ted, the torrent episode downloader. Problem is, that method, while free, is basically illegal right now. If a paid subscription service could let people do it legally, would people pay a monthly fee? I know I would, if I was guaranteed excellent encodes and a huge selection of media. Would everybody pay? Of course not, because some folks will always freeload even if there's a convenient and reasonable alternative. But I think enough people would see the usefulness of the service to pony up the dough.
The trick would be for TiVo to convince the networks that it is in their best interest to partner with them, which means the networks would have to get revenue comparable to the advertising fees and kickbacks from the cable/satellite companies that carry them. That means TiVo would have to pass those costs on to their subscribers, which means they would need enough subscribers to make the per-household cost feasible. Chicken-and-egg scenario... TiVo would need some sort of VC funding or loan to get such a project off the ground, and the way the markets seem to be headed I doubt that's very likely in the near future.
And MythTV's recording stability is going to be seriously negatively impacted by Zap2It Labs shutting down. Yes, MythTV's dev team has stated they can go back to website scraping, but that will break every single time the website's format is slightly altered.
Don't get me wrong, I really like MythTV, but when it loses its only source of reliable guide data, I anticipate some serious problems.
No, it doesn't, if you have Comcast and no other options for cable. The firmware on their Motorola boxes is hideously buggy, and people just accept the fact that it will randomly crash, freeze up, miss recordings, et cetera. (Much like people accepting the BSoD back in Win3.1/95/98 days.) But you're right: some folks in other cable markets have noted their DVRs work just fine, and in those markets TiVo really has to something that sets it apart from these others.
I think that what TiVo needs is greater TV/Net integration. So far, TiVo partners with Unbox to deliver movies over the Net, and you can use Home Network Applications to do things like browse Flickr, listen to podcasts, et cetera. This is neat (except that HNA is awfully slow on S2 units), but it is mostly a nifty but unessential toy. Nobody says, "Hey, I've gotten have a TiVo so I can run the Hot or Not Browser HNA application!"
Like many other TiVo owners, I find that I rarely, if ever, watch live television. What TiVo ought to be doing is direct competition with On-Demand offerings, by partnering directly with NBC, ABC, Fox, et cetera. These networks already offer their shows to be streamed over the Internet -- why not allow a TiVo to download shows directly? Then the ability to integrate other Web features seamlessly becomes really cool.
For example, right now you can already set up Wishlists by actor or director. But with Internet On-Demand, they could take it a step further: say you're watching an episode of Law and Order, and there's this guest star that you know you've seen before, but just can't place, and it's driving you nuts. You pause the show, bring up the show information which lists the cast, move the cursor to that actor's name, click, and you get something like an IMDB biography including other things the actor has done. And if those other things are available as downloads, you can choose to get them and watch them. Or perhaps you're watching an old rerun of Leave It To Beaver on TVLand? They could serve up interesting trivia about the show (maybe via "Pop-Up Trivia" that can be enabled or disabled at will by the viewer), or link to a documentary about it.
Networks worried about DVR customers skipping commercials? Change the way advertising is done, perhaps by providing a list of products seen on the show with links to further information about them. (Anything but making ads unskippable, which would basically be a poison pill for consumer acceptance.)
Now, make standard TV downloads free of charge (the way On-Demand usually is) and recoup the costs through a higher subscription cost. Make subscription costs per household, not per unit, and make show transfers between units trivial or transparent. They can still charge for On-Demand PPV offerings, which would probably be used more often since people could say "Hey, I liked Christopher Walken in this movie -- hey, the TiVo says he's in this other one, so I think I'll purchase that movie too!"
There are plenty of other things they could do too. They need to take a page from Apple's book: the goal is not just to provide neat services, but to make those services as easy to understand and use as possible. They could set up "TiVo Addresses" for subscribers that let them pass home videos and photos between each other as simply as possible (i.e. "Grandma-friendly interface"). Since customers won't be watching live television anymore, they could partner with the National Weather Service (or The Weather Channel, or Intellicast, or whomever) to provide on-screen weather alerts, or even CNN/MSNBC/etc. for big news alerts if people so chose. (Consider: a "Press Thumbs Up for more" that took you to a radar screen, or a short video clip about a news event, and then let you seamlessly return to what you were watching when you're done.)
This is what I'd love to see TiVo evolve into. This sort of thing could turn TiVo into a cable, satellite, or hell, IPTV killer, by making them the sole delivery mech
Gee, I do this all the time. Funny how this "BIOS" thing handles standard USB human interface devices these days, and has for years...
The I-Pac from Ultimarc is a really nice screw-terminal-to-keyboard interface board, and the one I've used in my own arcade console. Its biggest benefit over a hacked-up keyboard is that it uses discrete I/O for all of its inputs, rather than matrix scanning like a keyboard does, so there's absolutely no limit to the number of simultaneous keypresses it can process.
I'd also like to recommend the Opti-Pac to connect trackballs, spinners, or optical joysticks that don't have built-in USB or PS/2 mouse interfaces.
And while I'm on the subject of spinners, the SlikStik Tornado Spinner is really nice.
Change the article to note that this is a scam.
Yes, this is redundant, but I don't care. Every minute that Slashdot keeps this "story" up on the web page is another minute that they are providing free advertising for scam artists.
I'm sure that Slashdot's sponsors would love to know that they are accomplices to fraud.
Change the article, or take it down.
Agreed there, but that doesn't really work for a remote interface. I'd say the next best thing is a knob hooked to a digital encoder -- my Harmon Kardon's volume control is like that, although the knob is on the cabinet, not the remote. My dad's old A/V receiver took the "potentiometer with built-in stepper motor" route, and I'll admit, it's cool to see the knob move itself when you hit up or down on the remote.
Knobs are extremely superior to buttons, since you have control over both position and speed.
Actually, it's a TiVo-branded firmware replacement for the old Motorola DVRs, and yes, I absolutely can't wait until it debuts in the Chicagoland area. (Provided it is relatively bug-free, but from what I've seen, a three-year-old relating his account of what happened on the show is more reliable than the current Motorola firmware.)
Ability to speed up shows without affecting speech tone (plug-in).
I'm surprised you have to do this yourself. Most syndicated shows on television these days are sped up 110 to 120 percent by default. You can usually tell whenever music is playing, as the rhythm will be stilted and shaky (since the algorithm they use alters the speed dynamically based on the soundtrack, speeding things up the most during lulls in conversation).
Sure, if you don't mind your box occasionally locking up, rebooting, and "forgetting" to record things. Comcast's DVR boxes, at least, have firmware that is so incredibly buggy, it makes Windows 3.11 seem rock solid by comparison. In fact, TiVo has written new firmware for one of Comcast's Motorola STBs, and from what I've heard it is currently in beta testing.
However, there are three big things TiVo needs to have operational on this box to really make it worthwhile: Multi-Room Viewing, Home Media Option, and TivoToGo. Well, okay, MRV and TTG for sure -- HMO is nice, but not really essential. On Demand content would be nice, but could be replaced by On Demand shows streaming off the net in time. TiVo is already partnered with Amazon Unbox, but man, it would be nice if Comcast dumped their crap DVRs, rented out S3Ls instead, and offered On Demand shows as downloadable content.
Oh, don't worry... Vonage makes sure people can't quit their service by keeping you on hold for over a half-hour, claiming that their "computers are down" when you finally get to a person, and then hanging up on you.
This is always brought up when anybody mentions piracy or "stealing" MP3s, so I just have to point out that the Geek Squad employee isn't stealing anything. He is copying data off somebody's computer, private or not.
Tomorrow night on Countdown (8pm ET), Olbermann will call on Bush & Cheney to resign.
And I'm sure Bush and Cheney will get right on that, right after they're done having their snowball fight in Hell while riding flying pigs.
humanities professor was riding his ass about that late paper
Considering God had yet to create humans, this was a particularly difficult paper to write.
I can see why that worked, and it was a failure of the system. The UIUC ResNet allocation system not only tracked MAC addresses, but also which hardware ports the addresses were plugged into. Whenever it saw a new MAC appear on a port, it added it to that port, with a maximum of five MACs allowed. (I don't remember what happened once you reached that limit, but I remember having to ask the NOC to reset the MAC list on a port a number of times.)
However, I don't think the system was smart enough to see if a MAC was already assigned to a different port, so a MAC could be in several places at once.
A better solution would be for URH to monitor bandwidth by hardware port, and say "hey, if your bandwidth is all used up by your roommate, tough". Of course, this requires hardware capable of doing that.
Disclaimer: I worked for ResNet over seven years ago, and I know the network had changed significantly (and had a half-dozen things renamed) since then.
This is horrible! Now, when I search for "software interrupt," I won't see "Looking for software interrupt? Find new and used software interrupt and thousands more items on eBay!"
This is going to make things much more difficult.
"Hey, baby, let me see your kilograms!"
Nah... doesn't really roll off the tongue.