That is interesting, I have N95 and the battery life on it is better than I expected. I have bluetooth turned on (set as hidden though), and my phone synchronizes the calendar with my work computer every hour (of cource only when I'm at the office, ie. around 8h per day). Also I use bluetooth headset while driving. Sometimes I use the VideoCenter to watch news etc. And the phone is in dual mode (using 2G when 3G not available). So my usage is pretty heavy batterywise, but still I get around 3-4 days with one charge.
One thing that might consume a lot of battery is that if you have 3G turned on and you live in an area where the 3G signal is barely strong enough, the phone might do constant changes between 2G and 3G, so the GSM antenna is not sleeping like it should. And you might be surprised how much power that thing draws:). Also I have observed that the battery life increases by forcing the phone to use 2G even when the 3G signal is strong. So, if you don't need the better data transfer rates of 3G, then I would suggest that you force the phone to 2G mode (Settings -> Telephone -> Network). Also it is possible to force the phone to use only 3G, which would also eliminate the phone changing between 2G and 3G networks.
I live in Finland and here it is more of a norm to get only cell phone service. I'm turning 28 and I have never owned a landline. First cell phone I got in 1999 and reason for not wanting a landline was that it was more expensive than cell phone service. Thing is that in Finland it does not cost you a cent to receive phone calls on cell phone, only calling out costs. Same is with landline, but the 'installation' price of a landline was prohibitive at the time (currently it's not that bad, previously they were charging quite a hefty sum of money for just connecting your house hold on the grid, even if you already had wires going out from your house to the phone company's box). Still today it is cheaper to get a cell phone as you can choose to not to pay any per month costs, only pretty competitive per minute charge (around 6c per minute) and usually you get some 'free' calling time with it.
Also the coverage of cell phone is excellent in Finland, most of the time you can call with your cell phone in the middle of the woods. For example, my father uses cell phone while hunting to keep in touch with the other hunters in his group. And service breaks on cell phone service is usually happening only when the cell phone network gets overloaded, ie. too much users in the same place. For example some times it is hard to call or receive calls in a big concert or some other event where a lot of people come from out of town. The new 3G (aka UMTS) network is not so good, and usually it is better to use 2G network as your primary network here.
Also we don't have to get a landline phone for broadband either. Usually the wires for the phone line are installed in every house and those are used for the broadband service, but no requirement is that you need to get a phone with it, so most that don't already have a landline leave that out. Currently the new houses build in my area are fitted with fiber instead of copper lines, as the number of landlines are dwindling and the core competence of local phone companies has shifted to offering broadband services.
Not talking about SecurID or other similar technology, but currently I can pay with my card online and it asks for one time key that my bank has issued. This is through Verified by Visa, and the card that I use is Visa Electron. Not a credit card, but a debit card. The one time keys are stored in a piece of plastic that have several id-key pairs and the bank interface asks (after asking customer number and pin code) for the id and I must type the corresponding key. When that plastic starts to run out of id-key pairs I get sent another by mail. If I lose that plastic, then I can call my bank or disable those online. Also all customers of our bank are strongly urged to keep that piece of plastic in separate place where my Visa Electron card is kept, and I personally follow that.
In my opinion this is the most secure way of doing online shopping and it does not add too much extra difficulty. Only real threat to this security is either stealing the mail that the new card is sent or some sort of phishing attack. Only phishing attack I have seen was that you needed to enter the next key value from the card and the id was not given. For example I would not remember which was next on that list of hundreds and it immediately seems suspicious that the id is not there. And the mail attack is not possible with all banks, as some banks here require that you get the id-key pairs personally from the bank offices.
If anyone is wondering I live in Finland. We have these one time password type identification in all of our banks and it has been in use for more than 5 years, only this Verified by Visa is a new development. At first they were used exclusively on accessing bank account and paying bills online. Also this bank issued one time key is in use for example handling our taxes online.
Notice also that the 8600 GTS is compared against X1950 Pro which is a sub-$200 card currently, lowest price I have seen was $175. And 8600 GT is compared against X1650 XT, which is sub-$150 card. MSRP of 8600 GTS and 8600 GT according to the article is $239 and $199 respectively. Better price wise comparison would be 8600 GTS against X1950XT 256Mb and 8600 GT against X1950 Pro. Also the article does not compare these cards against the NVidia's older generation cards, like 7950GT which is around the same price point than 8600 GTS.
Of course the DX10 technology affects cost, but either way it would be more fair comparison if the cards around the same price point were compared as it would show how much DX9 performance you are sacrificing to have DX10 hardware. As these cards are on the cast of affordable gamer cards, the bang-per-buck performance is what most gamers want to know.
Also comparison against the 8800 GTS card would've been helpful as the 8800 GTS has attained the $300 price point.
I would contact local law enforcement first, as they would probably know if there is any possibility of legal action. Also some law enforcement agencies have departments dedicated to cybercrimes and IMHO best way to contact those would be through local law enforcement. Be sure to inform that your computer was hacked or broken into, so that the incident is not mistaken as a regular spam emails.
If that fails (maybe because law enforcement does not have enough manpower to deal with it), then posting all information that you can find to a security oriented forum probably would incite some action. Problem is that with that approach the actual perpetrator probably will go free to create another bot-net.
In either case I would be interested on hearing how things progress.
I agree. I've played violent games over 10 years, but I would have to counter you on that using weapons in RL is no fun. I currently own two firearms myself and I have a military sniper training as a 'hobby':). Yes, firearms can be dangerous on persons that don't realize how dangerous they can be. The moment you stop respecting a firearm is the moment you are probably going to have an accident with it.
I'm borderline paranoid when using firearms, always checking that it is not loaded and keeping the bolt not locked or removing it altogether if it's bothersome. There is always some safety precautions needed when going to range and those must be adhered. If not then someday you're going to have an accident with the gun and might be in for a lawsuit for killing or wounding someone.
Usually the more probable that you might have a misfire with the gun while in the range, the more stringent the safety precautions. For example practical shooting, where your walking or running with a loaded gun. Sounds pretty dangerous, but is safe because it has the most stringent safety precautions I have seen. Note that in most of current generation of handguns have several safety features. One prevents the gun from firing for example when dropped on the ground, and only those guns that have these features are accepted to be used in practical shooting.
But shooting guns is fun, as long as it's safe and no-one gets hurt. Especially satisfying is hitting a metal plate 700 meters away in challenging wind conditions. That is something that cannot be experienced in computer game (Sniper Elite was woefully inadequate). Also when you know how to shoot with real guns, those extremely realistic computer games do not seem so realistic anymore:). Usually effects of recoil are wrong. For example adding a suppressor to any rifle should reduce the recoil a lot. Also the crosshair thingy in games is not that unrealistic that most people think. For distances below 20 meters you can hit a man sized target without using sights (with pistols only below 10 meter though).
PS. Please don't reply to this with those comments that guns are made for killing people, same argument applies to common baseball bat that it is made for harming people as it is quite commonly used to beat up people...
It is also possible to know the direction of a shot by only the flight sound of the bullet, but that requires several 'listening posts' and a central computer to calculate, but this only gets the direction of the shot, not the distance. If you have two or more sensors, you can theoretically triangulate to get the exact position at any time. Even if you only have one sensor and can only detect direction, you can estimate distance from the speed of that type of bullet and the time travelled.
Now, I was talking about the triangulating the position from the flight sound of the bullet alone. That sound is generated by the bullet while it flies, ie. the sound originates from the bullet, not from the rifle. So with two sensors (note that the listening robot has TWO sensors, not one, just as humans have two sensors:P) you know the direction and with four sensors you can 'track' the bullet. To my knowledge, the current technology cannot calculate the trajectory of the bullet backwards where it came, as the error in measurement is too great. If you knew the caliber of the rifle, then it would be possible, but that caliber cannot be assertained from the flight sound of the bullet alone.
I'm not an expert on these gadgets, I'm just repeating what I've learned about the countermeasures against these gadgets from sniper training and books:).
That's why it's either going to be heavily armored or inside a heavily armored vehicle, presumably. It's not too hard to stop a bullet from damaging a robot; how many inches of steel to stop the highest-powered hand-held rifle around?
I have to throw these from memory, as I don't have any reference here. I think that Barret can penerate almost anything, except tanks etc, and you can severely hamper tanks too by shooting the optics. The 7.62x39 caliber used in AK47 has also good penerating abilities when armor piercing rounds are used. You can shoot through most of the personel carriers armor with it:). The armor piercing rounds just are not readily available to anyone;). Also atleast the head of the robot (or where ever it has it's sensors) needs to be outside of the protective armor, as it needs the direct sounds from the rifle fire to be of any use. Of course US army can make a robot that has a very thick skin and only the sensors are outside, but I don't think that it is very cost effective as good armor is very costly.
PS: sorry for responding so late, I haven't checked here for a while as been busy with work.
Except that the sonic boom caused by bullet is not pinpointable. When the bullet flies supersonic, it's creating those sonic booms the whole way (or until it drops below speed of sound). For example one of my sniper trainers was crazy enough to go downrange when another trainer shot a supersonic round with silencer (both were sufficiently good at their trade to have enough trust) and he said that sound of the shot came from completely different direction from where the shooter was. In my opinion and this is also the opinion of my sniper trainers is that every sniper should use silencer. In addition of removing the bang of the rifle, it also reduces recoil and the puff of dirt caused by the supersonic gasses exiting the muzzle.
Also almost anyone with some skills can construct a silencer. Simplest designs is that you have several metal disks with hole in the middle which matches the caliber of the bullet and those disks are arranged in line, attached to each other with regular interval and covered with a metal sheet.
And the subsonic rounds are not useless for sniper operations. If I remember correctly, when USSR was in Afganistan, the insurgents used.22LR rifles with silencers in close range. Usually in constructed areas and aiming at the gaps of the protective gear.
The ability of the robot to find the range and distance of a shot by the bang of the rifle, is nothing new. I believe that US army has that kind of hardware already in some of their hummers. It is also possible to know the direction of a shot by only the flight sound of the bullet, but that requires several 'listening posts' and a central computer to calculate, but this only gets the direction of the shot, not the distance. And in constructed areas usually calculating correct direction is impossible as the sound bounces from the walls. I don't know if this robot can still pinpoint the direction and distance from the bang of the rifle, if there is walls offering echos etc, but atleast human ear is fooled about the direction. There is also equipment that tries to find the bullet inflight with radar etc, but my understanding those are not yet in use because they are not very reliable.
I think that this robot is the number one target for snipers. Shoot it first and then you're home free unless there is a second one:). I probably wouldn't shoot anything else, but this robot before exiting the area, because $150,000 is probably the most damage I could make with a single bullet:).
Thermal imaging for finding snipers is not new also, and usually the military uniforms are made so that they present as low thermal image as possible. Snipers can be invisible in thermal image also as to naked eye. I don't think that the Iraq insurgents have enough training for that, but probably they will adapt if this robot is introduced in Iraq. Although I cannot imagine why US troops in Iraq haven't used thermal imaging or bullet radars (as I've learned to call them) before..
PS. My background in this is that I have completed basic sniper training from Finnish defence forces and I have read several respected books on the subject.
Also in my opinion wireless mouse is not really wireless, as it needs to be connected to a power source for recharge. But I don't think that these technologies are 'waste of time'. Especially the one where power was transferred through induction sounded promising. What I would use that is to have a really wireless mouse, recharging when it's on mousepad or a wireless keyboard etc.
Thinking that truly wireless power is possible somewhere in near future is foolish in my opinion. When you are transferring power through air it has some troublesome physical qualities. EMP pulse for example is a kind of wireless power. Usually there is a heaploads of power in it, and that power is what fries the electronic equipment by inducing a monster current on all of the wires it has including the miniscule ones in processors / chips. Also it affects for example the magnetic stips in credit cards etc, so a high output wireless power transmitter is not possible, until we figure a way to protect agains these ill effects. There is a protection equipment against EMP pulses, but to my understanding that requires power, so you would need power in the wireless device first to protect the chips and wires from unwanted currents before the power can be transferred:).
I work as a SW consultant for the mobile sector and all laptops in our firm have encrypted hard drives. The system is so that username and password is asked right when the laptop is booted kinda like bios password and after windows is loaded it automatically logins you to windows with those credentials. It's easy to use, no need to remember any additional passwords and also added benefit is that the administrators can login into it with their credentials if a user forgets his password.
The performance hit is real and noticeable though, but mostly affects hard drive related tasks, so that does not hinder my working too much.
Also all firms that I have been dealing with use encrypted laptops, so in my perspective the FDE is pretty widely used already:).
Uuh.. Have you ever shot extensive time with a gun? Really after about 1-5mins, depending on the weight of the gun, you get strain and your accuracy plummets. And with a controller like that you just can't rest your hands like you can with a light-gun.
That's why professional shooters tend to use extraordinary amount of time in preparation and shoot fairly quickly after lifting the barrel.
I don't dispute that it wouldn't be fun to shoot FPS games with a controller like that, but after about 30min gaming your arms are probably hurting too much for you to continue gaming.
I believe that there is the same inherit problem with that mid-air mouse...
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That is interesting, I have N95 and the battery life on it is better than I expected. I have bluetooth turned on (set as hidden though), and my phone synchronizes the calendar with my work computer every hour (of cource only when I'm at the office, ie. around 8h per day). Also I use bluetooth headset while driving. Sometimes I use the VideoCenter to watch news etc. And the phone is in dual mode (using 2G when 3G not available). So my usage is pretty heavy batterywise, but still I get around 3-4 days with one charge.
:). Also I have observed that the battery life increases by forcing the phone to use 2G even when the 3G signal is strong. So, if you don't need the better data transfer rates of 3G, then I would suggest that you force the phone to 2G mode (Settings -> Telephone -> Network). Also it is possible to force the phone to use only 3G, which would also eliminate the phone changing between 2G and 3G networks.
One thing that might consume a lot of battery is that if you have 3G turned on and you live in an area where the 3G signal is barely strong enough, the phone might do constant changes between 2G and 3G, so the GSM antenna is not sleeping like it should. And you might be surprised how much power that thing draws
I live in Finland and here it is more of a norm to get only cell phone service. I'm turning 28 and I have never owned a landline. First cell phone I got in 1999 and reason for not wanting a landline was that it was more expensive than cell phone service. Thing is that in Finland it does not cost you a cent to receive phone calls on cell phone, only calling out costs. Same is with landline, but the 'installation' price of a landline was prohibitive at the time (currently it's not that bad, previously they were charging quite a hefty sum of money for just connecting your house hold on the grid, even if you already had wires going out from your house to the phone company's box). Still today it is cheaper to get a cell phone as you can choose to not to pay any per month costs, only pretty competitive per minute charge (around 6c per minute) and usually you get some 'free' calling time with it.
Also the coverage of cell phone is excellent in Finland, most of the time you can call with your cell phone in the middle of the woods. For example, my father uses cell phone while hunting to keep in touch with the other hunters in his group. And service breaks on cell phone service is usually happening only when the cell phone network gets overloaded, ie. too much users in the same place. For example some times it is hard to call or receive calls in a big concert or some other event where a lot of people come from out of town. The new 3G (aka UMTS) network is not so good, and usually it is better to use 2G network as your primary network here.
Also we don't have to get a landline phone for broadband either. Usually the wires for the phone line are installed in every house and those are used for the broadband service, but no requirement is that you need to get a phone with it, so most that don't already have a landline leave that out. Currently the new houses build in my area are fitted with fiber instead of copper lines, as the number of landlines are dwindling and the core competence of local phone companies has shifted to offering broadband services.
Not talking about SecurID or other similar technology, but currently I can pay with my card online and it asks for one time key that my bank has issued. This is through Verified by Visa, and the card that I use is Visa Electron. Not a credit card, but a debit card. The one time keys are stored in a piece of plastic that have several id-key pairs and the bank interface asks (after asking customer number and pin code) for the id and I must type the corresponding key. When that plastic starts to run out of id-key pairs I get sent another by mail. If I lose that plastic, then I can call my bank or disable those online. Also all customers of our bank are strongly urged to keep that piece of plastic in separate place where my Visa Electron card is kept, and I personally follow that.
In my opinion this is the most secure way of doing online shopping and it does not add too much extra difficulty. Only real threat to this security is either stealing the mail that the new card is sent or some sort of phishing attack. Only phishing attack I have seen was that you needed to enter the next key value from the card and the id was not given. For example I would not remember which was next on that list of hundreds and it immediately seems suspicious that the id is not there. And the mail attack is not possible with all banks, as some banks here require that you get the id-key pairs personally from the bank offices.
If anyone is wondering I live in Finland. We have these one time password type identification in all of our banks and it has been in use for more than 5 years, only this Verified by Visa is a new development. At first they were used exclusively on accessing bank account and paying bills online. Also this bank issued one time key is in use for example handling our taxes online.
Notice also that the 8600 GTS is compared against X1950 Pro which is a sub-$200 card currently, lowest price I have seen was $175. And 8600 GT is compared against X1650 XT, which is sub-$150 card. MSRP of 8600 GTS and 8600 GT according to the article is $239 and $199 respectively. Better price wise comparison would be 8600 GTS against X1950XT 256Mb and 8600 GT against X1950 Pro. Also the article does not compare these cards against the NVidia's older generation cards, like 7950GT which is around the same price point than 8600 GTS.
0 0/
Of course the DX10 technology affects cost, but either way it would be more fair comparison if the cards around the same price point were compared as it would show how much DX9 performance you are sacrificing to have DX10 hardware. As these cards are on the cast of affordable gamer cards, the bang-per-buck performance is what most gamers want to know.
Also comparison against the 8800 GTS card would've been helpful as the 8800 GTS has attained the $300 price point.
Tom's hardware has IMHO better review about these cards. I would suggest that everyone interested about these cards check that review also.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/04/17/geforce_86
I would contact local law enforcement first, as they would probably know if there is any possibility of legal action. Also some law enforcement agencies have departments dedicated to cybercrimes and IMHO best way to contact those would be through local law enforcement. Be sure to inform that your computer was hacked or broken into, so that the incident is not mistaken as a regular spam emails.
If that fails (maybe because law enforcement does not have enough manpower to deal with it), then posting all information that you can find to a security oriented forum probably would incite some action. Problem is that with that approach the actual perpetrator probably will go free to create another bot-net.
In either case I would be interested on hearing how things progress.
I agree. I've played violent games over 10 years, but I would have to counter you on that using weapons in RL is no fun. I currently own two firearms myself and I have a military sniper training as a 'hobby' :). Yes, firearms can be dangerous on persons that don't realize how dangerous they can be. The moment you stop respecting a firearm is the moment you are probably going to have an accident with it.
:). Usually effects of recoil are wrong. For example adding a suppressor to any rifle should reduce the recoil a lot. Also the crosshair thingy in games is not that unrealistic that most people think. For distances below 20 meters you can hit a man sized target without using sights (with pistols only below 10 meter though).
I'm borderline paranoid when using firearms, always checking that it is not loaded and keeping the bolt not locked or removing it altogether if it's bothersome. There is always some safety precautions needed when going to range and those must be adhered. If not then someday you're going to have an accident with the gun and might be in for a lawsuit for killing or wounding someone.
Usually the more probable that you might have a misfire with the gun while in the range, the more stringent the safety precautions. For example practical shooting, where your walking or running with a loaded gun. Sounds pretty dangerous, but is safe because it has the most stringent safety precautions I have seen. Note that in most of current generation of handguns have several safety features. One prevents the gun from firing for example when dropped on the ground, and only those guns that have these features are accepted to be used in practical shooting.
But shooting guns is fun, as long as it's safe and no-one gets hurt. Especially satisfying is hitting a metal plate 700 meters away in challenging wind conditions. That is something that cannot be experienced in computer game (Sniper Elite was woefully inadequate). Also when you know how to shoot with real guns, those extremely realistic computer games do not seem so realistic anymore
PS. Please don't reply to this with those comments that guns are made for killing people, same argument applies to common baseball bat that it is made for harming people as it is quite commonly used to beat up people...
Now, I was talking about the triangulating the position from the flight sound of the bullet alone. That sound is generated by the bullet while it flies, ie. the sound originates from the bullet, not from the rifle. So with two sensors (note that the listening robot has TWO sensors, not one, just as humans have two sensors :P) you know the direction and with four sensors you can 'track' the bullet. To my knowledge, the current technology cannot calculate the trajectory of the bullet backwards where it came, as the error in measurement is too great. If you knew the caliber of the rifle, then it would be possible, but that caliber cannot be assertained from the flight sound of the bullet alone.
I'm not an expert on these gadgets, I'm just repeating what I've learned about the countermeasures against these gadgets from sniper training and books :).
That's why it's either going to be heavily armored or inside a heavily armored vehicle, presumably. It's not too hard to stop a bullet from damaging a robot; how many inches of steel to stop the highest-powered hand-held rifle around?I have to throw these from memory, as I don't have any reference here. I think that Barret can penerate almost anything, except tanks etc, and you can severely hamper tanks too by shooting the optics. The 7.62x39 caliber used in AK47 has also good penerating abilities when armor piercing rounds are used. You can shoot through most of the personel carriers armor with it :). The armor piercing rounds just are not readily available to anyone ;). Also atleast the head of the robot (or where ever it has it's sensors) needs to be outside of the protective armor, as it needs the direct sounds from the rifle fire to be of any use. Of course US army can make a robot that has a very thick skin and only the sensors are outside, but I don't think that it is very cost effective as good armor is very costly.
PS: sorry for responding so late, I haven't checked here for a while as been busy with work.Except that the sonic boom caused by bullet is not pinpointable. When the bullet flies supersonic, it's creating those sonic booms the whole way (or until it drops below speed of sound). For example one of my sniper trainers was crazy enough to go downrange when another trainer shot a supersonic round with silencer (both were sufficiently good at their trade to have enough trust) and he said that sound of the shot came from completely different direction from where the shooter was. In my opinion and this is also the opinion of my sniper trainers is that every sniper should use silencer. In addition of removing the bang of the rifle, it also reduces recoil and the puff of dirt caused by the supersonic gasses exiting the muzzle.
.22LR rifles with silencers in close range. Usually in constructed areas and aiming at the gaps of the protective gear.
:). I probably wouldn't shoot anything else, but this robot before exiting the area, because $150,000 is probably the most damage I could make with a single bullet :).
Also almost anyone with some skills can construct a silencer. Simplest designs is that you have several metal disks with hole in the middle which matches the caliber of the bullet and those disks are arranged in line, attached to each other with regular interval and covered with a metal sheet.
The wikipedia article is good one on this, although the silencer design presented is more complex what I presented: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressor
And the subsonic rounds are not useless for sniper operations. If I remember correctly, when USSR was in Afganistan, the insurgents used
The ability of the robot to find the range and distance of a shot by the bang of the rifle, is nothing new. I believe that US army has that kind of hardware already in some of their hummers. It is also possible to know the direction of a shot by only the flight sound of the bullet, but that requires several 'listening posts' and a central computer to calculate, but this only gets the direction of the shot, not the distance. And in constructed areas usually calculating correct direction is impossible as the sound bounces from the walls. I don't know if this robot can still pinpoint the direction and distance from the bang of the rifle, if there is walls offering echos etc, but atleast human ear is fooled about the direction. There is also equipment that tries to find the bullet inflight with radar etc, but my understanding those are not yet in use because they are not very reliable.
I think that this robot is the number one target for snipers. Shoot it first and then you're home free unless there is a second one
Thermal imaging for finding snipers is not new also, and usually the military uniforms are made so that they present as low thermal image as possible. Snipers can be invisible in thermal image also as to naked eye. I don't think that the Iraq insurgents have enough training for that, but probably they will adapt if this robot is introduced in Iraq. Although I cannot imagine why US troops in Iraq haven't used thermal imaging or bullet radars (as I've learned to call them) before..
PS. My background in this is that I have completed basic sniper training from Finnish defence forces and I have read several respected books on the subject.
Also in my opinion wireless mouse is not really wireless, as it needs to be connected to a power source for recharge. But I don't think that these technologies are 'waste of time'. Especially the one where power was transferred through induction sounded promising. What I would use that is to have a really wireless mouse, recharging when it's on mousepad or a wireless keyboard etc.
:).
Thinking that truly wireless power is possible somewhere in near future is foolish in my opinion. When you are transferring power through air it has some troublesome physical qualities. EMP pulse for example is a kind of wireless power. Usually there is a heaploads of power in it, and that power is what fries the electronic equipment by inducing a monster current on all of the wires it has including the miniscule ones in processors / chips. Also it affects for example the magnetic stips in credit cards etc, so a high output wireless power transmitter is not possible, until we figure a way to protect agains these ill effects. There is a protection equipment against EMP pulses, but to my understanding that requires power, so you would need power in the wireless device first to protect the chips and wires from unwanted currents before the power can be transferred
I work as a SW consultant for the mobile sector and all laptops in our firm have encrypted hard drives. The system is so that username and password is asked right when the laptop is booted kinda like bios password and after windows is loaded it automatically logins you to windows with those credentials. It's easy to use, no need to remember any additional passwords and also added benefit is that the administrators can login into it with their credentials if a user forgets his password.
:).
The performance hit is real and noticeable though, but mostly affects hard drive related tasks, so that does not hinder my working too much.
Also all firms that I have been dealing with use encrypted laptops, so in my perspective the FDE is pretty widely used already
Uuh.. Have you ever shot extensive time with a gun? Really after about 1-5mins, depending on the weight of the gun, you get strain and your accuracy plummets. And with a controller like that you just can't rest your hands like you can with a light-gun.
That's why professional shooters tend to use extraordinary amount of time in preparation and shoot fairly quickly after lifting the barrel.
I don't dispute that it wouldn't be fun to shoot FPS games with a controller like that, but after about 30min gaming your arms are probably hurting too much for you to continue gaming.
I believe that there is the same inherit problem with that mid-air mouse...