What they're saying is just PR speak, and probably has absolutely nothing to do with the market realities which prompted this decision. The most likely scenario is simply that someone else came into the market with a better product, and ate Intel's lunch. You don't keep making a product when nobody is buying it!
I mean, just take a look at Intel's webpage for Compute Cards; I don't know if this was always the case, but the specs and prices of the offerings on that page right now strongly suggests that they were targeting low-end computing stations. (Which admittedly does make sense when we're talking about point-of-sale terminals and the like.) But maybe their target audience didn't actually want workstations which were so drastically restricted in performance... or at least, not at the prices that Intel wanted to charge.
Of course, with that price bracket, it's also quite plausible that a fair portion of their target audience just went with tablets instead.
So, my father-in-law bought a very expensive "wireless" TV several years ago -- against my advice -- and it has been a particularly negative experience, overall. (Of course, the power wasn't actually wireless; rather, in his case, power was the one wire which still connected directly to the display panel... but that distinction is immaterial to my point.)
As soon as you decide to do everything wirelessly, you're introducing a series of new problems to the overall experience, such as latency and transmission interference. Latency means that the video signal takes long enough to reach the display, that the screen is almost entirely unusable for any kind of real-time video games, such as racing sims or FPS. (I observed this issue first hand while playing Mario Kart Wii; the Wii did not remain connected to that screen for very long.) And when -- not "if" -- transmission interference hits, that's even worse; the components have degraded over time, such that even with only a few feet between the "head unit" transmitter and the display, we ended up with random glitch-outs of the signal, growing more frequent over time.
So really, my Subject above is understating the severity of the issue... relying so heavily on wireless is more like solving one entirely noncritical aesthetics "problem" by introducing a series of potential deal-breaker technical problems. I would fully expect the same analysis to apply to this new "now, with even more wireless!" set from Samsung -- and I will be advising anyone who asks that they should stay far, far away from this hell-hound.
"Important note: Ring has patched this vulnerability in version 3.4.7 of the ring app (Without notifying users in the patch notes!). Please make sure to upgrade to a newer version ASAP as the affected versions are still backward compatible and vulnerable."
(I think I'm beginning to understand that whole "read the last page first" philosophy.)
... If that doesn't work, then companies -- be they in South Korea, the USA or UK -- can bury search engine results by flooding Google with new, conflicting data about the deceased....
This isn't a new practice, in-and-of-itself; rather, just a new application of existing practices. The thing is, any given attempt to remove (or obfuscate) data inevitably results in counter-measures by those who "just want data to be free." So, just as we already have tools like The Wayback Machine, for looking back at data which someone has attempted to "scrub" from public view, we can fully anticipate Google (et al) to enhance their custom date-range filtering tools, to more effectively filter out crap data inserted into the result set on any given date... assuming that the existing filters aren't already fully up to the task, of course.
... According to 14 current and former contractors employed by Apex Systems, a firm that staffs the building as well as other Apple mapping offices...
Correction: a firm that formerly staffed various offices for Apple; considering how Apex has so severely mishandled things as to make their employees angry enough to "let the cat out of the bag," I'm sure Apple will be exercising one of their small-print termination clauses in the contract with Apex, forthwith.
I mean, come on; pretty much everybody knows that the only way to keep a "black ops" under wraps is to make sure that all of the participants are loyal to a fault and have a strong vested interest in the success of that op. The only (legal) way that corporations can ensure that is by offering lucrative financial incentives and a positive overall work experience to the employees... whereas it sounds a lot like Apex managed to offer every disincentive in the book. YUUUUGE fail.
Much like when the two companies pulled this scam...
Nope, nope, nope! That's just stereotypical Apple-hater clickbait; nothing new to see here, folks. The geeks who actually care about this stuff have already read at least one of the previous articles on the topic, such as last month's article which pointed out that AT&T had then already enlisted Samsung and LG to label their phones in this manner. Also, it's worth noting that the two previous articles were both from The Verge, like this one... so I guess Verge is just really pumped about recycling. (Not the "good" kind of recycling... but still.) And as far as I can tell from the summary, this newer version of the story has utterly no purpose other than to enrage Android uses into hating on Apple some more... so that Verge can put a few more ads in front of hapless eyeballs.
So yeah, screw that crap; you'll have to do a hell of a lot better than that to get your ad revenue out of me, Verge.
I'm a "Skills Worker." I don't have a Bachelor's degree; rather I have an Associates degree -- and to this day, I would actually argue that I hardly even needed that level of education. This is roughly what my educational path looked like:
Junior year in high school. Pretty standard course-load... nothing unusual, except that I was doing terrible in my German II class. (Again.) I think I ended up finishing that year with a "C-", and even that was basically a gift from the teacher. I needed at least two years of a foreign language to pass at all, but I just couldn't hack it with foreign languages. Further, it was too late to go back and switch to another language... which meant that it was effectively impossible for me to graduate with the so-called "advanced" degree, (two years each of two languages or three years of one language) which the school counselors had strongly encouraged for anyone who was college bound... which I (ostensibly) was.
Fine. I didn't really care about foreign languages anyway; I was already quite familiar with my competencies; I'm a computer guy, cut-and-dry. I'd already been the "teacher's pet" for years, because I knew more about computers than most of the teachers, and of course everybody knew that I was the school nerd. (Some competencies have consequences, but I had learned to deal with that.) I also didn't much care about Algebra II, and it was only required for that advanced degree... so I had a conversation with my counselor; I told him that I wanted to switch out Algebra II for a computer programming class. He reminded me several times and in several different ways that Al-II was really, really important for... reasons. I really didn't give a crap about those reasons so I stood my ground, much to his frustration and confusion. He eventually wrote up my Senior year schedule according to my wishes.
Senior year. I breezed through that computer class; easy A. I graduated with a "standard" degree. Whatever.
Community college. I hated nearly every second of it... except for certain electives -- and of course, my programming classes. Those, I pretty much ate up. I won't bother to try to break out "Freshman" vs "Sophomore" year... because thanks to all those other classes, it took me quite a bit more than two years to obtain my Associates. Again... whatever.
Than I moved into the work force. I got a "summer hire" position while I was still taking college classes. I proved my value by fixing a problem which I was not supposed to have been capable of fixing. That's a very long story; the short version is, not having anything in particular for me to do, they just paired me up with a "programmer"... who did indeed have a Bachelor's degree, but as it turns out, knew next to nothing about programming. Management had pretty much figured that out, and had assigned him to perform a task at which he was fully expected to fail, so that they could justify firing him for misrepresenting his capabilities on his resume. I didn't know that at the time, of course... but I could easily see that he was floundering. I also didn't yet know the programming language that he and I were looking at, but I at least understood the foundational principles of the craft; as such, I pretty much shocked everyone when I solved his problem for him, effectively saving him from the chopping block. (Ummm... oops?) Oh, don't worry; they still eventually built their case for firing him -- and rightly so, as I had plenty of opportunities thereafter to observe his (ahem) capabilities with my own eyes -- but it took a lot longer than it might have otherwise. In the process, they also decided to hire me on, full-time. Fancy that... and I didn't even have that Associates degree yet.
I started "professional" programming within the context of that job, in several different programming environments, including Visual Fox Pro, JavaScript/HTML and an obscure little IDE which I'm pretty sure no longer even exists anymore. My very
It may be worth mentioning that even back when record companies first started selling actual vinyl record albums, those sales were never the primary revenue source for the artists themselves; rather, concerts are and always have been their biggest income source by a pretty solid margin. So if you really want to support your favorite artist...
You know the old quote: the simplest solution is often the best one. My daughter seems to have found such a solution herself, as she is a "quite talker" as well -- but not out of any physical restrictions, mind you: she just talks exceptionally quietly for the sake of privacy. I believe you'd have to be sitting within less than a foot of her to really catch what she's saying, most of the time.
So her simple solution? She just uses the standard wired headphones which came with her iPhone... and she puts the inline microphone in her mouth.
I know it sounds a bit odd, but upon reading this Ask Slashdot question it occurred to me that it's actually effective on multiple fronts: the speakers are inside of her ears, so the audio feedback filter need not be applied to the sound coming into the microphone, the ambient sound from the room is somewhat muffled by her lips, and her vocal cords are just about as close to the microphone as they can get, reducing the amplification requirements. (Obviously you'll need to be careful that you don't spit all over the microphone, potentially damaging it.)
So, admittedly, this won't address every issue, as noted by the OP. But there is one issue which I've personally encountered, which this could possibly help to mitigate -- depending upon the scope of impact, of course: that of insurance companies recommending charges for services/products which are above what the hospital or pharmacy might have otherwise charged.
I was once having a friendly conversation with my pharmacist about my family -- and he was a bit floored when I told him how many mouths I have to feed. Moments later, he hesitantly informed me (in one of those "I'm not supposed to say this, but..." type of comments) that my insurance was recommending that he up-charge me for one of the prescriptions that I needed to pick up; apparently my co-pay for that medication was actually higher than his usual prices. He told me very frankly that he just didn't feel right charging me that much, and that I could save money by not using my insurance for that particular prescription. I never would have even suspected that such a practice might exist, if not for his commentary, so I gratefully accepted his advice.
The medical industry is pretty badly messed up in a lot of ways, and for a lot of reasons. This legislation will hopefully lead to there being at least one or two fewer ways for unscrupulous people to screw me over. I'm going to call that a win.
After doing this for 20 years, I don't care about video games at work...
Video games at work?!? OH -- wait: you must be referring to the standard suite of network load testing tools....
I'm only somewhat joking, here; that's actually what my team called it, back when I was working internal tech support for a large-shall-remain-unnamed-company. Yeah... good times.
But of course, eventually real life demands that we move on to a job that actually pays the bills. (Sigh.)
If you don't like advertisements which track you, than fight back: just make horribly disgusted facial expressions every time you look at an ad! It's a totally brilliant tactic, because if enough people follow this advice, these horribly unethical and creepy companies will eventually just give up and stop advertising altogether!
....... Oh, and no, your mommy's scold about your face "sticking that way" is absolutely not true, I promise! The ugly expressions might eventually become a habit, and those expressions might cause permanent frown wrinkles over the course of time, which could ultimately make you look like a genuinely bitter old codger in your later years in life, thus entirely ruining the effect on those rare occasions when you actually try to smile... but trust me: that's totally not the same thing.
... Any IP whose tax is unpaid reverts to the public domain... Go ahead, shoot holes in this modest proposal!
Okay; I'll try my aim. When any business entity is forced to pay a "tax" of any kind, it doesn't actually hurt them in the least... they just pass that cost downstream to the customer. Thus, the only IP which would become subject to your forfeiture clause would be those which nobody actually cares about enough to spend any money on them... and the public domain ends up being littered with utter crap.
I don't know about you, but that doesn't actually sound all that appealing to me.
There's obviously no reasonable expectation of "privacy" in this scenario -- but frankly, if you're using a computing device of any flavor, and if that device is attached to the internet, then you should probably just automatically assume that anything you do on that device could potentially be tracked. It obviously won't always be the case... but it might be the case, on occasion. This thought process kind'a falls under the "plan for the worst, hope for the best," kind of thing.
As an obvious direct example: I was attempting to negotiate with Verizon just recently, to try to circumvent an obvious "bait-and-switch" tactic that they had used during the Cyber-Monday promotional. At one point, I think I made the mistake of typing a comment into my "open mic" chat session, that essentially admitted that I was on the verge of just taking the deal, regardless of whether or not they agreed to give me what they had originally promised -- but of course, I backspaced over that before submitting. I realized a few minutes later what had probably happened, as my leverage completely evaporated in very short order. That mistake effectively cost me $200. (I left an absolutely scathing review of the CSR after the fact, describing what had happened... which, in retrospect, probably prompted some enthusiastic high-fives and kudos from the CSR's manager. So yeah... fuck you, Verizon.)
Lesson learned, though: just always assume that the mic is open.
If they would stop placing the links to additional videos during the last few seconds of the video I am watching. Is this the popup annotations as described?...
I don't think that's it, actually; those are paid promotional links... and they're definitely not going away. Rather, the best example of popup annotations that I've seen would be in this captioned version of Witch Doctor.
Note that the popups already fail to display within some of the more modern video players, such as on iOS... so for those of you who don't have access to a more "traditional" computing device: the most obvious series of popups in the video are a set of random colored blocks which abruptly overlay the video composer's comment that this was the first video he ever made, alongside a popup which reads, "I wish I hadn't put that in."
... they are going to kill about 4 billion people by 2024. I don't know who they are targeting...
Come now; don't be so paranoid... nobody is going to intentionally kill all of those people. Clearly, they're all going to die from a new and highly malignant/fast moving form of cancer. That cancer will be induced by a new wave of 5G wireless devices, as their incredibly efficient death waves pummel every cell of our bodies every second of every day. And of course, by the time those who are left figure it all out, it'll be far too late to do anything about it... and it'll all come to pass shortly before we all recognize that the machine uprising has already taken place. And you will welcome your new robot overlords... because if you don't, they'll turn the 5G signals up to eleven in your immediate vicinity, transmuting you into a messy puddle of goo within a matter of weeks.
Huh. Alright... maybe you can go ahead and be paranoid, after all./s
... The absence of information about them is a "disincentive" for iOS users to patch, Beer argues....
I would argue that the details about exactly what bugs -- or even how many bugs, for that matter -- are entirely immaterial to whether or not the vast majority of iOS users are going to install any given security patch. It's pretty simple, actually: release a patch, and tell users that it's related to security. That's it; no further details are necessary. Frankly, most people either don't understand or don't care about the details; their behavior isn't going to be changed in the least by those few extra words that they aren't going to bother reading anyway. And the people who would actually read (and understand) those details fall into two basic categories: those who will patch immediately, regardless of the details, (because, security!!) and those who will delay patching for as long as they reasonably can, regardless of the details. (An obvious example of the latter could be IT types, who are required to manage large numbers of end-user devices.)
No; I think Fratric and Beer are both missing the forest for the trees, and I think there's a pretty obvious reason: all they really care about is their fifteen seconds of fame... that little bit of acknowledgement from Apple, that they done good. Unfortunately for them, Apple happens to know their target audience pretty well, so it's not particularly likely that Beer's latest bit of whining is going to elicit even so much as an annoyed snort from them.
This product doesn't actually solve any of the real problems associated with open plan offices, which essentially makes this product all but useless in the real world. The word for these types of products is Chindogu, and there is an incredible variety of similarly useless products, easily discoverable for those who're familiar with the proper search term.
The only real question is, did Panasonic knowingly engage in designing a Chindogu product, or were they duped into marketing this particular example of the art form, outside of the limits of its traditional (predominantly Japanese) target audience?
Yeah, because it was free because Google has a big heart. Don't be so naive....
Who said I was being naive? I am fully aware that the "free" model has served Google extremely well; I wish I could say that that's one of the reasons that I use an iPhone -- but the reality is, even as an iPhone user, Google still has access to craptons of my personal data; realistically, it might possibly be only marginally better than being an Android user, in that regard.
No; I was merely presenting the more human translation of the obviously indignant lawyer-speak in their response. (And yes: I fully expect that one of their executives literally flipped the bird at.... the closed door of the courtroom, when they were sure that the judge couldn't see them. That's about as far as my expectations go, for attributing any kind of "rational" mentality to Google and their proverbial show runners.)
... To me, Apple is more guilty of antitrust than Google.
What am I missing?
IANAL, but if I were to hazard a guess: Perhaps, in order to pressure Apple over this issue, the EU would need a competitor to come forward with a lawsuit. There are no legitimate* competitors to Apple's App Store; therefore, there can be no lawsuit.
* The "alternative" sources which could ostensibly compete with Apple's App Store generally find themselves far too reliant upon "ethically challenging" behaviors in order to even exist... such as relying upon jailbreaking in order to get their wares onto an iPhone. People who engage in ethically challenging behaviors very obviously tend to avoid the court system as much as they can. So in a disturbing bit of irony, Google may have actually opened the door to this lawsuit themselves, by enabling and authorizing legitimate competition with their own app store.
Seems to me that Google is basically saying, "You don't like free?!? FINE! -- then we'll just charge you for everything!" and then sticking their middle finger up at the EU courts.
I mean, I'm not saying that Google is right necessarily... but that's certainly how their response reads, to my mind.
There is a huge difference between "bosses around the world don't want it," and "it wasn't something paying customers cared about." (emphasis added for clarity) The former implies (as observed in the quoted summary in the parent thread) that bosses may be actively seeking to eavesdrop; the latter implies that bosses don't care either way, as long as they don't have to pay extra for encryption.
Clearly, the concerns of the actual end-users is that perhaps the former is more likely the case... which probably tends to drive those end-users to other platforms (those which do enable encryption) for any of their more casual interactions. And obviously, when you default to an "unofficial" platform in this fashion, you're not particularly likely to bother going back to the "official" platform just to conduct business with those same people -- except when you're forced. And we all know what happens when you try to force someone to do something that they don't want to do; they pretend to do it, or they only do it just barely enough to get the boss off of their back.
End result: ironically, those "paying" customers may stop paying, if Slack can't actually convince the end-users to use the tool properly... which I would suggest makes this a potentially self-defeating scenario.
Slashdot Mirror
... "<strike>If that's what's required to sign up with Facebook,</strike> you're better off not being on Facebook." ...
(Apparently, Slashdot markup purges actual strike-through markup.)
What they're saying is just PR speak, and probably has absolutely nothing to do with the market realities which prompted this decision. The most likely scenario is simply that someone else came into the market with a better product, and ate Intel's lunch. You don't keep making a product when nobody is buying it!
I mean, just take a look at Intel's webpage for Compute Cards; I don't know if this was always the case, but the specs and prices of the offerings on that page right now strongly suggests that they were targeting low-end computing stations. (Which admittedly does make sense when we're talking about point-of-sale terminals and the like.) But maybe their target audience didn't actually want workstations which were so drastically restricted in performance... or at least, not at the prices that Intel wanted to charge.
Of course, with that price bracket, it's also quite plausible that a fair portion of their target audience just went with tablets instead.
Oh, hey, I remember that movie! It was called... Real Genius, right?
So after all these years, Hathaway has finally figured out the power problem?
So, my father-in-law bought a very expensive "wireless" TV several years ago -- against my advice -- and it has been a particularly negative experience, overall. (Of course, the power wasn't actually wireless; rather, in his case, power was the one wire which still connected directly to the display panel... but that distinction is immaterial to my point.)
As soon as you decide to do everything wirelessly, you're introducing a series of new problems to the overall experience, such as latency and transmission interference. Latency means that the video signal takes long enough to reach the display, that the screen is almost entirely unusable for any kind of real-time video games, such as racing sims or FPS. (I observed this issue first hand while playing Mario Kart Wii; the Wii did not remain connected to that screen for very long.) And when -- not "if" -- transmission interference hits, that's even worse; the components have degraded over time, such that even with only a few feet between the "head unit" transmitter and the display, we ended up with random glitch-outs of the signal, growing more frequent over time.
So really, my Subject above is understating the severity of the issue... relying so heavily on wireless is more like solving one entirely noncritical aesthetics "problem" by introducing a series of potential deal-breaker technical problems. I would fully expect the same analysis to apply to this new "now, with even more wireless!" set from Samsung -- and I will be advising anyone who asks that they should stay far, far away from this hell-hound.
From the very end of the linked article:
"Important note: Ring has patched this vulnerability in version 3.4.7 of the ring app (Without notifying users in the patch notes!). Please make sure to upgrade to a newer version ASAP as the affected versions are still backward compatible and vulnerable."
(I think I'm beginning to understand that whole "read the last page first" philosophy.)
... If that doesn't work, then companies -- be they in South Korea, the USA or UK -- can bury search engine results by flooding Google with new, conflicting data about the deceased. ...
This isn't a new practice, in-and-of-itself; rather, just a new application of existing practices. The thing is, any given attempt to remove (or obfuscate) data inevitably results in counter-measures by those who "just want data to be free." So, just as we already have tools like The Wayback Machine, for looking back at data which someone has attempted to "scrub" from public view, we can fully anticipate Google (et al) to enhance their custom date-range filtering tools, to more effectively filter out crap data inserted into the result set on any given date... assuming that the existing filters aren't already fully up to the task, of course.
... According to 14 current and former contractors employed by Apex Systems, a firm that staffs the building as well as other Apple mapping offices ...
Correction: a firm that formerly staffed various offices for Apple; considering how Apex has so severely mishandled things as to make their employees angry enough to "let the cat out of the bag," I'm sure Apple will be exercising one of their small-print termination clauses in the contract with Apex, forthwith.
I mean, come on; pretty much everybody knows that the only way to keep a "black ops" under wraps is to make sure that all of the participants are loyal to a fault and have a strong vested interest in the success of that op. The only (legal) way that corporations can ensure that is by offering lucrative financial incentives and a positive overall work experience to the employees... whereas it sounds a lot like Apex managed to offer every disincentive in the book. YUUUUGE fail.
Much like when the two companies pulled this scam...
Nope, nope, nope! That's just stereotypical Apple-hater clickbait; nothing new to see here, folks. The geeks who actually care about this stuff have already read at least one of the previous articles on the topic, such as last month's article which pointed out that AT&T had then already enlisted Samsung and LG to label their phones in this manner. Also, it's worth noting that the two previous articles were both from The Verge, like this one... so I guess Verge is just really pumped about recycling. (Not the "good" kind of recycling... but still.) And as far as I can tell from the summary, this newer version of the story has utterly no purpose other than to enrage Android uses into hating on Apple some more... so that Verge can put a few more ads in front of hapless eyeballs.
So yeah, screw that crap; you'll have to do a hell of a lot better than that to get your ad revenue out of me, Verge.
I'm a "Skills Worker." I don't have a Bachelor's degree; rather I have an Associates degree -- and to this day, I would actually argue that I hardly even needed that level of education. This is roughly what my educational path looked like:
Junior year in high school. Pretty standard course-load... nothing unusual, except that I was doing terrible in my German II class. (Again.) I think I ended up finishing that year with a "C-", and even that was basically a gift from the teacher. I needed at least two years of a foreign language to pass at all, but I just couldn't hack it with foreign languages. Further, it was too late to go back and switch to another language... which meant that it was effectively impossible for me to graduate with the so-called "advanced" degree, (two years each of two languages or three years of one language) which the school counselors had strongly encouraged for anyone who was college bound... which I (ostensibly) was.
Fine. I didn't really care about foreign languages anyway; I was already quite familiar with my competencies; I'm a computer guy, cut-and-dry. I'd already been the "teacher's pet" for years, because I knew more about computers than most of the teachers, and of course everybody knew that I was the school nerd. (Some competencies have consequences, but I had learned to deal with that.) I also didn't much care about Algebra II, and it was only required for that advanced degree... so I had a conversation with my counselor; I told him that I wanted to switch out Algebra II for a computer programming class. He reminded me several times and in several different ways that Al-II was really, really important for... reasons. I really didn't give a crap about those reasons so I stood my ground, much to his frustration and confusion. He eventually wrote up my Senior year schedule according to my wishes.
Senior year. I breezed through that computer class; easy A. I graduated with a "standard" degree. Whatever.
Community college. I hated nearly every second of it... except for certain electives -- and of course, my programming classes. Those, I pretty much ate up. I won't bother to try to break out "Freshman" vs "Sophomore" year... because thanks to all those other classes, it took me quite a bit more than two years to obtain my Associates. Again... whatever.
Than I moved into the work force. I got a "summer hire" position while I was still taking college classes. I proved my value by fixing a problem which I was not supposed to have been capable of fixing. That's a very long story; the short version is, not having anything in particular for me to do, they just paired me up with a "programmer"... who did indeed have a Bachelor's degree, but as it turns out, knew next to nothing about programming. Management had pretty much figured that out, and had assigned him to perform a task at which he was fully expected to fail, so that they could justify firing him for misrepresenting his capabilities on his resume. I didn't know that at the time, of course... but I could easily see that he was floundering. I also didn't yet know the programming language that he and I were looking at, but I at least understood the foundational principles of the craft; as such, I pretty much shocked everyone when I solved his problem for him, effectively saving him from the chopping block. (Ummm... oops?) Oh, don't worry; they still eventually built their case for firing him -- and rightly so, as I had plenty of opportunities thereafter to observe his (ahem) capabilities with my own eyes -- but it took a lot longer than it might have otherwise. In the process, they also decided to hire me on, full-time. Fancy that... and I didn't even have that Associates degree yet.
I started "professional" programming within the context of that job, in several different programming environments, including Visual Fox Pro, JavaScript/HTML and an obscure little IDE which I'm pretty sure no longer even exists anymore. My very
In the short-lived series, Firefly, Mandarin Chinese was a common second language. So... a good prediction, or life imitating art?
It may be worth mentioning that even back when record companies first started selling actual vinyl record albums, those sales were never the primary revenue source for the artists themselves; rather, concerts are and always have been their biggest income source by a pretty solid margin. So if you really want to support your favorite artist...
You know the old quote: the simplest solution is often the best one. My daughter seems to have found such a solution herself, as she is a "quite talker" as well -- but not out of any physical restrictions, mind you: she just talks exceptionally quietly for the sake of privacy. I believe you'd have to be sitting within less than a foot of her to really catch what she's saying, most of the time.
So her simple solution? She just uses the standard wired headphones which came with her iPhone... and she puts the inline microphone in her mouth.
I know it sounds a bit odd, but upon reading this Ask Slashdot question it occurred to me that it's actually effective on multiple fronts: the speakers are inside of her ears, so the audio feedback filter need not be applied to the sound coming into the microphone, the ambient sound from the room is somewhat muffled by her lips, and her vocal cords are just about as close to the microphone as they can get, reducing the amplification requirements. (Obviously you'll need to be careful that you don't spit all over the microphone, potentially damaging it.)
So, admittedly, this won't address every issue, as noted by the OP. But there is one issue which I've personally encountered, which this could possibly help to mitigate -- depending upon the scope of impact, of course: that of insurance companies recommending charges for services/products which are above what the hospital or pharmacy might have otherwise charged.
I was once having a friendly conversation with my pharmacist about my family -- and he was a bit floored when I told him how many mouths I have to feed. Moments later, he hesitantly informed me (in one of those "I'm not supposed to say this, but..." type of comments) that my insurance was recommending that he up-charge me for one of the prescriptions that I needed to pick up; apparently my co-pay for that medication was actually higher than his usual prices. He told me very frankly that he just didn't feel right charging me that much, and that I could save money by not using my insurance for that particular prescription. I never would have even suspected that such a practice might exist, if not for his commentary, so I gratefully accepted his advice.
The medical industry is pretty badly messed up in a lot of ways, and for a lot of reasons. This legislation will hopefully lead to there being at least one or two fewer ways for unscrupulous people to screw me over. I'm going to call that a win.
After doing this for 20 years, I don't care about video games at work...
Video games at work?!? OH -- wait: you must be referring to the standard suite of network load testing tools. ...
I'm only somewhat joking, here; that's actually what my team called it, back when I was working internal tech support for a large-shall-remain-unnamed-company. Yeah... good times.
But of course, eventually real life demands that we move on to a job that actually pays the bills. (Sigh.)
If you don't like advertisements which track you, than fight back: just make horribly disgusted facial expressions every time you look at an ad! It's a totally brilliant tactic, because if enough people follow this advice, these horribly unethical and creepy companies will eventually just give up and stop advertising altogether!
....... Oh, and no, your mommy's scold about your face "sticking that way" is absolutely not true, I promise! The ugly expressions might eventually become a habit, and those expressions might cause permanent frown wrinkles over the course of time, which could ultimately make you look like a genuinely bitter old codger in your later years in life, thus entirely ruining the effect on those rare occasions when you actually try to smile... but trust me: that's totally not the same thing.
/s
... Any IP whose tax is unpaid reverts to the public domain... Go ahead, shoot holes in this modest proposal!
Okay; I'll try my aim. When any business entity is forced to pay a "tax" of any kind, it doesn't actually hurt them in the least... they just pass that cost downstream to the customer. Thus, the only IP which would become subject to your forfeiture clause would be those which nobody actually cares about enough to spend any money on them... and the public domain ends up being littered with utter crap.
I don't know about you, but that doesn't actually sound all that appealing to me.
There's obviously no reasonable expectation of "privacy" in this scenario -- but frankly, if you're using a computing device of any flavor, and if that device is attached to the internet, then you should probably just automatically assume that anything you do on that device could potentially be tracked. It obviously won't always be the case... but it might be the case, on occasion. This thought process kind'a falls under the "plan for the worst, hope for the best," kind of thing.
As an obvious direct example: I was attempting to negotiate with Verizon just recently, to try to circumvent an obvious "bait-and-switch" tactic that they had used during the Cyber-Monday promotional. At one point, I think I made the mistake of typing a comment into my "open mic" chat session, that essentially admitted that I was on the verge of just taking the deal, regardless of whether or not they agreed to give me what they had originally promised -- but of course, I backspaced over that before submitting. I realized a few minutes later what had probably happened, as my leverage completely evaporated in very short order. That mistake effectively cost me $200. (I left an absolutely scathing review of the CSR after the fact, describing what had happened... which, in retrospect, probably prompted some enthusiastic high-fives and kudos from the CSR's manager. So yeah... fuck you, Verizon.)
Lesson learned, though: just always assume that the mic is open.
If they would stop placing the links to additional videos during the last few seconds of the video I am watching. Is this the popup annotations as described?...
I don't think that's it, actually; those are paid promotional links... and they're definitely not going away. Rather, the best example of popup annotations that I've seen would be in this captioned version of Witch Doctor.
Note that the popups already fail to display within some of the more modern video players, such as on iOS... so for those of you who don't have access to a more "traditional" computing device: the most obvious series of popups in the video are a set of random colored blocks which abruptly overlay the video composer's comment that this was the first video he ever made, alongside a popup which reads, "I wish I hadn't put that in."
... they are going to kill about 4 billion people by 2024. I don't know who they are targeting ...
Come now; don't be so paranoid... nobody is going to intentionally kill all of those people. Clearly, they're all going to die from a new and highly malignant/fast moving form of cancer. That cancer will be induced by a new wave of 5G wireless devices, as their incredibly efficient death waves pummel every cell of our bodies every second of every day. And of course, by the time those who are left figure it all out, it'll be far too late to do anything about it... and it'll all come to pass shortly before we all recognize that the machine uprising has already taken place. And you will welcome your new robot overlords... because if you don't, they'll turn the 5G signals up to eleven in your immediate vicinity, transmuting you into a messy puddle of goo within a matter of weeks.
Huh. Alright... maybe you can go ahead and be paranoid, after all. /s
7&**gh_`7dsfd+3((&^/.... NO CARRIER.
... The absence of information about them is a "disincentive" for iOS users to patch, Beer argues. ...
I would argue that the details about exactly what bugs -- or even how many bugs, for that matter -- are entirely immaterial to whether or not the vast majority of iOS users are going to install any given security patch. It's pretty simple, actually: release a patch, and tell users that it's related to security. That's it; no further details are necessary. Frankly, most people either don't understand or don't care about the details; their behavior isn't going to be changed in the least by those few extra words that they aren't going to bother reading anyway. And the people who would actually read (and understand) those details fall into two basic categories: those who will patch immediately, regardless of the details, (because, security!!) and those who will delay patching for as long as they reasonably can, regardless of the details. (An obvious example of the latter could be IT types, who are required to manage large numbers of end-user devices.)
No; I think Fratric and Beer are both missing the forest for the trees, and I think there's a pretty obvious reason: all they really care about is their fifteen seconds of fame... that little bit of acknowledgement from Apple, that they done good. Unfortunately for them, Apple happens to know their target audience pretty well, so it's not particularly likely that Beer's latest bit of whining is going to elicit even so much as an annoyed snort from them.
This product doesn't actually solve any of the real problems associated with open plan offices, which essentially makes this product all but useless in the real world. The word for these types of products is Chindogu, and there is an incredible variety of similarly useless products, easily discoverable for those who're familiar with the proper search term.
The only real question is, did Panasonic knowingly engage in designing a Chindogu product, or were they duped into marketing this particular example of the art form, outside of the limits of its traditional (predominantly Japanese) target audience?
Yeah, because it was free because Google has a big heart. Don't be so naive. ...
Who said I was being naive? I am fully aware that the "free" model has served Google extremely well; I wish I could say that that's one of the reasons that I use an iPhone -- but the reality is, even as an iPhone user, Google still has access to craptons of my personal data; realistically, it might possibly be only marginally better than being an Android user, in that regard.
No; I was merely presenting the more human translation of the obviously indignant lawyer-speak in their response. (And yes: I fully expect that one of their executives literally flipped the bird at.... the closed door of the courtroom, when they were sure that the judge couldn't see them. That's about as far as my expectations go, for attributing any kind of "rational" mentality to Google and their proverbial show runners.)
... To me, Apple is more guilty of antitrust than Google.
What am I missing?
IANAL, but if I were to hazard a guess: Perhaps, in order to pressure Apple over this issue, the EU would need a competitor to come forward with a lawsuit. There are no legitimate* competitors to Apple's App Store; therefore, there can be no lawsuit.
* The "alternative" sources which could ostensibly compete with Apple's App Store generally find themselves far too reliant upon "ethically challenging" behaviors in order to even exist... such as relying upon jailbreaking in order to get their wares onto an iPhone. People who engage in ethically challenging behaviors very obviously tend to avoid the court system as much as they can. So in a disturbing bit of irony, Google may have actually opened the door to this lawsuit themselves, by enabling and authorizing legitimate competition with their own app store.
Seems to me that Google is basically saying, "You don't like free?!? FINE! -- then we'll just charge you for everything!" and then sticking their middle finger up at the EU courts.
I mean, I'm not saying that Google is right necessarily... but that's certainly how their response reads, to my mind.
There is a huge difference between "bosses around the world don't want it," and "it wasn't something paying customers cared about." (emphasis added for clarity) The former implies (as observed in the quoted summary in the parent thread) that bosses may be actively seeking to eavesdrop; the latter implies that bosses don't care either way, as long as they don't have to pay extra for encryption.
Clearly, the concerns of the actual end-users is that perhaps the former is more likely the case... which probably tends to drive those end-users to other platforms (those which do enable encryption) for any of their more casual interactions. And obviously, when you default to an "unofficial" platform in this fashion, you're not particularly likely to bother going back to the "official" platform just to conduct business with those same people -- except when you're forced. And we all know what happens when you try to force someone to do something that they don't want to do; they pretend to do it, or they only do it just barely enough to get the boss off of their back.
End result: ironically, those "paying" customers may stop paying, if Slack can't actually convince the end-users to use the tool properly... which I would suggest makes this a potentially self-defeating scenario.