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  1. Seperate 2 and 3 series phones on Honeycomb To Require Dual-Core Processor · · Score: 1

    That's close but what Google has been saying for a while is that they are planning to split android into two tracks. The new 3 series track (starting with honeycomb) will be designed to support tablets as well as new "super phones". Existing phones as well as future bargain phones stay on the 2 series track.

    Basically, google is looking to diversify the android platform in order to expand its market appeal. The 2 series phones will be targeted at feature phone customers. The 3 series phones will be the cutting edge iphone competitors.

    Google has never said that honeycomb is only for tablets, just that it will require new hardware.

  2. Abuse of DMCA?? on Avoiding DMCA Woes As an Indy Game Developer? · · Score: 1

    Seriously?

    This guy stole someones idea, and made an exact replica of it. What he did is downright un-American. This country was founded on the principle that nobody should be allowed to reap the benefits of my hard work without my permission. If I work hard enough and create something new and original, I should be able to benefit from it for as long as people are willing to pay for my idea, and the time frame should not be cut short because someone decided to give away my art for free.

    I've heard too many times, "information wants to be free", and "copyrights/patents stifle creativity". No, copyrights and patents encourage creativity. Freedom of information encourages poverty for anyone with creative aspirations. It doesn't cost an artist anything to have his music distributed over bit torrent, but guess what? It does cost him money and time to make that music. The fact is, most of your favorite songs, games, books, movies, and even software would not have been created if not for IP laws. If it wasn't for the rights Namco is choosing to exercise in this situation, games like pac man wouldn't even exist. The people who spend thousands of hours creating them would be working at a McDonald's trying desperately to support their families. They would not have the time to create the art that you enjoy so thoroughly.

    If the creators of Pacman want to relinquish their rights to allow people greater access to their creation, I would greatly admire them for it. On the other hand, if they decide that they want to exercise their rights to the greatest extent of the law, I don't believe that I or anyone else has the right to question their decision. For all I know their retirement fund tanked, and they're living off of pacman royalties. Do I feel sorry for the guy that wasted his time replicating their work? Not really, he should have asked for their permission first. Do I wish that I could pacman on my android phone? Yes, but that is not my decision to make.

    Now, aside from the moral issues, this guy just wasn't very smart. There are plenty of scavenger companies out there that make a lot of money my cloning other people's ideas, and my opinion of them aside, at least they're smart enough to make it appear that they had a unique idea. I mean:

    1. Super *Pac*
    2. Character named Pacman
    3. Identical monsters
    4. Identical layout.
    5. Identical main character
    6. Identical gameplay
    7. DIRECT reference to the original work

    This guy was asking for a lawsuit, and if he is reading this, my (non-lawyer) advice is: play dead and cross your fingers that they lose their appetite. If I were you, I would consult a lawyer ASAP to figure out how to protect myself from further legal action.

  3. Re:I disagree on Deep Packet Inspection Set To Return · · Score: 1

    In theory, yes, it would be impossible to spoof an ssl certificate. However, in practice there are numerous man-in-the-middle attacks on SSL implementations.

    It would not be trivial, but there are ways for an ISP to spoof it's identity even with SSL.

  4. Re:Victimless crime? on 200 Students Admit Cheating After Professor's Online Rant · · Score: 1

    Even if it's a filler class, you still have to live with the fact that you might steal a job from someone who had enough honor to take the C he deserved rather than cheat his way to an A.

  5. Victimless crime? on 200 Students Admit Cheating After Professor's Online Rant · · Score: 1

    If your professors are boring then don't go to class, but there is no excuse for cheating. The fact is cheating is dishonest, and it is not a victimless crime. You might think that everyone is cheating, so it doesn't matter, but the truth is that at least one person in your classes actually cracked open a book and has been working his ass off to get your grades.

    What's going to happen when you both graduate? You're going to get his job because you got a higher GPA, and you knew enough to BS your way through an interview. Despite the fact that the honest guy is vastly more qualified than you, there is no way for the company to know that because neither of you have much work experience, and your transcript looks better.

    A few months down the line the your boss realizes that you know almost nothing about Databases, so he takes another look at your transcript and sees that you got an A in your Databases course. He thinks to himself, what are they teaching at XYZ University?

    A few months later, your boss is recruiting for another position similar to yours. He gets an application from someone who also got in A in Databases from the same school you attended. He also gets an equally qualified application from a student at ZYX University. Who do you think he's going to hire?

    So now, you have a job that going nowhere because you boss and coworkers think your an idiot. The guy who could have excelled at your job is unemployed, and the guy who just graduated has a worthless degree because nobody wants to hire anyone from XYZ university anymore. Do you still think that cheating was the right thing to do?

  6. Re:Terrible Summary on NVIDIA's New Flagship GeForce GTX 580 Tested · · Score: 1

    The 5970 has two gpu's built into one card. It would be more comparable to two nVidia cards running in SLI than a single GPU card.

  7. Nobody can predict the future on Prosecutors Request Closed Courtroom For Goldman HFT Programmer's Trial · · Score: 1

    There is no window to the future. If high FREQUENCY trading was like looking into the future, the algorithm would be worthless because anyone could easily do it with the right hardware.

    The truth is, it's very difficult to predict the future with any degree of certainty at even the smallest time intervals. Imagine this scenario:

    GOOG, BID: 649 ASK: 650

    Now, someone puts an order to sell at 649.5, the HFT sees it, and buys, and puts the stock back on the market for 650. Now, someone sells a large amount of shares at a 645 limit, and all of the 645-649 bids go through. Now stock is at:

    GOOG, BID: 645, ASK:650

    Now, selling to the highest bidder would mean taking a $5/share loss. What should the HFT do?

    Now, you might be thinking an HFT would have just sold before all of those trades went through, and it would have only lost 1 or 2 dollars. You would probably be right, but the real question is where do you draw the line. If you sold every time the bid dropped at all, you would end up losing more money than you make. The truth is, with all the competing HFT's out there, It's a lot easier to lose money than it is to make money.

    A good HFT is effective at turning many small gains into big profits. The trick is making sure those are small gains adding up, not small losses. If another company were to see Goldman's algorithm, they could not only steal their strategies, but they could engineer situations that would trick the Goldman bot into selling at a loss, netting a huge profit for the competitor.

  8. Re:Security? on Wireless HDMI At 1080p, Lag-Free WHDI Tested · · Score: 1

    The great irony of Slashdot: The guy who is too lazy to do any research himself gets +4 interesting(good karma), while the guy who actually goes out and finds the answer gets +4 funny(no karma).

    I ask you, does Mr. Neon deserve ad-free page views any less that Mr. Rotide?

    (Yes, I realize that Mr. Neon already has good karma, but the point still stands)

  9. Firewall Circumvention on EFF Says 'Stop Using Haystack' · · Score: 2, Informative

    That is a huge misinterpretation, here is the real story:

    -DEVELOPER of widely used firewall CIRCUMVENTION software says "Don't use MY firewall CIRCUMVENTION software"

    -EFF says that DEVELOPER says "Don't use his firewall CIRCUMVENTION software"

    -SECURITY AUDITOR that started all this commotion says "Don't use his firewall CIRCUMVENTION software"

    This is a huge issue, and I am glad that the EFF is spreading the word. You may not have heard of it, but Haystack is very widely used in Iran. It has been distributed through smuggled CD-R's and USB drives all over the country.

    The fact that Haystack is insecure means that MILLIONS of people are at risk of being arrested.

  10. Fair and balanced coverage on WikiLeaks 'a Clear and Present Danger,' Says WaPo · · Score: 1

    Thank you, AC

    The reason I read the Washington Post is because they are willing to post articles like the one mentioned. While I do not agree with what most of the article says, I think that is the responsibility of any good citizen to take in arguments from both sides of a story. The Washington Post allows me to do this by posting articles from both sides of the spectrum on any given issue. Unlike some other news organizations they will also post the more "liberal" side of the story:

    In regards to the wikileaks article, the wapo also has an interview with Assange himself. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkpoint-washington/2010/07/who_is_julian_assange_of_wikil.html

    That being said, I think that Thiessen's article does make one good point about WikiLeaks endangering the lives of informants in Iraq. There is no good reason that Assange did not redact the documents to remove any names or other personally identifiable information. Doing so would have minimized the risk of lives, and accomplished his goal of disseminating information.

  11. Fixed on Google To Answer Your Questions Directly · · Score: 1

    Looks like somebody fixed that:

    Michael Jordan height — 6-6
    According to celebheights.com, yahoo.com, chacha.com and 1 other

  12. Re:Well.. on Modded Xbox Bans Prompt EFF Warning About Terms of Service · · Score: 1

    Do you have any evidence that Microsoft has or is intending to send out banned consoles through warranty claims?

    Banning a person who has done nothing but ask for warranty repairs seems like poor business practices that could easily be fixed with a quick database update. I doubt even Microsoft would use such underhanded techniques to exploit warranty policy into increased console sales.

    Such practices would not only be blatantly illegal, but they would also lead to a strong backlash upon being perceived as scamming the average Joe Gamer.

  13. Re:Bah! on Whistleblower Claims IEA Is Downplaying Peak Oil · · Score: 1

    That's what they want you to think. Really, the plan is trick the world into thinking there is plenty of oil, while amassing the largest, most technologically advanced fighting force the planet has ever known. All the while saving up your stockpile of oil and moving all nonessential infrastructure internationally.

    When oil runs out everywhere else, the U.S. will still be fully stocked, and when someone else tries to steal it, they will show everyone the military they built on China's dollars.

    Oh, and financial crisis? People are making more money off their unemployment checks than most people are in the rest of the world, and we keep extending the benefits on China's dollar. When oil prices skyrocket causing mass inflation, that "huge debt" will be worth virtually nothing, and we'll still be living in the lap of luxury.

  14. Double speeds on Docsis 3.0 on Comcast's New Throttling Plan Uses Trigger Conditions, Not Silent Blocking · · Score: 1

    Comcast recently upgrades my area to Docsis 3.0, giving me double the speed I previously had for the same price. For the last few months I have been getting a consistent 9-12mbps instead of the 4-6 I previously had.

    Last night, after watching a movie on netflix, however, I checked my bandwidth, and I was getting only 5-6mbps. As it appears, they've lowered my speeds after 15 minutes of usage. While I did enjoy the 9-12 mbps, getting a consistent 5+mbps means that with a good QOS policy on my router I can stream from netflix in hd without any interrupts, so I am satisfied.

    When I get home tonight, I am going to set my router to throttle at 8.3 mbps, that should put me just under the limit, so I can get a consistent speed instead of dropping to 5. If that works I'll still be getting a 50% boost in speed, which is not too bad considering I'm still paying the same amount, though I do wish they were a little more honest about "doubling" my speed.

  15. Re:Jocks win wars? on John Hodgman On the Coming Geek Culture · · Score: 1

    No, all the jocks ended up in the Marines, Army and other best equipped fighting forces on Earth, and the nerds ended up at Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, and Boeing, making them the best equipped fighting forces on earth. The marines would not be any better than any other troops without fighter jets and UAVs backing them and telling them exactly where to find the enemy. Who needs jocks when you have exoskeletons carrying hundreds of pounds of the most sophisticated fighting equipment on the planet for you?

  16. Re:Intelligent Drivers on Hybrid Cars No Better than 'Intelligent' Cars · · Score: 1

    Actually, what we need is intelligent cars that CAN tailgate. You get much better fuel efficiency following an inch behind the car in front of you than 40 feet. In fact, all the stuff they teach you about not following trucks to closely is completely wrong when it comes to fuel efficiency. On the highway, tailgating that huge line of trucks is actually the most fuel efficient place you can drive. Also, don't think that driving faster is necessarily less efficient. One road I drive on daily has the lights timed so that you hit every yellow light at 18mph over. I drive 20mph over the speed limit and make it through every light. Because 60 mph is also my cars peak fuel efficiency point, I get much better fuel efficiency than all those "intelligent" drivers driving 10 over and hitting every red light. I've found that driving at 40 also gets you through every light. However, because I drive 15 miles on the road, the extra gas used to accelerate to 60 is negated by the gas saved driving at a more efficient speed. Maximizing fuel efficiency is a much more complicated problem than you think. Until we have computers that can drive cars that are touching bumper to bumper and can compute the most efficient speed based on fuel used to accelerate, and fuel saved over the driving distance, we will not come even close to peak fuel efficiency.

  17. Re:Half the price my paw on How Wii Is Creaming the Competition · · Score: 1

    I think you missed the point
    The Wii is selling
    The PS3 is NOT selling

  18. Re:At what point? on Microsoft Responds to EU With Another Question · · Score: 1

    Will the tables or the database break first?

  19. Re:Right and wrong don't "exist". on Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Dies At 84 · · Score: 1

    Moral non-cognitivism is only halfway there. Who is to say that someone else's idea of right and wrong are any less valid than your own? Maybe in the mind of the killer, killing someone was the right thing to do.

    Now, consider the real question: Why did the killer decide to kill?

  20. Re:don't kid yourself on Don't Believe What You See at the Movies · · Score: 1

    I think that he meant that we have very good detectors of BS emotion, not detectors of emotional BS.

  21. Re:the edge of the plate spins 50 meters a second! on Seagate Claims 2.5" SCSI Drive is World's Fastest · · Score: 0

    Or 112 mph for those of us in this century.

  22. Re:Sooo... on Purdue Streams a Movie At 7.5Gb/sec · · Score: 1

    4096 * 3072 * 24 * 30 = 9.06Gb/sec, so a codec with a 83% compression rate.

  23. Re:Two words... on Vista Licenses Limit OS Transfers, Ban VM Use · · Score: 2, Informative

    The new liscense disallows the use of File and Printer sharing with more than 5 computers, not connecting to 5 or more computers.

    You would be able to host a lan party fine. You just wouldnt be able to let more than 5 of those people connect to your printer.

  24. Dont forget calculators on Why Johnny Can't Code · · Score: 1

    Today's calculators are yesterdays computers. A Ti-83 has about the same resources as an old computer, and it is very easy to write a simple program in BASIC. My first real programming experience was on a TI-83 writing games while I was bored in class.

    I think it a great first language because you dont need to know anything. The calculator has menus of functions you can use (if, else, while, ...) so you can figure out how to program with no instruction. The BASIC on a TI-83 isnt very powerful, but it is very good at sparking a kids interest in programming.

  25. Re:Interesting 'idea' on Microsoft's High School Opens in PA · · Score: 1

    I don't think this could be a barrier to anyone wanting to graduate. As a recent college applicant, I have looked at numerous colleges. Even the most expensive applications are under $150. If they couldn't afford that, most community college applications are free. Some colleges dont even require an essay. So no, I dont think that a 1 minute web form is going to be a major barrier for anyone. If you dont believe be, check out this application: http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/admissions/prostu dents/ If someone couldnt figure out how to fill that out, I dont think they deserve a diploma.