I want you to give me an API so I can write my own interface.
I wonder if something like Microsoft's AI Bot API may eventually be able to do the sort of things you're perhaps thinking of. Granted, probably not on a mobile device yet, but I think this idea may have long-term potential for accessibility. Chat programs are becoming almost a platform unto themselves, so if this can leverage some of those capabilities with customized, programmable bots to help perform tasks by voice command, I could see it being quite handy for allowing very deep customization of voice command systems - at least in theory.
We've had self-sealing containers and fabric-based armor for a while now.
Of course, I'm sure SpaceX and NASA engineers never considered the possibility of using either of these, and no doubt the container will simply pop like a balloon when the first micro-meteorite impacts it.
Well, I'd characterize it as "The Soviet army ended the war in Europe, and we helped". No slight against the US and other allies, as we pretty much defeated Japan on our own as well, even though we prioritized the war in Europe.
There were *many* reasons for dropping atomic weapons on Japan. I think people stumble a bit when they point to specific events as the "reason", but I'd imagine the answer, like many complex things in life, was made up of a variety of motivations:
* Americans were becoming war-weary, but anything less than total victory would have been seen as a slap in the face to those who fought. * The Japanese were defending their home territory fanatically, and projections for losses of life on *both* sides were horrendous. * Russia was planning to invade with their vast manpower and disregard for casualties, and the US feared it would have potentially occupied large portions of Japan, turning it into a communist puppet state like with Eastern Europe. * Japan seemed unwilling to concede to unconditional surrender, even in the face of certain military defeat, instead adopting a strategy of inflicting massive casualties against invaders to force more favorable terms. * Many in the US wanted to test nuclear weapons on live targets to learn their destructive potential * US leaders / military wanted to demonstrate the might of the those weapons to the Soviets and the world at large as a warning against future actions against our interests * The American people would likely have demanded an impeachment of a President who didn't use the weapons at his disposal to win the war.
It's hard to say how these factors all weighed into the decision and in what proportions. Only Truman would really know that.
Ultimately, though, there's an argument to be made that, whatever forced the Japanese hand into timely surrender ultimately saved many thousands of allied soldiers lives as well as saving the lives of hundreds of thousands or even *millions* of Japanese from the horror and suffering of a protracted land campaign, or mass starvation inflicted by blockades and isolation, as some have argued for (starvation was already becoming a problem). We could also argue that Japan is far better off today having been forced to completely surrender and accept the efforts by the US to help rebuild Japan into a modern liberal democracy.
If a hardware designer is that motivated to snoop on you, then they probably wouldn't bother installing a fake physical kill switch. After all, the current status quo is no hardware switch at all. Do you seriously imagine that they're going to add a hardware kill switch, but then secretly add a method for software to bypass it? It really doesn't make a lot of sense.
For me, I'm more concerned about the actual, documented cases of spy software, malware, or simply badly designed systems used to snoop on people surreptitiously. I'm pretty sure a simple on/off switch would work wonders in these cases. And hey, if you don't trust the switch, there's always the old "piece of tape over the camera" fallback.
Agreed, and I'd probably also exclude the Amazon store from being painted with that same brush. Malware infesting 3rd party Asian app stores isn't exactly news to someone who pays attention to these things. That alone accounts for a huge percentage of the malware found on Android devices.
Still, as a general rule, I think it still holds. If someone don't know enough to make that evaluation for themselves, it's probably best for them to stick to the official store.
They can make sure the LED doesn't turn on and that the camera/microphone is "disabled".. until a specific set of commands is received via the firmware.
You need to trust the manufacturer before you can trust their off switch.
That's why a mechanical switch is required or else it's a completely useless exercise. You can verify that the circuit is interrupted, and there's nothing software can do to circumvent this. No trust is required.
Hulu has an ad-free subscription now for a few bucks more per month. I signed up after this became available. My only real complaint is that for some reason they insist on pasting annoying watermarks in the corners of the video streams. It apparently doesn't bother some people, but for some reason it tends to really distract me.
As a right-conservative leaning person, I'd have to disagree. I just don't see this as a political issue, left or right.
This is simply people realizing what Facebook is about and what the implications of sharing all the intimate details of your life really means. It means your boss can see what you do in your spare time and who you hang out with. It means people you don't really want to associate you can track your every move. It means you lose your privacy in unexpected and unwelcome ways. It means your kids get into arguments with you because you're posting details of their lives without their consent.
In other words, people are simply learning about the downsides of Facebook. And it's about fucking time.
At the very least, people really need to enable click-to-play for Flash. That would tend to prevent nearly all of these sorts of exploits, but when you still find an occasional Flash video or content, you can still play it. Of course, still better if you can completely do without Flash at all, which is increasingly easy these days with HTML5 being embraced by more sites.
I sort of doubt we've shipping that stuff mostly by train since our federal highway system was built in the 50s. Trains are good for shipping items in bulk quantities: grain & foodstuffs, coal, oil, lumber, cars, bulk consumer goods, that sort of thing. Consider the logistics involved of filling entire trains, and you quickly figure out why it really only makes sense for bulk goods.
I think Amazon shipments are possible the *worst* example you could pick for rail transport. Amazon orders are fulfilled by stocking lots of different items in relatively small quantities. They need to warehouse items in a few central locations, which means bringing in relatively small shipments from lots and lots of different manufacturers all over the world, then shipping to customers directly from those warehouse location. They're not really moving bulk materials from point to point. So, no, of course trains probably aren't going to be involved in fulfilling Amazon orders.
I think some people are thinking of roads and rails as equivalent and competing shipment systems, and I just don't see that being the case. If there's a decline in the rail industry, it likely means that we simply have less need to ship bulk goods. A decline in US manufacturing and refining industries would certainly account for part of that.
Did they also modify the client to connect to these servers? If so, then there's your copyright infringement there. If not, then reverse engineering a service seems legit. I can certainly understand why Activision-Blizzard lawyers would get all frothy at the thought of this, but it seems like there's precedent for this sort of thing.
Granted, whether or not your or I think it's legally okay to do this doesn't mean that suits won't be filed, and Activision has a hell of a lot more money to spend on lawyers. Also... they can shut down external operations because they're against the "terms of use"? So Blizzard can simply write their own laws now? Hell, maybe so.
Trying to pre-emptively legislate based on speculation or predictions seems like a really bad idea. Let's address issues as they arrive. It's not like this is going to happen overnight.
Anyhow, to your point... railroads and trucking are rather different in their advantages and disadvantages, and so I suspect there may be less competition among these industries than you believe. Trucks will *never* match the efficiency per-pound of bulk goods carried by rail. However, rail can never match the speed and flexibility of trucks to make smaller point-to-point deliveries.
Uh, no, I wasn't thinking about DRM. I'm referring to second-factor authenticators like Yubikey. Acting as a USB keyboard means that any OS that supports USB keyboards will support this device with no additional software required. Hardware-based DRM systems simply make you install a custom driver.
I'm just pointing out that when you think of "obvious" solutions to problems (usually phrased as "all you have to do is..."), you probably haven't thought of or simply don't understand all the implications of such a decision, or it likely would have been done already. I don't think the issue of malicious USB devices is trivially solved without severely compromising the functionality of the USB ecosystem.
Christ, hasn't he given up enough? Should he also set himself on fire in protest over world-wide corruption and privacy issues? He's a guest in Russia, and you expect him to start spitting in Putin's eye?
When Brittany Spears is exiled from the US and all other allied countries due to her principles regarding government spying on its citizenry, then I'll listen to what she has to say regarding these sorts of topics as well.
There are actually USB devices that emulate keyboards for good reasons - a password-generating dongle is one example, and I'm sure there are more. Customers or manufacturers of said devices won't appreciate the OS helpfully informing users they've been hacked when in all probability the USB device is completely benign.
It might be a pretty effective way to go spearphishing though. If you're trying to get into a specific high-value network, then this might be a great way to do it. Drop it outside the target office, label it something like "Private photos - do not view!" or something like that, and watch human nature take over.
Hopefully the administrator has properly hardened workstations against executing code on a random USB, but I'd bet a surprising number of networks would get infected in fairly short order.
Yep, exactly correct. At this point, though, I've long since stopped expressing outrage at this sort of thing. I mean, what the hell do people expect after so many examples of this? No one really trusts Google... er, excuse me, "Alphabet"... to keep less popular services or products running. It's fine if you want to use these services... after all, cloud connectivity makes things a hell of a lot more convenient. Personally, I use a Kindle and I own a few Steam games, and I have no illusions about what happens if those companies go under. Just be aware of the risks.
Buying a device that requires a cloud-based service from a small, unstable company, or one who is launching a product you aren't sure will be around in another few decades is really asking to be disappointed. Really, just look at the product, and if an internet connection is *required*, then that means the product will only last as long as the company is willing to support it. If the company goes under, your product does too. This is something that consumers are going to have to learn the hard way, I fear.
So why have I bought into some of these services myself? For me, there's some risk assessment involved. It's actually quite probably that I'll die before Amazon goes out of business and stops supporting their e-book reader and format, and Steam is raking in enough cash to stick around for quite a while, so I'm probably good there. But again, it's important to go into these things with your eyes wide open about the trade-offs you're making versus having physical media or devices that you have under your own control.
I use a Kindle for a few reasons, mostly related to convenience, or simply what I consider to be an improved form factor. I enjoy the built-in screen light, which makes reading in less than ideal light more pleasant, and I find the Kindle nicer to hold than a physical book. I also enjoy being able to access my library not just when using my Kindle, but *any* modern computing device (tablet, phone, PC). For instance, I often use my Kindle PC reader for technical books, and when I'm out an about and don't happen to have my Kindle with me, I can use my phone app. It even syncs to the last page read, which is pretty convenient.
To answer your questions:
Total life of a Kindle? Unknown, I swapped my original Kindle out for a Kindle Paperwhite, and three years later it's still like new. I'd guess a Kindle should easily last five to ten years with a bit of care. Given that they only cost about $100, that's not too bad of a cost amortized. I haven't heard about any sort of trade-in program, but since they're fairly inexpensive, I wouldn't expect it. Trade-ins really only make sense with rather expensive items.
Swap the battery? I don't believe the batteries on the newest ones are "officially" user-replaceable, but a quick search indicates it's reasonably simple to do so, at least with 1st gen paperwhites.
If you sell your Kindle, you'd want to deactivate it first, as it's tied to your account. Titles don't transfer, nor can you trade them - at least not the ones you buy from Amazon. You still own all your books, which are stored in your Amazon account, so you can still continue to access them from your PC, phone, tablet, whatever.
AT&T similarly charges $15 per smartphone added or upgraded with AT&T Next, and "bring your own" devices. Sprint also charges an upgrade or activation fee up to $36 per device. T-Mobile does not have upgrade fees.
You can always tell who's behind in the market, can't you?
Actually, native anything in a browser other than core browser functionality plus a robust plugin system seems like a bad idea in principle. Why integrate a built-in feature that's better off as a plugin anyhow? Remember Firefox and Pocket?
This seems like a common-sense law, and it comes in direct response to abuse by these companies. I'm generally not in favor of legislation of this sort until it's been established that there's a clear problem, but this sort of thing has gotten out of hand. For companies that complain about over-regulation, maybe if you didn't treat your customers like shit, we wouldn't have to expressly forbid that sort of behavior through explicit legislation or regulation.
My own experience with this "make it a pain to cancel a service" tactic was from an EA MMO from quite a few years ago: "Earth and Beyond" I think it was called. It was a pretty horrible MMO, got boring extremely fast, and there was very little content in the game. After a couple months, I tried to cancel, and realized I couldn't even do that online. I had to call an EA rep who's job it was to try to talk me out of cancelling. I had to do a lot of talking and repeatedly request a cancellation. While it was certainly not as bad as that infamous Comcast customer service call we've all heard, it was still extremely irritating, and I vowed I would NEVER sign up for an EA MMO ever again.
What the hell are these companies thinking? Do they not realize the annoyance or even anger they generate with these idiotic tactics? If someone is cancelling your service, it's likely they're already not too happy with you, so you're now going to try to harass you into staying?
Well, I'm sure you're probably correct from a legal standpoint, but I think my point of "bad idea to pay off these arseholes" still stands. Fair enough?
Lol, damnit! I double-checked my post too, since I didn't want to make any silly grammatical or spelling errors. So naturally there's a typo that completely reverses the meaning of a sentence. I suppose that's why I try not to give people grief when they make silly little mistakes. Glass houses and all that...
Slashdot Mirror
I want you to give me an API so I can write my own interface.
I wonder if something like Microsoft's AI Bot API may eventually be able to do the sort of things you're perhaps thinking of. Granted, probably not on a mobile device yet, but I think this idea may have long-term potential for accessibility. Chat programs are becoming almost a platform unto themselves, so if this can leverage some of those capabilities with customized, programmable bots to help perform tasks by voice command, I could see it being quite handy for allowing very deep customization of voice command systems - at least in theory.
We've had self-sealing containers and fabric-based armor for a while now.
Of course, I'm sure SpaceX and NASA engineers never considered the possibility of using either of these, and no doubt the container will simply pop like a balloon when the first micro-meteorite impacts it.
Well, I'd characterize it as "The Soviet army ended the war in Europe, and we helped". No slight against the US and other allies, as we pretty much defeated Japan on our own as well, even though we prioritized the war in Europe.
There were *many* reasons for dropping atomic weapons on Japan. I think people stumble a bit when they point to specific events as the "reason", but I'd imagine the answer, like many complex things in life, was made up of a variety of motivations:
* Americans were becoming war-weary, but anything less than total victory would have been seen as a slap in the face to those who fought.
* The Japanese were defending their home territory fanatically, and projections for losses of life on *both* sides were horrendous.
* Russia was planning to invade with their vast manpower and disregard for casualties, and the US feared it would have potentially occupied large portions of Japan, turning it into a communist puppet state like with Eastern Europe.
* Japan seemed unwilling to concede to unconditional surrender, even in the face of certain military defeat, instead adopting a strategy of inflicting massive casualties against invaders to force more favorable terms.
* Many in the US wanted to test nuclear weapons on live targets to learn their destructive potential
* US leaders / military wanted to demonstrate the might of the those weapons to the Soviets and the world at large as a warning against future actions against our interests
* The American people would likely have demanded an impeachment of a President who didn't use the weapons at his disposal to win the war.
It's hard to say how these factors all weighed into the decision and in what proportions. Only Truman would really know that.
Ultimately, though, there's an argument to be made that, whatever forced the Japanese hand into timely surrender ultimately saved many thousands of allied soldiers lives as well as saving the lives of hundreds of thousands or even *millions* of Japanese from the horror and suffering of a protracted land campaign, or mass starvation inflicted by blockades and isolation, as some have argued for (starvation was already becoming a problem). We could also argue that Japan is far better off today having been forced to completely surrender and accept the efforts by the US to help rebuild Japan into a modern liberal democracy.
If a hardware designer is that motivated to snoop on you, then they probably wouldn't bother installing a fake physical kill switch. After all, the current status quo is no hardware switch at all. Do you seriously imagine that they're going to add a hardware kill switch, but then secretly add a method for software to bypass it? It really doesn't make a lot of sense.
For me, I'm more concerned about the actual, documented cases of spy software, malware, or simply badly designed systems used to snoop on people surreptitiously. I'm pretty sure a simple on/off switch would work wonders in these cases. And hey, if you don't trust the switch, there's always the old "piece of tape over the camera" fallback.
Agreed, and I'd probably also exclude the Amazon store from being painted with that same brush. Malware infesting 3rd party Asian app stores isn't exactly news to someone who pays attention to these things. That alone accounts for a huge percentage of the malware found on Android devices.
Still, as a general rule, I think it still holds. If someone don't know enough to make that evaluation for themselves, it's probably best for them to stick to the official store.
They can make sure the LED doesn't turn on and that the camera/microphone is "disabled".. until a specific set of commands is received via the firmware.
You need to trust the manufacturer before you can trust their off switch.
That's why a mechanical switch is required or else it's a completely useless exercise. You can verify that the circuit is interrupted, and there's nothing software can do to circumvent this. No trust is required.
Hulu has an ad-free subscription now for a few bucks more per month. I signed up after this became available. My only real complaint is that for some reason they insist on pasting annoying watermarks in the corners of the video streams. It apparently doesn't bother some people, but for some reason it tends to really distract me.
As a right-conservative leaning person, I'd have to disagree. I just don't see this as a political issue, left or right.
This is simply people realizing what Facebook is about and what the implications of sharing all the intimate details of your life really means. It means your boss can see what you do in your spare time and who you hang out with. It means people you don't really want to associate you can track your every move. It means you lose your privacy in unexpected and unwelcome ways. It means your kids get into arguments with you because you're posting details of their lives without their consent.
In other words, people are simply learning about the downsides of Facebook. And it's about fucking time.
At the very least, people really need to enable click-to-play for Flash. That would tend to prevent nearly all of these sorts of exploits, but when you still find an occasional Flash video or content, you can still play it. Of course, still better if you can completely do without Flash at all, which is increasingly easy these days with HTML5 being embraced by more sites.
I sort of doubt we've shipping that stuff mostly by train since our federal highway system was built in the 50s. Trains are good for shipping items in bulk quantities: grain & foodstuffs, coal, oil, lumber, cars, bulk consumer goods, that sort of thing. Consider the logistics involved of filling entire trains, and you quickly figure out why it really only makes sense for bulk goods.
I think Amazon shipments are possible the *worst* example you could pick for rail transport. Amazon orders are fulfilled by stocking lots of different items in relatively small quantities. They need to warehouse items in a few central locations, which means bringing in relatively small shipments from lots and lots of different manufacturers all over the world, then shipping to customers directly from those warehouse location. They're not really moving bulk materials from point to point. So, no, of course trains probably aren't going to be involved in fulfilling Amazon orders.
I think some people are thinking of roads and rails as equivalent and competing shipment systems, and I just don't see that being the case. If there's a decline in the rail industry, it likely means that we simply have less need to ship bulk goods. A decline in US manufacturing and refining industries would certainly account for part of that.
Did they also modify the client to connect to these servers? If so, then there's your copyright infringement there. If not, then reverse engineering a service seems legit. I can certainly understand why Activision-Blizzard lawyers would get all frothy at the thought of this, but it seems like there's precedent for this sort of thing.
Granted, whether or not your or I think it's legally okay to do this doesn't mean that suits won't be filed, and Activision has a hell of a lot more money to spend on lawyers. Also... they can shut down external operations because they're against the "terms of use"? So Blizzard can simply write their own laws now? Hell, maybe so.
Trying to pre-emptively legislate based on speculation or predictions seems like a really bad idea. Let's address issues as they arrive. It's not like this is going to happen overnight.
Anyhow, to your point... railroads and trucking are rather different in their advantages and disadvantages, and so I suspect there may be less competition among these industries than you believe. Trucks will *never* match the efficiency per-pound of bulk goods carried by rail. However, rail can never match the speed and flexibility of trucks to make smaller point-to-point deliveries.
Uh, no, I wasn't thinking about DRM. I'm referring to second-factor authenticators like Yubikey. Acting as a USB keyboard means that any OS that supports USB keyboards will support this device with no additional software required. Hardware-based DRM systems simply make you install a custom driver.
I'm just pointing out that when you think of "obvious" solutions to problems (usually phrased as "all you have to do is..."), you probably haven't thought of or simply don't understand all the implications of such a decision, or it likely would have been done already. I don't think the issue of malicious USB devices is trivially solved without severely compromising the functionality of the USB ecosystem.
Christ, hasn't he given up enough? Should he also set himself on fire in protest over world-wide corruption and privacy issues? He's a guest in Russia, and you expect him to start spitting in Putin's eye?
When Brittany Spears is exiled from the US and all other allied countries due to her principles regarding government spying on its citizenry, then I'll listen to what she has to say regarding these sorts of topics as well.
There are actually USB devices that emulate keyboards for good reasons - a password-generating dongle is one example, and I'm sure there are more. Customers or manufacturers of said devices won't appreciate the OS helpfully informing users they've been hacked when in all probability the USB device is completely benign.
It might be a pretty effective way to go spearphishing though. If you're trying to get into a specific high-value network, then this might be a great way to do it. Drop it outside the target office, label it something like "Private photos - do not view!" or something like that, and watch human nature take over.
Hopefully the administrator has properly hardened workstations against executing code on a random USB, but I'd bet a surprising number of networks would get infected in fairly short order.
Yep, exactly correct. At this point, though, I've long since stopped expressing outrage at this sort of thing. I mean, what the hell do people expect after so many examples of this? No one really trusts Google... er, excuse me, "Alphabet"... to keep less popular services or products running. It's fine if you want to use these services... after all, cloud connectivity makes things a hell of a lot more convenient. Personally, I use a Kindle and I own a few Steam games, and I have no illusions about what happens if those companies go under. Just be aware of the risks.
Buying a device that requires a cloud-based service from a small, unstable company, or one who is launching a product you aren't sure will be around in another few decades is really asking to be disappointed. Really, just look at the product, and if an internet connection is *required*, then that means the product will only last as long as the company is willing to support it. If the company goes under, your product does too. This is something that consumers are going to have to learn the hard way, I fear.
So why have I bought into some of these services myself? For me, there's some risk assessment involved. It's actually quite probably that I'll die before Amazon goes out of business and stops supporting their e-book reader and format, and Steam is raking in enough cash to stick around for quite a while, so I'm probably good there. But again, it's important to go into these things with your eyes wide open about the trade-offs you're making versus having physical media or devices that you have under your own control.
I use a Kindle for a few reasons, mostly related to convenience, or simply what I consider to be an improved form factor. I enjoy the built-in screen light, which makes reading in less than ideal light more pleasant, and I find the Kindle nicer to hold than a physical book. I also enjoy being able to access my library not just when using my Kindle, but *any* modern computing device (tablet, phone, PC). For instance, I often use my Kindle PC reader for technical books, and when I'm out an about and don't happen to have my Kindle with me, I can use my phone app. It even syncs to the last page read, which is pretty convenient.
To answer your questions:
Total life of a Kindle? Unknown, I swapped my original Kindle out for a Kindle Paperwhite, and three years later it's still like new. I'd guess a Kindle should easily last five to ten years with a bit of care. Given that they only cost about $100, that's not too bad of a cost amortized. I haven't heard about any sort of trade-in program, but since they're fairly inexpensive, I wouldn't expect it. Trade-ins really only make sense with rather expensive items.
Swap the battery? I don't believe the batteries on the newest ones are "officially" user-replaceable, but a quick search indicates it's reasonably simple to do so, at least with 1st gen paperwhites.
If you sell your Kindle, you'd want to deactivate it first, as it's tied to your account. Titles don't transfer, nor can you trade them - at least not the ones you buy from Amazon. You still own all your books, which are stored in your Amazon account, so you can still continue to access them from your PC, phone, tablet, whatever.
AT&T similarly charges $15 per smartphone added or upgraded with AT&T Next, and "bring your own" devices. Sprint also charges an upgrade or activation fee up to $36 per device. T-Mobile does not have upgrade fees.
You can always tell who's behind in the market, can't you?
Actually, native anything in a browser other than core browser functionality plus a robust plugin system seems like a bad idea in principle. Why integrate a built-in feature that's better off as a plugin anyhow? Remember Firefox and Pocket?
This seems like a common-sense law, and it comes in direct response to abuse by these companies. I'm generally not in favor of legislation of this sort until it's been established that there's a clear problem, but this sort of thing has gotten out of hand. For companies that complain about over-regulation, maybe if you didn't treat your customers like shit, we wouldn't have to expressly forbid that sort of behavior through explicit legislation or regulation.
My own experience with this "make it a pain to cancel a service" tactic was from an EA MMO from quite a few years ago: "Earth and Beyond" I think it was called. It was a pretty horrible MMO, got boring extremely fast, and there was very little content in the game. After a couple months, I tried to cancel, and realized I couldn't even do that online. I had to call an EA rep who's job it was to try to talk me out of cancelling. I had to do a lot of talking and repeatedly request a cancellation. While it was certainly not as bad as that infamous Comcast customer service call we've all heard, it was still extremely irritating, and I vowed I would NEVER sign up for an EA MMO ever again.
What the hell are these companies thinking? Do they not realize the annoyance or even anger they generate with these idiotic tactics? If someone is cancelling your service, it's likely they're already not too happy with you, so you're now going to try to harass you into staying?
Well, I'm sure you're probably correct from a legal standpoint, but I think my point of "bad idea to pay off these arseholes" still stands. Fair enough?
Lol, damnit! I double-checked my post too, since I didn't want to make any silly grammatical or spelling errors. So naturally there's a typo that completely reverses the meaning of a sentence. I suppose that's why I try not to give people grief when they make silly little mistakes. Glass houses and all that...
Isn't paying someone to end legal proceedings pretty much the definition of a settlement?
But no, they wouldn't take such an offer. You can't bribe a disease.
Well, good to see we agree on this point.