For such a giant tech company with so many smart people I can't fathom how they've managed to screw up instant messaging so, so badly. They could have easily had the dominance they have with email if they'd just built a nice, simple, cross-platform version of the old Google Talk client.
They don't even need to bother with a cross-platform client. If they would stick with XMPP, there are already plenty of IM clients for it.
Which brings me to my initial reaction - why do they need a new app for chat bots? If it's just an AI at the other end coming up with responses to your messages, why don't the existing programs and protocols work? It's not like we haven't had chat bots for 20 years already.
Anyone else getting tired of is term? All it means is "someone else's computer".
To be fair, that's kind of what it has meant for years. I have a networking textbook that's 15 years old that represents unspecified parts of a network in a network diagram as a cloud shape. So "piece of computer network that I don't care much about the details", e.g. the Internet, has been called "cloud" for a while.
Of course, this is not to be confused with "cloud computing", which has a more precise definition (basically distributed processing, but with on-demand virtual machines instead of physical nodes).
No it's NOT within their right to lobby ($$$) the government
If we went back to the origin of the term, then I think it's fine for "companies to lobby the government". That would mean that companies are free to send one or more people to Washington, DC, meet with members of Congress in the lobby of the Capitol building, and discuss their concerns. The problem is that "lobbying" now means bribery, such as bringing an envelope full of cash, or using the lobby of a resort hotel instead of the lobby of the Capitol.
History will judge those involved unfavorably, and the outcome demonstrates the foolish, small-minded and parochial mentality which dominates The Donald's dangerous experiment with fascist demagoguery
I'm far too lazy to follow that link, but I assume that it isn't about a person grabbing me on the street and stealing my wallet, so I'm not entirely certain what your point is. Are you trying to say that not all laws are good and that sometimes the government does things that it shouldn't do? If so, then I agree with your statement.
Well, there's a non-zero chance that doing that would at least get a police officer involved. Of course, it's far more likely that the best that can be done is for the police to investigate the crime and hopefully catch the robber.
The point being that legislation is what makes robbery a crime, not the vague concept of "inalienable rights". How about laws regarding things like blasting loud noise into someone's home in the middle of the night or repeatedly making harassing phone calls? Are those also "inalienable rights"?
So if someone tries to rob me, I can just yell "inalienable right!" and they'll be magically compelled to not only stop trying to rob me, but to go lock themselves in a prison?
Please cite a situation, which was not caused by legislation, that has been permanently improved by legislation and where the unintended consequences have not made the situation worse overall..
Well, I certainly enjoy living in a society where people can't legally grab me on the street and steal my wallet.
Well, it was a rounded screen, with a grid of icons. Below that grid was a static set of icons. The upper grid of icons could be swiped to move from "page" to "page" while the lower static set stayed the same.
I don't remember there being any grid of icons shown in the design patent. I'm pretty sure there was nothing shown on what would be the screen.
Only anti-patent morons constantly complain about rounded corners, which can only be covered by a design patent. This settlement is about Samsung infringing utility patents, which cover innovative functionality in hardware and software, not just the appearance.
I haven't read anything about the agreement to see which patents it covers, but there was at least one design patent that was part of the lawsuits.
In particular, the common usage of the word "blackmail" refers to threatening to release information about the person or something that the person has done because the information is meaningful in of itself and potentially harmful to their reputation. While you certainly don't want everyone to know your credit card number, since they could use it to harm you financially, the fact that your credit card number is 1234-5678-1234-5678 doesn't really mean anything.
THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY REPORTS FOURTH QUARTER AND FULL YEAR EARNINGS FOR FISCAL 2015
Revenues for the year increased 7% to a record $52.5 billion.
Net income for the year increased 12% to a record $8.4 billion.
EPS for the year increased 15% to a record $4.90.
So why try to save a few bucks outsourcing? I don't get it, the money saved is literally insignificant to them.
Naturally, Disney will be passing these savings on to their customers, right?
Has it occurred to such people that this story is exactly why employees have no loyalty to the company? Why should someone care about the company when they're going to be replaced by cheaper outsourced labor anyway?
Yes, definitely, including the other information (SS#, DL#, etc.) was a massive screwup, but that wasn't supposed to happen. From the article, sounds like someone, in effect, forgot to delete some columns from Excel.
Sorry to drag this article slightly on topic for Slashdot, but this might be the main technical problem with this situation. How do you accidentally include information that shouldn't be there in a report? Why isn't generating the data disk completely automated so that there's no way for a person to screw up and include personal information?
That person that you're calling an idiot for using pictures as words wants you to get off their lawn. After all, their language is a couple thousand years older than yours.
Lumbersexual is a new one to me. Apparently it's someone who grooms and dresses to appear like a person who spends a lot of time outdoors (like a lumberjack I guess).
This might be a bigger travesty than the emoji thing. I guess the suffix "-sexual" now also relates solely to the clothes somebody wears.
For some reason, I don't think I'll be using the word "businesscasualsexual" any time soon.
The vast majority of this crap is just enabling third parties to track your fucking email and texts as everyone has to download the stupid things.
I thought the whole point of the new "emoji" stuff was that they're now standard Unicode characters, so the images are part of the normal fonts on your system. If your computer has to download the image every time someone puts one in a text message, somebody is Doing It Wrong, and it isn't the person sending you the text message.
I'll give Rep. Barton more credit than a lot of other members of Congress. At least he's asking someone who is supposed to be a subject matter expert if it's possible to do something about a perceived problem. Most other members of Congress would just propose a bill that makes it illegal, regardless of whether or not enforcement is at all possible.
Slashdot Mirror
For such a giant tech company with so many smart people I can't fathom how they've managed to screw up instant messaging so, so badly. They could have easily had the dominance they have with email if they'd just built a nice, simple, cross-platform version of the old Google Talk client.
They don't even need to bother with a cross-platform client. If they would stick with XMPP, there are already plenty of IM clients for it.
Which brings me to my initial reaction - why do they need a new app for chat bots? If it's just an AI at the other end coming up with responses to your messages, why don't the existing programs and protocols work? It's not like we haven't had chat bots for 20 years already.
Anyone else getting tired of is term? All it means is "someone else's computer".
To be fair, that's kind of what it has meant for years. I have a networking textbook that's 15 years old that represents unspecified parts of a network in a network diagram as a cloud shape. So "piece of computer network that I don't care much about the details", e.g. the Internet, has been called "cloud" for a while.
Of course, this is not to be confused with "cloud computing", which has a more precise definition (basically distributed processing, but with on-demand virtual machines instead of physical nodes).
No it's NOT within their right to lobby ($$$) the government
If we went back to the origin of the term, then I think it's fine for "companies to lobby the government". That would mean that companies are free to send one or more people to Washington, DC, meet with members of Congress in the lobby of the Capitol building, and discuss their concerns. The problem is that "lobbying" now means bribery, such as bringing an envelope full of cash, or using the lobby of a resort hotel instead of the lobby of the Capitol.
Fixed that for him.
Fixed that for you.
I know the quality has gone down a lot here at Slashdot, but believe it or not, sometimes the summary does still include useful information.
I'm far too lazy to follow that link, but I assume that it isn't about a person grabbing me on the street and stealing my wallet, so I'm not entirely certain what your point is. Are you trying to say that not all laws are good and that sometimes the government does things that it shouldn't do? If so, then I agree with your statement.
Well, there's a non-zero chance that doing that would at least get a police officer involved. Of course, it's far more likely that the best that can be done is for the police to investigate the crime and hopefully catch the robber.
The point being that legislation is what makes robbery a crime, not the vague concept of "inalienable rights". How about laws regarding things like blasting loud noise into someone's home in the middle of the night or repeatedly making harassing phone calls? Are those also "inalienable rights"?
So if someone tries to rob me, I can just yell "inalienable right!" and they'll be magically compelled to not only stop trying to rob me, but to go lock themselves in a prison?
Please cite a situation, which was not caused by legislation, that has been permanently improved by legislation and where the unintended consequences have not made the situation worse overall..
Well, I certainly enjoy living in a society where people can't legally grab me on the street and steal my wallet.
You're assuming that the back door won't be broken open by thieves faster than government can abuse it.
Probably why they've got Strasinsky
You should send him a link to your post to see where it ranks on his list of worst misspellings of his name.
And her time as the CEO of Yahoo will make her an experienced, qualified candidate for President.
That story is like half a century old, that's even old by /. standards!
So will we not get the dupe for another half a century?
Well, it was a rounded screen, with a grid of icons. Below that grid was a static set of icons. The upper grid of icons could be swiped to move from "page" to "page" while the lower static set stayed the same.
I don't remember there being any grid of icons shown in the design patent. I'm pretty sure there was nothing shown on what would be the screen.
Other than rounded corners, what exactly is there in the design patent that Apple asserted?
Only anti-patent morons constantly complain about rounded corners, which can only be covered by a design patent. This settlement is about Samsung infringing utility patents, which cover innovative functionality in hardware and software, not just the appearance.
I haven't read anything about the agreement to see which patents it covers, but there was at least one design patent that was part of the lawsuits.
In particular, the common usage of the word "blackmail" refers to threatening to release information about the person or something that the person has done because the information is meaningful in of itself and potentially harmful to their reputation. While you certainly don't want everyone to know your credit card number, since they could use it to harm you financially, the fact that your credit card number is 1234-5678-1234-5678 doesn't really mean anything.
THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY REPORTS FOURTH QUARTER AND FULL YEAR EARNINGS FOR FISCAL 2015 Revenues for the year increased 7% to a record $52.5 billion. Net income for the year increased 12% to a record $8.4 billion. EPS for the year increased 15% to a record $4.90.
So why try to save a few bucks outsourcing? I don't get it, the money saved is literally insignificant to them.
Naturally, Disney will be passing these savings on to their customers, right?
Has it occurred to such people that this story is exactly why employees have no loyalty to the company? Why should someone care about the company when they're going to be replaced by cheaper outsourced labor anyway?
Yes, definitely, including the other information (SS#, DL#, etc.) was a massive screwup, but that wasn't supposed to happen. From the article, sounds like someone, in effect, forgot to delete some columns from Excel.
Sorry to drag this article slightly on topic for Slashdot, but this might be the main technical problem with this situation. How do you accidentally include information that shouldn't be there in a report? Why isn't generating the data disk completely automated so that there's no way for a person to screw up and include personal information?
That person that you're calling an idiot for using pictures as words wants you to get off their lawn. After all, their language is a couple thousand years older than yours.
Lumbersexual is a new one to me. Apparently it's someone who grooms and dresses to appear like a person who spends a lot of time outdoors (like a lumberjack I guess).
This might be a bigger travesty than the emoji thing. I guess the suffix "-sexual" now also relates solely to the clothes somebody wears.
For some reason, I don't think I'll be using the word "businesscasualsexual" any time soon.
The vast majority of this crap is just enabling third parties to track your fucking email and texts as everyone has to download the stupid things.
I thought the whole point of the new "emoji" stuff was that they're now standard Unicode characters, so the images are part of the normal fonts on your system. If your computer has to download the image every time someone puts one in a text message, somebody is Doing It Wrong, and it isn't the person sending you the text message.
...that just means that the voters are embiciles.
There are certain words that you should be really, really sure to spell correctly. I think "imbecile" is one of them.
I'll give Rep. Barton more credit than a lot of other members of Congress. At least he's asking someone who is supposed to be a subject matter expert if it's possible to do something about a perceived problem. Most other members of Congress would just propose a bill that makes it illegal, regardless of whether or not enforcement is at all possible.