Don't you think that the iPhone with it's unlimited data plan should at least WARN the user that they will incur data charges if they are roaming and offer to turn off the data transmission feature? Why would any reasonable person expect to receive bills for thousands of dollars for simply posessing an iPhone in the wrong place? What other electronic devices incur huge fees for simply being moved from one place to another? Are iPhone users warned to leave their iPhones at home if they trave abroad?
Both Apple and AT&T are equally negligent here. They need to do an emergency software update to avoid this issue in the future via sensible defaults (not transmitting data when it costs extra fees) and warnings (Data transmission in this location costs $25 are you sure you want to continue?) There is no question that subscribers being hit by unexpected data fees should refuse to pay and take AT&T and/or Apple to small claims court.
I know of a software copy protection technology (a type of DRM) that has not been cracked since it was first introduced about ten years ago. I was one of the authors of "Electric Image Animation System" for the Mac and PC. I had been writing my own copy protection software for years. Each time we released a new version of the software, I would make some small improvements to the copy protection system. When the copy protection was cracked I would carefully analyize how the crack was implemented and then come up with a better copy proteciton for the next version. Eventually I invented strong copy protection technology. I ended up getting three patents on the copy protection technology.
Strong software copy protection is possible. It is a lot easier to implement than it is to crack. Unfortunately this does little to help DRM for content protection. Because music and video never changes when you watch it, there is no good way to wrap protection around it. If you can see or hear it, you can copy it.
My patents:
http://tinyurl.com/36fovnhttp://tinyurl.com/3x5sekhttp://tinyurl.com/2lmzx7
-Mark Granger
Most of the debate about global warming centers around whether or not it exists and whether or not humans are causing it. Thus far there has been no discussion at all about whether or not we can actually control climate on a global scale. I have never seen any proof that humans have ever been able to or will ever be able to make intentional changes in global temperatures. We can't even say what effect that our attempts to limit green house gasses will have in the long run. The law of unintended consequences will cause any plan to backfire. Limiting CO2 in the USA will just cause more CO2 to be produced elsewhere, for example. Alternately, we will produce some other waste products that will be far more harmfull to the environment in the long term. We should stop trying to do the impossible and start making plans for what to do if and when global temperatures increase (or decrease) dramatically world wide. We may need to move hundreds of millions of people from places that are no longer habitable to new areas that will become useable if temperatures rise. For example, areas of northern Canada and Russia would become farm lands for people displaced by rising oceans.
I remember taking apart an old CRT terminal decades ago to see how it worked. It contained a sealed flat metal case. When I opened it, I was shocked to discover a simple coil of wire with a precision set screw on the end. The function of the device was obvious. The contents of the display buffer were shunted into the coil where the bits were cycled endlessly. When a new character needed to be added the oldest was dropped off the end.
My first thaught on reading this was "Wow! A New York to London road tour is now a definate possibility!" A friend suggested that there would inevitably be a world wide gumball rally. You would have to put your car on a train briefly for the Bearing straight and English Channel tunnels. If this becomes reality, I think I know what I want to do when I retire. Now they just need to build a real pan-American highway to link North and South America.
I am not sure why Microsoft thinks we need personal server software. That's software that takes all our files and makes them available on the internet, right? I think I get a dozen of those e-mailed to me every day. They are usualy from my "Support Team" with titles like "Worm Activity Detected!" Heck I bet most Windows users have one or two of thoses programs running right now.
I think the problem is the way e-mail works in general. I don't understand why we let just anyone send us e-mail. We should have a list of allowed e-mail contacts. Anyone not on that list should get a polite automated reply saying so. Anyone wishing to get on the list should send us a special invite request with their real name and reason for wanting to contact us. If some bot should manage to sneak past that simple security, using fake information, we can easily remove it from the list. That would pretty much end spam and most e-mail trojans forever.
At least 100,000 people have bought the movie on Blue Ray. Noone who bought a PS3 has got their "free" copy of Casino Royale yet and won't for weeks. I bought my copy at buy.com who has them for sale at a pretty big discount.
Microsoft got bashed a lot when the 360 came out with limited backward compatibility. Their saving grace was that those games that they emulated could be upscale to 720p resolution with the 360's GPU. The 360's emulator has continued to be improved and it can now emulate most popular XBox games. The European PS3s lose a great deal of backward compatibility by switching from hardware to software emulation. When will the new PS3s be able to upscale PS1 and PS2 games to 720 or 1080p? Will those of us with USA PS3s be able to take advantage the upscaling when it becomes available?
Hydrogen can also be very effiently stored when converted to a liquid. The liquid is 2/3rds hydrogen, extremely compact, converts to a solid at lower tempratures and best of all is not flamable. You just need to bond two hydrogen atoms with a single oxegen atom. I will be filing a patent on this idea so no stealing!
This has far greater and long lasting implications than just crowd control. RFID dusting could become a part of every day life in most urban areas and shopping malls. People moving through a dusted area would pick up the tiny tags on their clothes. When they pass above sensors, the tags would all chirp their IDs. By keeping track of which IDs move together, it would be possible to track the movement of individuals or crowds. When a person uses an electronic ID to make a purchase, witdraw cash or enter a building, their identity could be linked to their RFID tags and their previous locations.
If used correctly this could be the greatest invention of all time for thwarting terrorism and crime. It could also be the greatest invasion of personal privacy by a government or corporation. The question always is this: Would you give up some of your privacy in order to get extra security?
I think I should file a DMCA complaint against Apple. They are clearly trying to circumvent DRM via the letter from their CEO. As we all know, free speech is not protected when it is used to circumvent DRM under the DMCA.
I think I have found my new signature file. Just like the corporations cut and paste sections of license agreements, we should follow suit and cut and paste Cory's license agreement like so:
READ CAREFULLY. By reading this article, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.
I will not be buying any more incadescent light bulbs for my home. They generate way too much heat. They cost me more than twice the energy as florescent replacement bulbs and burn out a lot faster. Worse, I have to pay again to cool my house via air conditioning in the summer. I am no tree hugging green. I just want to save money and forescent bulbs just make good financial sense. It is best to buy them when they are on sale at Home Depot. If I could I would use LED lights that would use even less power and generate less heat than florescent but they are not really on the market yet. As my incadescent bulbs burn out, I am replacing them with florescent rather than just replace them all at once. Now if solar power would just drop in price by half or more...
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Don't you think that the iPhone with it's unlimited data plan should at least WARN the user that they will incur data charges if they are roaming and offer to turn off the data transmission feature? Why would any reasonable person expect to receive bills for thousands of dollars for simply posessing an iPhone in the wrong place? What other electronic devices incur huge fees for simply being moved from one place to another? Are iPhone users warned to leave their iPhones at home if they trave abroad? Both Apple and AT&T are equally negligent here. They need to do an emergency software update to avoid this issue in the future via sensible defaults (not transmitting data when it costs extra fees) and warnings (Data transmission in this location costs $25 are you sure you want to continue?) There is no question that subscribers being hit by unexpected data fees should refuse to pay and take AT&T and/or Apple to small claims court.
I know of a software copy protection technology (a type of DRM) that has not been cracked since it was first introduced about ten years ago. I was one of the authors of "Electric Image Animation System" for the Mac and PC. I had been writing my own copy protection software for years. Each time we released a new version of the software, I would make some small improvements to the copy protection system. When the copy protection was cracked I would carefully analyize how the crack was implemented and then come up with a better copy proteciton for the next version. Eventually I invented strong copy protection technology. I ended up getting three patents on the copy protection technology. Strong software copy protection is possible. It is a lot easier to implement than it is to crack. Unfortunately this does little to help DRM for content protection. Because music and video never changes when you watch it, there is no good way to wrap protection around it. If you can see or hear it, you can copy it. My patents: http://tinyurl.com/36fovn http://tinyurl.com/3x5sek http://tinyurl.com/2lmzx7 -Mark Granger
Most of the debate about global warming centers around whether or not it exists and whether or not humans are causing it. Thus far there has been no discussion at all about whether or not we can actually control climate on a global scale. I have never seen any proof that humans have ever been able to or will ever be able to make intentional changes in global temperatures. We can't even say what effect that our attempts to limit green house gasses will have in the long run. The law of unintended consequences will cause any plan to backfire. Limiting CO2 in the USA will just cause more CO2 to be produced elsewhere, for example. Alternately, we will produce some other waste products that will be far more harmfull to the environment in the long term. We should stop trying to do the impossible and start making plans for what to do if and when global temperatures increase (or decrease) dramatically world wide. We may need to move hundreds of millions of people from places that are no longer habitable to new areas that will become useable if temperatures rise. For example, areas of northern Canada and Russia would become farm lands for people displaced by rising oceans.
I remember taking apart an old CRT terminal decades ago to see how it worked. It contained a sealed flat metal case. When I opened it, I was shocked to discover a simple coil of wire with a precision set screw on the end. The function of the device was obvious. The contents of the display buffer were shunted into the coil where the bits were cycled endlessly. When a new character needed to be added the oldest was dropped off the end.
My first thaught on reading this was "Wow! A New York to London road tour is now a definate possibility!" A friend suggested that there would inevitably be a world wide gumball rally. You would have to put your car on a train briefly for the Bearing straight and English Channel tunnels. If this becomes reality, I think I know what I want to do when I retire. Now they just need to build a real pan-American highway to link North and South America.
I am not sure why Microsoft thinks we need personal server software. That's software that takes all our files and makes them available on the internet, right? I think I get a dozen of those e-mailed to me every day. They are usualy from my "Support Team" with titles like "Worm Activity Detected!" Heck I bet most Windows users have one or two of thoses programs running right now.
I think the problem is the way e-mail works in general. I don't understand why we let just anyone send us e-mail. We should have a list of allowed e-mail contacts. Anyone not on that list should get a polite automated reply saying so. Anyone wishing to get on the list should send us a special invite request with their real name and reason for wanting to contact us. If some bot should manage to sneak past that simple security, using fake information, we can easily remove it from the list. That would pretty much end spam and most e-mail trojans forever.
At least 100,000 people have bought the movie on Blue Ray. Noone who bought a PS3 has got their "free" copy of Casino Royale yet and won't for weeks. I bought my copy at buy.com who has them for sale at a pretty big discount.
Microsoft got bashed a lot when the 360 came out with limited backward compatibility. Their saving grace was that those games that they emulated could be upscale to 720p resolution with the 360's GPU. The 360's emulator has continued to be improved and it can now emulate most popular XBox games. The European PS3s lose a great deal of backward compatibility by switching from hardware to software emulation. When will the new PS3s be able to upscale PS1 and PS2 games to 720 or 1080p? Will those of us with USA PS3s be able to take advantage the upscaling when it becomes available?
Hydrogen can also be very effiently stored when converted to a liquid. The liquid is 2/3rds hydrogen, extremely compact, converts to a solid at lower tempratures and best of all is not flamable. You just need to bond two hydrogen atoms with a single oxegen atom. I will be filing a patent on this idea so no stealing!
This has far greater and long lasting implications than just crowd control. RFID dusting could become a part of every day life in most urban areas and shopping malls. People moving through a dusted area would pick up the tiny tags on their clothes. When they pass above sensors, the tags would all chirp their IDs. By keeping track of which IDs move together, it would be possible to track the movement of individuals or crowds. When a person uses an electronic ID to make a purchase, witdraw cash or enter a building, their identity could be linked to their RFID tags and their previous locations. If used correctly this could be the greatest invention of all time for thwarting terrorism and crime. It could also be the greatest invasion of personal privacy by a government or corporation. The question always is this: Would you give up some of your privacy in order to get extra security?
I think I should file a DMCA complaint against Apple. They are clearly trying to circumvent DRM via the letter from their CEO. As we all know, free speech is not protected when it is used to circumvent DRM under the DMCA.
I think I have found my new signature file. Just like the corporations cut and paste sections of license agreements, we should follow suit and cut and paste Cory's license agreement like so: READ CAREFULLY. By reading this article, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.
I will not be buying any more incadescent light bulbs for my home. They generate way too much heat. They cost me more than twice the energy as florescent replacement bulbs and burn out a lot faster. Worse, I have to pay again to cool my house via air conditioning in the summer. I am no tree hugging green. I just want to save money and forescent bulbs just make good financial sense. It is best to buy them when they are on sale at Home Depot. If I could I would use LED lights that would use even less power and generate less heat than florescent but they are not really on the market yet. As my incadescent bulbs burn out, I am replacing them with florescent rather than just replace them all at once. Now if solar power would just drop in price by half or more...