On a steeek!

Sorry...

"Make this your ring-stench!"

When my boss calls me, it would clear the room...

Ugh...

We already have standard and metric tonnes, imperial, dry, and liquid pints and gallons, liters (or litres), miles and KPH to contend with. Will we have 20 metric-amp circuit breakers in our homes soon? I'm going to get a few pints of beer of some sort now... whichever measurement is more volume...

Can the reg come up with its own unit of measurement for electric current? Such as how many badgers you have to rub against a glass rod to produce enough current to light a 100W lamp?

Might be worth it

One of our wanna-be executives has destroyed 2 company iPads so far and is working on a third. Unfortunately all the ruggedness doesn't help when someone simply loses the device though.

Solution:

Instead of policing the already properly working Peer Review process, how about instead creating an overview committee to eliminate the waste of money and resources used to promote unpopular and useless political legislation? (such as this very bill, for example)

So use a few more LEDs running at lower current?

I know the reasoning is cost, but do you need to light your whole room with one LED? Kind of the same mentality that puts a ridiculous amount of medication in one pill instead of just taking two?

Maybe efforts to reduce the cost of current high-brightness LEDs instead of making existing ones brighter at higher current would be better? They're already bright enough to make your eyes water as it is...

Sorry? Nah

They just don't want to be sued. (and I sincerely hope they are) Just another place people can gather to share collective ignorance.

I hope he doesn't have to RMA it...

Actually, then again, I hope he does. I hope he has "Find My Phone" turned on as well...

Maybe he chose the iPhone because he couldn't afford to encrust the larger Samsung Galaxy with gold and jewels?

Maybe good for 14 year olds...

But maybe that's the idea. Like cigarette companies' advertising campaigns that strive (or at least used to) to grab the next generation of smokers before they're even old enough. If this ends up coming with enough smart phones, which are being purchased for (if not by) younger and younger users every day, when little Keegan or Tyler grows up, they will come to expect it as their UI and settle for nothing less.

Personally I don't much care for social media sites and this would be worse than useless for me, but everyone laughed at Apple too when there were rumblings about the first iPad. I just sincerely hope this doesn't take off.

All I can say is GOOD.

The government (any government) has their fingers deep enough into everyone's pies. Everyone should encrypt everything they can, whether they're doing anything shady or not. Privacy is fast disappearing.

The title of this article says it perfectly

So Disney is so proud and and grateful that they couldn't find a place in their evil empire for all of this talent, choosing instead to screw them over? I wonder if there's a Disney character like Goofy on the pink slips...

Just another way of flogging underpaid staff

While it doesn't improve my shopping experience, I fully expect people working for minimum wage to slack off, maybe smoke a doobie in the parking lot, etc. It's not a living wage and the job has no other perks in most cases. If you're going to make some poor barely-employable kid's life miserable by forcing them to wear one of these, where they can be tracked every second, sent mostly pointless instructions for busy work, and generally tracked more than a federal prisoner, at least pay them more or give them some incentive to be a mindless robot. God forbid you treat the staff like human beings and offer training and incentives for intelligent behavior.

Despicable

It always disgusts me that you can go to prison longer in many cases for a white-collar crime like "hacking" or embezzlement than for viciously beating someone to death with a crow bar or doing something horrible to a child. And let's not even get into drug laws...

Damn right a warrant should be required for this!

How is this any different than someone patching a pen (number) recorder and audio recorder into your land line, somewhere outside your premises? Different medium for data/voice transmission, but same idea. Or using a telescope to spy on you through the gaps in your blinds, or rifling through your home or shed with the justification that "your door was unlocked".

How the ribbon was chosen?

I suspect the ribbon was chosen by some "Executive Assistant" that has a loud voice, poor choice in cologne, an IQ of 99, and no technical experience or common sense whatsoever, but has the ear of someone powerful due to either blackmail, a carnal weakness of the said exec, or the fact that the person she or he serves is even more bubble-headed.

At least that's the way far reaching IT decisions seem to be made at the company I work for. The sad thing is that even when someday the incompetence and general worthlessness of this said assistant comes to light, and they have gone on to wreak havoc at another company, we will still be living with the repercussions of their reign of terror a decade later...

As a side note...

It's a little known fact that a large proportion of the Saturn engines and telemetry systems were engineered and built by Chrysler...

Heading towards Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age"?

Well worth a read. A little long, but I could see this eventually being the future... In maybe another century or so.

You know you're having a bad day when....

You stand at the urinal, unzip your fly, then discover that in a hungover fog of scurrying to get ready for work, that you've put your boxers on backwards and there is no hole to be found... Except in the back, which is convenient if you're preparing to be corn-holed. Which may actually be the perfect metaphor for a Monday at work anyway...

I know I won't wear them...

I prefer to get thrown out of bars on my own merits...

SNL sketch?

Are we sure this Geritol follies episode of Star Wars is really coming out with original cast members? This whole thing plays like a Saturday Night Live sketch...

...but I'll still go see it, unfortunately.

I too fail to see the glory of widescreen

Widescreen is nice for watching movies... mostly. Maybe okay for playing certain games. It sucks for normal computing tasks. How this became a fad I'll never know. Must be because it was perceived as "ach-dee!" We're probably lucky that it's hard to manufacture circular or triangular displays or we'd probably have televisions and monitors that look like something from Star Trek episodes if the idiots that market these things had their way.

I would speculate that Andrew is a fanboi

...which is fine, but I was hoping for objectivity here. Overall a decent article, but not without bias.

BTW, when I plug my Motorola Android device into a big-screen TV (which you can't even do with an iPhone), it "just works", and it works great. Pretty much you have a fairly powerful netbook at your disposal with several modes of operation. And as long as you're on a solid wi-fi connection or willing to shell out for streaming data over 3 or 4G, streaming media such as Netflix, Amazon, etc. works flawlessly.

While I'm skeptical that they'll pull it off...

They would be truly insane to go to all the trouble to fly to Mars and not land on it! Did they take vacations as a kid where their father would take them to Disneyland, drive into the parking lot, turn around and go home?

Just wait a while...

The Android interface IMHO does touch screen best. While MS and Apple battle it out, they will be eating up market share. Frankly, I'm not especially impressed with the mutant that Windows 8 has become. And Apple has their heads so far up their own asses these days that they don't seem to realize that crippling their devices by making the only I/O der Gestapo iTunes will kill them in the long run.

At least MS isn't crazy enough to limit access to the filesystem. I just hold my tongue any more when I see Apple users that are restricted to using proprietary chargers (that have now changed as well), no micro-SD card slots, and can't simply drag n' drop files to/from their devices. I guess if you make a prison pretty enough people will forget they have no freedom in time. And my Android phone also "just works" But I can customize the living hell out if it if I want to and am not forced to buy my hardware from one (lacking) manufacturer.

Oxymoron?

I don't disagree with their decision, but the way they phrased the reason sounds idiotic:

"In order to focus on new and innovative areas in desktop computing, Intel has made the decision to ramp down the Desktop Motherboard Business" --So essentially, no longer making desktops will allow Intel to be more innovative with them.

Sounds kind of like if Ford decided to be more innovative with cars by only supplying engines and not the rest of the car.

A curiosity only worthwhile to Sony and collectors

For those that actually listen to music, it's likely that they already own or "own" these tracks. I fail to understand why anyone except maybe the most die-hard audiophile or collector still buys music in this format. I can download a non-DRM-encumbered high quality digital copy of pretty much any song I want, from several places, and pick and choose just the songs I like, then play them on any device I choose. Or get a whole album, including some tracks that might be dogs, still cheaper than buying a disc. To say nothing of the wastefulness of actually manufacturing a disc in this day and age.

As I side note, I resolved a while ago to never own another Sony product. Sony=great hardware, but at a premium price and with no consideration of consumer rights or convenience these days.

I'd be pretty happy with 100 Mb download speeds

And consistent 1.5 Mb upload speeds. I have a cable modem connection that is 25 Mb right now, and don't feel like paying a fortune just to go up to 50... So far it looks like the "third world" is coming in first.

Good effort but misdirected

True, MS is a big greedy company whose products could undergo better quality control than making the world their beta testers. But at least with MS you have SOME freedom and innovation, even if often poorly implemented. The FSF would have much better spent their efforts boycotting Apple IMHO. iOS(es) may be based on Linux, but there isn't a greedier company these days. And every Apple product is a locked-down, stifling, DRM'd-to-death prison for those too un-tech savvy or easily impressed by shiny things to realize they're being bamboozled.

Stupid customer, stupid cop

People are stupid; cops are stupid (and belligerent a**holes) more often than not. Another pointless and unnecessary action that makes me feel that this world is a special education class. Nothing new here, nothing learned, humanity did not advance, and people continued to buy iPhones after a brief pause. (which is hard for me to understand)

Lather, rinse, repeat. Life goes on.

Ooh, voice-guided turn by turn nav?

You mean the same feature that Android users have been enjoying for free for years?

I hope Google is charging Apple and/or fanbois a fortune for this :)

Biased

While the remaining tests were mostly fair, the initial drop test was invalid---the Samsung was dropped on its face, apparently intentionally, as you see the tester tilt it when dropping. The iPhone was dropped on edge. Any phone will fare better not having a flat smack on the screen.

Quirky

I see the company's founder is as quirky and unpredictable as the AV products that bear his name...

Good engineering

There are anvils that are less reliable than the two Voyager probes. (and the Mars probes) It's a shame the rest of the space program has devolved into what it is today from the "glory days."

One liner...

So a customer walks up to my desk and asks me for an Ethernet cable. Me, holding up a 6-foot cable and a longer cable: "How long do you need it?" Customer: "Forever." (okay, I could have phrased the question better)

Our L1 Helpdesk managed to turn a simple request to change an email setting on a healthy machine into a situation that required a customer's mail file needing to be restored from backup tape. Our department also enjoyed it immensely when they called all of us in sequence at 3AM local time to replace a speakerphone in a conference room. (no one was even there) The best part is them leaving me a message on my desk phone first, as if I was sitting in my office at 3AM to answer the phone.

I have a RFID badge at work too...

...and every time I go into one of the areas that requires it to unlock the door, the location and a picture of me pop up on a monitor in two different guard stations. I should know, as maintaining the software that runs this is part of my duties. But I am not tracked everywhere I go in the building, including restroom breaks, etc. The difference in freedom/privacy between using an RFID key and being tracked every minute with it should be obvious...

I agree with the spirit of this

If someone doesn't speak up and rebel, we will continue marching towards a more Orwellian world day by day. But I sincerely hope this was an isolated individual or splinter group that took down this school. Because if it is Anonymous en masse, it's like the group from the Ocean's 11 movie knocking off a convenience store. It's well beneath their abilities and a waste of energy for the group that (rightfully) brought Sony to its knees...

Kinect

Is the most innovative thing to come down the pike from any technology company lately. The only things that have made Apple stand out from MS in the past IMHO are their innovative marketing, sleek design, and painstakingly debugged user interface, iTunes not withstanding. Now, I truly believe they're slipping and have lost sight of why the average Joe bought Apple products in the past--the "it just works" phenomenon. Dropping Google Maps for their in-house created turd of an application out of spite is a good example.

I am not an Apple fanboi, quite the opposite. I will give up my Android phone when it's pried out of my cold dead hand. (well, unless the new Windows phones prove worthy at least) The iStuff phenomenon "ooh shiny!" has managed to infect the brass at the company where I do IT. Our Blackberry devices were phased out this year in favor of iPhones and (pointless) iPads. While Blackberry let the world pass them by, and their horrid OS and crippled browser used to make me want to skip the device across the nearest pond, I will grudgingly admit that they did a few things really well: email, telephone, and texting. Great battery life too. Or what you use a business device for 90% of the time. With our new iWonders, we have to reset the phones often, reload the software for email integration, and deal with a litany of other complaints. Personally Apple's awful (compared to Blackberry and Android) on-screen keyboard makes me want to cry in frustration when setting these up. I will say the hardware has at least been more reliable than RIM's.

As far as Woz goes, while he didn't "invent the personal computer", his comments seem to be to the point, even if not solicited by most. Woz likely would have been a brilliant but forgotten engineer at some tech company without Steve Jobs, and Jobs would have likely been a douchebag exec at some lackluster, soul-killing finance company without Woz.

Spooky...

It's uncanny... this could have been an everyday conversation where I work. I only wish I could get Oracle to let me order cattle prods...

Soon "Cloud" will probably go the way of "Xtreme"

I'm tired of everything being "in the Cloud" Oh, you mean it's on an offsite server? Like email has been for most users since the dawn of the publicly-accessible internet? Everyone wants something free or at least cheap, which is understandable. But having all your company's data "in the Cloud" is like always having a nanny or daycare watching your children--you have no idea what's really going on. Is it that hard to host and backup your own data?

Another trend I'm getting sick of is client machines being called "Endpoints" Now we have Symantec "Endpoint Protection" and a litany of other products and services for your "Endpoint" I'm waiting to see Depends adult diapers "Endpoint Protection"

This is what will save the rest of the world

...from Chinese supremacy in industry. They are stifling themselves and holding themselves back. We should all be glad, except for the poor souls living in China that must suffer it.

Zero Cool

Would almost have been easier to do jail time. Might as well join the Amish now. The skills he has if directed properly could be used for good and make decent money. What will he have after 6 years?

Alternate reality?

It's too bad Jack Tramiel of Commodore was such a greedy, megalomaniac scumbag, or it's arguable that we'd be using Commodore hardware specs and 68000 architecture instead of x86. Commodore almost had the whole deal back in the 80s, and it was mostly the divisive work environment and opposing viewpoints of what the "mission" should be that killed them. I think a history of Commodore should be required reading for any CIO that's considering making major changes. I see echoes of it in Microsoft, and ripples of it emerging at Apple these days without Steve Jobs to hold Apple on course. (not that Mr. Jobs would win any humanitarian awards in the grand scheme of things)

But it would be interesting to see what the computing environment and the world at large would have evolved into after a few decades if Commodore had made some better decisions. Forget going back in time and stopping the Kennedy assassination---go back in time and prevent Jack Tramiel from being such a dick.

You have presciently described our Ricoh rep

And you still can't print an envelope on one of those beasts without mangling it and jamming the copier.

No Commodore?

Where's the PET, the 64, and the Amiga? Nice article, but omitting Commodore's place is like skipping the existence of several countries in a history book. The Osborne used a Commodore OS if I remember right, BTW.

I'd cheerfully contribute a few bucks to the project...

...of shutting down robocalls. And a few more toward the project of allowing public display and stoning of those involved in these. Despicable, worthless bastards not worthy of life with any sort of comforts.

Really?

Financial analysts should stick to what they do best (pretending they understand the world economy) and leave science to those with better brains, less ego and less appetite for sensationalism.

While global warming may indeed be happening, this period of increased severe weather is part of a cycle that's at best poorly understood. Even records of a dozen generations' weather is a drop in the bucket of geologic time. Recent theories link solar output to weather patterns. (which makes a lot of sense since the sun drives most processes in nature)

Right now, we're like the blind men discovering the elephant, and stories like this only stir up the unwashed masses.

Windows 8 task manager?

Well they've finally improved it... it's now almost half as good as the freeware Process Explorer utility from sysinternals.com. (which has been owned by MS for years) Why this excellent utility wasn't included with XP on up is a mystery to me.

Vertical integration makes sense

...If you can swing it. And Google and Amazon have the resources to try. It worked for Commodore (MOS Technologies) in the 80s, and allowed them to deliver a price point that most others couldn't touch.

My only question is, how much can they actually save in this day and age, with chips as cheap as they are now? A very different time than when there were only a few players.