sigh...

While the idea of using LED's broadcasting around the room (IR or visible) should be fine, the idea of using the white LEDs lighting the room isn't. The bottom line is that while the driver LED itself can be modulated at high speed, the photoluminescent phosphors generally cannot. The commonly used photoluminescent phosphors have characteristic exponential decay times of microseconds to milliseconds, depending on the exact phosphor. The most common phosphor in white LEDs, YAG:Ce3+, does have a pretty short persistence time of around 0.1microseconds. So maybe one could get data rates as high as a megabit per second, but that would be about it. But remember, the efficiency of white LED bulbs depends crucially on the phosphors chosen - so choosing ones for data transmission could easily negate any energy efficiency advantages of white LEDs over, say, CFL's.

Re: I use KeePass

My experience has been that the places I worked that had frequent forced password changes were in fact the places it was easiest to login as my boss. Why? Because by requiring frequent password changes, people start writing their passwords on post-it notes and hiding them in very predictable places. Requiring a password change once a year, and allowing full pass phrases so people can use complete sentences, IMO is the best compromise.

Re: Even though I disliked Boy Wonder...

Having lived and worked in the area, I have to wonder about the traffic and employee parking. A typical parking lot design guide for office space is as follows:

"Related to Personnel: 1 space per 1 ½ plant employees + 1 space per managerial employee + 1 space per 10 managerial employees for visitors.

Related to Floor Area: 1 space per 1,000 sq. ft. of gross floor area for warehousing and distribution. Or 2 spaces per 1,000 sq. ft. of gross floor area used for manufacturing. Or 2.5 spaces per 1,000 sq. ft. of office area."

Re: Well! That's! Settled! Then!

Does not say much for his accounting skills, much less his CEO skills, if he does not read important documents.

Re: International waters?

I don't think we've had galley slaves since around the mid-1700's (Henry IV of France).

Great to see them make a comeback!

Re: I'm guessing Nokia saw the HTC One

As the article states quite clearly, Nokia is quite happy to license it's patents all over the place. So the issue isn't that Nokia has a problem with RIM, ViewSonic & HTC using it's inventions, The problem is using them without paying.

Huh?

"...ensuring British citizens are whisked off to cloud-cuckoo land to be buried in some desert for a few years..."

I'm not aware of any British hackers who have been successfully extradited to the US. McKinnon, for example, is still in Britain. Seems if anything, the "lopsided-extradition treaty" is lopsided towards the citizen being extradited, as it should be.

Re: Cleanup costs

I agree. $200k amounts to about 8-10 man-months of work (counting salary, fringe, overhead, and G&A) at a typical Silicon Valley company. And the "work" is mostly trying to figure out what he actually did, not "repairing damage". It's a surprise the number is that low.

Re: The USPTO

Q: Do these guys actually check whether they issue almost identical patents multiple times?

A: Apparently not. The USPTO has issued patents for using laser pointers as cat toys at least 5 times:

5443036 Method of exercising a cat

6505576 Pet Toy

6557495 Laser Pet Toy

6651591 Automatic laser pet toy and exerciser

6701872 Method and apparatus for automatically exercising a curious animal

Re: Meet the Fuckers?

They should probably consult with the folks in Intercourse Pennsylvania, USA.

Re: No way!

Not fat. If you bothered to go to the link to the real story from The Resister's paraphrased story, you'd see the picture. Here's the link (again):

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/hacking-cases-body-of-evidence-20120411-1wsbh.html

Re: <-- See Icon

All of these clowns eventually fail due to their hubris.

If they truly had any brains, they'd do what real spooks do - accomplish the mission and quietly move on.

Re: What no iMilitary

One reason to pick Android is for transparency of the OS. That fact alone makes Android the only widely used phone OS suitable for creating a truly a secure phone. If you can't examine the OS at all levels, you can't hope to try to insure it's security.

Re: umm..

Kind of baffling to me that the Cannon D10 & D20 were not shown, give they are pretty popular ruggedized waterproof cameras. I've had a Cannon D10 for several years now, and I use it almost exclusively in the water when swimming for underwater & "out in the middle of the pond" shots, not just "near" water/snow. Works great, floats if let go (even in fresh water), great pictures, etc. They are also very brightly colored, specifically so they are easy to spot if you set them down.

Re: Breakthrough?

And best of all, the MIT folks have no data!

Re: When?

That's been my experience too. For years I've been using the old Netgear XE102 powerline adapters (14Mbps) for stuff whose speed I don't care about, like my Tivo updating it's schedule. But I've found the placement of the units is very sensitive to where the surge protectors are relative to the powerline adapters. The surge protectors look like a low impedance across the mains up at the RF carrier frequencies these things use. I've noticed my XE104's (85Mbps) to be even more sensitive than the XE102's.

Re: Everyone needs a toilet break

$4500 in damages for "several chairs"? That place needs to buy less expensive chairs. And maybe more expensive urinals.

Re: Breakthrough?

This is basically what Solyndra's core IP was about - 3d solar cells that collect the sunlight very efficiently regardless of the angle of the sun, rather than flat panels. Their preferred implementation was cylinders, but the patents cover this MIT structure.

In the end, the maximum solar flux is 1 kW per square meter, and nothing will change that.

Re: AndrueC: Dumb meters for dumb people

"What is the logic in replacing the meters so frequently? Lousy build quality?"

Maybe you should move to a less corrupt locale, where the politicians actually believe they serve the people who elected them...

I live in a State with very strong utility regulation and consumer protections. My understanding from talking to the gas company is that the requirement (for the gas meter) was a combination of safety and proof of meter calibration. The old meter gets refurbished and recalibrated, then is placed back into the pool of meters to go back into service. My water meter was replaced last year, and they claimed it was to insure calibration, and again the old meter gets refurbished and eventually placed back into service. I presume the electricity meter replacement has a similar rational.

I've no doubt that part of the periodic meter replacement is for the utilities protection. If nothing else, by replacing the meters every decade or half-decade, they can inspect the installation for tampering.

Re JC2: Dumb meters for dumb people

"...I've no idea what makes you pretend to know otherwise."

The fact that I've owned 3 houses over the last 20 years and all of their water, gas & electricity meters had RF transmitters for remote reading. That's 9:0. One house was in Massachusetts, one in Florida, and one in California. In most States, meters have to be replaced by the utilities every few years. Where I live now, gas meters are replaced every 5 years, water & electricity every 10 years.

The utilities have been switching to remote meter reading over the last decade or two is because one meter reader can read a huge number of meters compared to one who has to walk around people's yards.

Re: Dumb meters for dumb people

The most hilarious part of this issue is that most of the dumb meters in question already have radio transmitters. So do most gas meters and water meters. The "meter readers" just drive down the street and a RF scanner in the car reads the meters.

Re: Bring e'm on!

Imagine, 2,953 bytes of virus to work with!

It's only a matter of time before someone figures out a way to do some imaging thing analogous to a buffer overflow so all your camera has to do is see the QR code, not even try to read it.

Re: Anyone else getting tired..

See my post above. The allegations were true, as documented by Apple itself as well as The New York Times. What Mike Daisy lied about was his own experiences, most of which he fabricated.

Again, listed to the retraction and investigation of Mike Daisy:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

Re: Damages

For those who bothered to listen to the "This American Life" retraction of their Mike Daisy piece, the allegations about worker conditions at Foxconn were basically true, many documented by Apple itself as well as The New York Times. The thing Mike Daisy lied about which caused the retraction, and Daisy admitted to lying about, were his personal experiences. Most of what he originally claimed were first hand experiences in his theater piece were in fact fabrications based on what he had read about Foxconn's operations.

The the bottom line is that Foxconn would not sue anyway because the allegations are true, and many were in fact documented by Apple itself.

The retraction can be listened to here and takes about an hour. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

Yea, but he wasn't in California

The bottom line is

"Don't be so arrogant at to think everyplace you travel through has the same laws & customs as where you live. Educate yourself first."

Re: Compatible with all types of screen?

What do people expect from cheap Chinese junk cables? Honesty?

Who'd have thought that silicon burned so well. Solar panels as well as laptops. Who knew? More to the point, who profits?

Re: Dear Mozilla

Fix the damn Android version too, while you are at it. It sucks. It has basically zero user control of privacy, and most plugins to make up for it's poor security (ghostery, noscript, betterprivacy, etc) are not compatible with it.

Re: Non sequitur

The real issue, at least from a US legal viewpoint, is that Apple instigated a price fixing model for the eBook industry. That little bit about publishers couldn't set one price for it and then turn around and sell the book more cheaply to Apple's rivals. While that is not strictly price fixing (Apple will claim the publishers can drop the price for everyone), it still has the same effect of artificially raising prices and stifling price competition between different eBook sellers.

Re: Wow

You do realize that mentioning the Dunning-Kruger in your post makes your post recursive, don't you?

Re: Parapets

Websense's position is pretty hollow, since Websense isn't eligible to submit a proposal, unless Websense has suddenly become a Pakistani company. The RFP says "...the indigenous development..." & "This system would be indigenously developed within Pakistan...".

Re: So AV firms forgot how to read x86 assembly?

Probably Power BASIC. It has great network support and generates tighter binaries than anything except possibly assembly.

Re: @Zuckerbug: Implement The Party API

It's not as if Facebook is an advocate of Freedom.

Re: Fighter to be flown by Cruise?

Geeze! The real problem with a Top Gun 2 featuring the F-35 is that an UAV fighter can out turn a manned aircraft because it does not have to limit the g-forces to levels a human can endure. Even back in the 70's, when I worked in Aerospace on fighter & missile system design, we all lamented how having a meat bag on board forced the plane us to cripple the planes performance from what the airframe limitations were. The "next big one" will show that manned fighters are like that scene in War Horse where the British Cavalry charge the German machine gun emplacement - stupid and anachronistic.

Re: This is what passes for testing?

Note the "testers" were mostly (if not all) Universities. I've yet to encounter any fresh University graduates (even PhD's) who didn't need on the job training on all aspects of professionalism, including how to write and analyze specifications, as well as how to scope out a project, etc.

Re: Re: It's a trap!

AT&T are such scumbags, anything they are "for" means the customer is by definition being screwed. They can't help it.

AT&T is the perfect example of why if corporations (in the US) should have the same rights as real people, they should also be subject to jail time and the death penalty.