DeathToBill - Slashdot User

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Simple, Cross-Platform, Video Messaging

Submitted by DeathToBill on Thursday October 01, 2015 @05:31AM

DeathToBill writes: I spend a lot of time away from my kids (think months at a time) who are aged 3-8. I keep in touch with them by Skype, but the young ones are not really old enough to concentrate on it and we're often in quite different timezones, so it's not often it can be very spontaneous. We'd like to have some way that we can record short video messages of things we're doing and send them to each other. It needs to have an iPad app that is simple enough for a three-year-old to use with help and for a five-year-old to use without help; it needs to have an Android or web client, preferably one that doesn't require an Apple ID; it needs to be able to record a short video and send it to someone.

As far as I can tell, iMessage requires Apple kit (there is an Android app but it sends all your messages through a server in China...) and Whatsapp works on iPhone but not iPad.

What can slashdot suggest?

Submission + - USB Implementers Forum Will Not Play Nice With Open Hardware

Submitted by DeathToBill on Tuesday October 22, 2013 @05:54AM

DeathToBill writes: Hack A Day reports on the attempts of open hardware hackers to obtain a vendor and product ID for their devices to be able to sell them as USB compliant: "A not for profit foundation [in this case Arachnid Labs] could buy a VID, give PIDs away to foundation members making open source hardware, and we would all live in a magical world of homebrew devices that are certified as USB compliant." The USB Implementers Forum, which controls the sale of PIDs, has lawyered up, responding to the effort with a cease and desist notice, requiring Arachnid Labs to stop "raising funds to purchase a unique USB VID" and "delete all references to the USB-IF, VIDs and PIDs for transfer, resale or sublicense from your website and other marketing materials." A slight over-reaction? Or dark conspiracy against open hardware? You decide!

Submission + - EA Pisses of Players. Again. (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by DeathToBill on Friday June 14, 2013 @07:51AM

DeathToBill writes: EA has done it again, the BBC reports. After EA took over operation of the online Scrabble brand, it introduced a "new and improved" version. Improvements include requiring manual refreshes to see other players' turns, irretrievably wiping players' game history and a switch to the Collins dictionary that has proved deeply unpopular with Scrabble fanatics. "EA was unavailable for comment."

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