jfruhlinger - Slashdot User

Submission + - Qualcomm Wants A Piece Of The PC Market (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Tuesday January 10, 2012 @06:18PM

jfruhlinger writes: "Much of Intel's story of the past few years has involved its so far fruitless attempts to break into the smartphone and tablet market. But as it keeps trying, it may find competition on its home turf: Qualcomm, which makes many of the ARM-based chips in those smartphones and tablets, wants to make PCs, too. The advent of Windows 8 for ARM and Android will make this possible."

Submission + - Data Hogs: The Monsters Carriers Created (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Monday January 09, 2012 @05:03PM

jfruhlinger writes: "A recent study claimed that the top 1 percent of mobile data users eat up 25 percent of the available bandwidth. But assuming it's true, who's at fault? Stats show that data usage has increased radically with each new model of the iPhone, and similar phenomenon are in place for Android phones — all of which are gleefully sold to the public by the same people who complain about 'data hogs.' Isn't this the equivalent of a car dealer that heavily promotes Cadillacs, then complains about poor fuel efficiency, then charges a ton for extra gasoline?"

Submission + - FDA Approves Self-Sanitizing Keyboard (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Wednesday January 04, 2012 @05:07PM

jfruhlinger writes: "Deep down, most people ,now that the germiest thing they touch all day is the thing they're touching all day: their keyboard. But what, if anything, can be done about it? A couple of former MIcrosoft hardware guys have launched a keyboard that sterilizes itself via ultraviolet light. While the FDA has signed off on it, tests show that the UV only kills about two-thirds of the germs living in it, and that it still needs to be cleaned by hand."

Submission + - Online Clearinghouse Offers To Defend Privacy (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Tuesday January 03, 2012 @12:20PM

jfruhlinger writes: "Privacy may have become a hot-button issue in the Internet age, but the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has been fighting against corporate privacy violations for 20 years now. Today, they've launched an online complaint center that will hopefully help keep your private data private. Fill out the online form and the PRC will follow up with the privacy compliance officer at the company in question, or investigate whether a complaint to a government agency is in order."

Submission + - Hack Your Holiday Decorations With Arduino (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Wednesday December 21, 2011 @04:06PM

jfruhlinger writes: "Tired of your code only executing in digital space? Why not hack your smiling snowman? OK, this crash course only shows you how to make pretty LED lights blink in a sequence of your choosing, but it serves to introduce you to Arduino, an open-source platform that uses C-like code. Really, any project that involves a soldering iron is good fun."

Submission + - Kindle Fire and Nook 'Upgrades' Kill Root Access (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Wednesday December 21, 2011 @10:19AM

jfruhlinger writes: "The Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble Nook tablets are similar enough and close enough together in price that they ought to be fighting market share and one-upping each other in terms of features they offer users. But the latest OS upgrades to both gadgets claims to be an 'upgrade' while actually taking functionality away: both remove the ability to root the device."

Submission + - No SOPA Vote Until 2012 (itworld.com) 1

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jfruhlinger

on Friday December 16, 2011 @04:02PM

jfruhlinger writes: "A victory, or a just a breather? The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee has postponed further debate on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) until after Congress' holiday break. At the urging of some SOPA opponents, Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and committee chairman, said Friday he will consider a hearing or a classified briefing on the bill's impact on cybersecurity."

Submission + - Meet The Strange Bedfellows Who Could Stop SOPA (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @03:58PM

jfruhlinger writes: "In a political environment that's become very strongly defined by partisan lines, the SOPA debate has offered an unexpected ray of hope: the two main Congressional opponents of the bill are Ron Wyden, an Oregon Senator deemed a "hardcore liberal" and Darrell Issa, a California Representative who is one of the Obama Administration's fiercest critics. (There are both Ds and Rs in favor of the bill, too.)"

Submission + - Nokia Exec: Young People Fed Up With iPhone (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @12:09PM

jfruhlinger writes: "Nokia's Windows Phones haven't hit the U.S., but at least one company executive thinks they'll be a slam dunk, since young people have soured on the iPhone and find Android baffling. Of course, much of the Internet commentariat found his remarks even more baffling. Is he right, is he delusional, or is he just trying to build buzz for his company's products the best he can?"

Submission + - Tizen, webOS, & The Future Of Mobile Open Sour (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Monday December 12, 2011 @12:23PM

jfruhlinger writes: "When HP announced it would release webOS as open source, it added a competitor to a narrow niche: there's already Tizen, the descendent of MeeGo, which is, like webOS, an open source Linux-based operating system for smartphones. Can they co-exist, or will one come out on top? One built-in advantage for webOS is that already has hardware, in the form of all those $99 TouchPad's being snapped up on eBay."

Submission + - Reverse Robocall Turns Tables On Politicians (itworld.com) 2

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jfruhlinger

on Tuesday December 06, 2011 @03:54PM

jfruhlinger writes: "One of the great banes of election season is that any politician can shell out a few pennies per voter and phone-spam thousands of people who'd rather not hear a recorded pitch. But turnabout's fair play, and now a service called reverse robocall will deliver your recorded message to elected officials as often as you'd like for a nominal fee. If you got someone who you'd like to call repeatedly, check them out."

Submission + - Sub-$100 Android 4.0 Tablet Coming Soon (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Monday December 05, 2011 @05:47PM

jfruhlinger writes: "One of the reasons the iPad has stayed at the top of the tablet heap for so long is that — in contrast with the story of the Mac and PC 25 years ago — the iPad has remained competitive with its rivals on price. That may be starting to change, with cheaper tablets like the Amazon Fire coming to market. And now, the sub-$100 Novo7 is on sale in China, sporting Android 4.0. It promises to arrive in the U.S. for a similar price point soon."

Submission + - Tech Vendors Help Gov'ts Spy On Their Citizens (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Friday December 02, 2011 @12:39PM

jfruhlinger writes: "Most Slashdotters — even those living in democratic countries — would probably be unsurprised to know that their governments are spying on them. But most people are not aware of how complicit security vendors, who publicly work to protect the public from such electronic eavesdropping, are complicit in such monitoring. All this and more is revealed in the latest Wikieaks document dump, the Spy Files."

Submission + - Does Telecommuting Make You Invisible? (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Tuesday November 29, 2011 @11:47AM

jfruhlinger writes: "Telecommuting provides many joys, including the ability to stay in your pajamas all day and the chance to work with a cat on your lap. But it does have some major drawbacks, perhaps none so serious as the fact that, if your co-workers are for the most part in an office, they can forget you exist — which means you don't get credit for your work as you deserve."

Submission + - Does Open Source Software Cost Jobs? (itworld.com)

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jfruhlinger

on Monday November 28, 2011 @01:40PM

jfruhlinger writes: "John Spencer, a British blogger and tech educator, is convinced that free and open source software, which he's promoted for years, is costing IT jobs, as UK schools cut support staff no longer needed. But does the argument really hold up? It turns out that the services he's focused on are actually cloud services that are reducing the needs for schools to provide their own tech infrastructure. Of couse, it's also true that many of those cloud services are themselves based on open source tech."

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