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Comment Title II would result in more choice. (Score 1) 286

by mgemmons (#47000363) Attached to: Major ISPs Threaten To Throttle Innovation and Slow Network Upgrades
We already have a good idea of what happens when ISPs are treated like common carriers -- more competition; better and faster internet access. The UK is a perfect example.

This planet money podcast is great overview on how both the US and the UK arrived at their respective situations. It's a fascinating listen:

http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/510289/299232999/npr_299232999.mp3?_kip_ipx=1217487091-1400085519/

Comment Resolution is not the hard-to-solve problem.. (Score 4, Informative) 135

by mgemmons (#46700651) Attached to: A 2560x1440 VR Headset That's Mobile
Display resolution is not the hard-to-solve problem. This quote from John Carmack sums it up best:

The latency between the physical movement of a users head and updated photons from a head mounted display reaching their eyes is one of the most critical factors in providing a high quality experience. Human sensory systems can detect very small relative delays in parts of the visual or, especially, audio fields, but when absolute delays are below approximately 20 milliseconds they are generally imperceptible.

According to the article

[...]the latest GameFace SDK significantly reduces latency to a point that it is easily comparable to the DK1. The company plans to benchmnark their latency soon to get a quantitative latency figure.

Notice that is DK1 latency, not DK2. DK1's latency was notoriously bad and made many people nauseous. So, while I'm happy to see competition in this space, as far as GameFace is concerned, there is not a lot to see here yet.

Comment 640x400 per eye. (Score 1) 93

by mgemmons (#42123987) Attached to: Kickstarted Oculus Rift VR Headset Shipping In March/April
The Oculus is 640x400 per eye for a total of 1280x800. Not 1280x800 per eye. I've no idea why the total resolution is always mentioned since it's a completely useless metric. I think they've solved a lot of hard problems with this device -- in particular head tracking lag -- but it still has some baking to do before it's ready for your average gamer to use as a monitor replacement. In particular the resolution needs to approach or surpass 720p. Can someone more familiar with HDMI comment on the viability of pushing 2 720p signals @ 60Hz over HDMI? I know it's an issue for 1080p, not sure about 720p.
Security

Video Security Camp Is Not Space Camp, Just Based On It (Video) 38

Posted by Roblimo from the way-better-than-spending-summer-watching-TV dept.
The idea behind the United States Space Camp is to give kids (and some adults) a chance to do astronaut training-type things that will get them jazzed on science and technology, in addition to getting away from home for a while. Security Camp is sort of like that that, says instigator Marc Tobias, but is about security stuff rather than space, and somehow interviewer Timothy Lord didn't ask Tobias about plans to teach security, computer or otherwise, for space travelers, when he talked with Tobias at HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) in New York. Since Tobias is an expert in physical security (locks), and locksmithing is going to be taught at Security Camp along with electronic/hacking-type security skills, it's a good thing all participants will be checked for criminal records and tendencies before they're allowed to participate. If there are plans to make a movie about Security Camp, which Tobias didn't mention one way or the other during this interview, we hope it's better than the 1986 movie, Space Camp.

Comment So close to leaving slashdot. (Score 4, Insightful) 183

by mgemmons (#38988825) Attached to: How Much Stuff Can Timothy Jam Into His New Hoodie's Pockets? (Video)
For me, the quality of slashdot has been declining, for years really. It still presents a lot of great stuff, but more and more I find myself annoyed by
  • non-tech articles
  • articles that no one here cares about but that get posted over and over anyway because someone at slashdot has a vested interest (bitcoin)
  • politics being inserted into articles
  • poorly reviewed articles that either purposefully sensationalize the headline or get the summary completely wrong
  • and now infomercials

I really enjoy slashdot because there are a lot of intelligent, well-spoken people here, but I'm so close to being done with it. Makes me a little sad.

Comment Re:Clone Wars (or Sensationalist Headline) (Score 1) 172

by mgemmons (#38957513) Attached to: Australian Scientists Discover 'Oldest Living Thing On Earth'
Just to be clear, the original plant that started the cloning process was not 200,000 years old. According to TFA it was between 12,000 and 200,000.

Honestly /., if you are going to use questionable scientific articles from the Telegraph, can you at least not make it more sensationalist by purposefully misquoting the age of the plant?
Windows

Vista Security — Too Little Too Late 483

Posted by kdawson from the five-years-work dept.

Thomas Greene of The Register has a fairly comprehensive review of Vista and IE7 user security measures. The verdict is: better but not adequate, and mostly an attempt to shift blame onto the user when things go wrong. From the review: "[Vista is] a slightly more secure version than XP SP2. There are good features, and there are good ideas, but they've been implemented badly. The old problems never go away: too many networking services enabled by default; too many owners running their boxes as admins and downloading every bit of malware they can get their hands on."

Security

"Very Severe Hole" In Vista UAC Design 813

Posted by kdawson from the she-said-he-said dept.
Cuts and bruises writes "Hacker Joanna Rutkowska has flagged a "very severe hole" in the design of Windows Vista's User Account Controls (UAC) feature. The issue is that Vista automatically assumes that all setup programs (application installers) should be run with administrator privileges — and gives the user no option to let them run without elevated privileges. This means that a freeware Tetris installer would be allowed to load kernel drivers. Microsoft's Mark Russinovich acknowledges the risk factor but says it was a 'design choice' to balance security with ease of use."

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