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Comment Re:Didn't WebOS try this already (Score 1) 114

by burns210 (#41424233) Attached to: Mozilla OS Looking Grown Up On Its Own Developer Phone

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwiki.mozilla.org%2FWebAPI

Exposing some new APIs via Javascript isn't black magic. Phone, SMS, Camera, WebRTC, WebGL, all Javascript APIs that exist and can be tested today and have been in the works for a year or more. All the hardware access you would want is available in Javascript (for sufficiently authorized apps, obviously).

Writing a Spotify client as an OpenWebApp in pure-javascript is quite possible today. Preferably using something like Opus for audio, of course.

Comment Re:One way to get more registered voters (Score 1) 1088

by burns210 (#26837161) Attached to: Iowa Seeks To Remove Electoral College

We hold an Article V convention, by having a supermajority of state legislatures (again) call for one. We were just a few states away in the early '80s, calling for a balanced budget amendment. At the convention, representatives would
propose amendments (repeal 17, for instance) and those that made it through would go to a national vote.

Comment Be Nice to your Local Gamestop :) (Score 0, Troll) 440

by microbrewer (#21631083) Attached to: Where are Wii?
I got my Wii in November and had to do a little searching .My wife went to the local Gamestop and chatted up the manager who told her to call on Tuesday mornings when they Get thier Nintendo shipments in and they would hold the Wii for 24 hours .

I called on the Tuseday morning they held one for me and was palying Wii the that afternoon .
I Ended up buying a Wii Remote charger ,Wii Play, a Nunchuck and got a Gamefly subscription .

So Be nice to your local gamestop employees make sure you order a few extras and games .
Slashdot.org

Introducing the Slashdot Firehose 320

Posted by CmdrTaco from the who-wants-to-drink-from-the-firehose dept.
Logged in users have noticed for some time the request to drink from the Slashdot Firehose. Well now we're ready to start having everybody test it out. It's partially a collaborative news system, partially a redesigned & dynamic next-generation Slashdot index. It's got a lot of really cool features, and a lot of equally annoying new problems for us to find and fix for the next few weeks. I've attached a rough draft of the FAQ to the end of this article. A quick read of it will probably answer most questions from how it works, what all the color codes mean, to what we intend to do with it.
Businesses

Journal Journal: How The RIAA Is Like 17th Century French Button-Makers 150

Journal by Alien54
Requiring permission to innovate? Feeling entitled to search others' property? Getting the power to act like law enforcement in order to fine or arrest those who are taking part in activities that challenge your business model? Don't these all sound quite familiar? Centuries from now (hopefully much, much sooner), the actions of the RIAA, MPAA and others that match these of the weavers and button-makers of 17th century France will
The Internet

Wikipedia Blocks Qatar [Updated] 204

Posted by Hemos from the the-law-of-unintended-consequenceas dept.
GrumpySimon writes "Wikipedia has blocked the entire country of Qatar from editing pages. Whilst the ban is due to spam-abuse coming from the IP address in question, the fact that this belongs to the country's sole high-speed internet provider has the unintended consequence of stopping Qataris from editing the wiki. The ban has raised concerns about impartiality — the majority of Al Jazeera journalists operate out of Qatar, for example. This raises a number of issues about internet connectivity in small countries — what other internet bottlenecks like this exist?" Update: 01/02 13:32 GMT by Z : Jim Wales wrote in the comments that the story is 'completely false'. Either way, the ban has been lifted and anonymous editing is once again possible from Qatar.

Ballmer Speaks on His Solo Act 196

Posted by CmdrTaco from the but-does-he-do-the-monkey-dance dept.
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "In his first one-on-one interview since Bill Gates's retirement announcement, Steve Ballmer tells the Wall Street Journal he is bullish on Microsoft's investments in online services, and he dismisses as 'random malarkey' the idea that Microsoft is having trouble hiring and keeping the kind of brilliant employees that have always been the company's competitive weapon. Here's Ballmer on Gates's departure: 'As co-leaders of the business, I could allow Bill to be the full-time champion of innovation. And [now] with me really being the guy who's here every day running the place, I must be the champion of innovation.' And on competing with Google: 'We're going to compete. We're going to be in the online business. We are going to have a core around online. We're going to be excellent. That, I would tell people, to count on...'"

Symantec Sues Microsoft, May Delay Vista 303

Posted by CowboyNeal from the delays-other-than-tom dept.
AuMatar writes "Symantec filed a lawsuit against Microsoft over patents on the volume management technology in Vista. They're seeking an injunction to stop Vista from being sold until the suit is completed. Given the recent Supreme Court ruling it should be interesting to see if the injunction is granted, since Symantec does produce software which uses the patent. If it is granted, expect MS to settle to prevent another Vista delay."

New Google Services Announced 197

Posted by Zonk from the what-won't-they-think-of dept.
Tryllekunstner writes "The guys at the Google Press Center presented upcoming Google technologies at a press conference. Google Co-op beta is a community where users can contribute their knowledge and expertise to improve Google search for everyone. Google Trends builds on the Google Zeitgeist to help users find facts and trends related to Google usage around the world. Google Notebook is a simple way for users to save and organize their thoughts when conducting research online. This personal browser tool permits users to clip text, images, and links from the pages they're browsing, save them to an online 'notebook' that is accessible from any computer, and share them with others. Also, Google Desktop 4 is also mentioned." Googleblog has an outline of the new services.

Mother of Internet Speaks Out 114

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the now-that's-a-big-baby dept.
Anonymous Coward writes to tell us that Radia Perlman, sometimes called the "Mother of the Internet" for her invention of the spanning tree algorithm used by bridges and switches, recently gave a very candid interview with NetworkWorld. From the interview: "The taste of whoever is in the funding agencies tends to cause everyone to look at the same stuff at the same time. Often technologies get hot then go away. There was active networking for a while, which always mystified me and has now died. In security the money is behind digital rights management, which I think ultimately is a bad thing -- not that we need to preserve the right to pirate music, but because the solutions are things that don't solve the real problems in terms of security."

Computer Security, The Next 50 Years 234

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the just-don't-forget-physical-security dept.
bariswheel writes "Alan Cox, fellow at Red Hat Linux, gives a short-and-sweet talk at the European OSCON on the The Next 50 Years of Computer Security. Implementations of modularity, Trusted Computing hardware, 'separation of secrets,' and overcoming the challenge of users not reading dialog boxes, will be crucial milestones as we head on to the future. He states: "As security improves, we need to keep building things which are usable, which are turned on by default, which means understanding users is the target for the next 50 years. You don't buy a car with optional bumpers. You can have a steering wheel fitted if you like, but it comes with a spike by default." All of this has to be shipped in a way that doesn't stop the user from doing things."

802.11n Spec Still In The Air 119

Posted by Zonk from the title-not-intended-as-a-joke dept.
Vitaly Friedman writes "Standards for the hotly anticipated Wi-Fi successor haven't yet been agreed upon. Where's that leave all those early-bird products? 802.11n is a highly anticipated successor to today's Wi-Fi, promising a huge performance boost. The draft spec promises to deliver data rates up to 180 Mbps, which could make wired home networks unnecessary and should allow high-definition wireless video streaming. At issue is whether the draft spec is far enough along that companies can make products that will provide that performance but still be compatible with each other and with older Wi-Fi equipment."

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