Boing Boing Gadgets

>When TV signals were analogue, detector vans would apparently drive around and be able to check if a household was watching TV without a licence. The digital switchover effectively rendered these trucks useless. You missed the funny part! The "TV detector vans" were never functional and acted purely as a deterrent. This has still not been officially admitted. Reading the technical description on the article, and given that it's a "new generation of TV detector van", I wouldn't be at all surprised if this another bluff. The most shocking part of all this, to me, is that the BBC is perfectly willing to lie to the public for profits. Not a great habit for the state media to be in. http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/10/31/bbc-admits-that-tv-d.html

I totally love the idea of playing infocom games on the Kindle. Text adventures are a fairly good match, as the K3 direction pad stinks. But, I've not spent much time on the kindle keypad either, so maybe I would be able to type commands in very quickly either. It's too bad imo that Amazon hasn't been very quick with getting the KDK out to developers and allowing open development and sharing of apps vs. the inevitable jailbreaking. There are so many cool things in Java (even though it is J2ME) that I'd like to try on it. This type of thing is a good case for hacking though: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/09/02/photo-and-descriptio.html

The more modern Kindle devices don't have a physical keyboard (I've tried typing on my wife's Kindle Paperwhite, it's not a pleasant experience) and are harder to mod. What you're looking for is a Kindle 2 or Kindle 3 (AKA "Kindle Keyboard") which can boot a light version of Ubuntu[1], or you can just add a SSH client to the existing Kindle software[2]. Get the 3G version and you have a SSH client that works practically anywhere. [1] http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/09/02/photo-and-descriptio.html [2] http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1220552

Everything you said sounds logical. But, it's a wide swath of information. What books/articles are you sourcing to piece this all together? Hacker News barely supports links, and you want footnotes? Volatility and CEO pay, Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2011/06/volatility-the-nasty-truth-abo.html AT&T breakup and reassembly: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/gimages/atthistory.jpg Union decline: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674725119

So has Ryan North @ Dinosaur Comics! http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&… More readable on boingboing link http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/04/15/time-travel-cheatshe.html

This was a big thing like 5 years ago. The default password for road signs in the US is "DOTS" (department of transport safety). And it's trivial to reset it. http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/01/23/default-password-for.html

> With regards to the "spraying of bills", the bills themselves are usually in a safe, which is separated from the electronics (computer & peripherals). I used to work in a supermarket with the 'self service' checkouts. The cash dispenser internals looks to be exactly the same as that in basic ATMs [0]. Without going into too many details, in our case the security was minimal and there was no tamper proofing. If you really wanted to get inside it wouldn't have been particularly hard. ATMs may by different as they are slightly more portable than a checkout though :) [0] http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/05/11/this-picture-of-an-a.html

I'm skeptical about the License Van thing... "BBC admits that TV detector vans only work because Britons believe they do" http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/10/31/bbc-admits-that-tv-d.html

They are not using autos! It's a "trike" that's manually driven by the rider. If you notice carefully in the original article, there are no cameras above the auto. http://googleindia.blogspot.com/2011/05/google-street-view-start-of-dr… http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/05/18/google-street-view-t.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr-4Aln1Il8&playnext=1&list=PL9…

AMIGA game publisher "Thalion" once said "We're going to release this game without copy protection. If you pirate it, we'll go out of business, so please be honest." They went out of business. http://www.illusionware.it/commodore/lionheart.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalion_Software btw: whats with this url.. original url: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/12/18/how-to-guilt-trip-so.html

Google has a face-blurring algorithm. Amusingly, it catches things like faces on billboards and horses! http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/05/14/google-blurs-horse-f.html

"the old Thinkpad "TrackPoint" cursor dot thingy." = "clitoris" Mods you're a cruel unbending lot - that is simple factual information. http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/18/pictures-of-the-thinkpad-x200-surfa… http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/05/26/nec-offers-typically.html http://everything2.com/user/Jargon/writeups/nipple+mouse http://gizmodo.com/175484/lenovo-thinkpad-t43-review-verdict-reasonabl… Not that being modded down bothers me at all, no sireee.

A recent story that agrees with you: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/08/03/arrington-loses-libe.html While it would be more mediagenic if Arrington had to fork over some cash, I think jurisdiction is separate from the issue of who the court of popular opinion sees are the winner.

It's not an LCD display, it's a CRT. Check out pictures from all angles here: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/06/04/necs-massive-43-curv.html

This comment is particularly enlightening: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/05/08/vfx-engineer-on-why.html#comm…

Think of it this way. If apple suggested that you can transfer AAC files to the ipod for free but you have to pay 10 cents per MP3 you want to transfer, would you like it? Turns out there is a free alternative but it sucks (takes 15 minutes per file)..and that's now without the system being overloaded. Worse news...no PDF support, not even via email http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/11/19/15-things-i-just-lea.html Also, what makes you think that I purchase all my documents? What about papers I have downloaded off the web for free? Technical documents? Reports? God. The device has USB. It has an SD card. It has EVDO. But I can't transfer my DOC and PDF files directly without waiting for 15 minutes and/or paying 10 cents per file?

This is silly because today's notion of a robot will be nothing like those in 43 years. It will be hard to find non-enhanced people: the line between robot and human will be blurred. This is why I disagree with most prognostications -- they usually suffer from the categorical error of asking about the future of "us and them". There is only us. Also, this isn't saying we'll wed Roombas. Rather, we'll wed with seemingly sentient beings that display as complex emotions as today's humans. They'll just happen to be artificial. When you put things in context like that, it shouldn't seem strange. But you don't really need to wait for the future for some weird robot happenings: NSFW: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/10/09/video-fuckzilla-at-a.html

This article doesn't make any sense... This is NOT the future, Self-scanners have been around for a long time and have never caught on anywhere to my knowledge. Self-scanners have been around for several years. Market District in Pittsburgh had them in 2005 when I lived there (http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/09/01/review-grocery-store.html). They never caught on, and ultimately the company stopped using them in 09 (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09226/990741-28.stm note: this article doesn't provide any details). The problem is theft prevention and time. Every so often (appx every 10 customers), they would randomly check every item on your receipt. You think you're done, but you aren't, they need to check every item on your receipt. The thing that IS potentially a game changer in this regard (which the article doesn't mention) is RFID. With RFID combined with Google Wallet, the theft prevention problem can be solved much easier (ie alarm goes off if you are stealing)

Here's a case of Valve coordinating with the FBI, attempting to do what I described: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/11/13/the-job-is-a-lie-val.html. As for why extradition is not used, the lure is far quicker and much cheaper. The hacker you mention is a perfect example. "The order to extradite McKinnon was approved by the U.K. government in July 2006, but his legal team continued to challenge the order, holding up his transfer." [1] That's over three years ago. That's just when the approval went through mind you. He was indicted in the US in 2002. Also, I'm fairly certain you are incorrect about security clearances (at least for Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret). Even dual citizens have to shred their extra passport and renounce their additional citizenship. The FBI website mentions that for Top Secret, citizenship is verified through investigation: "For a Top Secret security clearance, the background investigation includes additional record checks which can verify citizenship...." [2] If you're working at an intelligence agency like the CIA, Top Secret is pretty much required. [1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/173397/uks_high_court_rejects_appeal_fo… [2] http://www.fbi.gov/clearance/securityclearance.htm