Ah gotcha. I just remember that they used to do it for I think the original iteration of e911 and thought they kept it around for other purposes, but I didn’t realize the necessary equipment and financial details involved, so that’s fantastic news. Thank you!

GPS is kind of a tossup since your cellular provider can just as easily triangulate your position with their towers, and there is no escaping that outside of putting your phone in a faraday cage.

Iirc phone calls and alarms still work after a reboot in the lock status, it just disables biometric unlock and keeps the filesystem encrypted

I keep mine on in case of family emergencies, it’s also my alarm clock

It seems like it’s already beginning. For one, Firefox is getting blocked more and more often as being “out of date” (it’s not) while a chromium-based browser is fine. My VPN keeps getting flagged as malicious (PIA). It’s getting really irritating.

“Sponsored Content”

I mean, the justice system is kangaroo court. Two overpaid people stand in a room and argue technicalities, not right vs wrong. It’s a complete farce designed to fatten people’s wallets.

What’s a token ring?

Wait-your-turn Internet

Compact flash? Nah, that was primetime for Iomega Zip Drives!

I’m convinced that a good number of legislators understand the implications of this stuff on a cursory level, but are convinced (read: bribed) to not care on the “condition” that it doesn’t apply to them or their families. They are beholden to their constituents, and their constituents aren’t you and me, as we can’t afford them.

A real straight shooter with upper management written all over em

Overruled!

Good call!

Not sure what carrier you’re on, but I pay $35/mo per line with Verizon and have 2 SIM cards for my phone. Granted we have a family plan, and my wife pays $60/mo cause she wants her latest iPhone, but it usually works out cheaper to buy a phone online outright a year or two after release and then I’m not paying the recurring finance charges.

Automatic unlocking sounds like a pipe dream given the American business landscape, but there shouldn’t be any barriers to unlocking, even if the customer has to request it. People are likely stuck in the mindset of yesteryear where phones weren’t transferrable between carriers (especially with band compatibility of GSM vs CDMA), and I’d wager that many people don’t even realize it’s possible these days. I can’t say I blame carriers for wanting to maintain the illusion, and I don’t necessarily think they should be forced to advertise it, but the option should be plain and simple for those who want to exercise the right.

Out of curiosity, I would imagine that if someone goes the carrier-financing route, they’d still be on the hook for the cost of the phone even if they jumped to a different carrier? I don’t want to sound like I’m in support of at&t, but it doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable to keep a customer in place while they still have a balance on the hardware, or is there something else I’m missing?

As well, software packages have to be ported to the new architecture, which in some cases is easier said than done. Sure basic Unix utilities are portable enough, but more advanced and complicated software might have some issues, unless an efficient compatibility layer could be developed.

I mean, different use cases yeah? There’s certainly a big market for people that just do the basics on their devices, ie email, web browsing, documents/spreadsheets etc that don’t need a full blown powerhouse computer, nevermind that they have no clue what an operating system even is nor do they care, as long as they get their memes and cat videos in between work tasks.

I’ll bet there will always be an x86 segment of the market for gamers, power users, tinkerers, and the like. Though, that market may unfortunately shrink in the coming years that could lead to vendors abandoning the space, which could lead to fewer choices and higher component prices. On top of which, major venders might see it as an opportunity for lock-in and advertising, so yeah it’ll be interesting to see what happens.

The sliver of hope here is that the hacking community has always found ways around proprietary bullshit, and we can only hope and support that those efforts continue, lest we further our race in to a stupid corporate dystopia.

For some reason AA doesn’t work on my phone. I suspect it’s a USB permissions issue, but I’m not motivated enough to dig into it any deeper lol.

Depends on the manufacturer’s implementation, but yeah in recent years they’ve made it really difficult if not impossible to remove

It took me 6 months to find a newer truck that had no Internet connectivity at all, and it was a royal PITA.