Miscellaneous Tech News
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@coliver said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@RojoLoco said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@pchiodo said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I suppose they could come up with something like "Amazon Secure" which is a premium over Prime that includes the lock box. But would people pay for it??
How would you secure the lockbox from being carried off?
Lag bolts.
Into concrete maybe. But if it is attached to a normal house, they'll just cut off whatever it is attached to.
Most package theft is opportunity based though. That's premeditation and a lot of time to cut wood or lag bolts....
The perpetrator would need to know the value of the contents before making such a risky move.
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@coliver said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@RojoLoco said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@pchiodo said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I suppose they could come up with something like "Amazon Secure" which is a premium over Prime that includes the lock box. But would people pay for it??
How would you secure the lockbox from being carried off?
Lag bolts.
30,000 volts only disabled with the right code.
That would be a funny joke, go around making people's new electronics from Amazon get fried all of the time.
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@NerdyDad said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@pchiodo said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I suppose they could come up with something like "Amazon Secure" which is a premium over Prime that includes the lock box. But would people pay for it??
How would you secure the lockbox from being carried off?
We're forgetting about Amazon Lockers. The giant kiosks that are located at gas stations and such. People go to a locker, scan their phone or receipt, and a door automatically opens. The customer tells Amazon which locker they want to go to based on an arbitrary name that Amazon has setup. Once the item is delivered to the locker, the customer gets a notification to pick it up.
Yup, we have those here down at West End Station.
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@NerdyDad said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@coliver said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@RojoLoco said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@pchiodo said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I suppose they could come up with something like "Amazon Secure" which is a premium over Prime that includes the lock box. But would people pay for it??
How would you secure the lockbox from being carried off?
Lag bolts.
Into concrete maybe. But if it is attached to a normal house, they'll just cut off whatever it is attached to.
Most package theft is opportunity based though. That's premeditation and a lot of time to cut wood or lag bolts....
The perpetrator would need to know the value of the contents before making such a risky move.
Not really, they could make a fortune selling lock boxes.
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Chromium on Fedora finally gets VAAPI support!
Chromium web browser available in Fedora gets a Video Acceleration API support.
Chromium with a VAAPI patch was already available on other distributions. But this was not the case with Fedora. I really want hardware acceleration. But my love for Fedora was holding me back. Then with sheer willpower, I joined Fedora and started maintaining a package in COPR.
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@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Chromium on Fedora finally gets VAAPI support!
Chromium web browser available in Fedora gets a Video Acceleration API support.
Chromium with a VAAPI patch was already available on other distributions. But this was not the case with Fedora. I really want hardware acceleration. But my love for Femlnewsdora was holding me back. Then with sheer willpower, I joined Fedora and started maintaining a package in COPR.
Darn you mlnews trying to change the subject!
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@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@coliver said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@RojoLoco said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@JaredBusch said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@pchiodo said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I suppose they could come up with something like "Amazon Secure" which is a premium over Prime that includes the lock box. But would people pay for it??
How would you secure the lockbox from being carried off?
Lag bolts.
30,000 volts only disabled with the right code.
That would be a funny joke, go around making people's new electronics from Amazon get fried all of the time.
Nah just properly ground it and have an insulator inside the lockbox.
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@pchiodo said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Sigh... Why aren't they just going with a lockbox on the porch? be done with it already.
According to Forbes, more than half of Americans have Amazon delivery. Figure in bulk, you can put a secure lock box on someone's porch (and what about apartments) for less than $50, which I doubt... with 126 million households in the US, that would be north of a $3 billion investment. Until they lose more than that in 2 years there is no way they'll do it.
OK I haven't read the rest of the replies yet - but who said it would be paid for by Amazon? I would fully pay Amazon for such a box. hell, I'd be willing to pay $200 to have it delivered and lagged into my porch so it can't be so easily stolen.
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Also, the current in home delivery system isn't free - you the customer has to buy a special lock and camera. So there is no expectation that Amazon would pay anything for your home.
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I really just want the USPS to stop leaving my mailbox open and putting my packages out in the rain. All this lockbox talk seems far fetched compared to the level of delivery service I get at home.
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@Donahue said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
what happens when the package is too large for said lockbox, or there is too many items? I purchase a lot of stuff all at once from amazon and it's not uncommon for me to get a small pallet worth of boxes.
Well - the to large issue is definitely a problem, but these lockers have many spots, if they need to use more than one to deliver it all, I suspect that they can, and all doors for that delivery will open.
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@RojoLoco said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I really just want the USPS to stop leaving my mailbox open and putting my packages out in the rain. All this lockbox talk seems far fetched compared to the level of delivery service I get at home.
Complain to your post office about the mailbox being left open. Sadly, you might have to provide video proof that they are doing it, and not some vandals in the neighborhood.
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@Dashrender said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
@RojoLoco said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
I really just want the USPS to stop leaving my mailbox open and putting my packages out in the rain. All this lockbox talk seems far fetched compared to the level of delivery service I get at home.
Complain to your post office about the mailbox being left open. Sadly, you might have to provide video proof that they are doing it, and not some vandals in the neighborhood.
I have informed them of both issues (UPS and Fedex don't leave stuff in the rain). The local post office has zero motivation to give half a shit, so the incompetence continues.
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@RojoLoco pay fedex or UPS to deliver all of your bills from now on and let the USPS die a long death.
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@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
TIL: Firefox has a little-known feature to spare your blushes on the new-tab page
Open source browser tries to avoid publicizing your dirtier computing habits.
For many of us, our browsers' new-tab pages are something of a liability. Whichever browser you use, they all follow a fairly similar style: a bunch of boxes linking to the sites that we use and visit regularly. This is great when your regular sites are Ars, Gmail, and Twitter. But all too often, sites of a less salubrious nature find their way onto our new-tab pages, disclosing to the world our dirty habits when nobody's watching. While we can, of course, clean up our new-tab pages by Xing out the buttons for the offending sites, a moment of inattention can all too easily expose our pornographic predilections to the world.
Because users are to dumb to engage porn mode.
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@travisdh1 said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Xing out the buttons
How does one zing out a button?
Swish!
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Old, meet new: Sony introduces a wireless turntable for vinyl records
Retro-chic device brings modern features and a digital twist to analog music.
The resurgence of vinyl records is a curiosity to some and a passion for others. It's arguably ancient technology at this point, but that's also part of its appeal. Sony is looking to bridge the gap with the PS-LX310BT, a turntable that incorporates modern technology to play a very old format. The company showed the new unit at CES this week.
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Guidemaster: How to buy a Chromebook, plus our best picks
The Chrome OS landscape is vast—Ars is here to help you navigate it.
Chromebooks dominated the affordable laptop scene in 2018. The same wasn't true just a few years ago, when most were unclear what to do with Google's browser-based operating system. But now, after Chromebooks have successfully infiltrated the education market, users both young and old are familiar with Chrome OS.
Chrome OS runs exclusively on Chromebooks, the name for the laptops, two-in-ones, and now tablets that run Google's operating system. If you've used the Chrome Web browser before, you know how to use Chrome OS—the browser is the portal to nearly everything you can do on Chrome OS. Google created an operating system that's simple to use, efficient, and low maintenance in the sense that it doesn't take a ton of power to run a Chromebook well.
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Lenovo takes on Microsoft’s Surface Studio with its own tilting all-in-one
Lenovo even has its own dial.
Lenovo's Yoga A940 copies the central Surface Studio concept: it's an all-in-one PC with a large touchscreen mounted on a hinge so that it can be laid relatively flat (an angle of 25 degrees). Lenovo's display isn't as eye-catching as Microsoft's: it's a 27-inch display with a conventional 16:9 aspect ratio and either a 2560×1440 or 3840×2160 resolution. It supports stylus input from an active stylus using Wacom's AES technology. Lenovo even has its own riff on Microsoft's Surface Dial peripheral; on the left-hand side of the screen is a rotary control named the "Precision Dial," which can control features of various Adobe applications. At the top of the display is a 1080p webcam with an infrared camera for Windows Hello facial recognition.
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@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Lenovo takes on Microsoft’s Surface Studio with its own tilting all-in-one
Lenovo even has its own dial.
Lenovo's Yoga A940 copies the central Surface Studio concept: it's an all-in-one PC with a large touchscreen mounted on a hinge so that it can be laid relatively flat (an angle of 25 degrees). Lenovo's display isn't as eye-catching as Microsoft's: it's a 27-inch display with a conventional 16:9 aspect ratio and either a 2560×1440 or 3840×2160 resolution. It supports stylus input from an active stylus using Wacom's AES technology. Lenovo even has its own riff on Microsoft's Surface Dial peripheral; on the left-hand side of the screen is a rotary control named the "Precision Dial," which can control features of various Adobe applications. At the top of the display is a 1080p webcam with an infrared camera for Windows Hello facial recognition.
Except Lenovo is on the No-Fly, Never Buy, Pound Sand lists. . .
