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Comment Remote-controlled trucks? (Score 2) 3

Are we about to "see" truck drivers who drive their trucks remotely? Is this allowed anywhere? Trucks could be driven practically non-stop, by rotating remote drivers. Truck drivers would have a more comfortable ride, and no commuting to/from the truck.

I suppose the consequences of a truck crashing out of control are a lot more serious than a car crashing.

Comment Re:\o/ (Score 1) 3

This would be my concern, which is probably why they don't advertise driving customers remotely too. How much do you trust someone to drive you remotely, if you cannot see them? I suppose they could be cameras that let you see the remote driver...

Comment Re:Browser (Score 1) 102

Firefox has an option to delete cookies when you quit the browser.

The Desktop (Linux) version of Firefox also has the additional option to specify exceptions to this deletion for specific sites. Unfortunately the Android version of Firefox does not have this option (or I couldn't get it to work).

Cookies and site data (local storage) are treated the same (since a site can store a user identifier in local storage). Local storage is a great way for a websites to store personal data. It avoids tracking and it simplifies website functionality, since the server can be entirely stateless, without storing anything for its users. On the other hand, it means that the data is device-specific and is not shared across devices of the same user.

Deleting cookies when a tab is closed wouldn't be appropriate, because cookies are site-specific, not tab-specific and browsers easily go back and forth between tabs. For example, when clicking on a link in a page that takes you to another website, the current tab is replaced by the new site. Should cookies of the old tab be deleted? What if you then hit the back button and go back to the old tab? Would you be left without cookies, presumably losing information?

Submission + - Remote controlled car rental service (theguardian.com) 3

votsalo writes: A German company, Vay, offers a rental car service where the cars are driven by a remote driver to the customer, who then takes over driving the car. At the end of the rental, a remote driver takes over again to take the car away. The trained remote drivers sit in a driving station, with a steering wheel, foot pedals, screens, headphones, and even tactile feedback for things like bumps on the road.

Vay says the rental rate cost would be "about half of what a current car-sharing service costs". If he is talking about car-rental services that deliver cars to customers by on-site drivers, like this defunct San Francisco car rental company, then the claim about half the cost seems right.

Vay's founder used Las Vegas as a testing ground for the service, and expects to launch in Germany soon. Las Vegas had the necessary legal framework already in place.

Comment Re:Why? (Score 2) 80

Instead of you waiting for someone to answer your question on slashdot, this agent would answer it for you by reading the article that the story links to, and quoting something like the following:

“It’s almost like having a little angel on your shoulder doing the boring hard work of reading reviews, doing price comparisons, synthesizing research, but instead of it happening away from you, you can actually see it in real time unfolding before your eyes,” says Suleyman.

I understand the value of doing it all in real time, so you are not dependent on a search engine and AI model having done this in advance, but I'm not sure that I would want to see these webpages open before my eyes.

Submission + - He crossed 26 miles in a kayak made from mushrooms (theguardian.com)

votsalo writes: Sam Shoemaker, who is an MFA graduate from Yale, was fascinated by the mechanical properties of mycelium, a threaded like material produced by fungi, and painstakingly built two cayaks out of it, by growing the material in a mold, and then drying it over several months. The second kayak was good enough to withstand an ocean trip from Los Angeles to Catalina island.

Can mycelium replace plastic or other materials for some uses?

Comment Re:Entitled much? (Score 1) 58

not for the people already getting their software for nothing to care even slightly about their dependencies?

The Defense Department, or any other Org-T that you consider trustworthy, could review and certify open source software that they use and also make their certifications public for others to rely upon.

Instead of specifying a specific version of project X, I could specify the latest version of X that is certified by Org-T, or I could specify the latest version of Org-T's fork of X.

Comment Re:But Earth's magnetic field changes? (Score 1) 53

If you sample several points along the way, you may be able to take these changes into account. For example, let's say the magnetic field shifts by a couple of miles (is that typical?), it may also get distorted and you might be able to compute the amount it shifted, by using the distortion. The article has very little information about how it works.

Comment Re: Wow combining two useless things I hate (Score 1) 125

In some municipalities they actually do have people mix all the trash and recycling and they have a really cool automated system of sorting it out on their end. It is much more efficient than having people do their own sorting.

In some other municipalities you get a small trash bin, a large recycling bin, and a large organics bin. If you put everything in the trash bin, it will not fit, or you'll have to pay more for a larger bin.

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