daveoc64

That's actually how the meters currently work.

The article explains it a little better, but there's the meter equipment and there's communication equipment.

The communication modules currently installed might only support 2G (GSM) and 3G (UMTS) networks, but those could be replaced with new modules that support 4G (LTE) and/or 5G (NR) networks.

The meter itself doesn't need to change.

That is the plan for handling the closure of 2G and 3G networks.

I think having it linked to home broadband would be unpopular from both an energy supplier point of view and from the public.

The energy suppliers wouldn't want the support burden of having to troubleshoot people's Wi-Fi, which might not reach to the location where the meter is installed, and could suffer from all sorts of problems.

Some consumers wouldn't like the idea of it using their internet connection - even if it was a negligible amount of data consumption.

I believe there are some energy supplier provided wireless networks that cover a small part of a neighborhood and all of the meters in that area can connect to the network.

I think there are also mesh models where meters communicate over a local network wirelessly, back to a meter that is in the cellular coverage area.

I don't entirely understand the concept - in Ohio (or is it the whole of the USA?), they can suspend your driving licence because you have unrelated debts?

>I have always wondered why we don't structure payments of some form to balance out the local costs of infrastructure etc. NIMBY is rational with the economics as they are; but would you really be as opposed to a local power plant if energy costs for the area near the plant were subsidized by some percentage? Balance out the local costs with a local benefit.

I've seen this proposed for various things like onshore wind farms (e.g. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60864097), but there usually has to be a limit to the subsidy/discount/bribe - otherwise it wouldn't be viable for the company that wants the infrastructure.

I saw something suggested in the region of 25% discount on electricity bill for people near such a site, for up to 10 years. I don't think that such a temporary benefit would be enough to convince me of having something nearby if I thought it was permanently detrimental to the neighbourhood or my property. (Not that I'm claiming to be a NIMBY).

Seems more like they are unwilling to update VLC on Android, as they don't want to use the Play App Signing feature.

Nobody needs a games console, but a smartphone is increasingly an essential part of daily life - for things like accessing government services, transport, payments, identity, commerce etc.

If you are a company or other organisation that depends on making your service available through smartphones, then you may be affected by Apple's policies.

It doesn't really change the point of the article.

There are ways to make fibre broadband available, even in rural communities.

Fibre is always going to beat Starlink.

>I don't understand this media campaign against shrinkflation

It clearly rubs people up the wrong way.

There's a perception that these huge companies are trying to trick consumers by hiding these reductions in size/quantity. Consumers don't like that.

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39603074

I've recently got an 8Gbps symmetric FTTP connection at home, and have run Cat 6 to nearly every room.

The biggest problem is that there aren't a lot of (consumer accessible) ethernet switches capable of doing 10Gbps with copper ethernet cables.

There's a lot more equipment out there in the small office space that can do SPF fibre.

Is this just a no-information AI article, or is there actually some news about the 5090?

Most of the travel eSIM services resell a SIM from a carrier in country A that has a favourable roaming agreement with a carrier in country B (where you want to use the service).

I just signed up for the Firsty app from the UK, and the eSIM it gave me appeared to be issued by Play Poland (https://www.play.pl). This then roamed on the EE network in the UK (https://ee.co.uk).

As the SIM is roaming, there's no practical way for any KYC requirement to be enforced. This is the same as if an AT&T customer in the USA visited India (for example) and roamed onto an Indian network.

Some of the eSIM providers like Airalo do offer certain plans with KYC requirements, but that's only for a minority of countries.

By international standards, Google Fi is expensive.

By US standards, Google Fi is cheap.

Yes, they seem to use "Europe" to refer to the EU.

You can download Windows 10 or Windows 11 from Microsoft for free without needing to input any licence keys.

If you install it without inputting a product key, it'll be more or less fully functional. There is no time limit to this.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows11

I did it last week, but it was a bit hard to navigate through the automated phone system as it's so geared up to Windows 10/11.

I know what you're referring to - I think other posters are confusing this with other initiatives Microsoft has like the VMs for web dev or preview releases.

In Windows XP, if the system wasn't activated after the initial grace period, you couldn't log in at all. That was obviously a bad UX when something has gone wrong.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 loosened things - allowing you to log in and use basic functionality.

Later versions of Windows (including Windows 10 and Windows 11) are more or less fully functional without activation (or even inputting a product key). Some personalisation features are disabled and you will have a watermark on the desktop, but other than that it's pretty normal. There is no time limit for this, unlike some of the free virtual machine images Microsoft provides for web dev testing purposes.

The only justification I can see is that it does provide a better user experience if there's an activation problem. With Windows 10 and 11 being free upgrades for a huge range of consumers, they know that most people have a licence anyway.

Windows 10 and 11 have also emphasised the digital licence model - installing without a product key. This requires that the system is functional without activation, so that you can get online to verify the digital licence.

>I feel like I'm in a weird alt-universe.

>I've heard frequent complaints about spotify pushing podcasts but I've never once had spotify show me a podcast above the fold that I haven't myself followed.

That you have followed or listened to a podcast in Spotify is what makes you different here.

I have never listened to a podcast on Spotify, despite being a user since the invite-only days, yet the UI recommends podcasts at the same frequency as you've described.

I imagine many of the other people here do not want podcasts to appear anywhere in the Spotify UI.

In the UK it really varies based on the area the supermarket is in.

There are two large Sainsbury's supermarkets near me - one is right next to a university and suffers from students taking the trolleys back to their student accommodation - these have a coin.

Then there's another in a more affluent suburb - no coin.

While I do agree that the current government's policy was designed to suppress votes (Rees Mogg basically admitted it), the different treatment of Oyster cards makes sense.

The over 60 card requires that your eligibility is verified before it's issued. This includes checking your name, address, and age.

The cards for younger people have no such verification process.

https://fullfact.org/online/oyster-card-voter-id/

Due to the input device most people will use (controller), apps that work best on Xbox are those used to consume content like photos or videos.

You might be viewing something and want to print it, but that's clearly not desirable enough for Microsoft to build print functionality into the Xbox UI.

If the two options are "this app can't run on your Xbox" or "this app runs on your Xbox, but the printing functions don't work and some of the messages are a little weird", which option do you think users would prefer?

A fresh incognito window on any other search engine isn't going to be linked to an account.

That is for me one of the downsides of Kagi.

The vast majority of the restaurants on Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat etc. in the UK did not (and still do not) offer delivery themselves.

I would say that in the UK it was really only pizza places that offered delivery.

Now with these apps you can get virtually any type of cuisine delivered from a wide range of restaurants.

This is probably because the promotion of Alcohol is restricted in Scotland, but not the rest of the UK.

I tried looking for something like Sparkle on Windows a few weeks ago.

Now I know it exists - thanks!

That's what's offered here in the UK, but there have still been a lot of problems with the transition.

Typically the battery backup only lasts for 1 hour.

I'm in the UK, so our implementation of the PSD2 regulation may be a bit different (in came in while the UK was leaving the EU), but I get SMS 2FA codes from American Express all the time in the 3D Secure process.

> Ubuntu 18.04 is EOL, unless you pay for extended support. How many people are paying for that support?

The extended support is free for consumers.

It's a lot faster to just give them a code than to read a complicated order.

It's especially great for making substitutions and tweaks to your order.