Dev.SN ♥ developers
Sections
Dev.SN
fliptop writes:
"Promising that orders will start shipping in June, Silent Circle has announced the Blackphone is ready for pre-orders. (Domain registered in Switzerland)
Touted as 'The high-end smartphone which puts privacy and security ahead of everything else' the Blackphone has a 4.7" screen, 2GHz quad-core CPU and 16GB storage. It also includes several Silent Circle apps.
The Blackphone makes use of a customized version of Android called PrivatOS, is fully unlocked, and the encryption can be used on any compatible network. Purchase includes a 1-year subscription to the apps; after that it's $10 a month (in addition to your carrier's charges).
In order to take advantage of the encryption, the other person you're communicating with has to have their own Blackphone or use Silent Circle apps on their Android or iOS phone."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Common Joe on Wednesday February 26 2014, @01:39AM
I think you're right that this could be a "Soylvertisement" and I think you're right to be very cautious about it.
With that said, I don't mind Soylvertisements (whether paid for or not) as long as it is clearly pointed out as such or marked as a Soylvertisement kind of story. (I'm sure others will disagree and I think they should post their rebuttals so you can get a feel for community consensus.) The problem with Slashdot as that they simply posted it as a regular story and I do not tolerate that kind of crap. I want the good stuff up front and the time wasters / advertisements in back and out of the way.
Maybe to put it more clearly: The good stuff should always take front and center. If it is an advertisement of some sort, mark it very clearly as such. If it is simply an ad or a time waster, mark it as such and put it in the back. Yes, despite the ad, there can be something cool or interesting or technical about it. (Often, it's just a lot of hype -- oftentime, unwarranted hype and it should not be posted.)
I once tried to post a brief story in Slashdot about a small video I saw. I hate videos but I thought this [slashdot.org] was rather cool. I tried to mark it in my write up as an ad for Western Digital and even where to go in the video to bypass the ad if so desired. (The entire video was only 45 seconds.) What made it cool was the F1 car they built out of hard drive parts. I thought it was really neat looking. (I wished I could have found out more information. I certainly wasn't paid for it.)
Others disagreed that it was Slashdot worthy and it never made front page. Is it Soylent News worthy? Not really, but I still think others would find it cool. Maybe in the future, there is a place where things like this can go so others who are not into Soylvertisements or time wasters like this can go if they have time to burn.