33003495
submission
ananyo writes:
The development of retinal implants has been dogged by problems of unwieldiness since the first implantable stimulator for vision restoration was developed in 1968. Now researchers have come up with a solution that overcomes many of the problems by the use of special glasses that fire infrared signals into the eye and onto an implanted array of silicon photodiodes. The system, tested in rats, simplifies what needs to be implanted and both transmits visual data and power directly to the implants, eliminating the need for any bulky external power source (abstract).
33002693
submission
tigersha writes:
Gizmodo reports that Kodak had a nuclear reactor loaded with weapons-grade uranium running for years in a basement in New York! Maybe the IEA needs to send their storm troopers to Fuji too.
33001227
submission
SgtChaireBourne writes:
The German Pirate Party won 18 parliament seats in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia yesterday. Or in other words, about 7.5% of the total votes. This is the fourth win and follows Berlin (8.9%), Saarland (7.4%), and Schleswig-Holstein (8.2%). Rick Falkvinge has an analysis of the win.
32999465
submission
aesoteric writes:
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has voiced a renewed desire to see the company open its architecture to the masses, allowing savvy users to expand and add to their products at will. However, Wozniak qualified his desire for a more open Apple by arguing that openness should not impinge on the quality of the products themselves. He also sees any change of heart on openness as a challenge when Apple continues to rake in huge cash with its current model.
32994981
submission
wasimkadak writes:
Christopher Doyon, a.k.a. Commander X, sits atop a hillside in an undisclosed location in Canada, watching a reporter and photographer make their way along a narrow path to join him, away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.
It’s been a few weeks of encrypted emails back and forth, working out the security protocol to follow for interviewing Doyon, one of the brains behind Anonymous, now a fugitive from the FBI.
Doyon, who readily admits taking part in some of the highest-profile hacktivist attacks on websites last year — from Tunisia to Orlando, Sony to PayPal — was arrested in September for a comparatively minor assault on the county website of Santa Cruz, Calif., where he was living, in retaliation for the town forcibly removing a homeless encampment on the courthouse steps.
The “virtual sit-in” lasted half an hour. For that, Doyon is facing 15 years in jail.
32994539
submission
Drishmung writes:
Retired Judge Paul Michel, who served on the Federal Circuit 1988-2010---the court that opened the floodgates for software patents with a series of permissive decisions during the 1990s—thinks software patents are good. Yes, the patent system is flawed, but that means it should be fixed. Ars Technica have a thoughtful interview with him. Ars take: "If you care most about promoting innovation, offering carve-outs from the patent system to certain industries and technologies looks like a pragmatic solution to a serious problem. If you're emotionally invested in the success of patent law as such, then allowing certain industries to opt out looks like an admission of failure and a horrible hack."
32991565
submission
Okian Warrior writes:
Tattoo artist "Jersey" from Dynasty Tattoo (in New Jersey) implanted subdermal magnets in his arm to wear his iPod touch like a watch.
From the article: "Because Some Apple Users Are Just That “Cool”".
32989807
submission
toomuchtogrok writes:
Imagine charging your phone as you walk, thanks to a paper-thin generator embedded in the sole of your shoe. This futuristic scenario is now a little closer to reality. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a way to generate power using harmless viruses that convert mechanical energy into electricity. The scientists tested their approach by creating a generator that produces enough current to operate a small liquid-crystal display. It works by tapping a finger on a postage stamp-sized electrode coated with specially engineered viruses. The viruses convert the force of the tap into an electric charge.
32986765
submission
dotarray writes:
Battle Chess. Even the name evokes a certain imagery, a certain feel, full of knights and bishops and pawns beating the living daylights out of each other. And if you played the original 1988 smash hit game for PC, you'll also have the mental image of two queens engaging in a slap-fight, mid-board.
If you didn't play the original game, you may be about to receive a second chance, with Subdued Software announcing plans to bring the game back — and how else, but via Kickstarter.
32984731
submission
theodp writes:
His old day job at Gawker entailed calling BS on tech's high-and-mighty, but Ryan Tate still found things to like about Silicon Valley. In The 20% Doctrine, Tate explores how tinkering, goofing off, and breaking the rules at work can drive success in business. If you're lucky, your boss may someday find Tate's book in his or her conference schwag bag and be inspired enough by the tales of skunkworks projects at both tech (Google, Flickr, pre-Scott Thompson Yahoo) and non-tech (Bronx Academy of Letters, Huffington Post, Thomas Keller Restaurant Group) organizations to officially condone some form of 20% time at your place of work. In the meantime, how do you manage to find time to goof off to get ahead?
32979959
submission
xeoron writes:
Imagine if you could easily share one computer with a whole class, your whole family, the whole office that uses no remote desktop, no specialized server, and no X11 forwarding. The Plugable Thin Client project, on Kickstarter, effortlessly creates thin clients using Fedora Linux with new specialized USB driver and $50 USB hardware.
