Leadhyena - Slashdot User

Submission + - Drone Helicopter Gets Lodged In Statue Atop Courthouse (suasnews.com)

Submitted by garymortimer on Wednesday May 01, 2013 @03:35PM

garymortimer writes: MARION, Ohio — A 7-pound remote control helicopter got stuck in the arms of a statue atop of the Marion County Courthouse.

The Marion Star reported that Terry Cline, an independent visual communications producer, director and writer, was flying the camera-equipped drone to take pictures of the Marion County Courthouse for a special project.

He told the paper that the drone caught a breeze and lost control.

“I’m amazed it ended up where it is,” he told the Marion Star.

Marion officials said they were leaving it up to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office as to how to get the drone down.

Submission + - Humans Have a Tender Spot for Robots (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit on Tuesday April 23, 2013 @10:29AM

sciencehabit writes: New research out of Germany suggests that humans look at robots as being more than just soulless pieces of hardware. In one study, nearly all the 40 (human) participants who watched a violent video of a robotic dinosaur being tortured reacted with distress. In the second study, which employed functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants were shown videos of both robots and humans being treated affectionately and then cruelly. Study subjects had virtually identical neural activation patterns in the limbic brain when robots were treated with affection as when the humans were. They also responded with similar levels of distress to the abuse videos Ultimately, this type of research can teach scientists how to build robots that we can more fully identify with and even deeply trust with tasks such as preparing our food and teaching our children.

Submission + - AMD preparing for ARM processor line launch (engadget.com)

Submitted by felipou on Tuesday April 23, 2013 @10:00AM

felipou writes: AMD is releasing the updated version of its G-Series of processors (which includes the Playstation 4 "Jaguar" processor), and with it comes the promise of ARM processors embedded with Radeon graphics chips and with power consumption as low as 3W.

Submission + - Robots Replacing Human Workers In Chinese Restaurants (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by kkleiner on Tuesday April 23, 2013 @09:20AM

kkleiner writes: Recently developed noodle-making robots have now been put into operation in over 3,000 restaurants in China. Invented by a noodle restaurant owner, each unibrow-sporting robot currently costs 10,000 yuan ($1,600), which is only three months wages for an equivalent human noodle cook. As the cost of the robot continues to drop, more noodle shops are bound to displace human workers for the tirelessly working cheaper robots.

Submission + - In-System Programming (ISP) (xeltek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18, 2013 @03:31PM

An anonymous reader writes: In-system programming (ISP) is becoming a popular programming technique where a programmable device is configured after it is placed in a circuit board. Many modern programmable devices can be reprogrammed without being removed from the circuit board, thus eliminating extra handling steps required during manufacturing.

ISP is beneficial because new technology trends make using serial ports, such as JTAG, essential for dramatically reducing development and production costs, speeding test development through automation and improving product quality because of increased fault coverage. While it is obvious that JTAG based testing can be used in the production phase of a product, new developments and applications of the IEEE-1149.1 standard have enabled the use of JTAG in many other product life cycle stages. JTAG technology is now applied to product design, prototype debugging and field service.

Submission + - World's Largest LED Light Sculpture Illuminates SF Bay Bridge (thebaylights.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 05, 2013 @02:30PM

An anonymous reader writes: To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the city has installed 25,000 LEDs on the bridge's western span, effectively transforming it into the world's largest light sculpture. The 1.8-mile-long, 500-foot-tall installation will be officially launched tonight (Inhabitat has preview photos and video) with a display of algorithmic patterns that will not repeat for the entire 2 year run of the installation. The New York Times reports that the tech industry has given generously to support the project's $8 million cost — Marissa Mayer, chief executive at Yahoo, is among the project’s patrons. Ron Conway, one of Silicon Valley’s most prolific investors, described the bridge in its natural state as “bland,” so he donated some $50,000. Paul Buchheit, an early Google employee who created the first version of Gmail gave about $250,000.

Submission + - Wash. state bill allows police to enter gun owners' homes (examiner.com)

Submitted by Examiner News on Tuesday February 19, 2013 @11:17AM

Examiner News writes: A new gun control bill sponsored by three Democrats is making its way through Washington state’s legislature. On Tuesday, SB 5737-2013-14 was filed in the state legislature. If passed into law, it would allow local sheriffs to enter the homes of gun owners for regular inspections (more than once a year) on whether firearms are properly stored.

Submission + - Canadian Court Rules You Have the Right to Google a Lawyer (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 19, 2013 @09:09AM

An anonymous reader writes: Hollywood crime dramas are infamous for the scene when an accused is taken to a local police station and permitted a single phone call to contact a relative or lawyer. While the storyline is myth — there is no limit on the number of phone calls available to an accused or detainee — Michael Geist reports on a recent Canadian case establishing a new, real requirement for law enforcement. After a 19-year old struggled to find a lawyer using the telephone, the court ruled that police must provide an accused with Internet access in order to exercise their right to counsel.

Submission + - Linux 3.8 released

Submitted by diegocg on Monday February 18, 2013 @09:00PM

diegocg writes: Linux kernel 3.8 has been released. This release includes support in Ext4 for embedding very small files in the inode, which greatly improves the performance for these files and saves some disk space. There is also a new Btrfs feature that allows to replace quickly a disk, a new filesystem F2FS optimized for SSDs, support of filesystem mount, UTS, IPC, PID, and network namespaces for unprivileged users, accounting of kernel memory in the memory resource controller, journal checksums in XFS, an improved NUMA policy redesign and, of course, the removal of support for 386 processors. Many small features and new drivers and fixes are also available. Here's the full list of changes.

Submission + - Air Force software turns warplanes into wireless routers in the sky (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Wednesday January 23, 2013 @03:29PM

coondoggie writes: "A software upgrade called Net-T effectively turns U.S. military aircraft into giant airborne wireless routers, allowing ground forces to share information with each other and with their allies overhead."

Submission + - The mathematics of the lifespan of species (npr.org)

Submitted by skade88 on Wednesday January 23, 2013 @03:24PM

skade88 writes: NPR is reporting on a study in which the author claims to have found the formula to predict the average life span of members of a species. It does not apply to specific individuals of that species, only to the average life span of members of the species as a whole.

Submission + - Finland is crowdsourcing its new copyright law (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 23, 2013 @02:43PM

An anonymous reader writes: Internet activists in Finland, upset with the country's strict copyright laws, are ready to take advantage of the country's promise to vote on any citizen-proposed bill that reaches 50,000 signatures. Digital rights group Common Sense in Copyright has proposed sweeping changes to Finland's Lex Karpela, a 2006 amendment to the Finnish copyright law that more firmly criminalized digital piracy. Under it, "countless youngsters have been found guilty of copyright crimes and sentenced to pay thousands, in some cases hundreds of thousands, of euros in punitive damages to the copyright organizations." The proposal to fix copyright is the best-rated and most-commented petition on the Open Ministry site.

Submission + - Microsoft may invest $1B-$3B in Dell buyout (cnet.com)

Submitted by alexander_686 on Tuesday January 22, 2013 @04:35PM

alexander_686 writes: We have talked about Michele Dell In Buyout Talks With Private-Equity Firms

Now the Talk is that Microsoft may invest 1 to 3 billion. I personally doubt Microsoft is going for majority ownership but it would be a significant stake. Dell is worth around 22b to 25b. Speculation is that investors would put up 5 to 7b in equity, borrowing the rest. You can do the math to determine the ownership percentage. As a point of reference, Michele Dell’s stock is worth 3.6b

We know about Microsoft’s relationship with Nokia – both in terms of ownership, swap of key personal, and the Window’s phone. Is this a repeat?

Submission + - Microsoft in talks to help finance Dell buyout (nbcnews.com)

Submitted by

walterbyrd

on Tuesday January 22, 2013 @04:18PM

walterbyrd writes: "Microsoft is in talks with Silver Lake Partners and Dell's CEO Michael Dell to invest $1 billion to $3 billion in a leveraged buyout of the PC maker, sources close to the matter told CNBC Tuesday.

For those who may not remember Silver Lake Partners:

Small World Dept.-- SCO and MS
Friday, August 29 2003 @ 04:00 PM EDT
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=274"

Submission + - Bugged guesthouse: Eric Schmidt's daughter reveals North Korea trip details (networkworld.com)

Submitted by colinneagle on Tuesday January 22, 2013 @03:34PM

colinneagle writes: Very few details have been revealed about what happened during Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt's recent visit to North Korea...other than that he urged DPRK to "embrace" open access to the Internet. The trip wasn't for Google, since a Google spokeswoman told Wired, "We do not comment on personal travel." But now his daughter has provided interesting insight by writing a blog post called "It might not get weirder than this."

She included many interesting tidbits about their visit to North Korea, including that none in the nine-person delegation to DPRK had tech along on the visit.

"We left our phones and laptops behind in China, since we were warned they'd be confiscated in NK, and probably infected with lord knows what malware."

Her frank assessment also included "an aside: For a country that banned religion, and has sent thousands of practicing Christians to prison camps, the Christmas trees were rather incongruous."

Slashdot Top Deals