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Comment Evolve or Die (Score 1) 338

by Edis Krad (#26194335) Attached to: Are Newspapers Doomed?
If I was a newspaper CEO, I would consider doing some serious investment in e-paper technology.
If you manage to create a portable newspaper that, coupled with wireless broadcasting, updates every minute of every hour for a subscription of a couple of dollars a month, you have nothing to worry about.
Privacy

Submission + - Flagship Explains EULA (hellgatelondon.com)

Submitted by Edis Krad
Edis Krad writes: In what maybe probably be a response to the concerns of privacy violations and adware in Hellgate:London, Flagship Studios released an announcement to explain there is nothing to fear. The EULA, according to them, does not track single individuals and all gathered information is to pin down hacks and cheats, for better gameplay. As for the advertising, if any, will be put on the subway stations, as regular stations do have advertising, becoming non-intrusive. There'll be no Super-Cola Sword of Goodness (+5 to refreshment) at all.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Exploding Toilets

Submitted by Edis Krad
Edis Krad writes: With the hype of exploding laptops, toilets were just the next thing waiting to ignite. A toilet at a hospital in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan, suddenly caught on fire. The incident wasn't a prankster related joke, but rather due to seat overheating. Luckily, no bottoms were harmed in this episode
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Second Life to be Evangelized

Submitted by Edis Krad
Edis Krad writes: Among the many changes Second Life has been experiencing lately (such as the banning of gambling), it will now undergo a spiritual transformation. Going to distant, uncharted lands to spread the knowledge of Christianity has always been the way of the Jesuits, which have given its missionaries an aura of adventurers. This time, however, instead of going deep into the jungles of Africa or the far lands of China, missionaries will face the 'risqué' lands of Second Life. From the article:

"This virtual Second Life is becoming populated with churches, mosques, temples, cathedrals. synagogues, places of prayer of all kinds. And behind an avatar there is a man or a woman, perhaps searching for God and faith, perhaps with very strong spiritual needs."
Does this mean I will be now able to attend church from my living-room in my underwear?
Microsoft

Submission + - Bill Gates No Longer Richest Man 1

Submitted by Edis Krad
Edis Krad writes: According to this article, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is no longer the richest man in the world. His place has allegedly been taken by Mexican Businessman Carlos Slim. From the article:

A Reuters report, citing analysis in the online financial publication Sentido Comun, says Bill Gates is no longer the richest person in the world. His wealth was surpassed by that of Mexican magnate Carlos Slim after shares in one of Slim's biggest holdings increased 27 percent in the second quarter.
While the change is due to Slim's gains (not Microsoft losses), could this be a sign of Microsoft's lack of ability to keep up with business?
Google

Submission + - Gmail Paper

Submitted by illeism
illeism writes: What's this? Could it be? Gmail Paper is the newest offering from the massive brain trust at Google. Imagine getting a real printout of all your email, delivered free of charge to you home.
Has Google flipped it's lid or is this the start of a new age of email security?
Input Devices

Submission + - Optimus Keyboard's Price Off The Charts

Submitted by Edis Krad
Edis Krad writes: The Optimus Keyboard project blog has a recent update on the keyboard's release date, pre-order date and pricing. According to this post, it is planned to start shipping on late November / early December 2007, and they will start taking pre-orders later this month. Unfortunately, the price seems to be way over what they originally claimed (the price of a good mobile phone). At USD 1,490, it seems to be a very expensive geek toy. Personally, I rather use a 5 bucks, generic USB keyboard and buy me a very nice screen which I, ultimately, look at longer than I look at the keyboard.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Spin Your Electric Meter Backwards

Submitted by
Dennis Sweatt
Dennis Sweatt writes: "How Energy from the Sun Can Improve Your Cash Flow: Return on Investment. A large portion of the cost of a residential system is offset by state rebates and federal tax credits. In addition, installing a solar electric system increases the value of your home up to 8%. How It Works: The solar rebate system in California comes under a program known as the Emerging Renewables Program. Through this program, utility companies in California provide rebate programs for solar, fuel cell and wind power systems used on residences. Power Without Maintenance: Solar cells perform the conversion without moving parts, noise, pollution, radiation or maintenance. The special properties of semiconductor materials make this conversion possible. http://sierrawesternhomeloans.com/Solar_Power.html "
Education

Submission + - Teacher + porn malware + students = 40 yr sentence

Submitted by nettework
nettework writes: A jury in Norwich, CT has has convicted substitute teacher Julie Amero on four counts of risk of injury to a minor because she was viewing porn on the classroom computer during class. The 40-year-old and married Amero, who "did not even know how to turn off a monitor", was in charge of the class when the classroom computer (which was not behind a firewall because the school had failed to pay the bill) began spewing out pornographic images in windows she couldn't close. Because of a legal technicality, the jurors weren't allowed to see the full testimony of computer forensics experts Herb Horner, who (surprisingly!) discovered that the computer was infested with malware and spyware and that these pop-up images were the result. From a juror in the case:

The bottom line was that it didn't make a difference who or how the porn sites showed up on the computer...If you and your wife were watching an xxx rated movie the you put into the dvd player, you powered it up and you hit play, then went into the other room for a snack and your child or grandchild entered the room would you expect your wife to stop the dvd or just let it play because she didn't start it. No you would be upset as all get out.
She faces up to 40 years in prison, and her sentencing is March 2.
The Internet

Submission + - Rounding Up the Modern Homebrew Scene

Submitted by
AKAImBatman
AKAImBatman writes: "As The Pensive Gamer points out in its recent series of articles, the latest generation of game consoles represents the first time in history that consoles have provided features that allow the average joe to create his own games. While homebrewing is not a new concept, it has traditionally focused on out of date systems like the Atari 2600 and the Sega Dreamcast. i.e. Systems that no longer matter enough to manufacturer to prevent homebrewing. Yet the features of today's console systems may be changing everything.

The Sony PS3 provides programmers with a full-up development environment for the Cell CPU and Bluray drive by encouraging users to install a Linux variant on it. While this creates a huge number of game creation opportunities on the PS3, the resulting game ends up being difficult to distribute. Fellow homebrewers might happily install Linux on their PS3s, but convincing the rest of Sony's target market to do so may be a bit difficult.

The next best option — supported by both the PS3 and the Nintendo Wii — is to run web-enabled games in the console's web browser. Flash games in particular have become a very popular way of playing homebrew content on a console system. Yet here, the Wii has a distinct advantage. The in-built ability for the Wii Remote to act as a mouse allows for a wide variety of Flash games to be played out of the box. So many in fact, that Wii-specific gaming sites like Wiicade have been popping up left and right.

Even more exciting is the fact that the keycodes for the Wii Remote buttons have been decoded by enterprising individuals, but only through Javascript. While experiments with Javascript to Flash communication are underway, the first Javascript game to use the Wii Remote controls has already appeared, with promises of more exciting Opera Canvas games on on the horizon.

While the XBox 360 lacks a web browser, it does have perhaps the most exciting feature of all. Microsoft's XNA Game Studio allows for complete games that take advatage of the underlying hardware. (In direct opposition to the Wii and PS3 options.) The only downside are that Microsoft charges a subscription fee, and that homebrews must be redistributed in source code form. (Though the latter limitation may please the OSS community to a certain degree.) Undeterred, the 360 community is embracing this new support with many new games on the way.

Altogether, the amount of audience participation available in these consoles is wholly unlike anything seen before. With any luck, this bodes well for the future of the homebrew community and the casual gamer alike."
Space

Submission + - Interstellar Ark

Submitted by
xantox
xantox writes: "There are three strategies to travel 10.5 light-years from Earth to Epsilon Eridani and bring humanity into a new stellar system : 1) Wait for future discovery of Star Trek physics and go there almost instantaneously, 2) Build a relativistic rocket powered by antimatter and go there in 22 years by accelerating constantly at 1g, provided that you master stellar amounts of energy (so, nothing realistic until now), but what about 3): go there by classical means, by building a gigantic Ark of several miles in radius, propulsed by nuclear fusion and featuring artificial gravity, oceans and cities, for a travel of seven centuries — where many generations of men and women would live ? This new speculation uses some actual physics and math to figure out how far are our fantasies of space travel from their actual implementation."
Toys

Submission + - Geek Toys for Kids

Submitted by Edis Krad
Edis Krad writes: An CNN Money article reviews the Hot Toys for 2007. From the article:

"Industry leaders have accepted that kids are becoming more technology savvy at a younger age, and therefore are more inclined to discard their Barbie dolls and Power Ranger action figures for the cool MP3 player or camera cell phone."

Among those, I was particularly impressed with the Video Journal (blogging for kids?), the virtual bicycle (apparently, riding a real bicycle isn't cool enough anymore), and last but not least, the robotic parrot , that oddly reminds me of the replicant owl in Blade Runner

As technology becomes cheaper and more available, is it true that kids prefer cool gadgets rather and soccer balls and baseball gloves?
Censorship

Submission + - Ethics of proxy servers

Submitted by
Mav
Mav writes: "I was recently asked to host a website for free in return for a lot of advertising. After querying them about how they knew the site would produce traffic they stated the site was going to be running PHPProxy (an open source web proxy). The traffic was a result of him and his contacts (nearly one thousand of them) using the site to bypass his school's firewall in order to view their MySpace pages and get access to their MSN messengers. Given all the attention social networking sites have recently received and the various laws attempting to block or control access to them I feel guilty and unsure making this available. Are there legal implications that I need to worry about? Could I be held liable if one of the students got in trouble? Most importantly, what's the moral thing to do?"

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