Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
GUI

5 Reasons Tablets Suck, and You Won't Buy One 553

Posted by timothy from the for-some-values-of-you dept.
Crazzaper writes "When the iPad was announced, a lot of people who didn't care about tablets came out to bash Apple's new device. These same people said 'I would have bought it if it had a full OS,' but in reality full OS tablets existed before the iPad rumors even started. This article gives an interesting perspective on why this happened, and argues that there's five big reasons why more powerful tablets exists but no one cares."

Comment Re:Fix Sound! (Score 1) 244

by jjinco33 (#31344490) Attached to: Matt Asay Answers Your Questions About Ubuntu and Canonical
I assume there is a major problem, or problems, with sound for many people on Ubuntu? My experience has been the opposite. Since upgrading to 9.10, issues I had with sound just not working have been fixed. Graphics problems I had under 8.10 and 9.04 are resolved (though after the upgrade they were worse until I updated). Overall experience on my old Dell Dimension 3000 is improved. Then again this is simply my experience, and yours may be worth more.
Google

Google Considered Too Big To Fail 366

Posted by kdawson from the advertising-bubble dept.
theodp writes "Doc Searls is worried about the way Google makes money. 'Nearly all of it comes from advertising,' he frets. 'That's what pays for all the infrastructure Google is giving to the rest of us. As our dependency on Google verges on the absolute, this should be a concern.' Have we reched Peak Advertising? Blogger Dave Winer says amen, asking if Google is already 'too big to fail.'"

Submission + - ACTA To Be Reviewed by Industry Reps, Not Public (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Andorin
Andorin writes: Ars Technica writes about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, and reveals that while the public does not have access to the text of the agreement, a handful of lawyers representing Big Content and numerous companies and organizations do. "Turns out that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will include a section on Internet "enforcement procedures" after all. And how many people have had input on these procedures? Forty-two. [...] Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) found out in September that the US Trade Representative's office had actually been secretly canvassing opinions on the Internet section of the agreement from 42 people, all of whom had signed a nondisclosure agreement before being shown the ACTA draft text."
Power

Japan Plans $21B Space Power Plant 550

Posted by CmdrTaco from the but-can-it-pop-popcorn dept.
Mike writes "Japan has announced plans to send a $21 billion solar power generator into space that will be capable of producing one gigawatt of energy, or enough to power 294,000 homes. The project recently received support from Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and IHI Corp, who are now teaming up in the race to develop new technology within four years that can beam electricity back to Earth without the use of cables. Japan hopes to test a small solar satellite decked out with solar panels by the year 2015."
PlayStation (Games)

PS2 the Most Played Console In 2008 172

Posted by Soulskill from the helps-that-they-sold-140-million-of-them dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In terms of console usage, the aging PS2 still leads the competition, according to data from US research firm Nielsen. Data the company compiled between January and October 2008 shows that the PS2 commanded 31.7 percent of the total number of minutes spent playing consoles. Only 37.9 percent of play time took place on current-gen systems, with the Xbox 360 (17.2 percent) leading the Wii (13.4 percent) and the PS3 (7.3 percent). Users even spent more time playing on the original Xbox (9.7 percent) than the PS3, while Nintendo's GameCube (4.6 percent) wasn't far behind Sony's new console either." World of Warcraft once again topped the most-played PC game list by a large margin. Tetris was the top mobile game, followed by Bejeweled and Guitar Hero III.
Quickies

Submission + - Scientists working on "sex chip" (blorge.com) 1

Submitted by thefickler
thefickler writes: Imagine being able to turn your sex drive on and off. Scientists are working on just such a possibility. However, one commentator wonders "Can you be too successful?" — apparently a woman who had such a chip implanted, went from lack of interest to a very active sex drive. Her sex drive was increased to the point she decided to have the chip removed.
Medicine

Submission + - Is there a God gene? Or why we think like we do... (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by
jake-in-a-box
jake-in-a-box writes: "Why do religious people live longer, healthier lives, achieve more and in general have better quality of life? This study suggests that the meme for religion has a fitness factor because it results in better self-control, fostering goal-oriented behavior and all that comes from it. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081231005355.htm. It also has implications for understanding extremist behavior. Perhaps getting people blow themselves up is the wetware equivalent of planting a logic bomb."
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - World of Warcraft Players Fight Cancer

Submitted by
BratPrinceRy
BratPrinceRy writes: "With a call of "For the Alliance" or "For the Horde" World Of Warcraft players are doing something good in the world this week. In fact these eager players have already raised over 29 thousand dollars! They're motive? A one year subscription to their favorite game, and even the chance to have their account paid for the rest of their WoW days:

"From now till January 5th, when you make a donation of $25 to the LLS via this website and leave either "For the Alliance!" or "For the Horde!" as a comment, I will put your name in a hat. On January 8th, 2009, I will pull three names from the hat to receive one of three (3) 1-year time cards for Blizzard Entertainment's hit game, World of Warcraft, as a "thank you" gift from me to you! I will mail the card to your home address with an official Blizzard Entertainment 2008 Holiday Greeting Card personally thanking you for your donation." ( http://pages.teamintraining.org/ctx/pfchangs09/kallen )

This wonderful fundraiser is the dream child of Katherine Allen, a Blizzard employee. The fundraiser is going on until the 8th of January, so get donating! http://pages.teamintraining.org/ctx/pfchangs09/kallen"
Games

Submission + - X3: Terran Conflict DRM servers down - can't play

Submitted by brxndxn
brxndxn writes: After purchasing X3: Terran Conflict from Steam, I have been unable to activate. I went to the Steam forums that say to go to the Egosoft support forums. The Egosoft support forums say to go to http://www.tagesprotection.com/ for support.

However, in the forums, there are a lot of unhappy customers that paid for the game that are unable to activate it. In the Steam Forums for X3 (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=83), most of the subjects are copmlaining about the Tages DRM.

Also, in the Egosoft forums (http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=230592), many people are having problems with the DRM right now.

There are no new posts regarding the issue of the Tages DRM servers being down by technical support.
Image

The Best Burglar Alarm In History Screenshot-sm 137

Posted by samzenpus from the suck-it-Edison dept.
Sportsqs writes "When Nikola Tesla got creative with transformers and driver circuits at the turn of the 20th century he probably had no idea that others would have so much fun with his concepts over a hundred years later. One such guy is an Australian named Peter who runs a website called TeslaDownUnder, which showcases all his wacky Tesla ways, or rather electrickery, as Peter calls it." Very cool stuff, I wish I would have had something like this to protect my comic books from my little brother when I was a kid.
Censorship

Technical Specs Released For Aussie Net Filtering 231

Posted by timothy from the for-a-limited-time-only dept.
smallkathryn writes "Technical specifications have just been released for the Australian net filtering trial. The trial, which aims to prove that ISP-level filtering is a viable way to stop 'unwanted content' from reaching users, will go live on 24 December. The trial will involve ISPs choosing a commercially available hardware filter from an internet content filter (ICF) vendor, adding it to their networks, then loading the blacklist of unwanted sites. Still no indication of how peer-to-peer information will be addressed."
Image

Applied Security Visualization Screenshot-sm 45

Posted by samzenpus from the protect-ya-network dept.
rsiles writes "When security professionals are dealing with huge amounts of information (and who isn't nowadays?), correlation and filtering is not the easiest path (and sometimes enough) to discern what is going on. The in-depth analysis of security data and logs is a time-consuming exercise, and security visualization (SecViz) extensively helps to focus on the relevant data and reduces the amount of work required to reach to the same conclusions. It is mandatory to add the tools and techniques associated to SecViz to your arsenal, as they are basically taking advantage of the capabilities we have as humans to visualize (and at the same time analyze) data. A clear example is the insider threat and related incidents, where tons of data sources are available. The best sentence (unfortunately it is not an image ;) that describes SecViz comes from the author: 'A picture is worth a thousand log entries.'" Read on for the rest of rsiles's review.

Slashdot Top Deals

Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. -- Mickey Mouse

Close