Comment Re:Easy (Score 1) 291
To 28000 images??? even a group of trained monkeys would start revolting.
Submission + - Australian website bans Australians
Nazlfrag writes: Earlier this month the blog and discussion forum ZGeek was sued for $42 million AUD over a users comment. The plaintiffs are aspiring movie producers who claim to have lost a movie deal due to a 9/11 conspiracy discussion thread. Even though the initial lawsuit has been thrown out and the company complied with lawyers demands by taking down the offending posts it is believed the plaintiffs will file suit again. In addition to suing the forum, in an Australian first they have been granted an injunction to force the ISPs to disclose the IP addresses of the two posters involved. Due to the risk of incurring even greater legal costs the company is closing its doors in Australia and will ban their fellow countrymen from posting there again.
Submission + - 100 Million Year Old Crocodile Skull Unearthed (sciencedaily.com)
squiggly12 writes: It appears that this skull has been unearthed in North Arlington, Texas.
"We have over 50 bones exposed," said The University of Texas at Arlington dinosaurs lecturer Derek Main, who heads the project. "They are truly impressive. The teeth measure 6.5 centimeters, larger than my thumb."
"We have over 50 bones exposed," said The University of Texas at Arlington dinosaurs lecturer Derek Main, who heads the project. "They are truly impressive. The teeth measure 6.5 centimeters, larger than my thumb."
Submission + - Conservative government of Canada moves to monitor (blogs.com)
Jesse Kline writes: "The Harper Conservative government in Canada has proposed legislation that would force ISPs to install costly monitoring equipment on their networks and give the government expanded powers to monitor & censor its citizens Internet use. Unless MPs hear from their constituents, it will likely pass in the fall--but you can protect yourself from monitoring. A new series of articles in the Western Standard looks at what this legislation means and then goes on to explore how to use free software to thwart government spies and censors on the Internet."
Submission + - VoxOx 2, Universal Communicator, Launches
An anonymous reader writes: When VoxOx was released last November, it was hard to deny that the communication tools it offered were impressive. Multi-protocol chat, VoIP, some rudimentary e-mail updates, and an SMS-callback feature to initiate international calls for the cost of a local call were all rounded up under one roof. It had a problem, though: stability. VoxOx 2, available for Windows and Intel Macs running Leopard but no longer for PPC Macs, truly looks like it's fixed the stability issue. Along the way, its publisher TelCentris, has gifted it with a robust Personal Assistant feature, a super-address book that attempts to collate all your contact info under one pane, and fax support--unexpected, but there it is. VoxOx 2 can fax. Future plans include opening an SDK for developers, mobile device synchronization, and an iPhone app.
Submission + - Beer waste to be used for home ethanol production (mongabay.com)
rhettb writes: "Southern California residents will soon be able to produce their own ethanol fuel from beer residue.
GreenHouse, an alternative green energy company based in San Diego, California, has teamed with the Karl Strauss Brewing Company, to offer spent beer yeast as a biofuel feedstock for ethanol production in the E-Fuel MicroFueler, a portable ethanol micro-refinery fuel system for consumer use.
The two companies are part of the GreenHouse Developmental Pilot Program, a distribution model being introduced first in Southern California. Under the agreement the Karl Strauss Brewing Company will provide 28 tons of spent beer yeast per week to GreenHouse, which will distribute the waste throughout California to home and business-owners where, using the E-Fuel MicroFueler, they can safely and efficiently distill their own ethanol."
GreenHouse, an alternative green energy company based in San Diego, California, has teamed with the Karl Strauss Brewing Company, to offer spent beer yeast as a biofuel feedstock for ethanol production in the E-Fuel MicroFueler, a portable ethanol micro-refinery fuel system for consumer use.
The two companies are part of the GreenHouse Developmental Pilot Program, a distribution model being introduced first in Southern California. Under the agreement the Karl Strauss Brewing Company will provide 28 tons of spent beer yeast per week to GreenHouse, which will distribute the waste throughout California to home and business-owners where, using the E-Fuel MicroFueler, they can safely and efficiently distill their own ethanol."
Submission + - Blu-ray sales up 91 percent in first half of 2009 (cnet.com)
suraj.sun writes: Back in April, we reported that sales for Blu-ray Discs had nearly doubled ( http://news.cnet.com/blu-ray-sales-nearly-double-from-a-year-ago/ ) in the first quarter compared with the year before, according to Adams Media Research. Now the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) has issued a press release saying that U.S. Blu-ray sales are up 91 percent in the first half of 2009, which indicates that the format is maintaining its growth pace despite the recession.
"Although consumer spending on sellthrough packaged media was down 13.5 percent in the first half of 2009," the release says, "this was partially offset by the growth of Blu-ray (up 91 percent to $407 million) and digital distribution (up 21 percent to $968 million, which includes $196 million for electronic sellthough)." Additionally, rental spending was up 8.3 percent for the first half of 2009, "boosted by an increase in Blu-ray rental spending, which was up 62 percent."
CNET News : http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10288294-1.html
"Although consumer spending on sellthrough packaged media was down 13.5 percent in the first half of 2009," the release says, "this was partially offset by the growth of Blu-ray (up 91 percent to $407 million) and digital distribution (up 21 percent to $968 million, which includes $196 million for electronic sellthough)." Additionally, rental spending was up 8.3 percent for the first half of 2009, "boosted by an increase in Blu-ray rental spending, which was up 62 percent."
CNET News : http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10288294-1.html
Submission + - Mozilla launches tip jar for add-ons (venturebeat.com) 1
alain94040 writes: "Mozilla has launched the online equivalent of a tip jar for developers of Firefox add-ons to make money from generous users. There is now an optional "contribution button" that they can put on their add-on pages so that users can donate via PayPal.
A CNet poll is not very optimistic with 48% of the respondents saying they would never pay for add-ons."
Submission + - New DVDs suitable for long-term digital storage
anonymous cowpie writes: Here is a story about a new DVD technology that is suitable for storing data for hundreds of years, instead of the 3 to 5 years for a typical DVD.
Submission + - Twitter's Internal Strategy Leaked by TechCrunch (netparticles.com)
netParticles writes: "On Tuesday evening, TechCrunch received over 300 confidential Twitter documents and screenshots. Today they claim they have come to an agreement with Twitter to publish their internal strategy, which they did on their website. The meeting notes outline with detail the problems Twitter is facing internally but most importantly: their revenue strategy! However, could it be a deliberate "leak" to effectively crowdsource their new strategy?"
Submission + - Microsoft: We tested SQL Server for Exchange 2010 (computerworld.com)
CWmike writes: "Microsoft admits it had "absolutely" considered replacing the maligned storage engine in its Exchange e-mail server software, Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) or "Jet", with its SQL Server database. But "after much debate," the company decided to stick with the existing database in Exchange and issued a promise of a significant performance boost to it in Exchange 2010, Microsoft said in a blog post today. Some analysts are still predicting that Microsoft will switch to SQL Server in a future Exchange version, perhaps in the subsequent version slated to ship in 2013. Microsoft said that it's keeping its options open beyond Exchange 2010 and that the company is only committed "to stay on ESE at this time.""
Submission + - Dolphin brings Wii and S.Mario Galaxy on the PC (kingofgng.com)
KingofGnG writes: "As the yet partial success obtained by PCSX2 with PlayStation 2 emulation demonstrates, adequately recreating the last generations videogaming machines on a PC screen — it doesn't matter how much powerful and advanced equipped CPUs and GPUs are — isn't an easy task. For this reason the results recently achieved by GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin are exceptional to say the least and let foresee a bright future for the Nintendo machines emulation "scene"."
Submission + - New developments in NPG/Wikipedia lawsuit threat
Raul654 writes: "Last week, it was reported that the UK's National Portrait Gallery had threatened a lawsuit against an American Wikipedian for uploading pictures from the NPG's website to Wikipedia. The uploaded pictures are clearly in the public domain in the United States. (In the US, copies of public domain works are also in the public domain. UK law on the matter is unclear.) Since then, there have been several developments: EFF staff attorney Fred von Lohmann has taken on the case pro-bono; Eric Moeller, Wikimedia Foundation Deputy Director, has responded to the NPG's allegations in a post on the WMF blog; and the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies has weighed in on the dispute in favor of the NPG."
Submission + - Twitter may file suit against blogs (computerworld.com)
Lucas123 writes: "Web sites and bloggers published information pilfered from Twitters systems by hackers yesterday. Now the company could be diving into murky legal waters as it is threatening a lawsuit against those sites and bloggers. "We are in touch with our legal counsel about what this theft means for Twitter, the hacker, and anyone who accepts and subsequently shares or publishes these stolen documents," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote on his blog site."
Submission + - 160 k of LOL hand-woven memory got us to the moon (bbc.co.uk)
nan0 writes: I didn't know this... i knew of the type of memory, but i didn't realise it was hand-made in this fashion:
"The team of ex-textile workers and watch-makers were employed by defence firm Raytheon to "weave" the software into the memory of the computer... the entire computer was not so hi-tech. In order to make sure that the software was robust it was "woven" into so-called "rope core memories".
These used copper wires threaded through or around tiny magnetic cores to produce the ones and zeroes of binary code at the heart of the software.
Pass the copper wire through the core and the computer read it as a one. Pass it around and it was read as a zero.
"Once you get it wired it's not going to change without breaking those wires," said Mr Hall.
The rope core memories would become know as "LOL memory" after the "little old ladies" who knitted together the software at a factory just outside Boston.
"The team of ex-textile workers and watch-makers were employed by defence firm Raytheon to "weave" the software into the memory of the computer... the entire computer was not so hi-tech. In order to make sure that the software was robust it was "woven" into so-called "rope core memories".
These used copper wires threaded through or around tiny magnetic cores to produce the ones and zeroes of binary code at the heart of the software.
Pass the copper wire through the core and the computer read it as a one. Pass it around and it was read as a zero.
"Once you get it wired it's not going to change without breaking those wires," said Mr Hall.
The rope core memories would become know as "LOL memory" after the "little old ladies" who knitted together the software at a factory just outside Boston.
