Comment Not useless... (Score 1) 443
... but definitely frivolous. Great quality, but just an expensive frivolous toy... Just like all things Apple...
Comment Re:nice, but (Score 2, Insightful) 401
You want choice, you can always go for one of these.
I find it weird that I don't see as much coverage for this nice little product from a small company as I see for speculative, unfinished and proprietary products like this.
Submission + - Russian security firm reveals a flaw a day
An anonymous reader writes: A little known Russian security firm has taken the bold step of releasing details of zero-day exploits in business software every day for the rest of January according to reports. Security expert Brian Krebs revealed that Intevydis will post advisories on products from big name vendors such as IBM, Novell and Sun Microsystems, in protest at a 'responsible disclosure' policy which it regards as a waste of time. The firm has already made good on its threat, posting details of a bug in Sun Directory Server 7.0 on Monday and one in Tivoli Directory Server 6.2 yesterday.
Submission + - 11 Incredible Music Albums you can Download for Fr (imaginaryplanet.net)
rjnagle writes: You may have heard about Jamendo , a free and legal music sharing site that offers more than 29,000 music albums for free download. Over the last 3 years I've listened to 2200+ albums and chosen the 11 Best Music Albums from Jamendo which you can download for free . Given the fact that Jamendo is reported to be experiencing financial difficulties , Jamendo may not be around for much longer. Is Jamendo too important to the music community to fail? What can it do to make it more attractive as a business model? And where will listeners go to find free & legal music if Jamendo were to disappear?
Submission + - Gmail Moves to HTTPS by Default (blogspot.com)
clone53421 writes: Although Gmail has long supported HTTPS as an option, Gmail announced their decision yesterday to switch everyone to HTTPS by default:
We initially left the choice of using it up to you because there's a downside: https can make your mail slower since encrypted data doesn't travel across the web as quickly as unencrypted data. Over the last few months, we've been researching the security/latency tradeoff and decided that turning https on for everyone was the right thing to do.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the reports of Chinese users having their accounts hacked? ‘Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves,’ said David Drummond in that blog update. That does sound like it perhaps could be a result of insecure HTTP traffic being intercepted in transit between the users and Gmail’s servers.
Submission + - Robot Fish Teach Japanese Children About Sealife (inhabitat.com)
MikeChino writes: Marine scientist and self-taught roboticist Masamichi Hayashi has created a remarkable cast of over 100 robotic sea creatures, which he uses to teach Japanese children about the movements of sea animals. The robots include sharks, green turtles, killer whales, and giant salamanders — all assembled from recycled items including plastic bottles, food containers, styrofoam, raincoats, and motors removed from windshield wipers.
Submission + - Gordon: Pure JavaScript open source Flash runtime (github.com)
Stephan Seidt writes: A working Flash runtime written in JavaScript only. It's got a parser for the binary swf format and an svg rendering backend. Currently only SWF version 1 is supported, though support for newer flash versions (including ActionScript) is already planned. Go check it out!
Submission + - iPhone Halloween Costume With Animated Mouth
andylim writes: This Halloween I will be wearing a robot mask which uses an iPhone for a mouth. Using a cardboard box and an iPhone app, I managed to create a retro robot mask with a mouth that moves when you talk. The app, which is called MouthOff, costs 59p and features 37 cartoon mouths. Make sure you put your iPhone on airplane mode before you put the mask on, otherwise the mouth effect will be ruined when you get a call.
Submission + - Wolfram Alpha Launches $50 iPhone App (mashable.com)
An anonymous reader writes: On Thursday WolframAlpha launched its developer API, which should allow large and small developers (as well as businesses and educational institutions) to harness the power of the computational knowledge engine to enhance their own applications or products. On Sunday, the WolframAlpha iPhone app ” which was built using the new API ” was released to the App Store.
This article is complete with screen shots of the new app and thorough use cases including: mortgage analysis, book information, film information, music in formation, full graphing calculator, business comparison, and much more.
This article is complete with screen shots of the new app and thorough use cases including: mortgage analysis, book information, film information, music in formation, full graphing calculator, business comparison, and much more.
Submission + - Micron increases NAND flash endurance six fold (computerworld.com)
Lucas123 writes: Flash memory maker Micron said it has been able to increase the native write/erase cycles in its multi-layer cell (MLC) NAND flash memory by six-fold or up to 30,000 writes over its lifetime. The company also said its latest lithography technique also increases its single-layer cell (SLC) NAND endurance by six-fold or up to 300,000 write cycles. The technology advance means MLC NAND flash is now not only suited for consumer use in iPods and laptop solid state disk drives, but also for data center applications, Micron said.
Submission + - SPAM: MySQL cofounder says Oracle should sell database
alphadogg writes: Oracle should resolve antitrust concerns over its acquisition of Sun Microsystems by selling open-source database MySQL to a suitable third party, its cofounder and creator Michael "Monty" Widenius said in a blog post [spam URL stripped] on Monday. Oracle's $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun is currently being held up by an investigation by the European Commission. The Commission's main concern seems to be MySQL, which was acquired by Sun in January 2008 for $1 billion. A takeover by the world's leading proprietary database company of the world's leading open source database company compels the regulator to closely examine the effects on the European market, according to remarks made by Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes last month. The key objective by Widenius is to find a home outside Oracle for MySQL where the database can be developed and compete with existing products, including Oracle's, according to Florian Mueller, a former MySQL shareholder who is currently working with Monty Program AB on this matter.
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Universal Binaries for Linux (icculus.org)
GiMP writes: From the website, FatELF is a file format that embeds multiple ELF binaries for different architectures into one file. This is the Linux equivalent of what Mac OS X calls 'Universal Binaries.' FatELF lets you pack binaries into one file, seperated by OS ABI, OS ABI version, byte order and word size, and most importantly, CPU architecture. Work is focused on GNU/Linux, but this could be applied to most modern Unix systems: the BSDs, Solaris, etc. Distributions no longer need to have separate downloads for various platforms. Given enough disc space, there's no reason you couldn't have one DVD .iso that installs an x86-64, x86, PowerPC, SPARC, and MIPS system, doing the right thing at boot time. You can remove all the confusing text from your website about 'which installer is right for me?'
Submission + - Why the heck are people still using POP3? (emailserviceguide.com) 2
Siker writes: Email Service Guide asked "Why the heck are people still using POP3 [...instead of IMAP]?" Remarkably the answer does not seem to be "because they don't know any better" because at Email Discussions an intense debate erupted over the topic. In this day of large storage server accounts and multiple access devices for email accounts, is there a reason other than habit for POP3?
Submission + - Windows: From the beginning to Seven (channelinsider.com)
dasButcher writes: Nearly a quarter-century has passed since Windows 1.01 hit the market. Since then, nearly 30 different primary versions of the operating system have either been developed or released to market — each with varying degrees of performance and success, and Vista wasn't the first major failure. Here's a look back at the major versions of Windows over the last 25 years (http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/Microsoft/Windows-Start-to-Seven-151438/), including some forgotten versions such as Windows Neptune.
VASIMR Ion Engine Could Cut Mars Trip To 39 Days 356
An anonymous reader writes "It would take about 39 days to reach Mars, compared to six months by conventional rocket power. 'This engine is in fact going to be tested on the International Space Station, launched about 2013,' astronaut Chris Hadfield said. The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR®) system encompasses three linked magnetic cells. The 'Plasma Source' cell involves the main injection of neutral gas (typically hydrogen, or other light gases) to be turned into plasma and the ionization subsystem. The 'RF Booster' cell acts as an amplifier to further energize the plasma to the desired temperature using electromagnetic waves. The 'Magnetic Nozzle' cell converts the energy of the plasma into directed motion and ultimately useful thrust."
