Comment Re:Doesn't Matter (Score 1) 376
Being a serf does have it's privileges...
Submission + - Star Trek Style Phaser has been developed and it works...kinda (dailymail.co.uk)
mike2400 writes: "The Daily Mail is reporting that a man has developed a homemade working phaser. The phaser is not powerful enough to kill a Klingon but it's blue laser can pop a balloon. The story has links to video of the phaser in use."
Submission + - Mistreated Foxconn Brazil Workers Threaten Strike (appleinsider.com)
An anonymous reader writes: More bad news comes from Apple's iDevice manufacturing partner Foxconn that is sure to ruffle the feathers of Apple fans. From the story:
Factory workers at a Foxconn plant in Jundiaí, Brazil are complaining of overcrowded buses, poor food and a lack of water and have threatened to strike unless the issues are resolved by May 3. According to a report by Brazil's Tech Guru (Google Translation), over 2,500 Foxconn employees have complained about conditions at the factory. Workers reportedly met last Monday to raise the concerns and have given the company 10 days to address them.
Comment Re:Premature Article AGAIN!! (Score 2) 582
If you want product announcements maybe you should frequent Engadget not Slashdot.
Congratulations to IBM on moving forward with some world changing research.
Comment Re:Soooo.... (Score 1) 229
Interesting, I didn't know that.
I think this an issue where progress can be made because it is a cultural practice and clerics have made it clear (when pushed) that it is not part of Islamic teachings.
In the Egyptian campaign mothers said they had it done to their daughters because they felt that not having it would make them unmarriageable. Showing example of uncircumcised girls who were doing fine, gotten married, gone to school helped change a lot of minds.
Public education is needed, and personally I think the best method of delivery is soap operas.
Comment Re:Soooo.... (Score 1, Insightful) 229
Thats primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa not the Arab world. It does happen in Egypt, but a recent campaign enlisted local Muslim clerics to preach against the practice and is evidently meeting with success.
Don't you hate it when facts interfere with glib one-liners?
Comment Re:When exactly (Score 1) 241
Maybe you should travel back in time to work as a Soviet scientist then.
Submission + - 9 Million Bicycles, But What About the Cars in Beijing? (scienceworldreport.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Forget the fact of there being "9 million bicycles in Beijing, that's not a fact. Indeed, motor vehicle traffic is fast becoming a big problem that has led to unsustainable pollution and draconian rules in some parts of the city. Now, Nan Ji of the Hebei United University in China and colleagues have developed an algorithm to help traffic planners optimize the flow of traffic across roundabouts.
Submission + - Corporate America's Great Tech-Utopia Movies (time.com)
harrymcc writes: "For decades, large companies have produced short films depicting the wonders of life in the future — wonders which always involve imaginary products created by the companies in question. Apple's 1987 movie Knowledge Navigator, featuring a sort of proto-iPad, may be the best known example of the genre, but Microsoft, HP, GM, Monsanto and many other companies have produced similar films. Over at TIME, I rounded up a bunch of them, from 1940 to the present, and depicting life in years such as 1960, 1976 and 1999. Their predictions don't always fare well in retrospect, but they're always fun to revisit."
Comment Re:LOL (Score 1) 714
If you think that scenes like the TSA screaming at you at O'Hare for not moving quickly enough(*) do not justify hyperbolic descriptions then I'm afraid you haven't traveled enough internationally or just have low expectations for your country.
Invasion of Privacy
Criminalize college immaturity and you'll find half the engineering students in the docket.
Witness tampering
You got me there. Then again it shouldn't have even got to that point.
* Maybe you've had a nicer experience. Many of the rest of us haven't.
Comment Re:Damn unfortunate (Score 3, Interesting) 714
Being an asshole is not a criminal act, at least it shouldn't be. This case says more about the draconian, moralizing and punitive U.S justice system than anything else.
There is a link between this case and the jack booted airport security gauntlet if you think about it. They point to a country that has lost perspective and is increasingly unhinged.
Comment Re:It's Already been done (Score 1) 377
Wow. Any more details on this? Who was doing it? Who made the equipment? Any places on the web to read more on this?
Comment Re:It's been available in America for as long. (Score 1) 377
From what I understand there are currently no home filling compressors available. It is a tougher nut to crack then you might expect.
There was a Canadian company called Fuelmaker that was making them a while back but they went bankrupt. Honda gave them some support but then pulled it (The only reason they cared was because of their natural gas Civic GX)
Comment So many more (Score 1) 217
Western Digital TV Live is probably the most user friendly. Iomega Screenplay DX is the latest hotness.
But there are also many no name boxes out there. But they don't have the streaming licensing deals with Netflix, Hulu etc. They are however good at playing all sorts of files (mkv, iso, blu-ray iso), from shared network drives, memory cards, usb drives. Some have internal hard drives. Some will even download torrents for you. Good brands include Popcorn Hour (and the Network Media Tank platform in general), A.C Ryan, and Dune.
All made possible by cheap MIPS based CPUs from Sigma Designs and Realtek. See iboum.com, mpcclub.com and onlybestrated.com for info on these players.
Comment Re:One more issue (Score 1) 1065
If all governments stopped being so pussy assed about offending the feelings of rich people and co-ordinated a reasonable wealth tax on the super rich the way they have co-ordinated say free trade/globalization or ACTA.......think about it.
Lets say 2% on net worth over $500 million. Can anyone aside from free market fundamentalists honestly say that represents the triumph of communism?
