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Enlightenment

Submission + - Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age? (tidbits.com)

Submitted by Sleeper55
Sleeper55 writes: A recent Google-produced video conducts person-on-the-street interviews asking questions including "What is a browser?", "What browser do you use?", and "Have you heard of Google Chrome?". Most of the people in the video — who appear to be functional adults and who use the Internet regularly — come off as highly clueless. According to the video, only 8 percent of people queried that day knew what a browser is. The article explores the challenges (technical support, computer books) and implications (limitations on innovation) of dealing with a population that doesn't know the terminology for the technology they use.
NASA

Submission + - SPAM: NASA probe blasts 461 gigabytes of moon data daily 1

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "On its current space scouting mission, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is using a pumped up communications device to deliver 461 gigabytes of data and images per day, at a rate of up to 100 Mbps. As the first high data rate K-band transmitter to fly on a NASA spacecraft, the 13-inch-long tube, called a Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier, is making it possible for NASA scientists to receive massive amounts of images and data about the moon's surface and environment. The amplifier was built by L-3 Communications Electron Technologies in conjunction with NASA's Glenn Research Center. The device uses electrodes in a vacuum tube to amplify microwave signals to high power. It's ideal for sending large amounts of data over a long distance because it provides more power and more efficiency than its alternative, the transistor amplifier, NASA stated. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Hardware Hackers Create a Modular Motherboard (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A group of hardware hackers have created a motherboard prototype that uses separate modules, each of which has its own processor, memory and storage. Each square cell in this design serves as a mini-motherboard and network node; the cells can allocate power and decide to accept or reject incoming transmissions and programs independently. Together, they form a networked cluster with significantly greater power than the individual modules.The design, called the Illuminato X Machina, is vastly different from the separate processor,memory and storage components that govern computers today.
Image

Verizon Sued After Tech Punches Customer In Face 493

Posted by samzenpus from the can-you-hit-me-now dept.
suraj.sun writes "A Verizon customer filed a lawsuit after the tech the company sent out got a little punchy. Instead of fixing the customer's problem, the tech allegedly hit him in the face. The New York Post says the tech attacked the customer after he asked to see some ID before allowing access to the apartment. From the article, '"You want to know my name? Here's my name," Benjamin snarled, slapping his ID card into Isakson's face, according to Isakson's account of the December 2008 confrontation. "The guy essentially snapped. He cold-cocked me, hit me two or three solid shots to the head while my hands were down," said Isakson, a limo driver. He said the pounding bloodied his face and broke his glasses. But things got uglier, Isakson said, when Benjamin squeezed him around the neck and pressed him up against the wall. "He's prepared to kill me," Isakson said. "That's all I could think of." The customer broke free and ran away. The Verizon tech then chased the customer until he was subdued by a neighbor who was an off-duty cop.'"
Games

How APB's Persistent World Will Work 33

Posted by Soulskill from the very-carefully-and-with-guns dept.
Edge Magazine recently sat down with David Jones, creative director for Realtime Worlds, the studio behind upcoming action MMO APB. He spends some time talking about their thinking behind the game, and he also gets into how their persistent online worlds will work. Quoting: "... you absolutely want 'moments' in the game. Even if it's just for thirty minutes, you want people to become celebrities — OJ Simpson on TV with the police chasing after him: you want those kind of moments in the game. We can't create them, so it's about what mission can ultimately lead to those kinds of experiences. We have what we call heat mechanics in the game, so if a criminal has just been on a complete rampage, recklessly blowing stuff up and killing people, heat builds up until eventually we unlock him to every single enforcer on the server. It's not part of their missions, it's just that this guy has become number one wanted and everyone has the authority to take him down. That's a fun mechanic from both sides; everybody who's a criminal is going to want to reach that and if you're on a mission for the enforcers you'll see that guy and wonder whether you should break away to get him. You get a lot of compound stuff which we never planned for, because it's a hundred real players interacting in ways we don't expect."

Comment Re:No, Clearly a Horrible Anti-Fair Use Ruling (Score 1) 407

by Pezistential (#29041605) Attached to: Judge Rules Against RealDVD

Or perhaps record labels and software companies should be forced by law to send replacement CDs/DVDs for free if you mail them a scratched disc with a self-addressed envelope.

Why? If you're too careless to handle your media in a way that won't damage it, why should they be liable to replace it? Should we also start requiring car dealers to send you a replacement car for free if you wreck yours?

When a car is purchased, generally people have the ability to make their own copies of the key. Ford doesn't bring your local hardware store to court for providing the service. I'm just saying...
The Matrix

How The Matrix Online Went Wrong 144

Posted by Soulskill from the not-like-this dept.
As the July 31st deadline for The Matrix Online's closure looms, Gamer Limit is running a story discussing the game's shortcomings, as well as some of the decisions that led to its failure. Quoting: "I honestly thought the writers must have absolutely hated the remaining cast of The Matrix Trilogy or something, because they constantly seemed to go out of their way to phase out existing characters in favor of newer ones. The cast overall basically made me, as a player, feel distant from the main storyline and made the entire game feel like a Matrix side story instead of the continuation it was meant to be. ... When MxO first launched there was an entire team dedicated to playing the game as Agents and other key characters as a means to further in-game events and directly interact with players, giving players the feeling that they truly were making a difference. After the SOE buyout of the game the LESIG team was reduced to playing minor characters before eventually being phased out and replaced with a Live Event Team (LET) comprised purely of volunteers."

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