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Input Devices

Researchers Debut Barcode Replacement 185

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'm-still-not-used-to-the-square-ones dept.
eldavojohn writes "MIT Researchers have unveiled a new potential replacement for barcodes. Using an LED covered with a tiny mask and a lens, these new bokodes can be processed by a standard mobile phone camera and can encode thousands of times more information than your average barcode. New applications are being dreamed up by the team. Dr. Mohan of MIT said, 'Let's say you're standing in a library with 20 shelves in front of you and thousands of books. You could take a picture and you'd immediately know where the book you're looking for is.'"
GUI

Ivan Krstić Says Negroponte's Wrong About Sugar and OLPC 137

Posted by timothy from the who-is-this-krstić-guy-anyhow dept.
Not many days ago, we mentioned ZDNet's interview with Nicholas Negroponte, in which Negroponte had some harsh things to say about Sugar and its connection to the slower-than-hoped uptake of the XO. Ivan Krstic (formerly head of the OLPC's security innovative subsystem) responded to Negroponte's claims, which he says are "nonsense." Among other things, he mentions that Sugar "was the name for the new learning-oriented graphical interface that OLPC was building, but it was also the name for the entire XO operating system, one tiny part of which was Sugar the GUI, and the rest of which was mostly Fedora Linux."
Internet Explorer

Opera CTO Thinks IE Will Be Forced To Support SVG 411

Posted by timothy from the even-paternalism-has-the-occasional-perq dept.
Julie188 writes "Opera Software is, as expected, preening over the forthcoming browser ballot box feature in Windows 7. It will put the Opera name in front of millions of users who probably never heard of it. But that's not the only reason Opera is gloating. CTO Håkon Wium Lie feels that today's decision will force Microsoft to make Internet Explorer do a better job of supporting standards, particularly the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Lie would also like to see Apple and Linux makers follow suit with browser ballot boxes of their own."
Communications

26 Years Old and Can't Write In Cursive 921

Posted by timothy from the but-good-penmanship-is-sexy dept.
theodp writes "Back in 1942, Chicago mail-order house Spiegel's looked to handwriting analysis to identify inconsistent, unreliable, poorly adjusted people. Ah, those were the days. TIME reports we are witnessing the death of handwriting, noting that Gen Y struggles with cursive and the group following them has even less of a need for good penmanship. And while the knee-jerk explanation is that computers are to blame for our increasingly illegible scrawl, literacy prof Steve Graham explains that kids haven't learned to write neatly because no one has forced them to. 'Writing is just not part of the national agenda anymore,' he says. So much for 100 Years of Handwriting Success!"
Microsoft

Celebrate Your Next Birthday At the Microsoft Store 301

Posted by kdawson from the innovation-on-display dept.
theodp writes "Chuck E. Cheese, meet Bill H. Gates. A leaked PowerPoint posted at Gizmodo provides a glimpse of what Microsoft's retail shops may look like, noting that you'll even be able to pay to celebrate your birthday there. Some of the stores that were profiled for ideas were Nike, Nokia, Sony, Apple, and AT&T. Microsoft's take on the Genius Bar is the Answers Bar (aka Guru Bar, Windows Bar)."
Privacy

SpinVox "Recognition" Is Often Expensive Human Transcription 226

Posted by timothy from the comes-with-free-offsite-backups dept.
An anonymous reader writes "SpinVox offers to convert voice messages to text using a system called D2 or 'the Brain.' According to BBC News, said 'Brain' is often of the old-fashioned kind: SpinVox is sending private voice messages to South Africa, the Philippines, and maybe Egypt to be typed by people in a call centre, despite being registered as keeping all private data inside Europe and claiming that the text is somehow anonymised. Insiders say they transcribed 'love messages, secret messages' and everything else from beginning to end, and the company is being bled dry by the cost: SpinVox has been locked out of one of their data centers over a payment dispute. SpinVox refuses to comment further on details — but according to their web page, they're 'enabling the Speech 3.0, Voice 3.0, and Business 3.0 markets,' whatever that means."
The Internet

Why the Photos On Wikipedia Are So Bad 572

Posted by kdawson from the does-this-cellphone-snap-make-me-look-fat dept.
Reservoir Hill writes "The NY Times has an article investigating why, unlike the articles on Wikipedia which in theory are improved, fact checked, footnoted, and generally enhanced over time, the photos that go with Wikipedia articles are so bad and in many cases there is no photo at all for even well known public figures. Few high-quality photographs, particularly of celebrities, make it onto on Wikipedia because Wikipedia runs only pictures with the most permissive Creative Commons license, which allows anyone to use an image, for commercial purposes or not, as long as the photographer is credited. 'Representatives or publicists will contact us' horrified at the photographs on the site, says Jay Walsh, a spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation. 'They will say: "I have this image. I want you to use this image." But it is not as simple as uploading a picture that is e-mailed to us.' Recent photographs on Wikipedia are almost exclusively the work of amateurs who don't mind giving away their work. 'Amateur may be too kind a word; their photos tend to be the work of fans who happen to have a camera,' opines the Times's author. Ultimately the issue for professional photographers who might want to donate their work is copyright. 'To me the problem is the Wikipedia rule of public use,' says Jerry Avenaim, a celebrity photographer. 'If they truly wanted to elevate the image on the site, they should allow photographers to maintain the copyright.'"
The Media

Don't Copy That Floppy! Gets a Sequel 523

Posted by timothy from the not-the-jailhouse-fantasy-I-signed-up-for dept.
theodp writes "Back in 1992, the SIIA released Don't Copy That Floppy!, a goofy video in which anti-piracy rapper MC Double Def DP convinces a young lad not to copy a game by appealing to his sense of right and wrong. Now, to address what it calls 'new generations and new temptations,' the SIIA has uploaded a trailer for a new anti-piracy rap video — Don't Copy That 2 — that will be released this summer. To underscore the video's it's-not-just-a-copy-it's-a-crime message, the new film is a tad darker than the original. A smug teen who's downloading files from 'Pirates Palace' and 'Tune Weasel' finds his world turned upside down when automatic weapons-toting government agents break down the door and take his Mom away in handcuffs. The teen finds himself in a prison jumpsuit forced to tattoo shirtless adult inmates who eventually turn on him, physically attack him, and make him run for his life back to his jail cell (image summarizing his plight)."
Image

Railway Workers Get Daily Smile Scans Screenshot-sm 385

Posted by samzenpus from the *_* dept.
More than 500 workers at Japan's, Keihin Electric Express Railway, must have their faces scanned each morning to determine their optimum smile. The "smile scan" analyzes a smile based on facial characteristics, from lip curves and eye movements to wrinkles. After the program scans you, it produces a smile rating that ranges from zero to 100 depending on the estimated potential of your biggest smile. If your number is sufficient, you can go about your day grinning like a maniac. If your smile number is too low the computer will give you a message such as, "lift up your mouth corners" or "you still look too serious." Every morning employees receive a printout of their daily smile which they are expected to keep with them throughout the day.
The Internet

uSocial Sells Twitter Followers By the Thousand 118

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the how-to-know-when-you've-jumped-the-shark dept.
bfire writes to tell us that marketing firm uSocial has decided to apply a new monetization scheme to the Twitter service by providing packages of followers for purchase. "According to the firm, a single Twitter follower could be worth $0.10 a month. It is selling followers in various packages, starting at 1,000 for $87, which is delivered in seven days, and going all the way up to 100,000 followers at a cost of $3,479, delivered over a year." This is just the latest in a number of different exploits and problems of the Twitter universe as individuals try to subvert a popular tool into a self-serving device.

Comment Re:worst shortcomings are usually crappy stories (Score 1) 241

by uid8472 (#28567103) Attached to: The Essentials of RPG Design

The system used in the roguelike Linley's Dungeon Crawl (and its currently-maintained fork, Stone Soup) mostly takes care of that: when you get XP, you also get an equal number skill points; whenever an action practices a skill, some number of points from that skill pool are transferred into the skill, and eventually the skill levels up. If the pool is empty, you don't gain skill. (Also, in the skill screen, skills can be set to not be actively practiced, which greatly reduces the skill points consumed by using them; this is for things like if you're using a given type of weapon but don't plan on specializing in it.)

In practice, there's still some incidence of "victory dancing" --- after a big kill, standing around repeatedly casting some spell to make sure that the points go into some particular magic skill(s) --- but not much, and because the points would have gone into something useful anyway, it's more a question of whether the player actually wants to do that kind of powergaming.
Medicine

Staying In Shape vs. a Busy IT Job Schedule? 865

Posted by timothy from the no-not-the-regular-hacker's-diet dept.
tnok85 writes "I started a new job ~7 months ago at a very large company working a 12-hour night shift (7PM-7AM) in a fairly high volume NOC. Our responsibilities extend during the night to basically cover everything but the most complex situations regarding UNIX/Windows/Linux/App administration, at which point we'll reach out to the on-calls. I live 1.5 hours away as well, so it turns into 4-5 15 hour days a week of sitting still — throw in almost an hour to get ready to leave, and a bit of time after I get home to unwind and I'm out of time to work out. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure I have a very slow metabolism, ever since I was a pre-teen I would gain weight fairly quickly if I didn't actively work out, regardless of how much or what I eat. (Barring starving myself, I suppose...) So, how does somebody who works a minimum of 60 hours over 4 days, often adding another 12 another day, and sometimes working 7-10 days straight like this, stay in shape? I can't hold a workout schedule, (which every person I've talked to in my history says is necessary to stay in shape) and I can't 'wake up early' or 'work out before bed' because I need sleep. Any thoughts/opinions/suggestions?"
Censorship

China Delays "Green Dam" Internet Filter 86

Posted by kdawson from the step-too-far dept.
SailorSpork sends in a BBC report that "China is delaying a controversial plan requiring all new computers sold in the country to be equipped with an Internet filtering software, state media says. The filter, called Green Dam Youth Escort, was to have been required from Wednesday, but the ministry of industry said computer makers needed more time." The submitter adds: "Except of course for Sony, who as reported earlier lacked the moral fiber to hold off installing the spyware, which reportedly is ridden with security holes and uses stolen code. Sony actually managed to ship ahead of the schedule."
GUI

Nielsen Recommends Not Masking Passwords 849

Posted by timothy from the *****-****-**-******** dept.
Mark writes "Usability expert and columnist Jakob Nielsen wants to abolish password masking: 'Usability suffers when users type in passwords and the only feedback they get is a row of bullets. Typically, masking passwords doesn't even increase security, but it does cost you business due to login failures.' I've never been impressed by the argument that 'I can't think why we need this (standard) security measure, so let's drop it.' It usually indicates a lack of imagination of the speaker. But in this case, does usability outweigh security?"
Image

Iran Tries To Pacify Protesters With Lord of The Rings Marathon Screenshot-sm 419

Posted by samzenpus from the chip-the-glasses-and-crack-the-plates-that's-what-Ahmadinejad-hates dept.
Iranian state television's Channel Two is playing a Lord of the Rings marathon in an attempt to keep people inside watching hobbits and not protesting in the streets. Normally, people in Tehran are treated to one or two Hollywood movies a week, but with recent events the government hopes that sitting through a nine-hour trilogy will take the fight out of most of the protesters. Perhaps this was not the best choice in films if you want your people not to believe that "even the smallest person can change the course of the future."

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