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Games

Today's Gamers, Tomorrow's Leaders? 245

Posted by CmdrTaco from the something-to-think-about dept.
slash-sa writes "Video games have become problem-solving exercises wrapped in the veneer of an exotic adventure. In today's fast and rapidly-changing business environment, the strategic skills they teach are more important than ever. From realistic battlefield simulations to the building of great nations, from fantastic voyages through worlds of mythology to conquering space, "Generation G" could well offer the answer to unlocking great 21st century strategists and leaders."
Robotics

Personal Robots From Valley Startup 87

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'll-believe-it-when-it's-cooking-me-dinner dept.
Tjeerd writes ""A Silicon Valley start-up is developing a hardware and software development platform for personal-assistant robots, autonomous boats and unmanned cars. The privately funded company, quietly started almost a year ago by eGroups founder and veteran Google architect Scott Hassan, plans to make its robotics software open source. That way, it hopes to draw a community of developers to build applications in these respective fields.""
Space

"All Quiet Alert" Issued For the Sun 463

Posted by kdawson from the that-would-fix-global-warming dept.
radioweather writes "The phrase sounds like an oxymoron, and maybe it is, but the sun is extremely quiet right now, so much in fact that the Solar Influences Data Center in Belgium issued an unusual 'All quiet alert' on October 5th. Since then the sunspot number has remained at zero — solar cycle 24 has not yet started. There are signs that the sun's activity is slowing. The solar wind has been decreasing in speed, and this is yet another indicator of a slowing in the sun's magnetic dynamo. There is talk of an extended solar minimum occurring. There are a number of theories and a couple of dozen predictions about the intensity solar cycle 24 which has yet to start. One paper by Penn & Livingstonin in 2006 concludes: 'If [trends] continue to decrease at the current rate then the number of sunspots in the next solar cycle (cycle 24) would be reduced by roughly half, and there would be very few sunspots visible on the disk during cycle 25.' We'll know more in about six months what the sun decides to do for cycle 24."
Education

MIT Student Arrested For Wearing 'Tech Art' Shirt At Airport 1547

Posted by Zonk from the don't-be-a-jerk-to-the-police,-they-have-guns dept.
SuperBanana writes "According to a report by the Boston Globe, MIT Student Star Simpson was nearly shot by Logan Airport police who thought she was armed with a bomb. She approached an airline employee wearing a prototyping board with electronic components, crudely attached to the front of her sweatshirt and holding 'putty' in her hand. She asked about an incoming flight, and did not respond when asked about the device. Armed police responded. 'Simpson was charged with possessing a hoax device and was arraigned today East Boston Municipal Court. She was held on $750 cash bail and ordered to return to court Oct. 29. "Thankfully because she followed our instructions, she ended up in our cell instead of a morgue," Pare said. "Again, this is a serious offense ... I'm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport."'"
Slashdot.org

Submission + - Slashdot References in Popular Culture? 1

Submitted by
The Living Fractal
The Living Fractal writes: "So I'm reading Century Rain, a great SF book by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds, and at about page 80 or so I stumble onto a hidden Slashdot reference. Reynolds' character "Niagara" runs a finger diagonally across his chest then 'dots' next to the slash, then goes on to talk about a community of progressive thinkers on one of the earliest computer networks (today's internet) who eventually founded his society. They're even called Slashers! Maybe old news to some of you, but a nice surprise for me nevertheless.
Does anyone else have /. easter eggs they've found that they can share with us?"
Businesses

Piracy More Serious Than Bank Robbery? 501

Posted by kdawson from the copyright-trumps-all dept.
An anonymous reader writes sends us to Ars Technica for a dissertation on how detached and manipulative the discussion about copyright is becoming. "NBC/Universal general counsel Rick Cotton suggests that society wastes entirely too much money policing crimes like burglary, fraud, and bank-robbing, when it should be doing something about piracy instead. 'Our law enforcement resources are seriously misaligned,' Cotton said. 'If you add up all the various kinds of property crimes in this country, everything from theft, to fraud, to burglary, bank-robbing, all of it, it costs the country $16 billion a year. But intellectual property crime runs to hundreds of billions [of dollars] a year.'" Ars points out how completely specious that "hundreds of billions" is.
Bug

Submission + - Software Bug Halts F-22 Flight

Submitted by mgh02114
mgh02114 writes: The new US stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor, was deployed for the first time to Asia earlier this month. The first flight from Hawaii to Japan was forced to turn back when a software glitch crashed the F-22 on-board computers as they crossed the international date line. The delay in arrival in Japan was previously reported here and here, with rumors of problems with the software. CNN television, however, this morning reported that all every fighter completely lost all navigation and communications when they crossed the international date line. They reportedly had to turn around and follow their tankers by visual contact back to Hawaii. According to the CNN story, if they had not been with their tankers, or the weather had been bad, this would have been serious. CNN has not put up anything on their website yet. This follows previous reports that a software bug in the F-16, caught in simulation before the plane ever flew, that would have caused the fighter to flip upside down when flying over the equator.
Books

Submission + - What's In A Twinkie?

Submitted by
ctwxman
ctwxman writes: "I grew up on Devil Dogs. Alas, there's no Devil Dog book, but now there is one about Twinkies — nature's perfect food thanks to the miracle of modern science and advanced chemistry! "Why is it you can bake a cake at home with as few as six ingredients, but Twinkies require 39? And why do many of them seem to bear so little resemblance to actual food?" Pure goodness doesn't come easy. Steve Ettlinger is the author of "Twinkie, Deconstructed," the definitive Twinkie story... even without the official help of the keepers of the Twinkie secret. It's all summarized on MSNBC. Before clicking, make sure you have a glass of milk handy."
Internet Explorer

Submission + - IE7 and FF 2.0 share vulnerability

Submitted by hcmtnbiker
hcmtnbiker writes: Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.0 share a logic flaw. The issue is actually more severe, as the two versions of the Microsoft and Mozilla browsers are not the only ones affected. The vulnerability impacts Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7, and Firefox 1.5.0.9. "In all modern browsers, form fields (used to upload user-specified files to a remote server) enjoy some added protection meant to prevent scripts from arbitrarily choosing local files to be sent, and automatically submitting the form without user knowledge. For example, ".value" parameter cannot be set or changed, and any changes to .type reset the contents of the field," said Michal Zalewski, the person that discovered the IE7 flaw. There are Proof of concepts for both IE7 and firefox
Security

Submission + - Dealing with Security Bugs: A Primer

Submitted by
CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: "ACM Queue's current issue on Open Source Security includes a short article by Eric Allman of Sendmail on how to handle security bugs in your code. "Patch with full disclosure. Particularly popular in the open source world (where releasing a patch is tantamount to full disclosure anyway), this involves opening the kimono and exposing everything, including a detailed description of the problem and how the exploit works... Generally speaking, it is easier to find bugs in open source code, and hence the pressure to release quickly may be higher.""
The Internet

Submission + - Looking for email to web service

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The place where I work has blocked web access and I've been reduced to using an email to web service for web browsing. The biggest downsides to this are the dearth of servers as well as the slow response times of the ones that are available. I've considered setting up my own www4mail http://www.www4mail.org/ server but I've read that My provider (ATT) won't allow an email server on a home account. There are free hosting services that will allow tou to run scripts but again the email restriction applies there as well. Are there any other options I am missing?
Printer

Submission + - New technology could pave the way for 3-D printers

Submitted by
nomoreself
nomoreself writes: "According to a story over on Physics Web, a team of scientists in Jerusalem have come up with a method for creating self-assembling 3-dimensional models from a single sheet of paper. The "Chemical origami" is created by etching a pattern of monomer onto the paper, then heating it. The chemical's reaction to the heat causes bends of varying size in the paper, molding the sheet into the patterned model. A professor in the States with no apparent ties to the study whatsoever says in the article that the technique could be used to create self-assembling prototypes, or even a printer that prints 3-D objects."
The Internet

Submission + - The Pirate Bay to stay in Sweden

Submitted by paulraps
paulraps writes: The Pirate Bay has ditched plans to buy its own nation so as to avoid international copyright laws. One of the founders says that the operation is now less vulnerable to police raids in Sweden now that it has spread its servers around different locations. Amusingly, they may still buy an island, but for more modest reasons: "We have 20,000 to 25,000 dollars to spend. Really we just want somewhere we can name The Pirate Bay, so we can look on Google Maps and find ourselves there," said Tobias Andersson, who, despite running the most poopular site in Scandinavia, still works as an electrician.

Real Life Spy Gadgets That Anyone Can Buy 171

Posted by CmdrTaco from the show-cams-and-pen-grenades dept.
Ant writes "Here is a collection of "spy equipment" found for sale around the Internet. Everything listed is completely real, is sold at online stores, and almost any item listed here costs less than $500, and often times can be bought for less than $200. Seen on Compfused."

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