Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Probably been there for ages (Score 1) 204

Just because it has been detected now doesn't mean it hasn't been around for hundreds, thousands, millions, or even billions of years already. So too early to say that these holes are anything to worry about. After all, the sun does coronal mass ejections quite often, some of which are aimed towards us, which while major events generally uneventful, maybe with some satellites knocked out.

Comment Potentially illegal and dangerous (Score 1) 230

Hmm potentially illegal in most jurisdictions falling under the same category as TV's that are viewable from the drivers seat while in motion. Plus it blocks part of the steering wheel which means you have to use an altered hand placement on the steering wheel(as opposed to 10 and 2 or 9 and 3). Also addressing the saving your life issue, is what happens if he does get into an accident which causes air bag deployment? I see either the iPad flying right into your face or if the mount is rigid enough blocking the airbag from deploying and sending your face potentially into the steering wheel and iPad. Plus the first rule of driving, when driving that should be your only task, not talking on a phone, text messaging, or even playing with the radio or heat controls. Save those for a stop light or pull over, or if you really need to use an iPad or cell phone while driving, hire a driver so you can do everything you "need" to do without endangering yours or more importantly others lives while out on the road.

Comment Re:More like a flaw in statistics (Score -1, Troll) 437

There is an important lesson to be learned here. In the UK they have a near completely socialized health care system which involves rationing of the health care. Some bureaucrat somewhere in London decided it was not a priority to deem such falls as non serious which lead to the death of her. If the current Obamacare plan passes in the US, this will start to happen much more often in the US as people deemed too much of a risk or a "low" chance of survival will be put to a lower priority. I know the US Congress members that are pro Obamacare and Obama himself say this will not happen, but it is what we have to look forward to if and when Obamacare becomes law.

Comment But why!?!?!? (Score 4, Interesting) 226

And to think that it seems all the rage is to be upgrading Atari's with an Svideo board as featured on hack-a-day a few weeks ago http://hackaday.com/2009/04/05/s-video-from-an-atari-2600/ . Honestly I don't know why people want to make their TV's look like a 30 year old TV display. The reason for all that bleeding was the circuitry that converted the video and audio signal to RF and then the deconverting of that signal in the TV. It is beyond me why anybody would want to make something look like it did, instead of how it should look. I grew up playing the Atari 2600 and I thought it was fun, but I certainly am not fond of how it looked. I'm just waiting for my SVideo converter board to arrive so I can upgrade my 2600 to look how it should, not how it did. (And I'm still using a CRT TV as well none of these new fangled LCD TV's). - XSS

Security

Calif. Politican Thinks Blurred Online Maps Would Deter Terrorists 597

Hugh Pickens writes "California Assemblyman Joel Anderson plans to introduce a bill to force Google Earth and similar services to blur images of so-called 'soft targets' like schools, hospitals, churches and government buildings to protect them from terrorists. 'All I'm trying to do is stop terrorists,' said Anderson. 'I don't want California to be helping map out future targets for terrorists.' Concerns that detailed satellite imagery and photographs available on Web services could help terrorists plan attacks are not new, with reports that terrorists have used such imagery to carry out attacks in Iraq and Israel, and an Indian court is considering a ban on Google Earth following reports that its imagery played a part in the Mumbai terrorist attacks."
Government

A Peek At DHS's Files On You 241

kenblakely writes "We've known for a while that the Department of Homeland Security was collecting travel records on those who cross US borders, but now you can see it for yourself. A Freedom of Information Act request got this blogger a look at DHS's file on his travels. Pretty comprehensive — all the way down to the IP address of the host he used to make a reservation."
Television

LG High-Def TVs To Stream Netflix Videos 190

DJAdapt writes to tell us that LG has launched a new line of high definition TVs that will be capable of streaming Netflix videos with no additional hardware. This is just another in a long line of expansions from the once DVD rental service, which has expanded to the Roku set top box, Xbox 360, PC, Mac, and Linux platforms recently. "Piping movies directly to TV sets is the natural evolution of the video streaming service, said Reed Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix. "The TV symbolizes the ultimate destination," he said. That idea -- shared by Sony Corp., which already streams feature films and TV shows directly to its Bravia televisions -- is still in its early stages. Netflix's streaming service taps a library of 12,000 titles, while the company's DVD menu numbers more than 100,000 titles. Hastings expects that gap will "definitely narrow" over time, but he noted that DVDs maintain an advantage over streaming, which is that "they are very profitable" for film studios."
Programming

Would You Add Easter Eggs To Software Produced At Work? 747

Mr. Leinad writes "Do you add Easter Eggs to the software that is produced at the office? I mean, if you have complete control over the final product, do you spice it up with that little personal touch, which, as unlikely as it is that anyone will see, carries with it an 'I was here' signature? I've just finished the development of a large software product, and I have a couple of days left to try to add my own personal Easter Egg code, but given that the software is quite professional, I don't know if I should. What do you think? Should we developers sign our creations?"
Sci-Fi

The Real Monsters Behind Godzilla 243

eldavojohn writes "A Wired blog looks at the real monsters behind Godzilla: his lawyers. Do you think Godzilla is basically a glorified T. Rex? Guess again, as his lawyers have tirelessly argued: 'He's erect-standing. He's got muscular arms, scaly skin and spines on back and tail and he breathes fire and has a furrowed brow, he's got an anthropomorphic torso. The T. rex has emaciated bird-like arms and stands at a 45-degree angle.' Read on to find out why they targeted the site davezilla.com but not mozilla.org. Another abuse of the American trademark & copyright system? You decide — just don't make a float of him or you'll find yourself paying an undisclosed sum to Toho Co. Ltd."
Google

OpenOffice Five Times As Popular As Google Docs 207

CWmike writes "Confirming recent comments by Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, an independent report released Friday found that OpenOffice.org's free office suite is five times more popular than Google Docs. This was according to a survey of 2,400 adult Internet users conducted between May and November. Microsoft's share was 10 times that of OpenOffice.org. Microsoft hopes to cement that lead with its upcoming Office Web, as well as online versions of its Exchange and SharePoint products to be announced on Monday. OpenOffice.org may provide some resistance, however. The latest version, OpenOffice.org 3.0, had a strong first week in October, with more than 3 million downloads. After one month, OpenOffice.org 3.0 had been downloaded 10 million times." And reader Peter Toi informs us of the open source release of yet another office suite, Softmaker Office. Its claimed advantages are its compactness and speed (making it suitable for netbooks), its excellent MS Office filters, and the fact that it can be installed to USB flash drives.
Software

Opera Mini Not Rejected From iPhone (Yet) 202

danaris writes in to inform us that John Gruber has done some digging on the reported rejection from the App Store of Opera Mini, and has written up his findings. Some choice excerpts: "My understanding, based on information from informed sources who do not wish to be identified because they were not authorized by their employers, is that Opera has developed an iPhone version of Opera Mini — but they haven't even submitted it to Apple, let alone had it be rejected. ... If what they've done for the iPhone is [to get] a Java ME runtime running on the iPhone — it's clearly outside the bounds of the iPhone SDK Agreement. ... What Opera would need to do to have a version of Opera Mini they could submit to the App Store would be to port the entire client software to the C and Objective-C APIs officially supported on the iPhone. It could well be that even then, Apple would reject it from the App Store on anti-competitive grounds — but contrary to this week's speculation, that has not happened."

Comment Re:i love this (Score 1) 339

You may want to use other sources for maps instead of Google, perhaps Mapquest, http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=addr ess&address=1+Observatory+Cir+NW&city=washington&s tate=dc&zipcode=20008
a much better shot of Cheney's residence(just click the link to view the aeriel view instead of the map). However those big squares they got all over the place on Google do look quite menacing. I have found, however, that its a tossup between Google Earth and Mapquest for what you can and can not view as I found before with Area 51 and a few other choice locations around the US and world.
Censorship

Judge Strikes Down COPA, 1998 Online Porn Law 348

Begopa sends in word that a federal judge has struck down the Child Online Protection Act. The judge said that parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not limit others' rights to free speech. This was the case for which the US Department of Justice subpoenaed several search companies for search records; only Google fought the order. The case has already been to the Supreme Court. Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr. wrote in his decision: "Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection."

Slashdot Top Deals

"More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined." -- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_

Working...