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Wikipedia

Kevin Bacon Meets Wikipedia With New Pathfinding Program 50

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the computers-are-ruining-everything dept.
New submitter BLT2112 writes "Inspired by the Oracle of Bacon, the Oracle of Wikipedia finds the shortest path between two Wikipedia articles, as in Wikipedia Golf. As explained in the site, 'One selects one article as the tee and another article as the hole and then completes the course between them clicking as few links as possible. No typing is allowed. . . . The Oracle also allows you to search for the most challenging potential Wikipedia Golf courses. Can you find a longer course and merit a place in the "records" section?'"
Android

Submission + - Facial Recognition To Be Used In San Francisco Bars (techfleece.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "Bars in San Francisco are going to start to use Facial Recognition software that will stream in real-time the male to female ratios of patrons. The app is currently servicing Chicago, Austin, Bloomington, Gainesville, and Madison with SF going live last Friday.

The software is made by an Austin, Texas based night-life startup called SceneTap and will give users of the free app, the ability to see what the the current ambience of the bar/club is like as well as the average age of the clients."
Android

Submission + - KegDroid - The Ideal Bar Gadget (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: If you are looking for an exciting hardware project, KegDroid deserves a look. It is a sophisticated system that involves Android, Arduino, NFC, plumbing and — beer. Perhaps the final stroke of genius is to package the whole thing in a Droid body. Some how the little green fella looks at home on the bar. You have heard of desktop and laptop apps now we have bartop apps to add to the list.
Check out the video...
Intel

Intel Unveils Tiny Next Unit of Computing To Match Raspberry Pi 194

Posted by samzenpus from the small-like-you dept.
MrSeb writes "Details of a new, ultra-compact computer form factor from Intel, called the Next Unit of Computing (NUC) are starting to emerge. First demonstrated at PAX East at the beginning of April, and Intel's Platinum Summit in London last week, NUC is a complete 10x10cm (4x4in) Sandy Bridge Core i3/i5 computer. On the back, there are Thunderbolt, HDMI, and USB 3.0 ports. On the motherboard itself, there are two SO-DIMM (laptop) memory slots and two mini PCIe headers. On the flip side of the motherboard is a CPU socket that takes most mobile Core i3 and i5 processors, and a heatsink and fan assembly. Price-wise, it's unlikely that the NUC will approach the $25 Raspberry Pi, but an Intel employee has said that the price will 'not be in the hundreds and thousands range.' A price point around $100 would be reasonable, and would make the NUC an ideal HTPC or learning/educational PC. The NUC is scheduled to be released in the second half of 2012."
Android

Submission + - The Nook: From Android to Windows? (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by
alexander_686
alexander_686 writes: "It looks like Microsoft is buying a large chunk of Barnes & Noble, specifically the Nook and it’s college businesses. While nobody has said anything specific, I think the writing is on the wall on what the next OS system for the next nook is going to be."
Android

Submission + - Microsoft invests $300 million in B&N Nook (cnn.com)

Submitted by
kriston
kriston writes: "CNNMoney is reporting that Microsoft has invested a 17.6% stake in Barnes & Noble's Nook business unit, valuing the e-book business at $1.7 billion which is twice the value of the entire Barnes & Noble company itself."
Hardware

Submission + - Physicist explains Moore's Law collapse in 10years (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Moore’s Law won’t be true forever, and theoretical physicist Michio Kaku has explained how it will collapse. And that collapse isn’t going to happen in some distant future, it is going to happen within the next decade.

The problem is one of finding a replacement for silicon coupled with the exponential nature of Moore’s Law. Quite simply, computing power cannot go on doubling every two years indefinitely.

The other issue is we are about to reach the limits of silicon. According to Kaku, once we get done to 5nm processes for chip production, silicon is finished. Any smaller and processors will just overheat.

Comment Get rid of scummy developer's first... (Score 1) 2

by DanseDeMorte (#39825915) Attached to: Android fans: pay for your apps, please
The kind like Gameloft.com that likes to profit from getting underage children to click and purchase their premium items. Just like the "smurf berries" http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/107662-Eight-Year-Old-Girl-Blows-1400-on-Smurfberries It will never happen though. Since these companies would be much less profitable if the android market forced a code entry for each an every purchase activated through an e-mail to the linked account. And I'm sure the "android market" makes a nice percentage of each "upgrade" sold.
Patents

Fark Founder Drew Curtis Explains How Fark Beat a Patent Troll 59

Posted by timothy from the righteous-chip-on-his-shoulder dept.
Velcroman1 links to this coverage of Drew Curtis's explanation of how his company, Fark, managed to beat a patent troll's lawsuit alleging infringement of a patent on distribution of news releases by email. From the article: "It boils down to one thing: don't negotiate with terrorists," Curtis said during a talk at the TED 2012 conference in Long Beach, Calif."
Medicine

In Calif. Study, Most Kids With Whooping Cough Were Fully Vaccinated 293

Posted by timothy from the conventional-wisdom-isn't-always dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this extract from a Reuters article: "In early 2010, a spike in cases appeared at Kaiser Permanente in San Rafael, and it was soon determined to be an outbreak of whooping cough — the largest seen in California in more than 50 years. Witt had expected to see the illnesses center around unvaccinated kids, knowing they are more vulnerable to the disease. 'We started dissecting the data. What was very surprising was the majority of cases were in fully vaccinated children. That's what started catching our attention,' said Witt."
Education

Submission + - Coursera Raises $16M and Plans Lots of Courses (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: After months of maintaining a low profile, Coursera, the online course site, has been awarded $16M in funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
Coursera is led by Stanford Professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller but now its revamped website prominently displays the logos of Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and University of Pennsylvania, the small print adds University of California, Berkeley.
Koller and Ng are currently on leave from Stanford to establish Coursera, which suggests that they will resume teaching there in due course. This has to be contrasted with the actions of Sebastian Thrun who after the same experience declared that never again would he be content to teach students in a conventional classroom setting.
Whereas Thrun's new venture, Udacity, is "standalone", developing new course materials that don't have a campus pedigree, Coursera is relying on established course content from world-class universities, repackaged for online presentation and delivered free of charge.
Given that it now has secure funding, Coursera is on course to make good on Andrew Ng's vision:
"Our mission is to teach the world and make higher education available for everyone"
Look out for exams administered at local testing centres in the near future.
Government

Submission + - 'Big brother' black boxes to soon be mandatory in all new cars (bgr.com)

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: Beginning in 2015, all new cars in the United States will likely need to be fitted with data-recording “black boxes” very similar to the devices currently used in aircraft. The U.S. Senate has already passed a bill that will make the devices a requirement, and the House is expected to approve the bill as well. Section 31406 of Senate Bill 1813 states that mandatory event data recorders must in installed in all cars starting in 2015, and it outlines civil penalties that will be levied against violators...
Hardware

Submission + - Future smartphone cameras to see through walls (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A team at the University of Texas in Dallas have managed to create a terahertz band imaging chip manufactured using CMOS. It's a major breakthrough as it means we could all one day be carrying around smartphones with cameras that can see through walls. It also means doctors could use their phones as portable X-ray units, as well as for a range of other medical tests. We can check out what's in a wall before drilling into it, and manufacturers can test products for faults by taking a picture of their insides.

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