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Comment Re:To: Google (Score 1) 167

by Mex (#37299012) Attached to: Google To Shut Down 10 Products

"This, combined with Chrome's increasingly "We're Google--we can do whatever we want" functionality, is edging me closer to abandoning Google completely."

Isn't it too late?

Google is the de-facto search monopoly. If you don't exist in Google, you're irrelevant. Bing? Ha-ha.

So what will you switch to, if you decide to abandon Google?

Too late...
Movies

Review: Green Lantern 201

Posted by CmdrTaco from the green-lanterns-light dept.
In summers past we've seen big guns like Superman and Spider-man and Batman make big screen appearances, but this summer it's lesser known heroes like Thor and Green Lantern taking to the big screen with varying degrees of success. What follows is my brief review of the new GL film with some spoilers and commentary. You have been warned.
Facebook

Dozens of Tech Bigwigs Friend Facebook Spambot 81

Posted by timothy from the ooh-baby-let's-meet-again-in-2d-life dept.
jfruhlinger writes "If you've used Facebook or Twitter, you're almost certainly familiar with 'bimbots' — accounts that have profile pics of attractive women, but seem to exist only to send send spam links with varying degrees of subtlety. Henry Copeland, the founder of BlogAds, tracks the social network of one such Facebook bot, and finds that she's friends with a long list of influential tech and media folks. Copeland also tracks down the origin of the photo that accompanies the account."
Image

Creator of China's Great Firewall Pelted With Shoes 220

Posted by samzenpus from the shoes-and-stones dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that Chinese police are seeking a man who said he threw eggs and shoes at the architect of China's 'great firewall', the world's most sophisticated and extensive online censorship system as his claims were cheered by many internet users, in a reflection of growing anger among them about increasingly stringent controls. The office of Fang Binxing, known as the father of the great firewall, denied the attack had happened, but Associated Press said police were sent to the university to investigate a shoe-throwing incident targeting Fang, citing an officer at the Luojiashan public security bureau. The Twitter user who claimed to have pelted him, who posts under the pseudonym @hanunyi, wrote: 'The egg missed the target. The first shoe hit the target. The second shoe was blocked by a man and a woman.' Earlier this year Fang closed a microblog within days of opening it after thousands of Chinese internet users left comments, almost all of them deriding him as 'a running dog for the government' and 'the enemy of netizens'. Meanwhile admirers of the shoe attacker showered the anonymous young man with promises of everything from Nike trainers to replace his lost footwear, to iPads, sex and jobs."
Government

GPS Maker TomTom Submits Your Speed Data To Police 422

Posted by timothy from the put-your-speed-trap-riiiiight-here dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The GPS systems in TomTom's Live range all feature built-in 3G data cards, which feed location and route information back to a central server. According to CNET, this data, along with users' speed information, is being made available to local governments and the police." From the article: "Knowing the cops can see where you're driving and how fast you're going is eye-opening stuff, but TomTom says the data is anonymous and can never be traced back to an individual user or device. Ordinarily, we'd be reassured by this, but we recall Apple saying something similar before the location-tracking excrement hit the phone-carrying fan."
Caldera

SCO Found No Source Code In 2004 154

Posted by CmdrTaco from the dying-from-nor-surprise dept.
doperative writes "A consultant hired by SCO in 2004 to compare UNIX and Linux, with the thought he could be used as an expert at trial, says that, after days and days, his comparison tool found 'very little correlation'. When he told that to SCO, it paid him and he never heard from SCO again."
The Military

Automatic Life Jacket Detection For Drones 85

Posted by samzenpus from the eye-in-the-sky dept.
garymortimer writes "Sentient, an Australian company that makes drone software, has given UAVs the ability to search for small, high visibility objects such as life jackets. From the article: 'Kestrel Maritime is a software solution that processes electro-optical (EO) and infrared (IR) full motion video (FMV) from manned and unmanned vehicles (UAVs). The Life Jacket Detection enhances Kestrel Maritime EO capability to automatically detect small, high visibility objects whilst searching wide maritime areas.'"
PlayStation (Games)

GeoHot Asks For Donations To Fight Sony 470

Posted by samzenpus from the fight-the-power dept.
mede writes "In an interesting turn of events, Sony might have stumbled into a tough nut to crack. George Hotz (aka GeoHot) famous for his iPhone hacking achievements, is planning on fighting the big corporation on removing his free speech rights at utilizing his fully paid for hardware. Hotz has always claimed being anti-piracy (since iPhone activities) and says he has never pirated any game or even signed PSN agreements. He's asking for donations to fight Sony back and try to achieve something similar to what was previously accomplished by the EFF with regard to cellphones. I've already donated."
Mars

NASA Invents New Technique For Finding Alien Life 71

Posted by samzenpus from the take-me-to-your-leader dept.
RedEaredSlider writes "From the IB Times article: 'Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have come up with an idea to improve on an old standby of space exploration instruments and improve the odds of finding life, if any, on Mars. By adding a laser and an ion funnel to a mass spectrometer, it is possible to analyze the elements from the Martian surface directly, without the complex handling samples usually needed... The new version uses a two-step technique. First it shoots a laser at the sample's surface. This creates a plume of molecules and ions. To get the ions into the mass spectrometer, the new system uses an ion funnel. The ion funnel uses conductive, progressively smaller electrodes in the shape of a ring that attract the ions, effectively vacuuming them into the mass spectrometer.'"

Comment Re:Preying on the ignorant? (Score 1) 482

by Mex (#33730992) Attached to: ATMs That Dispense Gold Bars Coming To America

Who in their right mind would buy gold right now? It recently passed the $1300 mark and may climb higher, but historical trends indicate that it is in a major spiking period. "What goes up must come down," doesn't only apply to gravity

I dunno man, I was going to buy gold when they were saying the same thing, but it was at $600 dollars.

I didn't buy, because guys like you kept saying the same thing. =/

Then 5 or so years later, I could have bought a new house.

Now? I WANT to believe it really is too late.

Never take advice about finances from the internet...

Comment Re:Well I don't think it'll be a problem like that (Score 1) 764

by Mex (#33549244) Attached to: German Military Braces For Peak Oil

Did you sleep through it when gas prices in the US were hitting $5 a gallon? It was unbelievable how many alt fuel technologies were crawling out of the woodwork.

Yeah? And how many of those turned out to be feasible?

"Someone will come up with something" is what people say who want to ignore this.

Well, what if it's physically impossible to "come up with something"?

Wind is not enough, water is not enough, coal is not enough, Ethanol turned out to be a big bust, biofuels are pretty much a curiosity, nuclear is incredibly expensive and most people actually fight against it, what's left? Iron Man's energy generator?

Where are your alternative fuel technologies now, that were promised decades ago? I guess they're coming with the flying cars.

Comment Re:And yet- (Score 1) 828

by Mex (#33088400) Attached to: What's Wrong With the American University System

"it is likely the best university system in the world."

In the same way the USA is "The best country in the world"?

As far as I know, any first world has equal or better universities than the USA. And some 3rd world countries can compete too, apparently (witness China/India and their dominance in maths)

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