51483509
submission
Nerval's Lobster writes:
Valve has announced SteamOS, Steam Machines, and a Steam controller — the components necessary for it to create a viable living-room gaming experience. Valve’s strategy with these releases seems pretty clear: create a platform based on openness (SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system), in contrast to the closed systems pushed by console rivals such as Sony and Microsoft. If Valve chooses to release "Half-Life 3" in conjunction with its Steam Machines' rollout, it could help create further buzz for the system, given the years' worth of pent-up demand for the next chapter in the popular FPS saga. But can Valve's moves allow it to actually compete against Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony on equal terms? What do you think?
51480245
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mdsolar writes:
"Every month, Hiroko Watabe, 74, returns for a few hours to her abandoned house near the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant to engage in her own small act of defiance against fate. She dons a surgical mask, hangs two radiation-measuring devices around her neck and crouches down to pull weeds.
She is desperate to keep her small yard clean to prove she has not given up on her home, which she and her family evacuated two years ago after a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami devastated the plant five miles away. Not all her neighbors are willing to take the risk; chest-high weeds now block the doorways of their once-tidy homes.
“In my heart, I know we can never live here again,” said Ms. Watabe, who drove here with her husband from Koriyama, the city an hour away where they have lived since the disaster. “But doing this gives us a purpose. We are saying that this is still our home.”
While the continuing environmental disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has grabbed world headlines — with hundreds of tons of contaminated water flowing into the Pacific Ocean daily — a human crisis has been quietly unfolding. Two and a half years after the plant belched plumes of radioactive materials over northeast Japan, the almost 83,000 nuclear refugees evacuated from the worst-hit areas are still unable to go home."
51480201
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u38cg writes:
Ross William Ulbricht, known as "Dread Pirate Roberts," was arrested in San Francisco yesterday and has been charged with one count each of narcotics trafficking conspiracy, computer hacking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, according to a court filing. Silk Road has been shut down and some $3.6m in Bitcoin seized.
The question is — how?
51479915
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coondoggie writes:
Call it a modern day love story: Boy meets girl; they "like" each other; they privately sext naked pics of each other to celebrate; girl loses interest, breaks it off; guy responds by posting previously private pics to Internet site specializing in revenge; girl has little recourse, suffers much humiliation, ridicule.
There is a lot of pressure to change the outcome of such wretched stories — which seem to be pervasive these days. And some relief is on the way the way, at least in California where this week the governor signed one of the nation's first laws making so called "revenge porn" illegal. Specifically the bill prevents people from "electronically distributing or post naked pictures of ex-romantic partners after a break-up with designs shaming the person publically."
51478659
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guttentag writes:
The author of The Hunt for Red October and many military and espionage novels which inspired a number of movies video games died last night in a Baltimore Hospital. The news was first reported by Publishers Weekly's Twitter account this morning and confirmed by New York Times Book Reporter Julie Bosman's Twitter account.
51473661
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Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes:
Foreign Policy reports that the Pentagon awarded 94 contracts Monday evening on its annual end-of-the-fiscal-year spending spree, spending more than five billion dollars on everything from robot submarines to Finnish hand grenades and a radar base mounted on an offshore oil platform. To put things in perspective, the Pentagon gave out only 14 contracts on September 3, the first workday of the month. Some of the more interesting purchases from Monday's dollar-dump include the $2.5 billion award the Defense Logistics Agency gave to aircraft engine-maker Pratt & Whitney for "various weapons system spare parts" used by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, $65 million for military helmets from BAE Systems, $24 million for "traveling wave tubes" to amplify radio signals from Thales, $17 million for liquid nitrogen, $15 million for helium and $19 million on cots. The Air Force, traditionally DOD's biggest spender, was relatively restrained; it dished out only 17 contracts including $49 million to help France buy 16 MQ-9 Reaper drones, $64 million to Lockheed for help operating spy satellites that are equipped with infrared cameras, and $9 million to URS Corp. for maintenance work on the Air National Guard's fleet of RC-26B spyplanes that help domestic law enforcement agencies catch drug dealers. The air service also spent $9 million on a new gym at the Air Force Academy that includes areas for CrossFit training, space for the academy's Triathlon Club and a "television studio." It just goes to show says Reed that "even when the federal government is shutdown and the military has temporarily lost half its civilian workforce, the Pentagon can spend money like almost no one else."
51453645
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theodp writes:
Following up on a WSJ story, data visualization author Stephen Few illustrates why using lines or bars may be sweeter than pie when it comes to teaching kids fractions. "Although the metaphor is easy to grasp (the slices add up to an entire pie)," explains Few, "we know that visual perception does a poor job of comparing the sizes of slices, which is essential for learning to compare fractions. Learning that one-fifth is larger than one-sixth, which is counter-intuitive in the beginning, becomes further complicated when the individual slices of two pies—one divided into five slices and other into six—look roughly the same. Might it make more sense to use two lines divided into sections instead, which are quite easy to compare when placed near one another?" So, is the Tootsie Roll the new pie?
51437095
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Nate the greatest writes:
Scribd threw their hat in the ebook subscription ring today. This site is expanding on its existing ebookstore with a new $9 a month all-you-can-read ebook subscription service which offers a selection of ebooks from a number of publishers, including HarperCollins, E-Reads, Kensington, Red Wheel/Weiser, Rosetta Books, Sourcebooks, and Workman. That's a better selection of commercial ebooks than the Kindle owner's lending library, but not quite as broad of a selection as the recently launched Oyster, but Scribd is charging less and they're offering better platform support. While Oyster is only available on the iPhone, Scribd has apps for for Android, iPhone, iPad, and you can read the ebooks in your web browser.
51355225
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Nate the greatest writes:
Amazon got all the press this past week with the launch of the new Kindle Fire HDX tablets but they're not the only ones with new hardware on the way. A newly leaked product listing on the B&N website revealed that B&N is planning to release a Nook-branded bluetooth keyboard along with the new tablet and ereader. B&N already sells a BT speaker, a charging dock, and headphones, so this new keyboard is less of a shock and more of a confirmation that a new tablet is on the way.
And if that's not enough, B&N has also arranged for Wiley to publish a "For Dummies" book for the new tablet. There's no details yet on what the book will cover, but a listing for "Nook X for Dummies" has shown up in a number of ebookstores. It's also going to be available as a paper book and has a release date in late November.
51210121
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Nate the greatest writes:
Everyone has been saying for years now that Amazon is killing indie bookstores right and left, but if you look at the actual data it's pretty clear that is not the case. The most recent data from the American Bookseller Association shows that the number of bookstores in the US have increased every year for the past 4 years. In fact, ABA records show that the largest decline in bookstores happened in the late 1990s when big box bookstore chains were expanding and outcompeting the smaller independents.And then Amazon came along and outcompeted the chains by offering lower prices and better service.
The ABA reports that their membership now stands at 1632 companies, many of which have more than one location and are planning to open new stores in the near future. The indie bookstores are thriving because they do things Amazon can't: author events and signings, writing workshops, and children's camps. They offer a connection to the community that Amazon can't, and that is probably going to be their salvation.
50972011
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Nate the greatest writes:
The Toq, Qualcomm's first foray into smartwatches, probably won't be making it's way to a store shelf near you. Qualcomm's President for South East Asia has gone on the record with statement suggesting that Qualcomm never intended to compete directly against the smartwatches made by Sony, Samsung, and others.
"We’re not trying to compete in the smartwatch space. We made an announcement last week of the Qualcomm Toq to showcase some technologies,” he said. “We’re not getting into the B2C business. The idea is that we’re showcasing a use case for Mirasol, and wireless recharging"
The $300 Toq is still going to be available but there's no word yet on how many units Qualcomm is actually going to make or how long you might have to wait to get one.
50771191
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Nate the greatest writes:
Rumors are circulating that Barnes & Noble is going to release their new hardware soon. Two different sources inside B&N have confirmed that a launch is imminent, with one saying B&N will launch both a tablet and an ereader. The other says that a new tablet is coming.
I tend to think that the first source is probably right because product pages for several accessories leaked in early August. The pages referenced 2 different new models. Also, B&N recently announced plans to continue to develop both new ereaders and tablets, though they've changed their minds so much that I don't know if that announcement is worth anything.
49239559
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Nate the greatest writes:
We still don't know what B&N's new gadgets will look like but it seems we might have a couple hints about the names . There are several new product listings on the B&N website for accessories for a Nook SW and a Nook AV, including a clip case, stand, and an anti-glare screen film kit. The accessories are up for pre-order and are expected to be released on or before 1 October. That is probably a good sign that the new hardware will be launched in the next couple months.
46477157
submission
Nate the greatest writes:
It looks like those 4 month old rumors are true. Amazon has confirmed today that they have bought Liquavista, a Netherlands based screen tech company. There's no info yet on how much Amazon paid to Samsung, but previous rumors suggested that the asking price was under $100 million. Amazon also isn't talking about how they plan to use the electrowetting screen tech, but many are assuming that a Color Kindle is in the works.
46065567
submission
Nate the greatest writes:
Remember last year when Apple received a patent on the faux page curl in iBooks? Lots of people laughed at the idea that Apple could patent the page turn, but not Samsung. This gadget maker has just filed for their own page turn patent. The paperwork explains in great detail what the page turn looks like, how the software would work, and what on screen gestures could be used to turn the page. There's just one problem, though. Not only does Apple already have a similar patent, but quite a few ebook apps already use a similar faux page turn, Can Samsung really get a patent on such a common trick?
