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Nintendo

Nintendo Announces Wii Successor for 2012 287

Posted by CmdrTaco from the gimme-a-new-mario-please dept.
motang writes "Nintendo has officially announced the successor to the Wii. At its investors meeting, Nintendo said they have decided to launch the successor to the Wii in 2012 after the fiscal year, and will show it off and have a playable version at this year's E3."

Comment Re:Not really (Score 3, Funny) 327

by th1nk (#35773246) Attached to: What Happens If You Get Sucked Out of a Plane?
You don't get bonus points for "but he survived to feel the impact" on your autopsy report.

No, but if you're already a goner you might as well have some fun with it.

I've decided that if I manage to survive the exit and the falling, I'm going to aim for someone's swimming pool and then yell CANNONBALL during my last few seconds. Hopefully someone is around to witness it.
Transportation

Ski Lifts Can Could Help Get Cargo Traffic Off the Road 225

Posted by timothy from the you-either-like-this-or-have-no-soul dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this except from a beautifully illustrated, thought-provoking article: "These days, we use them almost exclusively to transport skiers and snowboarders up snow slopes, but before the 1940s, aerial ropeways were a common means of cargo transport, not only in mountainous regions but also on flat terrain. An electrically powered aerial ropeway is one of the cheapest and most efficient means of transportation available. Some generate excess energy that can be used to power nearby factories or data centers. An innovative system called RopeCon (not to be confused with a role-playing convention held annually in Finland) can move up to 10,000 tonnes of freight per hour."
Robotics

Virginia Tech Students Build CHARLI, a Human-Sized Robot 82

Posted by CmdrTaco from the in-college-i-just-made-crappy-websites dept.
smackay writes "As CHARLI takes his first steps, anxious onlookers stand ready to catch him if he falls. His stride is short, but upright, as one foot is placed in front of the other in the basement of Virginia Tech's Randolph Hall. But CHARLI is no toddler. He is a 5-foot-tall humanoid robot. Video of this ground-breaking robot included."
Robotics

Berkeley Gets Willow Garage Robot To Fold Towels 99

Posted by Soulskill from the thanks-rosie dept.
kkleiner writes "Researchers at UC Berkeley used Willow Garage's PR2 robot to fold towels. The UCB programming used some innovative visual scanning techniques, allowing the PR2 to pick up a towel, find its corners, and fold it on a table perfectly. According to the paper presented at the 2010 ICRA (PDF), the robot successfully completed 50 out of 50 attempts to fold a single towel, and also folded 5 out of 5 towels when they were presented in a group. Is watching a robot do laundry really that exciting? Hell yes — wait until you see the video! UC Berkeley used a Willow Garage robot to develop their own sophisticated robotics program. That validates the whole premise of the PR2 — faster development by letting researchers use a common platform. Score one for open source robotics!"
Science

First Collisions At the LHC 256

Posted by CmdrTaco from the make-sure-the-world-is-still-here dept.
An anonymous reader writes "At 1:06 p.m. Central European Summer Time (CEST) today, the first protons collided at 7 TeV in the Large Hadron Collider. These first collisions, recorded by the LHC experiments, mark the start of the LHC's research program."
Patents

Beware the King of the Patent Trolls 286

Posted by CmdrTaco from the lotta-fresh-air-under-the-bridge dept.
superapecommando writes "If you haven't heard of Intellectual Ventures, you may want to check this out. Set up by ex-Microsoftie Nathan Myhrvold, with investments from Microsoft among others, it is basically a patenting machine – filing and buying them in huge quantities. Note that it doesn't actually use these patents – except to threaten people with. In other words, Intellectual Ventures is a patent troll – or, rather the King of the Patent Trolls. So I was interested to come across this extremely positive blog post on the company. That it is so positive is hardly surprising, since the blog is called 'Tangible IP,' and subtitled 'ipVA's blog on adding value through intellectual property.' Nonetheless, it provides valuable insights into the mindset of fans of intellectual monopolies. Here's what it says about Intellectual Ventures: 'They are an invention house, and have adopted and reinvented leading edge patent strategies to create a portfolio of their own IP which, in its own, would be of high high worth.' They don't invent anything in the proper, deep sense of the word; they merely file and buy patents – with no intent of ever making stuff or solving real-life problems."
Google

Google and NSA Teaming Up 125

Posted by samzenpus from the meet-my-big-brother dept.
i_frame writes "The Washington Post reports that 'Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack.'"
Earth

China Is Winning Global Race To Make Clean Energy 346

Posted by timothy from the comparative-advantage-oh-noes dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world's largest maker of wind turbines, has leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world's largest manufacturer of solar panels, and is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants. These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China."

Universal, Pay Those EFFing Lawyers 335

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they-can-afford-it dept.
Slashdot frequent contributor Bennett Haselton writes "The EFF is seeking over $400,000 in attorney's fees from Universal Music Group after Universal sent a DMCA takedown notice to YouTube, demanding the removal of a video posted by user Stephanie Lenz. Lenz had posted a video of her toddler dancing to a 30-second clip of the Prince song "Let's Go Crazy"; after Universal sent the takedown notice, the EFF sent YouTube a counter-notice on behalf of Lenz arguing that the video was fair use, and YouTube restored it. Now the EFF is asking the judge to award them attorney's fees for their work." Use your magical clicking device below to read many more words.
Communications

Police In Britain Arrest Man For Bomb-Threat Joke On Twitter 577

Posted by timothy from the credibility-gap-looms dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A British man was arrested under anti-terrorism legislation for making a bomb joke on Twitter. Paul Chambers, 26, was arrested under the provisions of the Terrorism Act (2006). His crime? Frustrated at grounded flights over inclement weather, he made a joke bomb threat on the social networking site Twitter."

Comment Re:Let's just be clear on what they mean here (Score 1) 438

by th1nk (#30537596) Attached to: A Requiem For Saab
I second this. I've owned Saabs all my life (900S, 9000CSE, 9-3, 9-5), and do all my own work, including some stuff that does require a hoist (rebuilt the transmission in my 900). The 900 was the easiest car to work on that I've ever seen. You could do brakes and rotors with basic tools in under an hour. And the parking brakes were in the rear, not the front.

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It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

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