Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Hmmmm (Score 1) 377

Personally, I wished that they had NOT announced this and continued work on it. Now China, and probably other nations, will simply grab the work regardless of IP. Hopefully, they will keep it in the states.

IP laws will do nothing but slow the development of this technology and make it more expensive. If the government won't step in and federalize this (gas prices are killing our economy), then I'm glad China is there to ignore IP laws and make a car we can drive ASAP at less cost. The inventor(s) should be rewarded, handsomely, but our current patent system is a mess which serves big business first, and the consumer last...if ever.

The sooner we get solutions to rising gas prices the better, regardless of how that happens.

Comment Re:Link quite skimpy on details, but basically (Score 3, Insightful) 377

What is going to make or break this technology would be the weight of the battery pack needed to store all that extra energy to provide surge and low end torque. Prius has a very tiny battery, relatively, just enough to propel the car for about 2 miles. We might need a battery midway between Prius and Chevy Volt/Nissan Leaf for this technology to work. Of course, the fine tolerance manufacturing, durability of the engine and seals (the bugaboo of Wankel) and other issues might crop up.

But the basic idea is plausible. Giving it one and half (guarded) thumbs up.

The article also mentioned shedding 1000lbs by using this motor.

That's a free half-ton for more batteries which should cover the surge and low-end torque problems you mentioned.

Government

US Seeks Veto Powers Over New TLDs 220

suraj.sun writes "The Obama administration is quietly seeking the power for it and other governments to veto future top-level domain names, a move that raises questions about free expression, national sovereignty, and the role of states in shaping the future of the Internet. At stake is who will have authority over the next wave of suffixes to supplement the venerable .com, .org, and .net. At least 115 proposals are expected this year, including .car, .health, .nyc, .movie, and .web, and the application process could be finalized at a meeting in San Francisco next month."
Censorship

Senators Bash ISP and Push Extensive Net Neutrality 427

eldavojohn writes "Remember when Verizon sued the FCC over net neutrality rules? Well, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Al Franken (D-MN) see it a bit differently and have authored a new working bill titled 'Internet Freedom, Broadband Promotion, and Consumer Protection Act of 2011 (PDF).' The bill lays out some stark clarity on what is meant by Net Neutrality by outright banning ISPs from doing many things including '(6) charge[ing] a content, application, or service provider for access to the broadband Internet access service providers' end users based on differing levels of quality of service or prioritized delivery of Internet protocol packets; (7) prioritiz[ing] among or between content, applications, and services, or among or between different types of content, applications, and services unless the end user requests to have such prioritization... (9) refus[ing] to interconnect on just and reasonable terms and conditions.' And that doesn't count for packets sent over just the internet connections but also wireless, radio, cell phone or pigeon carrier. Franken has constantly reiterated that this is the free speech issue of our time and Cantwell said, 'If we let telecom oligarchs control access to the Internet, consumers will lose. The actions that the FCC and Congress take now will set the ground rules for competition on the broadband Internet, impacting innovation, investment, and jobs for years to come. My bill returns the broadband cop back to the beat, and creates the same set of obligations regardless of how consumers get their broadband.'"

Comment Re:Applies to all movies (Score 1) 170

And remember how good the Matrix seemed when we first saw it, and then how bad it seems in retrospect after seeing the rest of the Wachowski brother's "vision"? That's a movie whose impact was actually lessened by the sequels - it was better when we filled in the blanks with our imagination than when we saw what passed for the "answers" presented in Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions (the truly horrid mess of the series).

The original Star Wars movies are, thankfully, separated enough in time and form from the later prequels that many of us can still view them as they were originally (well, assuming you can find a copy of them without George Lucas' idiotic revisions) and simply pretend that the dull drivel made years later doesn't exist.

Does anyone know if the original trilogy (un-edited) has been remastered?

If so, under what format and where did you find it?

Comment Re:Does anyone need more reason to quit social med (Score 1) 391

Everything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law. The connections you make, the things you read, everything. The government has too much power and by indulging in these useless social media activities, people are making themselves into potential targets by participating in them. Say you were curious about wikileaks and subscribed to Assange's twitter. Well guess what, now the government knows who you are, you are on yet another list and only because you were curious about what he had to say.

I'm not condemning social media as much as I am condemning this sort of behavior from government. But while the government IS behaving this way, people should be more careful in response.

Who would have guessed we would be the next Iran?

Comment How does an airplane see a signal mirror? (Score 4, Interesting) 416

Of all the myths they've 'busted', this is the one I most wanted to see revisited.

Survival kits have signal mirrors with a sighting mechanism and no moving parts that allows the user to shine the sun's reflection directly onto the target (even a distant moving airplane). A mechanism Archimedes could have fashioned onto a shield for instance.

The Mythbusters claim the myth was 'busted' not because enough heat couldn't be generated, but because an individual soldier would be unable to distinguish his particular 'reflected spot', and therefore be unable to focus it onto the target. A simple sighting mechanism like those found on signal mirrors solves this problem, allowing an entire group to focus on one point simultaneously.

Comment RE: Have I Lost My Gaming Mojo? (Score 4, Informative) 418

I have this exact same problem. I'm 35 years old, and I've been playing Arcade/Console/PC games since the age of 12.

Over the last 3 weeks I've been scouring the web for reviews, spanning back as far as the mid 80's for gems I may have missed. More and more I'm convinced that I've played every game worth playing.

My favorite games throughout my life so far have been:

(the times when I discovered or played them, not necessarily when published)
Age 12-15: The Bard's Tale, Wasteland, Ultima, Pirates!, Might and Magic 2, Dungeon Master, Gold Box AD&D, Castlevania, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Punch Out, Super Metroid
Age 16-24: Dune 2, Warcraft, Warcraft II, Tie Fighter, Mechwarrior Vengeance, Counterstrike, TFC, Diablo, Everquest
Age 24-30: Diablo II, Nethack, Moria, Angband, Zangband, Civilization 3, Baldur's Gate II, Age of Empires II, Shadowrun (Sega Genesis), Half-Life, Daggerfall, Fallout 1&2, Far Cry, X-COM UFO Defense, Battlefield 1942, WoW
Age 30-35: Master of Magic, Master of Orion 1&2, KOTOR, GTA Vice City, Jedi Knight Academy, Pirates 2, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Thief Gold, Fallout 3, Might and Magic VI&VII, Wizardy 8, Titan Quest, Torchlight, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Borderlands, Mount and Blade Warband

There are hundreds of other titles & sequels I've tried which I don't consider worth listing, I'm sure I forgot a few that are.

But I feel like I've seen it all, and that innovation in computer gaming has stopped.

I'd like to believe I'm wrong, and I'm sure there are some great indie titles I would enjoy (Mount and Blade Warband was a wonderful surprise), but it's taking me more time to find a game worth playing than to actually play the game. I don't remember that being a problem before.

Comment Bioware nerfed my Squad, so I quit (Score 1) 341

I quite ME2 as soon as I learned that squad ammo powers didn't stack, which was the basis upon which I was designing my entire team.

Players shouldn't have to 'google ahead' to 'future proof' their game, the powers description should have clearly spelled out what you can and can't do with them.

Their interface screw-up ruined 15+ hours of game time I had invested over two weeks, so I quit and haven't looked back...or forward to another Bioware game for that matter.

Comment Hey Runic, Please Fix Enchanting (Score 1) 85

They need to fix enchanting, it was fun but poorly balanced. You could find level 0 items, give them 50 enchants for the price of 3 on a unique, and then blaze through the entire game.

Also, the possibility of having your item randomly destroyed while enchanting needs to go. One of my favorite items broke while enchanting it, I was so pissed I googled a cheat mod to fix this 'feature', but the mod was overpowered in other ways so I lost interest and stopped playing.

Overall I really liked TL, I just hope TL2's unique and set items are more powerful than uber enchanted low-level blues.

Comment Patent encumbrance of automotive NiMH batteries (Score 2, Interesting) 438

In an interview in the 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, Ovshinsky stated that in the early 1990s, the auto industry created the US Auto Battery Consortium (USABC) to stifle the development of electric vehicle technology by preventing the dissemination of knowledge about Ovshinky's battery-related patents to the public through the California Air Resources Board (CARB).[3]

According to Ovshinsky, the auto industry falsely suggested that NiMH technology was not yet ready for widespread use in road cars.[4] Members of the USABC, including General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, threatened to take legal action against Ovshinsky if he continued to promote NiMH's potential for use in BEVs, and if he continued to lend test batteries to Solectria, a start-up electric vehicle maker that was not part of the USABC. The Big Three car companies argued that his behavior violated their exclusive rights to the battery technology, because they had matched a federal government grant given to Ovonics to develop NiMH technology. Critics argue that the Big Three were more interested in convincing CARB members that electric vehicles were not technologically and commercially viable.[3]

In 1994, General Motors acquired a controlling interest in Ovonics's battery development and manufacture, including patents controlling the manufacture of large NiMH batteries. The original intent of the equity alliance was to develop NiMH batteries for GM's EV1 BEV. Sales of GM-Ovonics batteries were later taken over by GM manager and critic of CARB John Williams, leading Ovshinsky to wonder whether his decision to sell to GM had been naive.[3] The EV1 program was shut down by GM before the new NiMH battery could be commercialized, despite field tests that indicated the Ovonics battery extended the EV1's range to over 150 miles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_automotive_NiMH_batteries

Slashdot Top Deals

Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. -- Steinbach

Working...