Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Maybe it's up to the OS (Score 5, Interesting) 233

AV software is picking up the slack for badly designed operating systems. Kernels, drivers, the shell, the UI of software, management control and process control have all spiralled out of sync in their evolution in all OSes bar none which is a perfect breeding ground for this.

Come on OS's, raise that bar so that AV companies can do the same.

Microsoft

Submission + - Kinect for PC to Launch With No Licence Fee (i-programmer.info) 3

mikejuk writes: When Steve Balmer took the stage for his last keynote at CES, he announced the date for Kinect for Windows to be launched, February 1, 2012. The fact that the new device will work in near mode i.e. down to 50cm isn't news but Microsoft has announced that it wont charge a license fee for the SDK. Instead it will make a profit on selling Kinects. And to stop you using the subsidized Xbox Kinect it has withdrawn permission to use its SDK for even non-commercial use. The Windows/PC connect will cost $249 — about $100 more than the XBox version.
IBM

Submission + - IBM Snags Patent on Taking a Half-Day Off of Work

theodp writes: The USPTO appears to have lowered the bar on obviousness, awarding a patent to IBM Tuesday for its System for Portion of a Day Out of Office Notification. 'Out of office features in existing applications such as Lotus Notes, IBM Workplace, and Microsoft Outlook all implement a way to take a number of days off from one day to many days,' acknowledges purported patent reformer Big Blue. 'Yet, none of these applications contain the feature of letting a person take a half-day or in more general terms, x days and x hours off.' Eureka! And yes, the invention is every bit as obvious as you can imagine.
Programming

Ask Slashdot: One Framework To Rule Them All? 287

New submitter ittybad writes "I work with a small web-based company, and, for some new web applications, we are looking to possibly change frameworks if it will be a benefit to our developers and our customers. We have experience with PHP's Symfony 1.4, and are not happy with what we are experiencing with Symfony 2.0. We have some Ruby guys who would love us to implement a Ruby on Rails solution, and our backend is Python powered — so maybe Django is the way to go. So, I ask you, Slashdotters, what web framework do you find to be the best and why? Why would you avoid others?"
Facebook

Facebook's URL Scanner Vulnerable To Cloaking Attack 34

Facebook's recent move to scan for malicious URLs sounded like a pretty good idea, but itwbennett writes with word that it's already been bypassed.'Hatter,' a member of hacking think-tank Blackhat Academy, provided a live demonstration, which involved posting the URL to a JPEG file on a wall. Facebook crawled the URL and added a thumbnail image to the wall post, however, clicking on its corresponding link actually redirected users to YouTube. This happened because the destination page was able to identify Facebook's original request and served a JPEG file. Earlier this week, Facebook signed a partnership with Websense to use the security vendor's cloud-based, real-time Web scanner for malicious URL detection. Blackhat Academy has now provided proof-of-concept code, which, according to its advisory, can be used to bypass it."

Comment it's the angle of the eyeballs (Score 1) 281

For movies, the angle of the cameras is fixed on a certain point in the scene so if you only ever look at the point the cameras were focussed on then it will seem more real.

If you look around the scene, the effect is not real and there will be subtle differences which explains the nausea for a lot of people.

I've seen 3d movies since the mod 90's and played 3d games since the geforce 256. For games, I've noticed that it's only good for racing games where the eyeball angle is fixed mostly at a very far point down the road. With shooters, I look around the scene too much and feel that things aren't right, it seems to add latency to my reactions. After about a month of Quake 2 and a few others I had stopped.

What we really need for games is cameras in the glasses that look at where our eyes are looking and adjust the view angles accordingly. For movies, nothing is to be done because not everyone is looking at the same thing.

Advice for people with sensitive reactions to subtle changes in the world that is presented towards them, when watching a 3d movie, try not moving your head and always look where the scene is focussed on. You may be able to watch a little longer.

Cheers

Comment Re:No money (Score 1) 190

I'm still a huge UT2004 player but did give UT3 a couple of months when it came out and again this summer. I could probably narrow it down to a few reasons why a lot of people didn't enjoy ut3.

It's mostly dark pastel colours and looks more like a movie (which is what you don't want when you interact with an environment, but is what you want when being told a story... I don't need blur in a game, when I turn quickly, my eyes already blur natually because things are moving quickly [who even thought of putting blur in an fps... duh!]).

With all this blur and dark shading of every colour, you don't get a larger view in your environment and feel a little more alone even when on a team... or standing right next to someone.

When you're in a vehicle the camera view is too close to the vehicle. What the hell!

And my biggest peeve is that the game just feels slower. No double jumping.

Anyways, I'm one of those who has given pretty much every fps that's come out in the last 3 years a real try (at least 20-30 hours) and have not found one that's got something to entice me, in fact they're all going in the wrong direction... slow and blind.

I'm still open to try new ones anytime they come out and always keep my hopes up. But UT3 was the last time that I buy a game before I try it.

Comment Re:I went one further (Score 1) 1260

I know a lot of people answered about the sqrt, but I'm still trying to understand why it's ok to start with this:

i^2 = -1 (definition of i)

if you want to let everyone know the definition of i then shouldn't it be alone on one side? It looks like you have not defined i to begin with.

Comment the third core is separate (Score 1) 117

If I was a phone designer, reading this I would assume that I can install a realtime OS on the third core to perform phone and system management related functions, and use the other 2 cores for the user OS to run the UI and all the apps. With a well developed system, these are the features this chip could allow: - the user OS could reboot/freeze/crash and you can still make calls or stay on the line with the current call. - you could be down to the last couple of minutes of battery life, and decide to shut off the user OS and only leave phone functionality on which would stretch that last 3 minutes into another hour (or more, or less). - an app that takes all resources, would not affect phone functionality. - there could be a real separation of data paths between the 2 operating systems (the user OS and the realtime OS) which could protect the realtime OS from viruses (although the separation could prevent certain features. This one could incite interesting discussion). I think this is great product, we are sure to see more development in the industry along these lines.
Science

Follow Up On Solar Neutrinos and Radioactive Decay 183

An anonymous reader writes "A few days ago, Slashdot carried a story that was making the rounds: a team of physicists claimed to have detected a strange variation in radioactive decay rates, which they attributed to the mysterious influence of solar neutrinos. The findings attracted immediate attention because they seemed to upend two tenets of physics: that radioactive decay is constant, and that neutrinos very, very rarely interact with matter (trillions of the particles are zinging through your body right now). So Discover Magazine's news blog 80beats followed up on the initial burst of news and interviewed several physicists who work on neutrinos. They are decidedly skeptical."

Comment Re:encryption, not trust (Score 1) 269

well I can answer how big the middle is... how big is this internet called the Internet that I have between me and my site? And if you know that then you could probably tell me just about how protected it is too... here's a link that may help find some preliminary info:

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/06/28/2340237/22-Million-SSL-Certificates-In-Use-Are-Invalid?art_pos=1

Cheers

Slashdot Top Deals

"Intelligence without character is a dangerous thing." -- G. Steinem

Working...