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

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Wreckage of AF447 located 1

Submitted by mriya3
mriya3 writes: BEA, the French air accident investigation office, reports that the wreckage of Air France flight 447 has been found. The plane, an Airbus A330, crashed June 1, 2009 while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Investigators hope to find the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder. A press conference will be held today.

Submission + - Robot playing Angry Birds (optofidelity.com)

Submitted by
kosminen
kosminen writes: "The competition by Nokia and Rovio of the Finnish championship of Angry Birds game has just been finished. During this spring there have been eight competitions around Finland, and the final was held in Helsinki on 26th March. In future there might be this kind of competitions also between humans and robots, at least if you ask OptoFidelity, a company which is specialized in multimedia device testing and machine vision. They have now put the robot technology into new use, and designed a system which plays Angry Birds automatically.

“We do a lot of touch panel testing and performance testing for mobile devices using video and optical measuring systems”, says Hans Kuosmanen from OptoFidelity. “As we already had the know-how, software platform and components for the robot controlling system, it wasn’t hard to implement an application for this particular use.”

Why Angry Birds? Jere Tuulkari from OptoFidelity gives a clear answer to this question: “We saw a lot of cool things going on around Angry Birds, and we wanted to do something cool ourselves, and came up with this robot solution.”

According to Tuulkari, the most difficult part of the project was to play through all levels of Angry Birds and get three stars on every level. After this the robot controlling part was relatively easy.

Until today there have been chess championships and quizzes between humans and robots. Since this application by OptoFidelity can be developed further towards a self-learning system, in future also games which are controlled with motions may be played against intelligent robots.

OptoFidelity Ltd. is a high-tech company specialized on testing systems and machine vision. With our solutions we help our customers to shorten their research and development processes. Our business areas include measurement systems for the research and development of electronics industry and testing laboratories on international markets, and camera modules and monitoring solutions for domestic markets. In addition OptoFidelity provides tailored solutions for visual quality control.

Here's a link to some video clips about it:
http://www.optofidelity.com/angrybirds"
Facebook

Submission + - Does Facebook Kill Authenticity? 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Steve Cheney writes that the problem with tying internet-wide identity to a broadcast network like Facebook is that people don’t want one normalized identity, either in real life, or virtually. "People yearn to be individuals. They want to be authentic. They have numerous different groups of real-life friends. They stylize conversations. They are emotional and have an innate need to connect on different levels with different people," writes Cheney adding that the recent decision by a number of sites, including TechCrunch, to adopt Facebook commenting highlights the problem where the integration of the formatting and fonts is so strong that when you're reading comments you actuallyfeel like you are on Facebook, not a tech focused vertical site. "Facebook’s insistence that you have one identity across the web is both short-sighted and asinine, and people I talk to are starting to realize this," concludes Cheney. "Fact is, one social network will not rule the web... People are simply way too social to allow that.""

Submission + - Xoom sues Motorola over use of name (tomsguide.com)

Submitted by
H_Fisher
H_Fisher writes: "Here come the lawyers: San Francisco-based financial company Xoom is suing Motorola for "trademark infringement, false designation of origin, unfair competition, false advertising, unfair business practices and other claims" due to the use of their name for the tablet PC released last week,"
Businesses

Submission + - Viacom Closes MTV Games (escapistmagazine.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Both The Escapist and Joystiq are reporting that the MTV Games division of Viacom is being closed. After selling off Harmonix for an alleged equivalent of a single Red Lobster Gift Card, it turns out that Viacom's division known as MTV Games has little left on its plate. There's some bickering over missed performance based payments and MTV Games failed to secure a publishing deal for all the Rock Band games in Europe — which appeared to be the final nail in the coffin for them.
Technology

Submission + - "Death by GPS" increasing in America's wilderness (sacbee.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Every year, more and more Americans are dying in deserts and wildernesses because they rely on their GPS units (and, to some degree, their cellphones) to always be accurate. The Sacramento Bee quotes Death Valley wilderness coordinator Charlie Callagan: "It's what I'm beginning to call death by GPS ... People are renting vehicles with GPS and they have no idea how it works and they are willing to trust the GPS to lead them into the middle of nowhere."
Electronic Frontier Foundation

Submission + - EFF report claims the FBI "flagrantly violated law (dbune.com)

Submitted by dbune
dbune writes: In a new report, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says documents obtained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation show widespread violations in the agency\'s intelligence investigations from 2001 to 2008. In a review of nearly 2,50...
Businesses

Submission + - Lesons Learned From Consumer Cloud Services (techtarget.com)

Submitted by rsmiller510
rsmiller510 writes: When consumer services like Mozy and Flickr change their pricing or have a data failure, it might not matter to IT pros, but it should because if it can happen to consumers, it could happen to you too.
Mozilla

Submission + - Chromeless replaces Prism - a new way to create de (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: Mozilla Labs has dumped its Prism project, that was intended to bring web applications to the desktop, in favor of a revamped and repurposed Chromeless, a way of building experimental web browsers, to provide yet another way to create a desktop app using web technologies. Why is Mozilla reinventing the wheel and why does it fail to explain how the basic technology, XUL, that FireFox is based on is actually very good?
Iphone

Submission + - Verizon employees being affected by its decision (geekword.net) 1

Submitted by TechieAlizay
TechieAlizay writes: Verizon sent a detailed memo to its employees regarding this issue and asked them not to buy the CDMA iPhone themselves from any retail stores or outlet, and also ask their families not to purchase the phone at the moment, as it's been a shortage of supply in the market for its product, so it's first priority to sell out the phone is to the real customers. So what do you think is it fair or not?
Television

Submission + - Stewart and Colbert Return To Hulu, Revenue Up

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Hulu has struck a content deal with Viacom that returns "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" to Hulu.com and brings shows from other networks to the subscription service, Hulu Plus. At the same time, Hulu's CEO hinted that the days of fully free access to the service might be numbered. The agreement covers shows on Comedy Central, MTV, BET, VH1, Spike TV and TV Land. Hulu also claims it is now rolling in revenue. CEO, Jason Kilar used the Viacom announcement to declare that Hulu makes more money per ad than traditional television because, thanks to the DVR, most of us out there in viewer land don't watch the too-many commercials thrown at us. Hulu expects to see a half billion in revenue from advertising in 2011, up from half that in 2010, and from $108 million in 2009.
Businesses

Submission + - NewsCorp flags offloading MySpace (idg.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: News Corporation has confirmed it is considering offloading its struggling social networking website MySpace. NewsCorp chief operating officer Chase Carey says the company was looking at a "new ownership structure" for the website. "With a new content focus and structure in place, we believe now is the right time for News Corp to consider strategic options for this business," Carey told analysts and media
America Online

Submission + - Beginning of the end for AOL? (cnn.com)

Submitted by H_Fisher
H_Fisher writes: A Fortune magazine report confirms what many geeks have thought for ages: AOL is relying on an unsustainable business model. A leaked plan from inside shows a company using an ever-declining pool of dial-up users, many of them elderly, while struggling to rebrand itself as a source for "content" — articles on topics like "Backpacking the Axis of Evil," farmed out to writers for $10 or so a pop.

Slashdot Top Deals

Dynamically binding, you realize the magic. Statically binding, you see only the hierarchy.

Close