Prenons Crise - Slashdot User

Submission + - Photoshop silently destroys your pictures

Submitted by on Monday January 21, 2008 @10:47AM

An anonymous reader writes: Like most current graphical software, Photoshop makes computation faults when scaling or filtering images. Depending on the kind of image details, the losses range from negligible to severe. Even scientific institutions like the NASA publish images that were damaged by these faulty software. In common image file formats, the luminosity of the pixels is encoded using an exponential scale, to save space. When computations are performed on the pixels, the exponential scale must first be converted back to a linear scale, which reflects the real luminosity of the pixels. This conversion is never made...

MPAA Forced To Take Down University Toolkit 292

Posted by kdawson on Monday December 03, 2007 @10:05PM from the sauce-for-the-goose dept.

bobbocanfly writes "Ubuntu developer Matthew Garrett has succeeded in getting the MPAA to remove their 'University Toolkit' after claims it violated the GNU GPL. After several unsuccessful attempts to contact the MPAA directly, Garrett eventually emailed the group's ISP and the violating software was taken down."

Carnegie Mellon Gets $14.4M to Build Robo-Tank 213

Posted by Zonk on Saturday December 01, 2007 @11:11PM from the watch-robo-cop-for-cues-on-what-not-to-do dept.

coondoggie passed us a NetworkWorld article, this one discussing new developments in the state of robotic warfare. Carnegie Melon is now hard at work on a tank set to join its brother, the already much-discussed Unmanned Areal Vehicle, on the modern battlefield "Ultimately unmanned ground vehicles would be outfitted with anti-tank or anti-aircraft missiles and anti-personnel weapons to make them lethal. Part of the new award budget is also slated to help the university prove that autonomous ground vehicles are feasible in future combat situations."

Jack Thompson Facing Disbarment Trial 258

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @09:47AM from the facing-the-music dept.

pwizard2 writes "Gamepolitics reports that controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson faces the start of an ethics trial this morning, a process which could ultimately see him disbarred. The review board has set aside the entire week to hear details on the case. 'Over the weekend, Thompson turned to the Florida Supreme Court in an apparent effort to block this morning's trial from moving forward. In one court filing Thompson asserted that he was willing to accept a 90-day suspension of his license to practice law. The embattled attorney claimed that such an offer had been on the table, but that the Florida Bar was now seeking his permanent disbarment.'"

High-Quality YouTube Videos Coming Soon 134

Posted by Zonk on Friday November 16, 2007 @05:02PM from the bit-more-like-teevee dept.

mlauzon writes with the news that YouTube's co-founder Steve Chen has announced high-quality video streams are in the works for the popular site. He spoke today at the NewTeeVee Live event, discussing the challenges facing the project and when we can expect to see less grainy social videos. "The need to buffer the video before it starts playing will change the experience. Hence the experiment, rather than just a rapid rollout of this technology. On stage, he said the current resolution of YouTube videos has been "good enough" for the site until now. Chen told me he expects that high-quality YouTube videos will be available to everyone within three months. Chen also confirmed that in YouTube's internal archive, all video is stored at the native resolution in which it was sent. However, he said, a large portion of YouTube videos are pretty poor quality to begin with — 320x240. Streaming them in high-quality mode isn't going to help much."

New Parental Controls Limit Xbox Time 327

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday November 08, 2007 @02:24AM from the saying-no-is-hard dept.

An anonymous reader writes "As part of a new marketing blitz to promote the Xbox 360 as a "family friendly" video game console, Microsoft on Wednesday rolled out a new feature called Family Timer, which will show up in the Family Settings Screen. The Timer will let parents limit the number of hours their kids can play the Xbox on a daily or weekly basis. When the time limit is reached, the console will automatically shut off, ostensibly after saving the game."

Nmap From an Ethical Hacker's Point of View 115

Posted by kdawson on Sunday September 02, 2007 @04:13PM from the think-like-the-bad-guys-do dept.

ddonzal notes a new tutorial that introduces Nmap from the viewpoint of an ethical hacker. (Part 1 of 2 parts is up now.) The author is Kirby Tucker, who writes: "After completing this 2 Part Series and having practiced the techniques described, one should not only be able to sit at a 'roundtable' with advanced security professionals and 'hold their own' in a discussion concerning Nmap, but also utilize this great tool in protecting their own network."

Submission + - Picture scaling error in graphical softwares (4p8.com)

Submitted by

Eric Brasseur

on Thursday August 30, 2007 @12:46PM

Eric Brasseur writes: "Every picture scaling software I could test makes a gross error: the gamma of the picture being scaled is not taken into account. This makes that for example a pixel that should be at 50% brightness can get only 22% brightness. Depending on the kind of picture, the damage can be quite important. I wrote a page to explain the whole: www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma.html"

Censoring a Number 1046

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 01, 2007 @03:44PM from the you-can't-copyright-that dept.

Rudd-O writes "Months after successful discovery of the HD-DVD processing key, an unprecedented campaign of censorship, in the form of DMCA takedown notices by the MPAA, has hit the Net. For example Spooky Action at a Distance was killed. More disturbingly, my story got Dugg twice, with the second wave hitting 15,500 votes, and today I found out it had simply disappeared from Digg. How long until the long arm of the MPAA gets to my own site (run in Ecuador) and the rest of them holding the processing key? How long will we let rampant censorship go on, in the name of economic interest?" How long before the magic 16-hex-pairs number shows up in a comment here?

PC Makers Say Vista Is Not a Seller 319

Posted by Zonk on Saturday March 31, 2007 @07:32PM from the please-print-more-money dept.

TekkaDon writes "According to computer and component manufacturers, Vista is not the hotcake that they were hoping for. Take Acer's president, Gianfranco Lanci, who has just said that 'PC makers are really not counting on Vista to drive high demands for the industry.' Or Samsung Electronics, who now says that DRAM demand has not matched anyone's predictions based on Vista's now failed projections, something that is being echoed by the industry as a whole. This seem to agree with Ars Technica article on the 20 million Vista copies sold as a 'huge success' by Microsoft, which can be accounted for by the natural growth of PC sales over the years."

NASA Confirms Solar Storm Near 2012 344

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday March 21, 2007 @09:08AM from the get-out-your-foil-hats dept.

An anonymous reader writes "`This week researchers announced that a storm is coming — the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one," she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.`

`Dikpati's forecast puts Solar Max at 2012. Hathaway believes it will arrive sooner, in 2010 or 2011.`

Anyone familiar with the Mayan Calendar? December 21, 2012 (13.0.0.0.0 in the Mayan Calendar) Coincidence?"

Nanotechnology Reveals Hidden Fingerprints 26

Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday March 17, 2007 @11:10AM from the new-csi-devices dept.

valiko75 writes "Hidden fingerprints can now be revealed quickly and reliably thanks to two developments in nanotechnology. The thing is that they have invented an easier way to reveal hidden fingerprints, but the explanation is rather vague. The main point is that the experiments are not very stable at the moment, but with its development this technology will probably help in discovering many criminal mysteries."

Bookmark The dozen space weapons myths (thespacereview.com)

by DisownedSky on Monday March 12, 2007 @09:35AM

Submission + - Stephen Hawking To Fly On Zero Gravity Plane

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01, 2007 @09:29AM

An anonymous reader writes: MSNBC reports that British physicist Stephen Hawking will experience a zero gravity airplane flight on April 26. Although the 65-year-old professor is disabled from a neurodegenerative disease, he will be able to make the flight with assistance and medical monitoring. 'As someone who has studied gravity and black holes all of my life, I am excited to experience, firsthand, weightlessness and a zero-gravity environment,' said Hawking. 'I am thankful to Zero Gravity Corp. for making this experience available to the general public, especially for disabled individuals.' The weightless flight will be a step towards Hawking's goal of a suborbital spaceflight with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic.

Submission + - Wil Wheaton reviews Linux audio players

Submitted by ForeverFaithless on Thursday March 01, 2007 @07:44AM

ForeverFaithless writes: Wil Wheaton has reviewed several popular audio players on Linux, including XMMS, Amarok, and Banshee. Wil comes to the conclusion that Amarok is his favorite of the bunch, stating "I have never loved a music player as much as I love Amarok, and I've never had as much fun flipping through my library and learning more about my favorite artists."

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