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Robotics

Hobby Inspired Electric Multicopter Makes Manned Flight 104

garymortimer writes "A German team has managed to fly its super-sized hobby inspired platform with a man on-board! A one-hour flight would cost something near to 6 Euro for electricity. In addition, the device holds few parts that could wear out, making maintenance intervals and cost low and far between. The control firmware can be integrated with a sophisticated integrated GPS system or obstacle detection. As such, automated flight for predetermined points on a 3D map is possible."
Science

Researchers Say Dark Winters Led To Bigger Human Brains 167

Brad1138 writes "Humans living at high latitude have bigger eyes and bigger brains to cope with poor light during long winters and cloudy days, UK scientists have said. from the article: 'The scientists measured the eye sockets and brain volumes of 55 skulls from 12 populations across the world, and plotted the results against latitude. Lead author Eiluned Pearce told BBC News: "We found a positive relationship between absolute latitude and both eye socket size and cranial capacity."'"

Comment Move along, sexists writer. (Score 1) 948

FTFA

We’ve all lived the nightmare. A new developer shows up at work, and you try to be welcoming, but he1 can’t seem to get up to speed; the questions he asks reveal basic ignorance; and his work, when it finally emerges, is so kludgey that it ultimately must be rewritten from scratch by more competent people. And yet his interviewers—and/or the HR department, if your company has been infested by that bureaucratic parasite—swear that they only hire above-average/A-level/top-1% people. ....

1 - Yes, I am being deliberately sexist here, because in my experience those women who write code are consistently good at it.

I know it's socially cool to be anti-male, but come on.

Comment Missing the reason, I think (Score 2) 136

Purely conjecture, but I believe it's less to do with "checking off a feature" and more to do with the following:
- Save time & money on content generation, since people who play multiplayer will use the same map over and over.
- Form of DRM / Piracy Protection, if there is 'server validation' then there's an indirect 'purchase validation'

Personally, I don't buy a game for multiplayer unless it's split screen, and those are few and far between. I'd play an older game like Goldeneye 64 with 3 buds long before playing any shooter over xbox live.

Science

Researchers Boast First Programmable Nanoprocessor 38

schliz writes "Harvard University researchers have assembled nanowires into tiny 'logic tiles' that can perform adder, subtractor, multiplexer, demultiplexer and clocked D-latch functions. While the 960-square-micrometre chips are not currently as dense as 32nm CMOS technology, the researchers say future versions could be up to 100 times more efficient than current electronics, and could yield low-power, application-specific 'nanocontrollers' for use in tiny embedded systems and biomedical devices."

Comment Re:anime may be a bad sample subject (Score 1) 199

Which largely amounts to nothing. The number of fansub viewers so wildly outweighs the number of buyers it's ridiculous and shows keep getting distributed no matter what.

Really? Source? That's almost shocking to hear, as my experiences have been so drastically different. I'd be interested to see that survey or study. Additionally, it would go pretty counter to the article above as well.

Comment Re:Sad Keanu Is Nostalgic (Score 1) 640

Why is this trash marked "Informative". It's clear that the parent has no idea who "Mr. Reeves" is.

This man gives most of his money to Charity / the staff that helps during the movie shoots / or to other actors. He's given 90%~ of his salary so that another actor could join the set that he felt 'fit the role' on more than one occasion. He lives like a real person (takes the bus, eats at local shops)..

He is one of the very few actors that actually does it because he loves it.

Comment Re:Piracy..? (Score 1) 378

Yup, I could really care less about the games.

I'm confused, so you do care and are interested in piracy? Or do you mean "I couldn't care less".

To the GP, game publishers only look at / care about the piracy angle. Even if no one admitted that they wanted to pirate, these companies have a vested interest in keeping the game system 'locked down' and will see any openness on it as a threat.

Comment Greedy (Score 5, Interesting) 199

Live is a portal that provides the following:
- Targeted Advertising, which makes Microsoft money
- Media purchasing avenue (Games, Videos, Add-ons, etc), which makes Microsoft money
- Multiplayer functionality around games which make Microsoft Money
- Subscription Fee, which makes Microsoft money

Only cost that has no/little return is from people who play multilayer constantly and somehow avoids seeing any of the advertisements.

This is really just a profit grab. I can't really blame them since they don't have to compete with anyone for their existing install base, but it does irk me.

Microsoft

Xbox Live Pricing To Go Up To $60 Per Year 199

donniebaseball23 writes "Microsoft has raised the annual price of Xbox Live Gold to $60, which is a price hike of $10. The new price goes into effect on November 1, but gamers can lock in the current Xbox Live price by renewing now. EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich is not surprised by the move, nor does he think it will really have much impact on the Xbox momentum."

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