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Robotics

Submission + - Fridge Tosses Beer to Thirsty Engineer

Submitted by
bstory
bstory writes: "Need a beer, but the couch is too far from the fridge? One clever engineer has solved that problem. He's created a remote control operated fridge that has a ten beer magazine. With the push of a button it will load a cold beer from its magazine into a throwing device. Then another button push hurls the beer up to 20' to your waiting hands. Now if we can just make the microwave work with the fridge to toss us nuked food we'd never have to leave the couch."
Robotics

Submission + - Beer Tossing Fridge

Submitted by
cmacdona101
cmacdona101 writes: "CNN is reporting on a recent Duke grad that's engineered a remote controlled Fridge that tosses him a beer at the touch of a button. The fridge can launch the beer up to 20 feet, far enough to get to his couch. The video shows the fridge using a "beer magazine clip" and a remote firing system that let you determine angles and ballistics to get the beer to your friends anywhere in the room."
Windows

Submission + - Install Ubuntu in windows

Submitted by
eporue
eporue writes: ""Wubi is an unofficial Ubuntu installer for Windows users that will bring you into the Linux world with a few clicks. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other application. If you heard about Linux and Ubuntu, if you wanted to try them but you were afraid, this is for you." More at: Wubi"
Enlightenment

Submission + - Cory Doctorow On Dumb Web Companies

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In Boing Boing editor Cory Doctorow's latest column, The Web Can Humiliate Dumb Companies. Can It Make Them Smarter?, he argues that dysfunctional companies know only two modes of customer service: Abusive contempt, or pandering remorse (paging Dell?) Using problems with a Sony Hard Drive under extended warranty, he says, okay, customer service catastrophes are par for the course in big institutions, but, Jeez, can't supposed Web 2.0 companies just learn to get along with their customers? What are your customer-service catastrophes, and do you think that we're forever destinged to be stuck with bad overseas phone support?
United States

Submission + - China: U.S. violated Iraqis' rights

Submitted by firedragon852
firedragon852 writes: China's Xinhua News Agency has published a report in response to the U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2006. As in previous years, the State Department pointed the finger at human rights conditions in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but avoided touching on the human rights situation in the United States. To help the world people have a better understanding of the situation in the United States and promote the international cause of human rights, we hereby publish the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2006.
Microsoft

Submission + - FAA May Ditch Vista For Linux

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In what could be the start of a government wave away from Microsoft, last week's news that the U.S. Department of Transportation is putting a halt on upgrades to Windows Vista, Office 2007, and Internet Explorer 7 is followed today by word that the Federal Aviation Administration may ditch Vista and Office in favor of Google's new online business applications running on Linux-based hardware. FAA chief information officer David Bowen told InformationWeek he's taking a close look at the Premier Edition of Google Apps as he mulls replacements for the agency's Windows XP-based desktop computers. Bowen cited several reasons why he finds Google Apps attractive. "From a security and management standpoint that would have some advantages," he said. Do you think that Vista's cost could finally put a crimp in what's been an automatic upgrade cycle to Microsoft and spur Linux adoption? Is this the start of some kind of anti-Vista groundswell?
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Volunteers to build RPG.

Submitted by MrShaggy
MrShaggy writes: According to an article over on the bbc, Acclaim, is making an RPG. However this RPG is going t be written by volunteers. '"I want it to be a title they own and feel excited about," said Mr Perry, a 24-year veteran of the games industry.' They already have 20,000 people ready to go. This is the link:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6422333 .stm
Businesses

Submission + - Best Buy Under Investigation

Submitted by
quibbs0
quibbs0 writes: ""Best Buy is getting into some hot water because of an intrastore version of its Web site. The Connecticut Attorney General's Office has launched a probe into the chain's use of an internal version of its Web site that looks and acts virtually identical to the public Web version except that it sometimes offers higher prices, according to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal."
The Internet

Submission + - Conservapedia tries to "fix" Wikipedia's b

Submitted by Wingnut 07
Wingnut 07 writes: Upset by what they perceive as a liberal bias in Wikipedia, a group of conservatives led by Andy Schlafly, son of Phyllis Schlafly, has created the Conservapedia. Schlafly hopes to forge a 'new path' with Conservapedia, 'one that will make it one of the most "reliable online educational resources of its kind," according to the site (though this goal seems difficult given the wiki's stated main-page mission of "favor[ing] Christianity and America").' That may be tough, given that it suffers from many of the same problems as its nemesis, Wikipedia. 'The entire effort has been roundly mocked, even by conservatives, many of whom aren't pleased to be linked in the public imagination with Conservapedia entries like, "Modern kangaroos originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood."' Incredibly, the kangaroo entry does not appear to be a hoax.
Data Storage

Submission + - Why we hate lawyers in IT: Reason No. 1,997

Submitted by jcatcw
jcatcw writes: How many laws affect IT? Steve Duplessie says zillions. Most are about record retention, and they were a boon to the storage industry. The lawyers on the good side put tough laws in place to say, "Thou shalt keep stuff, electronic or other, so that we can see it when we think you're a lying dirtbag." The lawyers on the bad side then started making money, first by trying to show their clients how to skirt the issue, and then by showing them how to comply. But now retention isn't enough. You have to also find the stuff. There are numerous approaches to the problem, but they seem to be lumped into these basic categories: 1. Let someone else deal with it; 2. Categorize and classify things up front; 3. Index stuff in the backup stream; 4. Internal search technologies.
Microsoft

Submission + - Visual Studio: Industry Leading IDE, but in what?

Submitted by
Yoooder
Yoooder writes: "I've used Visual Studio 2005 for some time, but the longer I use it the more frustrated I get with it. Amid all it's wonderful features there's something smelly, something that oozes from the cracks and lets me know that underneath me there is something disturbing and wrong. Random crashes, out of control memory usage, a finicky designer, and a lack of updates all plague this IDE — and the grand-daddy of them all is a Service Pack that runs umpteen times, requiring user interaction the whole way through and lacking proof of any real fixes.

Does anyone else have the feeling that Microsoft's flagship programming tool is a victim of Too Much Too Fast? What are your horror stories within the unpredictable vessel of vs2005?"

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