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Communications

TerreStar Launches World's Largest Telecom Satellite 57

Posted by Soulskill from the bigger-they-are-the-harder-hey-wait-a-sec dept.
An anonymous reader sends news that TerreStar-1, the largest satellite ever made for the purpose of telecommunications, successfully launched earlier this week from a European spaceport. Its launch weight was 6,910 kg, and it is "distinguished by a giant, 60-foot (18-meter) wide S-band antenna that will be unfurled in the coming weeks. Once the satellite's two solar wings are deployed, TerreStar-1 is expected to have a wingspan of about 106 feet (32.4 meters). ... It is designed to provide mobile voice and data communications in North America to smartphone-size handsets using the 2-gigahertz, or S-band, portion of the radio spectrum. The system is designed to function with a network of ground-based signal amplifiers to permit service in areas the satellite cannot reach, such as urban canyons and areas outside the line-of-sight view of the spacecraft." Video and details of the launch are available from the ESA.

Comment The Doctor from "The Authority" comic series. (Score 1) 860

by kyriosdelis (#28374849) Attached to: Who is your favorite fictional doctor?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authority_(comics)
Quoting Wikipedia:

Jeroen Thornedike, a Dutch heroin addict, was destined to become the next Doctor and a member of The Authority. Jeroen was "a multimedia millionaire by twelve, a dot-com billionaire by twenty, and staring into space in a psychiatric home by the age of twenty-one". He eventually gave away all his money and tried to have an ordinary life until the original Doctor died and Jeroen inherited his abilities. Jeroen refused to accept the responsibility and instead spent his days shooting heroin, watching pornographic videos of horses having sex with women and playing Sonic the Hedgehog.

Dude, this guy rocks :p

Comment Re:when it will happen (Score 2, Funny) 383

by kyriosdelis (#28305341) Attached to: Could Betelgeuse Go Boom?

It's probably gonna blow the next time Lydia yells Betelgeuse 3 times.

Lydia the Tattooed Lady?

Oh Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia?
Lydia the Tattooed Lady.
She has eyes that folks adore so, and a torso even more so.
Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclopedia.
Oh Lydia the queen of tattoo. On her back is The Battle of Waterloo.
Beside it, The Wreck of the Hesperus, too.
And proudly above waves the red, white, and blue.
You can learn a lot from Lydia!
La-la-la...la-la-la. La-la-la...la-la-la.

/ducks
It's funny. Laugh.

Human Laughter Up To 16 Million Years Old 149

Posted by samzenpus from the a-pierolapithecus-catalaunicus-walks-into-a-bar dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Published today in the journal Current Biology, a new study shows that laughter is not a unique human trait, but a behavior shared by all great apes. Tickle a baby chimpanzee and it will giggle just like a human infant. This is because laughter evolved millions of years ago in one of our common ancestors, say scientists."
Image

Finnish Guy Gets Prosthetic USB Finger Storage 113

Posted by samzenpus from the I'd-still-choose-a-shotgun-leg dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Jerry had a motorcycle accident last May and lost a finger. When the doctor working on the artificial finger heard he is a hacker, the immediate suggestion was to embed a USB 'finger drive' to the design. Now he carries a Billix Linux distribution as part of his hand."
Emulation (Games)

ScummVM 0.13.0 Delivers New Adventure Games 69

Posted by Soulskill from the ever-expanding-selection dept.
KingofGnG writes "The classics, by definition, never go out of fashion, let alone if they are the graphic adventures of past decades. The preferred tool of true adventurers is ScummVM, software that works as an interpreter between data files of such adventures and modern operating systems. 6 months after the release of version 0.12.0, developers have now delivered a new main release of the virtual machine, which includes novelties both for the interface and supported games."
Image

Science Unlocks The Mystery Of Belly Button Lint 161

Posted by samzenpus from the extreme-navel-gazing dept.
After three years of research, including examining 503 pieces of fluff from his own belly button, Georg Steinhauser has discovered a type of body hair that traps stray pieces of lint and draws them into the navel. Dr Steinhauser's observations showed that "small pieces of fluff first form in the hair and then end up in the navel at the end of the day." Chemical analysis revealed the pieces of fluff were not just made up of cotton from clothing. Wrapped up in the lint were also flecks of dead skin, fat, sweat and dust. Unfortunately, further study has failed to yield a hair or fiber that would give Dr. Steinhauser the last three years of his life back.
Businesses

Square Enix To Buy Eidos, Midway Files For Bankruptcy 88

Posted by Soulskill from the finish-them dept.
arcticstoat writes to tell us that Square Enix has been revealed as the potential buyer to Eidos, developer of the Tomb Raider franchise. Eidos had been shedding workers and studios in an attempt for financial stability. This comes alongside news that Midway Games is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to stave off creditors while they sort out what's left of their resources. World of Goo publisher Brighter Minds Media also filed for bankruptcy last month. Free Radical, a UK studio recently put in a similar position was snapped up by Crytek, and we discussed news of Sega's financial turmoil as well. It seems that claims from late last year suggesting the games industry may be "recession proof" are quickly being proven wrong, though Kotaku suggests that most of the blame falls on the developers.
The Courts

Pirate Bay Operators Stand Trial On Monday 664

Posted by timothy from the stay-warm-date-a-swede dept.
Anonymous Pirate writes "Operators of The Pirate Bay stand trial on Monday in Stockholm. The four defendants from the popular file-sharing web site are charged with being accessories to breaking copyright law and may face fines or up to two years in prison if found guilty. The four defendants have run the site since 2004 after it was started in 2003 by the Swedish anti-copyright organization Piratbyrån. The Swedish public service television announced that they are going to send a live audio stream from the trial. It will be broadcast without editing or translation."
PlayStation (Games)

Epilogue DLC Coming To Prince of Persia 36

Posted by Soulskill from the still-not-dead dept.
IGN reports that Prince of Persia will be getting downloadable content on February 26th for the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game. It will be an epilogue to the original game, and it will add about three hours of gameplay. "Expect everything to be at a higher pace and to keep you on the edge of your seat. Figuring out how to succeed passing this long acrobatic sequence mined with traps or how to defeat this boss before he regenerates his energy will definitely be more intense. What hardcore Prince of Persia gamers want is a challenge and some of them found the game too easy. We understand this. Seeing such feedback, our vision and intentions with the DLC coincided with their comments quite well. We wanted to build a challenge and experience even greater with all the tools at our disposal, and let me say that there are a lot: Elika's power, traps, combat system, etc."

Comment Lower forms of life? (Score 1) 344

by kyriosdelis (#26587543) Attached to: Texas Board of Education Supports Evolution

What exactly makes an organism a higher form of life than another? We had this discussion just yesterday at the university...
There is no such thing as a "higher" or a "lower" organism. It all depends on the context of the discussion:
Humans for example, have the most complex nervous system than all other organism. This makes them the "highest" life form when discussing nervous systems. On the contrary, a species of archaea can for example live in underwater volcanic environments. This makes it a "higher" organism when discussing extreme environments.
And no, the size of the genome or the number of genes, are not a criterion for this either. The human genome has 3 billion base pairs, and there's a species of amoeba that has a genome of 100 billion bp.
And I don't want to hear any jokes about amoebas and overlords :p
The Courts

Submission + - Is Last Man Sued by RIAA a College Student? (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "It appears that one of the 'last people sued' by the RIAA, in the flurry of lawsuits commenced just prior to its announcement that its litigation campaign was folding up its tents, was a Pittsburgh area college student named Jerome Williams, against whom a complaint was filed on December 15th in Atlantic Recording v. Williams. While he was unlucky to get caught in the RIAA's propellor blades at the tail end of the campaign, he was, unlike most victims of the RIAA's 5 1/2-year onslaught, able to find spirited legal counsel who are hopping mad about the RIAA's lawsuits, saying that 'Just because the record industry plaintiffs are mammoth corporations with massive financial resources does not justify them shirking their burden of proof under the law, particularly when their claims can have such dire repercussions on often powerless individuals.' His lawyers have taken the fight to the RIAA, filing a motion to dismiss the complaint for legal insufficiency. I guess you know who I'm rooting for."

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