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Comment Another passing fad (Score 1) 215

by Token_Internet_Girl (#30315188) Attached to: Novelists On the E-Book Experience
I can't reasonably see devices like the Kindle being nothing more than a technological fad unless the costs come down for purchasing a unit and subsequent books. Many users of said devices say they are flimsy and break easily, and several months ago there was the controversial story of the 1984 book deletions by Amazon: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html/. Why not just carry around PDF's of books you legally own on a Netbook?
Software

Submission + - Taking the drudgery out of software development (physorg.com)

Submitted by Token_Internet_Girl
Token_Internet_Girl writes: "Traditionally, developers have had to write software programs from scratch, whether or not something similar has been done in the past for a different application or circumstance. This has meant skilled people spending a lot of time doing repetitive, boring work before being able to turn out new software for a specific requirement. But a much more efficient way of doing things has been demonstrated by European researchers who have developed an automated way of searching a central software repository to extract software ‘artefacts’ from existing systems for use in new systems." This project is further detailed here.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Chickens into Dinosaurs? (physorg.com) 2

Submitted by Token_Internet_Girl
Token_Internet_Girl writes: After years spent hunting for the buried remains of prehistoric animals, a Canadian paleontologist now plans to manipulate chicken embryos to show he can create a dinosaur.Hans Larsson, the Canada Research Chair in Macro Evolution at Montreal's McGill University, said he aims to develop dinosaur traits that disappeared millions of years ago in birds.
Math

Submission + - UCLA Discovers 13 Million-Digit Prime Number (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Token_Internet_Girl
Token_Internet_Girl writes: Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a 13 million-digit prime number, a long-sought milestone that makes them eligible for a $100,000 prize. The group found the 46th known Mersenne prime last month on a network of 75 computers running Windows XP. The number was verified by a different computer system running a different algorithm.

Comment No business for WAR Gold (Score 1) 251

While I'm glad the spammers are being banned immediately, in all honesty they don't really have a market in Warhammer at the moment. The only mount is gained at level 20, it costs 20 gold, and its very easy to come across that amount of money before level 20. After that, you could spend gold on professions and purples, but there again mats for professions and purples are also fairly common right now. There's just no need for a large gold purchase.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Fees for ceullular contract termination illegal? (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Token_Internet_Girl
Token_Internet_Girl writes: In one of the most significant legal rulings in the tech industry this year, a Superior Court judge in California has ruled that the practice of charging consumers a fee for ending their cell phone contract early is illegal and violates state law. The preliminary, tentative judgment orders Sprint Nextel to pay customers $18.2 million in reimbursements and, more importantly, orders Sprint to stop trying to collect another $54.7 million from California customers (some 2 million customers total) who have canceled their contracts but refused or failed to pay the termination fee.
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Link between Violence and Video Games Debunked

Submitted by Token_Internet_Girl
Token_Internet_Girl writes: http://us.i1.yimg.com/videogames.yahoo.com/feature/video-games-turn-kids-into-killers-not-so-says-new-book/1212550

"Penned by Harvard Med School researchers Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olsen, 'Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do' refutes common conceptions about the causal relationship between violent video games and violent behavior."

In other words, playing a few hours of GTA IV will not result in your kid stealing a car, careening through traffic and gunning down civilians.
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Trekkie sues Christie's for fradulent props

Submitted by Token_Internet_Girl
Token_Internet_Girl writes: A Trekkie who paid $6,000 for a poker visor that was supposedly worn by the android Data on the television show "Star Trek: The Next Generation" claims in a lawsuit against Christie's auction house that the prop is a fake. Ted Moustakis, of Towaco, N.J., said he began to doubt the authenticity of the visor and other items he purchased at an auction of CBS Paramount props in 2006, after he brought it to a convention in August to have it autographed by the actor who played Data, Brent Spiner. According to the lawsuit, Spiner recognized the visor as the one that had been sold by Christie's and told Moustakis that it wasn't the real deal. The actual visor had been sold by the actor himself some time ago.
Privacy

Can Blockbuster be Sued Over Facebook/Beacon? 102

Posted by Zonk from the facing-the-book dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A professor at the New York Law School is arguing that Blockbuster violated the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 when movie choices that Facebook members made on its Web site were made available to other members of the social network via Beacon. The law basically prohibits video rental outfits from disclosing rental choice of their customers to anyone else without specific written consent. Facebook's legal liability in all of this is unclear; with Blockbuster it's a straightforward case of not complying with the VPPA, the law professor says."

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