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Feed Engadget: Dell's Latitude XT tablet now available (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs

Dell almost ran out of 2007 to fulfill its promise, but fulfill it did and the Latitude XT is now available on Dell's site. Well, sort of. Even with a completely default configuration, the XT has a "preliminary ship date" of January 15th, 2008. Oh well, at least that'll give you some time to hit up your friends and relatives for the cash to afford the first monthly payment on this thing. Also, from the looks of things Dell is going to be offering XP Tablet as the default OS for the XT, though Vista Business is a free "upgrade." Microsoft must be thrilled.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Nintendo

Submission + - Dad sells GH3 for $9000 after son smokes pot

Submitted by
[TheBORG]
[TheBORG] writes: "A Canadian father catches his 15-year-old smoking pot, so he sells the hard-to-get "Guitar Hero III" Nintendo Wii video game that he bought his son for 90 dollars for Christmas at an online auction, fetching 9,000 dollars. "I am still considering getting him a game for his Nintendo. Maybe something like Barbie as the Island Princess or Dancing with the Stars ... I know he will just love them.""
The Internet

Submission + - The Rich Ajax Platform and Eclipse development

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Rich Client Platform (RCP) is a powerful platform technology to build enterprise applications. With the help of Rich Ajax Platform (RAP), it gets more interesting because you can reuse your existing code base and development skills for a Web application. RAP has a lot of noteworthy features, making Web development even more attractive.
Google

The Future of Google Search and Natural Language Queries 148

Posted by Zonk from the teach-us-to-search dept.
eldavojohn writes "You might know the name Peter Norvig from the classic big green book, 'AI: A Modern Approach.' He's been working for Google since 2001 as Director of Search Quality. An interview with Norvig at MIT's Technology Review has a few interesting insights into the 'search mindset' at the company. It's kind of surprising that he claims they have no intent to allow natural questions. Instead he posits, 'We think what's important about natural language is the mapping of words onto the concepts that users are looking for. But we don't think it's a big advance to be able to type something as a question as opposed to keywords ... understanding how words go together is important ... That's a natural-language aspect that we're focusing on. Most of what we do is at the word and phrase level; we're not concentrating on the sentence.'"
Businesses

Submission + - CompUSA not CompUSA - no returns - no help 1

Submitted by
Simon Tag
Simon Tag writes: "Location: Clive, IA — CompUSA — 7:00pm
I went shopping this evening at CompUSA for a digital camera frame. First thing that I noticed was signs and banners everywhere stating closing, going out of business, and all sales final!!!! All sales final?? So after waiting for 20 minutes for help and not getting any I took my camera to the counter and asked what the return policy was. The man at the counter rather smugly said "none". I questioned him and said "so if I purchase this and it will not work 10 minutes after I purchase it what happens?". He responded to me there are no returns under any circumstances and went on to tell me how "they" were so strict about this policy. I further questioned and a different employee stepped in and said "this is not CompUSA anymore, they don't exist." Interesting! Since I was standing in a CompUSA and they were wearing CompUSA shirts. They also have signs that state that you are not allowed to open any item. So no testing for anyone, you have to buy it then you can't return it."
Security

Submission + - Linux.com allows JavaScript via comments (johnbokma.com)

Submitted by
John Bokma
John Bokma writes: "Today, "thanks" to a comment spam I received, I discovered that one can just post comments on linux.com containing JavaScript. The programmer who allowed for such a security hole should be very, very ashamed. At first I couldn't believe my eyes, but a very simple test showed me that it was indeed the case: anybody can post JavaScript on Linux.com via their comment system."
Classic Games (Games)

Submission + - Holiday Boardgame Shopping Guide at GamerDad (gamerdad.com)

Submitted by hapycamper
hapycamper writes: GamerDad has released a rundown of some of the year's best boardgames and other activities. Perfect for the last minute shopper looking for something to play face to face with family or friends. Suggestions include To Court the King, a dice rolling game like Yahtzee but with super powers, and a very pretty two player game Duel in the Dark that simulates British night bombing runs against the German countryside.
Security

Submission + - Intuit admits QuickBooks flaw deletes data on Macs (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "Intuit Inc. warned Mac users today that its version of QuickBooks Pro 2006 and 2007 has an automatic software update flaw that deletes stored files, documents or folders from a desktop's hard drive. Intuit said it has now fixed the flaw and that users should no longer get a warning message when opening up QuickBooks. The company also recommended Mac users back up their entire desktop before opening QuickBooks, or move their files from the desktop to an alternate location to ensure that their data is properly protected from the QuickBooks update flaw."
Programming

Submission + - Why (almost) every Web site needs an RDBMS

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Every Web application needs a good database design behind it, and usually much sooner than almost every small-site developer thinks. It's actualy not that hard to configure a simple RDBMS, and good bindings for most back ends almost surely exist for your favorite programming language or framework. Rather than wait, just set up a RDBMS right at the beginning, and work from there.
Mozilla

Submission + - Student given detention for using Firefox 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Several sites are reporting that a student has been given detention for using "Firefox.exe" to do his classwork. No, really. The student was in class, working on an assignment that necessitated using a browser. The teacher instructed him to stop using Firefox and to do his classwork, to which the student responded that he was doing his classwork using a "better" browser (it is unclear whether the computer was the student's own computer or not). The clueless teacher (who called the rogue program "Firefox.exe") ordered him to detention.

Feed Engadget: Air Force developing UAVs that can recharge on power lines (engadget.com) 1

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Transportation

We've seen some interesting solutions to keeping UAVs powered for extended missions, but none so diabolical as actually landing on the enemy's power lines and using their juice to power up. That's the plan behind the Power Line Urban Sentry (PLUS) project currently being run by the Air Force Research Laboratory and private firm Defense Research Associates, and it's already yielded UAVs that can land on power lines and charge in three hours. The project started with attempts to charge by simply flying near power lines, but when that method yielded only micro-watts of juice, focus shifted to actually landing on the lines. The team is planning all sorts of other capabilities for the tech, including navigation systems -- "Power lines are like highways in the sky," says one of the researchers -- and auxiliary surveillance systems that power up when jacked in. On top of all that awesomeness, the team is also working with an outfit called the Center for Morphing Control to disguise the UAVs when they sit on the lines -- so far, they say, they've made a small UAV "look like a Coke can." Test flights are scheduled for 2008, and there's still work to be done on the power line latching mechanism, but whatever -- we want one.

[Thanks, Stuart T.]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Digital

Submission + - What to do with your old computer? 1

Submitted by
nilstar
nilstar writes: "Just like many of you, I have way too many PCs cluttering my house. Some of them have pretty "reasonable" specs (e.g., Athlon XP 2200+). I've tried my hand at selling them on craigslist, ebay and kijiji. But it seems nobody wants them? I even looked at donating them. Charities accepting donated PCs are few and far between in Canada. I found one where I have to drive 100 clicks to their depot because they don't pickup.

What can I do with my old PC hardware?"
Power

Submission + - Inventor Makes Oil From Recycled Waste

Submitted by
cybermage
cybermage writes: "An inventor by the name of Frank Pringle has invented a machine that uses microwaves to extract oil from recycled waste. If this sounds like fantasy, think again. He's moved past development and into to production for commercial orders. The machine produces nearly 18 times the energy it requires to run."

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