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Submission + - Google CEO says "nothing seriously wrong" (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Pigskin-Referee
Pigskin-Referee writes: Google Inc Chief Executive Larry Page has reassured employees about his health, but the company on Friday shed little additional light on an unspecified condition affecting his voice that will sideline him from two high-profile events in the coming weeks.

Page told employees in an email on Thursday that there was "nothing seriously wrong with me," according to a source who had seen an internal staff memo.

The 39-year-old Google co-founder sat out his company's annual shareholders' meeting on Thursday because he had "lost his voice," according to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who informed attendees of the news at the start of the event.

Comment Insanity (Score 1, Funny) 257

by undulato (#40281935) Attached to: No Tech Panacea For Tech-Distracted Driving

I was shocked when I first saw a GPS system stuck on the windscreen of a car - not least the first time I came to use one in conjunction with the other countless beeping proximity devices and seatbelt chimes and other distractions in modern automobiles. Add on a reversing camera and I simply don't know where to look at any one time.

How these devices came to be there and are still somehow legal I'll probably never know.

Education

Speech Recognition Using the Raspberry Pi 74

Posted by timothy from the cheaper-than-my-watch-and-more-versatile dept.
aonsquared writes "In a previous Slashdot story, I demonstrated a voice-controlled robotic arm using the open-source speech decoder Julius. This time, I have managed to port the system to a Raspberry Pi to control the same robotic arm, and as usual, posted the tutorial and source code. Some negative reviews of the Raspberry Pi are starting to appear, and they're missing the educational point of this device — I'm hoping this will counter the naysayers, and help inspire a new generation of hackers, as well as also bring open-source speech recognition the same attention as proprietary solutions (i.e Siri) are getting!"

Submission + - Coding clubs for British Schoolkids (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
undulato
undulato writes: "The BBC are reporting about volunteers organising code clubs for primary school children (aged 10-11 years) undoubtedly off the back of the current wave of interested in the Raspberry Pi and also recent comments by Eric Schmidt. Can this movement stop kids becoming "secretaries rather than programmers"? And if so what's so wrong with secretaries?"

Comment Re:Kickstarter works really well (Score 0) 247

by undulato (#39642483) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: At What Point Has a Kickstarter Project Failed?

The point I was making was this: if crowd sourced funding eventually gets a bad name through Mr and Mrs average losing their investments to crowd funded projects then it's bad for all crowd sourced enterprises - be they artistic and worthy or unashamedly commercial.

Yes Kickstarter works really well now but if that now that same model has been given the green-light for essentially unregulated commercial activity (if you read the El Reg link I sent) then where does that leave all crowd funded projects?

Comment The end of the crowd-sourced dream? (Score 2, Interesting) 247

by undulato (#39641865) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: At What Point Has a Kickstarter Project Failed?
Between this and the above it might signal the end of the road for this form of funding. Lots more people are probably going to get burned. I backed the MARIE music robots after reading about them on Slashdot. It gave me a good feeling plus the promise of stuff sent to me in the post was a nice thing to have. I eventually got the stuff out of the blue, over a year later, and was very pleased to receive it having pretty much given up on it. When kickstarter works - it works well as in this case. One thing that projects should do is at least try to keep their backers in the loop. However we can only hope that the JOBS act isn't going to give this type of investment/funding a bad name.

Submission + - Metallic medicine makes way for non-toxic cancer treatment (patexia.com)

Submitted by
elviemarch11
elviemarch11 writes: "In the treatment of cancer, we all know that chemotherapy is the common and the best choice of treatment by far. However, its effect is killing or destroying not only the cancer cells but also the healthy cells and add to that the many adverse reactions that just adds to the suffering of cancer patients. So what now? Well, according to a UK-based study at the University of Leeds, researcher Charlotte Willans has evidence that silver is capable of knocking out cancer cells, without the toxic side effects of other cancer treatments. Thus, will this be another option for treatment of cancer? Let's just hope so."
Space

Submission + - Blurry vision may stop us living in space (geek.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There's a number of challenges we need to overcome before years long space travel, or even living in space become a reality. One I didn't expect was dealing with increasingly poor vision, but it may turn out to be a major obstacle.

Observing astronauts that spend weeks and months aboard ISS has found their vision becomes increasingly blurred. This is due to the optic nerve swelling, folds appearing in the choroid, and the globe of the eye flattening. The effects after 6 months are blurred vision for near sight, to the point where some astronauts need glasses to aid reading and writing.

It seems silly that even if we get the tech right to allow us to live in space, we might not be able to do so for fear of losing our eyesight.
Space

Submission + - New Horizons: One Billion Miles From Pluto (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "On Feb. 10, NASA's Pluto-bound New Horizons probe entered the homestretch of its mission. When you are sprinting across the solar system, "homestretch" is the final 1 billion miles of your journey. That sounds like quite a long stretch! But the half-ton spacecraft has already logged 2 billion miles since its launch in early 2006. That’s twice the distance between Earth and Saturn. Though the icy dwarf planet is still three years away from its close encounter, mission scientists call this the Late Cruise phase of the flight."

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