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Apple

Submission + - Apple sells apps that don't actually *do* anything

Submitted by apraetor
apraetor writes: This app, like many others in the Apple App Store, claims to do things which are patently untrue. In addition, the claims are things which the iPhone OS SDK outright bans developers from doing. For example, the app claims to repair battery capacity issues. Meanwhile, the SDK allows only polling the battery's current charge % and state (i.e. charging, full, discharging). An email I sent to Apple's App Store support last week has gone unanswered.

This app is such bs. It doesn’t actually *do* anything. The “features” it claims are all built-in to iPhone OS anyway. It relies on the naivety of users for sales; it is unfortunate that Apple, which purports to “approve” apps for customer protection, lets dishonest developers openly deceive those same customers for profit. The developer claims that the app “performs maintenance” to restore lost battery life, but the iPhone SDK documentation makes it clear that 3rd party apps can do nothing other than display the current charge of the battery, and the charge status.
“Magical battery-fixing junk”
This app claims to increase your iPhone volume.. yet another piece of Apple-approved deceptive advertising.

Submission + - VirtualBox beta supports OS X as guest OS on Macs (virtualbox.org)

Submitted by milesw
milesw writes: In addition to a slew of new features, VirtualBox 3.2.0 Beta 1 offers experimental support for Mac OS X guests running on Apple hardware. Got to wonder if Ellison discussed this with Jobs beforehand, given Apple's refusal to allow virtualizing their (non-server) OS.
PlayStation (Games)

BioShock 2's First DLC Already On Disc 466

Posted by Soulskill from the read-the-rest-of-this-post-in-a-month-for-five-bucks dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this quote from 1Up: "Trouble is brewing in Rapture. The recently released Sinclair Solutions multiplayer pack for BioShock 2 is facing upset players over the revelation that the content is already on the disc, and the $5 premium is an unlock code. It started when users on the 2K Forums noticed that the content is incredibly small: 24KB on the PC, 103KB on the PlayStation 3, and 108KB on the Xbox 360. 2K Games responded with a post explaining that the decision was made in order to keep the player base intact, without splitting it between the haves and have-nots."
Java

Sun's Project Darkstar Game Server Platform No More 82

Posted by timothy from the dropped-off-the-moving-truck dept.
sproketboy writes "Project Darkstar, an open source software platform from Sun labs that simplifies the development of horizontally scalable servers for online games, is being discontinued as of the Oracle acquisition. This project, mentioned a couple of years back on Slashdot, was a unique concept for building an application server specific to on-line gaming. Sadly they were so close at version 0.9.11 (which is still very stable). Hopefully the open source community can get involved and help continue work on this project."

Submission + - Facebook Will Begin Building Its Own Data Centers (datacenterknowledge.com)

Submitted by 1sockchuck
1sockchuck writes: Facebook has decided to begin building its own data centers. The fast-growing social network has previously leased server space from data center providers like Digital Realty Trust, but with more than 350 million users Facebook has grown to the point where the economics favor a build-your-own approach. This will allow it to implement power-saving customizations, like using an on-board battery in its servers, foregoing a central UPS. There's speculation that Facebook may be the secretive Company X behind a data center project that will be unveiled tomorrow in Oregon.
Security

Submission + - Microsoft To Issue Emergency IE Patch Thursday (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Microsoft will release its emergency patch for Internet Explorer on Thursday, the company said as it also admitted that attacks can be hidden inside rigged Office documents. 'We are planning to release the update as close to 10:00 a.m. PST as possible,' Jerry Bryant, a program manager with the IE group. Microsoft has updated the security advisory it originally published last week when it acknowledged a zero-day IE vulnerability had been used by hackers to break into the corporate networks of Google and other major Western companies. Google has alleged that the attacks were launched by Chinese attackers. Subsequently, security experts have offered evidence that links the attacks to China.

Submission + - Bacteria rewired to flash in sync (newscientist.com)

Submitted by deusanima
deusanima writes:
Glowing bacteria that flash on and off together are pointing the way towards implants made of engineered cells that would deliver precise doses of drugs or hormones at specific times of the day.

The bacteria have been engineered to fluoresce in synchronised bursts to produce waves of luminescence, but the researchers were not after a biological light show. The feat is proof in principle that the activity of cells can be artificially coordinated, so that they no longer work in isolation.

As well as a new way of delivering drugs, controlling synchrony between cells might also provide new insights into sleep, learning and brain diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, which are thought to occur when synchrony between neurons is abnormal.
Software

Neural Nets Make Art While High 165

Posted by kdawson from the i'll-have-what-it's-having dept.
brilanon writes "Telepathic-critterdrug is a controversial fork of the open source artificial-life sim Critterding, a physics sandbox where blocky creatures evolve neural nets in a survival contest. What we've done is to give these animals an extra retina which is shared with the whole population. It's extended through time like a movie and they can write to it for communication or pleasure. Since this introduces the possibility of the creation of art, we decided to give them a selection of narcotics, stimulants and psychedelics. This is not in Critterding. The end result is a high-color cellular automaton running on a substrate that thinks and evolves, and may actually produce hallucinations in the user."
Android

Futuristic Sex Robots Now Just "Sex Robots" 602

Posted by timothy from the not-fooling-anyone-you-know dept.
High-C writes "With apologies to Futuristic Sex Robotz, the future is here, and her name is Roxxxy. Truecompanion.com has revealed their answer to the Real Doll, and it looks nice. The site is short on details, pictures, pricing info, but wow." NOTE: some of the above links are not work-safe, for many values of work. I stopped by this exhibit today at the AVN Expo (not officially a part of CES, but by curious coincidence scheduled to coincide; the old saw that porn drives tech isn't without merit). Roxxxy, though, was rather unsexily posed on a couch, not moving a bit — downright creepy, in fact.

Comment Re:Programming (Score 1) 799

by plasticpixel (#30608346) Attached to: How To Teach a 12-Year-Old To Program?

I still have to disaggree with that point. 30 years ago, operating systems were much less evolved or even non-existent on systems. So languages like BASIC were useful tools to help abstract the human from the gory details of banging registers and (for me at least) a welcome step up from assembly.

But these days, the focus is on applications and even operating system level tools are abstracted from the hardware using APIs. Fewer people need to know how to bang on the registers. Low level bit-banging is now a specialty and something that a student might spend a few extra years of their education diving into. IMHO it's no longer the foundation for computer programming education.

Comment Re:Programming (Score 1) 799

by plasticpixel (#30569000) Attached to: How To Teach a 12-Year-Old To Program?

Teach BASIC to a child, go to jail. It's the law.

I learned on BASIC in the 70's but looking at what's available now, teach something with some OO in it. Java, PHP would qualify in my book and comes with some great documentation/forums and other help resources.
Education

How To Teach a 12-Year-Old To Program? 799

Posted by timothy from the hypnotherapy-might-work dept.
thelordx writes "I've got a much younger brother who I'd like to teach how to program. When I was younger, you'd often start off with something like BASIC or Apple BASIC, maybe move on to Pascal, and eventually get to C and Java. Is something like Pascal still a dominant teaching language? I'd love to get low-level with him, and I firmly believe that C is the best language to eventually learn, but I'm not sure how to get him there. Can anyone recommend a language I can start to teach him that is simple enough to learn quickly, but powerful enough to do interesting things and lead him down a path towards C/C++?"
NASA

STEREO Satellites Spot Solar Flare Tsunami 89

Posted by CmdrTaco from the gonna-need-more-spf dept.
westtxfun writes "The STEREO satellites recently confirmed the existence of solar mega-tsunamis when they captured height data after a sunspot recently erupted. The scale of this tsunami literally dwarfs the Earth's diameter — it was 62,000 miles high and raced across the surface at 560,000 mph! STEREO A and B orbit 90 degrees apart and luckily, one was overhead while the other saw the eruption on the limb. This gave NASA scientists enough data to confirm the tsunami wasn't a shadow, solving a modern solar mystery. The images are simply stunning, to boot."

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