Comment Good for the farm! (Score 1) 117
Good news for the farm, they get £300,000 even if all their crops flop, and since the farm gets to create the choices being voted on, that'll probably be unlikely. Profit ahoy!
Comment UP? (Score 1) 162
So, when can be have an ultra-portable device with on-the-go programming in mind? I'd find it very amusing/interesting to pound out a program while waiting at the bus stop.
Comment Re:Wait what? Bonuses depending on results? (Score 1) 167
Actually, if done right, this might be an interesting exercise in management. Make everyone's bonuses directly correlate to the quality of work of other parts of the business. Make it so that everyone's bonus is dependent on everyone else's work, in various branches, and just sit back and watch everything self-organize...or burn to the ground. Either way, you'd still have your golden parachute...
Comment Purpose? (Score 1) 167
So Google, with its pretty sweet database of what people are searching for all over the Internet, feels the need to inject bias and conflicting opinions into the matter?
Part of Google's success was -removing- the personal opinions of those doing the searching, favoring what they ultimately searched for over what they felt was good. This gives much crisper results than simply asking people, "So, what do you like?", since for some unusual reason, people always seem to like glitchy porn sites and random advertisement-filled linkholes.
Comment It Makes Sense! (Score 3, Funny) 311
So that's why I feel smarter after staying at a Holiday Inn.
Scientists Add Emotions To Robotic Head 124
DeviceGuru writes "Claiming that service-class robots will one day be pervasive, researchers at the University of the West of England's Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) have begun investigating ways to make robots seem more human. As part of a project to enhance robot/human relationships, BRL has created a robotic head that can exhibit emotions, based on both verbal and non-verbal cues. Check out the videos in the article — especially the slightly creepy one in which the robot contemplates its purpose and its relationship to its environment."
Comment Authors Make Case for Used Books (Score 4, Insightful) 209
As gamers age, they begin to seek out copies of games they played as kids. I know I have and I promise I'm not alone.
If you want to make more money, fighting the used game market isn't the way to go. Release a system for $100, make the games $10, and then we'll talk.
Maybe paying $50-$100 for a single game tends to turn some people off.
Comment Re:Neither of you are clear, there's two classes.. (Score 1) 521
"Schrödintabs are the ones you don't know what's open till you look; Heisentabs are the ones where looking changes the content"
This is starting to sound less like quantum mechanics and more like quirky scripting for pop-up ads...
Space Cube – the World's Smallest Linux PC 265
Barence writes "Meet the Space Cube — the world's smallest fully functional PC. Primarily designed for use in space, it somehow manages to cram a working PC with USB ports, card readers, audio outputs and proprietary interfaces into a tiny cube chassis measuring just two inches square. It runs a basic Linux front-end, which the blogger takes a look at, and there are some great photos of the device being loomed over by everyday objects like coffee mugs and cellphones. It has connections for controlling various electronics used by ESA, NASA and JAXA, but it will also apparently be for sale to the public soon, for use by amateur engineers and robotics clubs."
Apple Sued For Turning Workers Into Slaves 1153
SwiftyNifty writes "Apple employees are putting together a class action lawsuit for not receiving overtime pay. A Lawsuit filed Monday in California seeks class action status alleging that Apple denied technical staffers required overtime pay and meal compensation in violation of state law.
Filed in the US District Court for Southern California, the complaint claims that many Apple employees are routinely subjected to working conditions resembling indentured servitude, or 'modern day slaves,' for lack of better words."
Scientists Scan Striking Nanoscale Images 37
BotnetZombie writes "Wired has up an article/gallery with very impressive images from the nanoworlds around us, and little stories for each picture. Besides giving an inspiring insight into the world of very little things, images of this kind can help scientists in many fields get a better handle on their subjects."
Millions in Middle East Lose Internet 304
Shipwack writes "Tens of millions of internet users across the Middle East and Asia have been left without access to the web after a technical fault cut millions of connections.
The outage, which is being blamed on a fault in a single undersea cable, has severely restricted internet access in countries including India, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and left huge numbers of people struggling to get online.
Observers say that the digital blackout first struck yesterday morning, with Egypt's communications ministry suggesting it was caused by a cut in a major internet pipeline linking it to Europe."
French Police Ditching Windows for Linux 122
esocid writes "In another European blow to Microsoft the French paramilitary police force said Wednesday it is ditching Microsoft for the free Linux operating system, becoming one of the biggest administrations in the world to make the break. The gendarmerie began severing its ties with Microsoft in 2005 when it moved to open source office applications like word processing. It switched to open source Internet browsers in 2006."
Two AI Pioneers, Two Bizarre Suicides 427
BotnetZombie writes "Wired tells the quite sad but very interesting stories of Chris McKinstry and Pushpinder Singh. Initially self-educated, both had the idea to create huge fact databases from which AI agents could feed, hoping to eventually have something that could reason at a human level or better. McKinstry leveraged the dotcom era to grow his database. Singh had the backing of MIT, where he eventually got his PhD and had been offered a position as a professor alongside his mentor, Marvin Minsky. Sadly, personal life was more troublesome for them, and the story ends in a tragic way.
Hacking the XO Laptop 95
dulceLeche writes "While the OLPC was not designed with the American consumer in mind, people that took part in the Give One Get One program have been having fun with their XOs. The XO has a number of limitations, but with some work you can get Opera running, chat over your mesh network, and much more. An article at Geek.com explains what a few folks were able to do with their XOs."
