Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Earth

Dinosaur Feather Color Discovered 219

Posted by timothy from the horsefeathers-still-a-mystery dept.
anzha writes "Do you remember being a kid and told we'd never know what colors the dinosaurs were? For at least some, that's no longer true. Scientists working in the UK and China have closely examined the fossils of multiple theropods and actually found the colors and patterns that were present in the fossilized proto-feathers. So far, the answer is orange, black and white in banded and other patterns. The work also thoroughly thrashes the idea that fossils might not be feathers, but collagen fibers instead. If this holds up, Birds Are Dinosaurs. Period. And colorful!"
Mozilla

Why Firefox's Future Lies In Google's Hands 346

Posted by Soulskill from the a-fox-in-hand-is-worth-two-in-the-bush dept.
Barence writes "Firefox has just turned five, and it now accounts for 25% of the global market, according to figures from Net Applications. Its success has forced rivals to raise their game, and the past two years have seen Microsoft, Apple, and Opera close the features gap significantly. Google is the default homepage when Firefox first opens, and the default search engine when users type something into the 'awesome bar.' The deal, which runs until 2011, was worth $66 million to Mozilla in 2007, accounting for 88% of the foundation's revenues that year (the last year for which it had published accounts). But now that Google is a competitor as well as a partner, is it really wise for Mozilla to be so dependent on Google?"
Graphics

Open-Source JavaScript Flash Player (HTML5/SVG) 300

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-called-gordon-get-it dept.
gbutler69 writes "Someone has gone and done it. Tobias Schneider has created a Flash player written in JavaScript targeting SVG/HTML5-capable browsers. It's not a complete implementation yet, but it shows real promise. A few demos have been posted online. How long before HTML5/SVG next-generation browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Epiphany, and other Web-Kit based browsers completely supplant Flash and Silverlight/Moonlight?"

Comment Re:It's Worse Than You think! (Score 3, Insightful) 418

by ibbie (#30780284) Attached to: $4,400/Yr. Coders May Work On Dept. of Labor Project

Everyone I speak with agrees that pot should be legalised just like in the Netherlands. That way you can keep much better control over it.

I agree that it should be legalized (pursuit of happiness and all that) but I'm not so sure that I buy the "you can keep much better control over it" line. When I was a kid I had no problems getting my hands on booze or tobacco and both of those products are legal. We always knew which store we could go to that wouldn't card us, which 21+ sibling of a friend would make a straw purchase and whose parents were too lazy to lock up the liquor cabinet.

So no, I don't buy that legalizing pot would make it harder for the kiddies to get their hands on it. The only thing that will do that is parental involvement but I heard that went out of fashion a long time ago and the current trend is to rely on the TV and internet to raise your kids.....

Keep in mind that "better control over it" isn't limited to keeping it away from under-age users. It also means the application of agricultural and consumer protection laws that we enjoy in regard to our legal vices.

Privacy

Tynt Insight Is Watching You Cut and Paste 495

Posted by timothy from the peeking-at-your-poke dept.
jerryasher writes "In recent weeks I've noticed that when I copy and paste text from Wired and other websites, the pasted text has had the URL of the original website appended to it. Cool, and utterly annoying, and how do I make that stop? Tynt Insight is a piece of Javascript that sends what you copy to Tynt's webservers and adds the backlinks. Tynt calls that a service for the site owner, many people call that a privacy invasion. Worse, there are some reports that it sends not just what you copy, but everything you select. And Tynt provides no opt outs. Not cookie-based, not IP-based, but stop-it-you-creeps-angry-phone-call-based. It ain't a pure useful service, and it ain't a pure privacy invasion. But I sure wish they'd go away or have had the decency never to start up in the first place. I block it on Firefox with Ghostery."
Science

Human Males Evolve At a Faster Pace Than Females 454

Posted by CmdrTaco from the can't-say-i'm-surprised dept.
Tisha_AH writes "A report by the Whitehead Institute indicates that the human Y chromosome present in males is evolving at a furious pace. Across the chromosome there can be as much as a 33% difference within humans alone. The portions of the chromosome evolving fastest are related to sperm production."
Robotics

Submission + - Wheelchair gunman surrenders to police robot (thisislondon.co.uk)

Submitted by DCFC
DCFC writes: Police had negotiated with Taylor by phone, but he made no demands other than a request for a pizza. He surrendered after a day-long hostage drama at a US post office, which seems a suboptimal place to order Pizza from, but I'm only a Brit so what do I know ?
Warren Taylor, who had reportedly entered the building pushing the chair while claiming to be carrying explosives, gave himself up and released three people he was holding.
IT

Submission + - Offshoring IT Support?

Submitted by fin_tech
fin_tech writes: I run the IT of a financial services firm in the US. We are small by headcount (~30), but decent-sized in terms of HW infrastructure (multiple workstations per user, two datacenters with 2-3 cabinets of hardware each). Most of the IT support is currently handled by a local third-party provider. I have recently been considering offshoring some of the maintenance/support (particularly for the stuff in the datacenters) to India, and wanted to hear any positive/negative testimonials from slashdotters who may have first-hand experience with such an arrangement. Are there any hidden pitfalls in making such a transition? Any horror stories?

Submission + - Human Males Evolve at a Faster Pace Than Females (mit.edu)

Submitted by
Tisha_AH
Tisha_AH writes: "A report by the Whitehead Institute indicates that the human Y chromosome present in males is evolving at a furious pace. Across the chromosome there can be as much as a 33% difference within humans alone. The portions of the chromosome evolving fastest are related to sperm production"
United States

Challenge To US Government Over Seized Laptops 246

Posted by samzenpus from the we-the-computerless-people dept.
angry tapir writes "The policy of random laptop searches and seizures by US government agents at border crossings is under attack again: The American Civil Liberties Union is working with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to find lawyers whose laptops or other electronic devices were searched at US points of entry and exit. The groups argue that the practice of suspicionless laptop searches violates fundamental rights of freedom of speech and protection against unreasonable seizures and searches."

Submission + - NY court OKs Internet music sales lawsuit (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to this AP story: "A federal appeals court revived an antitrust lawsuit Wednesday that accuses major record labels controlling 80 percent of U.S. digital music sales of scheming together to charge high prices."

Looks like interesting times ahead for the RIAA and friends... :)
Idle

Submission + - Norway Time Hole “Leak” Plunges Northe (daily.pk) 3

Submitted by fredrik70
fredrik70 writes: Russian scientists are reporting to Prime Minister Putin today that the high-energy beam fired into the upper heavens from the United States High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) radar facility in Ramfjordmoen, Norway this past month has resulted in a “catastrophic puncturing” of our Plant’s thermosphere thus allowing into the troposphere an “unimpeded thermal inversion” of the exosphere, which is the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere.

Submission + - Carbon Nanotubes: Notable Developments of 2009 (goldilocksmission.com)

Submitted by goldilocksmission
goldilocksmission writes: Much research has been done in the last two decades and still continuing, for carbon nanotubes (CNT) do hold a lot of promise in its home niche, nanoscience and nanotechnology. It may seem a bit ironic then for it to be the main component to what may be the world's gigantic superstructure, one that pierces through the stratosphere and even go beyond where most satellites orbit the earth. For all its worth, carbon nanotubes are still the best uncontested theoretical candidates for constructing the space elevator cable.

Slashdot Top Deals

The following statement is not true. The previous statement is true.

Close