445154
submission
jetpack writes:
I've always hated writing user interfaces, and graphical user interfaces in particular. However, I suspect that is largely because I have no clue how to write a *good* one. By this, I don't mean the technical aspects, like using the APIs and so on. I mean what are the issues in designing an interface that is clean, easy to understand and easy to use? What are things to be considered? What are things to be avoided? What are good over-all philosophies of UI design?
To this end, I'd like to pick up a book or two (or three) and get my learn on. I'd appreciate some book suggestions from the UI experts in the Slashdot crowd.
354447
submission
Maria Williams writes:
Wired says
Should the U.S. military be thinking more about
asteroid shields,
lifeshield bunkers and
antimatter weapon shields? Oh, and an
alien shield.
If these defensive systems/catastrophic scenarios are something you feel the Navy should be pondering, visit the
Lifeboat Foundation's plea for donations. Lifeboat Foundation is dedicated "to helping humanity survive existential risks." The Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group contacted the foundation because it wants its future leaders to have the "opportunity to gain insights into the activities of the Lifeboat Foundation and have discussion about different programs you have to help 'safeguard humanity'."
353479
submission
azuredrake writes:
According to the BBC, Japan's government is planning to fingerprint and photograph all visiting foreigners beginning on November 20th of this year. As support for the controversial programs, the country's justice minister has said "a friend of a friend" was a member of al-Qaeda who had visited the country illegally several times and had been involved in one of the bombings in Bali. While this seems more like political suicide than a convincing argument to violate the privacy of all visiting foreigners, the program itself is interesting. If it succeeds, other countries would surely follow suit, leading to a vast national database of fingerprints and photographs of travelers.
299731
submission
buzzardsbay writes:
In a rollicking interview with eWEEK magazine, Apple guru Steve Wozniak dishes on Jobs, the iPhone and, ultimately, open source, saying: "There's always a group of people that wants to undo the forces of industry that have given us so much in terms of wealth, and there's always people who want things to be free. The open-source movement starts with those sort of people."
Woz does concede that open source has "good points that have nothing to do with whether it's free or not." And he was wearing a nixie-tube watch, so how much can you really dislike him?
299629
submission
Terascale writes:
Intel has announced a 40Gbps waveguide photodetector. This follows recent work in waveguide-based modulators and hybrid silicon lasers which cover the trasmission side for 40G. Until now, Intel hasn't mentioned what they are doing for the receive end of the link. Since silicon is optically clear in infrared communications wavelengths, it can't be used to detect the light. So, what they did was to integrate a layer of Germanium on top of the silicon waveguide channel, which does absorb the light at high speed.
