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Comment Er. wait a mo... (Score 3, Interesting) 266

by Fallen Andy (#25686041) Attached to: Are Neo-Retro Game Releases a Fad?
Dead wrong. Some of us (and I'm 50 this year) are discovering most of those old console games for the first time!! (Disclaimer: I've been playing games back to c.a. '77 - the original "adven" on a PDP-11 in a research lab). The nice thing is that many of them can be played as casual games so I'll go off and play a little Dragon Warrior IV (NES), Summon Night (GBA) etc. My friend's son in the shop two doors down is probably playing Mario 64 (N64) right now...

Andy
Security

Submission + - Security Theatre? More like Shakespeare... (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by Fallen Andy
Fallen Andy writes: Just seen over at Fark, a reference to a really entertaining nay verily Shakespearean example of the TSA not working — an article by Jeffrey Goldberg for the "Atlantic" (see here).

(The Author of this article was in cahoots with Bruce Schneier for this piece).
AMD

Submission + - A.M.D. To Split (nytimes.com)

Submitted by twowoot4u
twowoot4u writes: The NewYorkTimes Reports: "Advanced Micro Devices plans to announce Tuesday that it will split into two companies — one focused on designing microprocessors and the other on the costly business of manufacturing them — in a drastic effort to maintain its position as the only real rival to Intel. In addition, the company said two Abu Dhabi investment firms would inject at least $6 billion into the two firms, mostly to finance a new chip factory that A.M.D. planned to build near Albany, N.Y., and to upgrade one of the company's existing plants in Dresden, Germany. A.M.D., based in Sunnyvale, Calif., makes graphics, computer and server processors. It will own 44.4 percent of the new entity, which has been temporarily named the Foundry Company, a reference to the technical term for a chip factory. The Advanced Technology Investment Company will own the rest." — Queue the Doomsayers.
Portables

Submission + - Nintendo DS To Play Music & Take Pictures (hyemunar.com)

Submitted by
yuleeme
yuleeme writes: "Nintendo DS that can be an MP3 player and digital camera too? You read it right. Nintendo Co Ltd plans to launch a new DS model by the end of the year, that's according to an article published by Nikkei, Japan's major business publication."
Quickies

Submission + - HumanJet lands after flying across English channel (foxnews.com)

Submitted by JagsLive
JagsLive writes: LONDON — A Swiss adventurer has leaped from a small plane strapped to a homemade jet-propelled wing in an attempt to cross the English Channel. Yves Rossy jumped and fired up his jets to make the 22-mile trip from Calais in France to Dover in England Friday in about 12 minutes. The National Geographic Channel showed images of Rossy stepping from the plane just before 8:07 a.m EDT. The trip across the Channel is meant to trace the route of French aviator Louis Bleriot, the first person to cross in an airplane 99 years ago. Rossy planned to land on a thin strip of land in front of South Foreland lighthouse atop the white cliffs of Dover. ( http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,428361,00.html )
Space

Submission + - Mars rover's epic trek

Submitted by
Smivs
Smivs writes: "The BBC reports that NASA is to send its Mars rover Opportunity on a two-year trek to try to reach a crater called Endeavour. The robot will have to move about 11km to get to its new target — a distance that would double what it has already achieved on the planet. Endeavour is much bigger than anything investigated to date, and will allow a broader range of rocks to be studied.
Detailed satellite imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will help pick out the best route ahead; and new software recently uploaded to Opportunity will enable the rover to make its own decisions about how best to negotiate large rocks in its path.
Opportunity has just emerged from the 800m-wide Victoria Crater. Endeavour by comparison is 22km across."
Programming

Submission + - Gaming an unexpected outcome for Lua language (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by mr sanjeev
mr sanjeev writes: Although Lua, created in the early 90s, was meant to be a configuration language, it has had some unforeseen outcomes says its creator, Prof. Roberto Ierusalimschy. "In a broader sense, the whole use of Lua in games was unexpected for us. We did not create Lua for games, and we had never thought about this possibility before. Of course, with hindsight it looks an obvious application area, and we are very happy to be part of this community. And it seems to be working ;).. Certainly games are an important way to introduce people to programming... Many kids start using computers to play games, so it seems natural to use this same stimulus for more advanced uses of computers and for programming. However, we should always consider other routes to stimulate people to learn programming." Ierusalimschy also talks about the pride he feels for the popularity of the programming language given where it came from. "From all languages ever to achieve some level of popularity, Lua is the only one not created in a developed country. Actually, besides Lua and Ruby, I guess all those languages were created in the US or Western Europe."
Mozilla

Submission + - Mozilla blunder deletes months of user data (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "Mozilla has admitted to losing months of valuable user data when a member of staff accidentally formatted a server. The company wiped a server containing months of Broken Website reports when launching Firefox 3. "Well, any sites reported as broken in the last three months? Yeah... you might want to report it again," suggests Mozilla engineer Mark Smith on his personal blog."

Feed The Register: US boffins develop self cleaning gecko-foot glue (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed
Gecko-techo toy frenzy around the corner?

Regular readers will be well aware of the limited progress made to date on one of the greatest challenges confronting human science. That is, duplicating the miraculously hairy, sticky feet of geckos. But now, a team of top Californian biomimetics boffins believe they have made a breakthrough.
Privacy

Submission + - SPAM: Anti-terrorism laws used to spy on noisy children

Submitted by
Anti-Globalism
Anti-Globalism writes: "The RIPA was introduced to help fight terrorism and crime. But a series of extensions, first authorised by David Blunkett in 2003, mean that Britain's 474 councils can use the law to tackle minor misdemeanours.

Councils are using the Act to tackle dog fouling, the unauthorised sale of pizzas and the abuse of the blue badge scheme for disabled drivers.

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph found that three quarters of local authorities have used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 over the past year.

The Act gives councils the right to place residents and businesses under surveillance, trace telephone and email accounts and even send staff on undercover missions."
Link to Original Source

Feed Engadget: Pandora finally (finally!) gets a ship date and price (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

Be still our hearts! After months upon months (upon months) of waiting, the tight-knit team behind the ultra-potent Pandora gaming handheld has finally divulged the information we've been clamoring for: the ARM Cortex A8-powered device will begin shipping before Christmas 2008 for £199.99 in the UK. The first batch will consist of 3,000 units, and the team is hoping that all of those will be sold out before the first one leaves the dock. There's no word on how costly it'll be for Americans, though we're crossing our fingers that it'll sell for a few bucks less than the $360 we find when simply converting pounds to dollars.

[Thanks, Andri]Read|Permalink|Email this|Comments


Bug

Submission + - Nvidia 55nm parts are bad too (theinquirer.net)

Submitted by JagsLive
JagsLive writes: Nvidia 55nm parts are bad too : HOT ON THE heels of its denials that anything is wrong with the G92 and G94s comes another PCN that shows the G92s and G92b are being changed for no reason. Yup, the problems that are plaguing G84 and G86 are the same that affect seemingly all 65nm and now 55nm Nvidia parts. It is hard to overstate how bad this is. Basically every 65nm and 55nm Nvidia part appears to be defective. It is not a question of yes or no, but how defective each line is, and what the failure rate for each one is. We are hearing of early failure rates in the teens per cent for 8800GTs and far higher for 9600GTs, so this is not a quibble over split hairs. To make matters worse, Nvidia has a mound of unsold defective parts that they are going to bleed out into the channel along side of the (hopefully) fixed parts. As a buyer, you have no way of knowing which one you are getting, and it looks like Nvidia isn't keen on helping you figure it out either, that would cost too much. Until Nvidia comes fully clean on this fiasco, lists all the defective parts, and orders boxes clearly marked, you can't say anything other than just avoid them. Then again, since doing the right thing would likely bankrupt them, we wouldn't hold your breath for it to happen. ( http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/08/28/nvidia-55nm-parts-bad )

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