Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Programming

Apple Open Sources Grand Central Dispatch 342

bonch writes "Apple has open sourced libdispatch, also known as Grand Central Dispatch, which is technology in Snow Leopard that makes it easier for developers to take advantage of multi-core parallelism. Kernel support is not required, but performance optimizations Apple made for supporting GCD are visible in xnu. Block support in C is required and is currently available in LLVM (note that Apple has submitted their implementation of C blocks for standardization)." Update: 09/11 15:32 GMT by KD : Drew McCormack has a post up speculating on what Apple's move means to Linux and other communities (but probably not Microsoft): "...this is also very interesting for scientific developers. It may be possible to parallelize code in the not too distant future using Grand Central Dispatch, and run that code not only on Macs, but also on clusters and supercomputers."

Comment Re:Karlan Mitchell (Score 1) 326

Not really. No-one is claiming that the app was rejected due to its VoIP components.

Apple needs AT&T's permission to approve VoIP apps, but that's the final step of the process. Here, Apple claims that the Google Voice app doesn't meet its design guidelines / expected end user experience, so it wasn't approved (read: was rejected) before its VoIP component even being considered (and thus no need for contact between the two parties).

If Apple is indeed telling the truth, then if/once Google redesigns the application to fit Apple's requirements, Apple will inform AT&T of the existence of this voice app and ask for permission to publish.

Software

Cheap, Cross-Platform Electronic Circuit Simulation Software? 211

dv82 writes "I teach circuits and electronics at the undergraduate level, and have been using the free student demo version of OrCad for schematic capture and simulation because (a) it comes with the textbook and (b) it's powerful enough for the job. Unfortunately OrCad runs only under Windows, and students increasingly are switching to Mac (and some Linux netbooks). Wine and its variants will not run OrCad, and I don't wish to require students to purchase Windows and run with a VM. The only production-quality cross-platform CAD tool I have found so far is McCad, but its demo version is so limited in total allowed nets that it can't even run a basic opamp circuit with a realistic 741 opamp model. gEDA is friendly to everything BUT Windows, and is nowhere near as refined as OrCad. I would like students to be able to run the software on their laptops without a network connection, which eliminates more options. Any suggestions?"
Software

Safari 4 Released, Claimed "30 Times Faster Than IE7" 465

CNETNate writes "Apple has released the beta version of Safari 4 for Mac and PC, with claims that its Nitro rendering engine is '30 times faster than IE7,' and three times faster than Firefox 3. Other new features include 'Top Sites,' which shows users the most frequently visited Web pages, 'Full History Search' for searching through not only the URLs and titles of visited pages, but also the complete text within the page itself — something Opera has been doing for a while."
Cellphones

Apple Planning Video-Call iPhone 268

An anonymous reader writes "The recently awarded iPhone patent contains hidden claims which indicate Apple is planning to bring video calling and recording features to the iPhone, according to InfoWeek blogger Alex Wolfe. Buried within the 'embodiments' section of patent number 7,479,949 is this: 'In some embodiments, the functions may include telephoning, video conferencing, e-mailing, instant messaging, blogging, digital photographing, digital videoing, web browsing, digital music playing, and/or digital video playing.' Wolfe also cites language indicating Apple is aware that having a rear-facing camera is an impediment towards video calls (and also taking pictures of yourself.): 'In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the front of the device so that the user's image may be obtained for videoconferencing while the user views the other video conference participants on the touch screen display.' Screen caps of the patent drawing are also available."

Comment Re:It justifies (Score 1) 307

This can be spun both ways, that I agree. Although I did say that books should be cheaper, I agree with you in the fact that producing a good textbook is expensive (in more ways than just money) and time-consuming, and they should be valued accordingly.

I do believe, however, that it is more valuable for us as a society to have this sort of knowledge-disseminating piracy, than to strongly enforce textbook copyrights. You can argue that without the monetary reward, no good books would be written in the first place, but I disagree, I don't believe that most people who write textbooks do it for the money.

The point that those students are spending much more money elsewhere is moot. Textbooks are obviously not a basic necessity. Should a student sacrifice two month of his social life for the sake of purchasing a new textbook? Which of them will benefit him the most throughout his life? What is worth more that a textbook, and what is worth less?

This is all relative, of course. You say that anyone can ask for funding to buy textbooks. Where? In America? Me, I'm studying in Portugal, so I'll speak of what I know. We have good universities here, but there are no funds for buying books, and the 3-5 copies in the library are hardly enough for the dozens of students who procure them every year.

Comment Re:It justifies (Score 1) 307

i really can't see why this is modded funny.

That would be because many here would laugh profusely at the notion that 'pirating' $80+ university textbooks is wrong because it discourages university teachers to write their own books.

What is wrong is to price knowledge so high and not subsidize it for students who can't afford $500 in textbooks.

I'm not offended when someone can't get the whole Britney Spears discography because it's too expensive, but it hurts me when many of my university colleagues want to study advanced physics or microelectronics and can't get the subject's textbooks because they're too bloody expensive. And it comforts me to know that they can 'pirate' the book, study and learn from it, and have the same opportunity to become great engineers as I, luckily, have.

Media

45% of Dutch Media-Buying Population Are "Pirates" 307

Anonymous writes "A non-government study in the Netherlands found that 4.7 million Dutch Internet users 15 years and older downloaded hacked and pirated DVDs, games, and music in the last 12 months — or, about 25 percent of the Dutch population. But there may be an upside to this unauthorized sharing/distribution: 'The average [Dutch] downloader buys more DVDs, music, and games than people who never download,' with illegal downloaders representing 45 percent of consumers who purchase content legally, according to the Institute For Information Law, which administered the study."
Censorship

Indymedia Server Seized By UK Police, Again 528

timbrown writes with word that "On 22 January 2009, Kent Police seized an Indymedia server hosted by Manchester-based colocation facility UK Grid and run by the alternative news platform Indymedia UK. The server was taken in relation to comments on an article regarding the convictions in the recent Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) trial. Seven activists were sentenced to a total of 50 years in prison." The complete story is worth reading; timbrown continues: "I'm posting this as a concerned UK administrator who hosts a number of sites. The message appears to be clear: the UK establishment does not want political content, legitimate or otherwise, hosted from these shores. The message has been noted, however free speech must be supported even where it may not be agreeable."
Graphics

The Presidential Portrait Goes Digital 295

alphadogg writes "Barack Obama's election to US president has already brought a string of firsts, and on Wednesday there came another. The official presidential portrait was shot on a digital camera for the first time. The picture was taken by the White House's new official photographer, Pete Souza, and issued by The Office of the President Elect through its Web site. It was taken on Tuesday evening at 5:38 p.m. using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, according to the metadata embedded in the image file."
Medicine

3 Cups of Coffee Increases Hallucinations 628

PearsSoap writes "The Telegraph and other sources are pointing out a study on 200 students which has found that a high caffeine intake can cause visual and auditory hallucinations, and can make people think that others are 'out to get them.' The abstract (and full version if you have access) is available. 'The volunteers were questioned about their caffeine intake from products including coffee, tea, energy drinks, chocolate bars and caffeine tablets.'"

Comment ZFS (Score 4, Informative) 324

FreeBSD is the only distribution, other than Solaris, to have ported and implemented the ZFS filesystem (and no, a FUSE port doesn't count).

I've been looking forward to build a file server for personal use, and I'm eager to try out ZFS, which really puts FreeBSD high on my small list of candidates for an operating system. I'm going for consumer-grade hardware, and I'll be experimenting with stuff like using CompactFlash cards to store the OS.

OpenSolaris was my initial choice due to its higher maturity on the ZFS implementation, but I feel it's too constraining. I tried searching around for information about installing the system on flash mediums, information about wear-levelling, filesystems for flash media, and their forums and mailing lists fall short on these topics. The OpenSolaris installer doesn't even allow one to customize the installation, forcing me to install X.org, Gnome, and a ton of other stuff. No thank you, I'd very much like my file server to be command-line only, and to be smaller that your 3.1 gigabyte minimum for an installation.

As soon as I feel that FreeBSD's implementation of ZFS is stable and feature-rich enough for my needs, I'll definitely be rolling a file server with it. And I don't care if Netcraft disagrees with my decision; I really do feel BSDs deserve more and more notoriety these days.

Slashdot Top Deals

Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss the one you are least interested, and say nothing about the other.

Working...