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Submission + - Swedish Pirate Party Presses Charges Against Banks For WikiLeaks Blockade (falkvinge.net)

Submitted by
davecb
davecb writes: "Rick Falkvinge reports today that the Swedish Pirate Party has laid charges against at least Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal before the Finansinspektionen , for refusing to pass on money owed to Wikileaks. The overseer of bank licenses notes (in translation) that "The law states, that if there aren’t legal grounds to deny a payment service, then it must be processed.”"
Microsoft

Submission + - Dell Executive Claims He Warned Microsoft About Windows RT (slashdot.org) 1

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "As quoted in The Australian Financial Review, Dell vice-chairman Jeffrey Clarke told an audience at last week’s Dell World conference in Austin, Texas that he had warned Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer about the Windows RT name. The “Windows” brand name, Clarke apparently told the CEO, was should be limited to operating systems capable of running Windows legacy software. As Windows RT does not, he felt it should be given a different moniker. While it’s unusual for executives from a Microsoft hardware partner to so candidly speak their mind about Windows, it’s not the first time it’s happened in the context of Windows 8. In the months heading up to the operating system’s release, an Acer spokesperson told Bloomberg: “We think that Microsoft’s launch of its own-brand products is a negative for the whole PC industry.” Intel also had to push back against rumors that CEO Paul Otellini had criticized Windows 8 in a private meeting with employees."

Submission + - Occupy Long Beach Strikes at Walmart on Black Friday, November 23, 2012 (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On Friday, November 23, Occupy Long Beach protests in front of the Walmart store located in Down Town Long Beach in support of Walmart employees. The activists demand higher wages, health care benefits, better hours for Walmart employees. The demonstration began with peaceful meditation and sign making. None of the Walmart employees joined the strike and couple workers reported that they were threatened to be fired on the spot if they joined the strike or engaged in a conversation with any members of the Occupy group. The demonstration was peaceful until the police saw nineteen year old Honor O'Kane drawing on the ground. O'Kane was taking aside while the members of Occupy group were trying to persuade the police that drawing on the ground with a chalk was not illegal and can not be confused with a graffiti created by spray paint. As a result, Vivian Price, a professor of labor studies at CSUDH was arrested and charged with resisting arrest and obstruction of justice. Price was handcuffed and taken to the Long Beach Police Department.
Apple

Submission + - Apple spaceship: Underground plans revealed (bizjournals.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple released an updated look at the plans for its new headquarters last week. While most tech blogs are reporting that there was no significant change, it turns out that there WAS a big change: underground. Apple has significantly cut down on the amount of subterranean parking in its plan, and that could cut its construction costs significantly. Rumor has it the original plan was WAY over budget, so now they're trying to rejigger it to be cheaper.
Robotics

Submission + - Schools get humanoid robots to promote STEM subjects (techworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Humanoid robots that can see, hear, speak and communicate with humans are being deployed throughout schools in Warwickshire to increase student engagement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects. The so-called NAO robot, made by Aldebaran Robotics, is a fully programmable, 58cm-tall humanoid robot with a sensor network that includes cameras, microphones and pressure sensors, as well as a voice synthesiser and two high-fidelity speakers. Users can create and edit the robot's movements and interactive behaviour using Aldebaran's Choregraphe programming software, which the company claims is easy to use even with no prior knowledge of writing code.

Comment Re:tl;dr (Score 1) 687

by hajus (#41611599) Attached to: A Day in Your Life, Fifteen Years From Now

There's a direction in food packaging to switch to metric because right now, international companies have to have a different wrapper (in english oz.) for the US and metric (ml) for the rest for the world. Right now they have to have the measurements in english in the US. They want to have a choice. Then you'll start seeing a lot of foods with metric measurements on the carton/wrapper for the total size because they will use the same wrapper for the US that is used for most every other country. The sodium and such are already listed in metric.

Then you have the weathermen on tv, who get all their numbers in Celcius but have to convert them for the masses.

It's a slow process, but it's happening very slowly in many areas because staying with english units increases costs.

Comment Re:Equivalent of peeking without killing it ?! (Score 1) 210

by hajus (#41546701) Attached to: Quantum Measurements Leave Schrödinger's Cat Alive

These interpretations all are similar in their measurable outcomes. That's why we have these interpretations instead of focusing in on one of them.

The many worlds postulate, for instance, doesn't split the universe into many until the observation is made. So the cat is in a multi-state until that point in time. In all the interpretations, there is a multi-state until the measurement is made and then something happens, depending on the interpretation.
Google

Submission + - California Legalizes Self Driving Cars Paving Way for Google

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Seattle PI reports that California has become the third state to explicitly legalize driverless vehicles, setting the stage for computers to take the wheel along the state’s highways and roads as Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 1298, which affirms that autonomous vehicles are legal in California, while requiring the Department of Motor Vehicles to establish and enforce safety regulations for manufacturers. “Today we’re looking at science fiction becoming tomorrow’s reality,” said Gov. Brown. “This self-driving car is another step forward in this long, march of California pioneering the future and leading not just the country, but the whole world.” The law immediately allows for testing of the vehicles on public roadways, so long as properly licensed drivers are seated at the wheel and able to take over. It also lays out a roadmap for manufacturers to seek permits from the DMV to build and sell driverless cars to consumers. Bryant Walker Smith, a fellow at Stanford’s Center for Automotive Research points to a statistical basis for safety that the DMV might consider as it begins to develop standards. “Google’s cars would need to drive themselves (by themselves) more than 725,000 representative miles without incident for us to say with 99 percent confidence that they crash less frequently than conventional cars. If we look only at fatal crashes, this minimum skyrockets to 300 million miles. To my knowledge, Google has yet to reach these milestones.”"

Submission + - Mimicry wins in gaming TuringTest (newscientist.com)

Submitted by hajus
hajus writes: In a gaming environment of Unreal Tournament, where judges and contestants play together in "the 3d shoot-'em-up", 2 bots that mimic human play have managed to convince the judges that they are humans.

From the article:
Mirrorbot's key strategy is mimicry. When the bot meets other players in the game, it observes their behaviour. If it judges a fellow player to pose no immediate threat, it engages in a brief "social interaction", in which it simply copies the actions of that player, including movement, shooting, weapon choice, jumping and crouching. "It plays back what it sees," says Poleanu. The fact that this strategy proved successful at fooling the human says something interesting about AI and about ourselves, says Poleanu. "This result may indicate that our perception of intelligence is not flawless, but significantly influenced by our social nature".

Submission + - Mathematical constants considered harmful (in some contexts) (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
drdrgivemethenews
drdrgivemethenews writes: "In a story about the laziness and lack of imagination most users bring to the task of choosing passwords, the researcher points out that 'dictionary' attacks using a short list of often-used passwords will have nice hit rates (in the 20% range). He goes on to note that 'The 17th most common 10-digit password is 3141592654'. Pretty funny to see math nerds hoisted on the petard of their own cleverness."

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