Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Magic tricks created using artificial intelligence for the first time (scienceblog.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers working on artificial intelligence at Queen Mary University of London have taught a computer to create magic tricks. The researchers gave a computer program the outline of how a magic jigsaw puzzle and a mind reading card trick work, as well the results of experiments into how humans understand magic tricks, and the system created completely new variants on those tricks which can be delivered by a magician.

Submission + - Apple cannot fire Woz because he is still reporting to Steve Jobs (bizjournals.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: Last week, Steve Wozniak (http://www.woz.org/) spoke at an "Internet Summit" in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina.

During his remarks, Woz said that reports of him him "hating Apple" have been taken out of context: "I am an employee of Apple still. I want to be the only person who has been on the paycheck every single day since day one of the company. I don't think they can fire me."

Woz also explained that company paperwork says that he is stil reporting to Steve Jobs. "I said, 'oh, well, at least I can't get fired,'" he said. That's good because, earlier in the month, Woz responded to a hardware bug report (http://www.willegal.net/blog/?p=6023) regarding the original Apple-I.

There was no word on if Apple has tried to confisciate his red stapler.

Submission + - Is reducing developer workspace to a minimum the new trend in Silicon Valley?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I work at an established Silicon Valley company that has undergone a "recubing" effort. The people density will be doubled: where eight people sat before, now sixteen will be seated. Where we had cube walls separating work areas, no we will face each other. We were told by management that this will be both quieter, more productive, and more "collaborative", and that we will come to appreciate it. When I asked how we are to police the noise (people on phones, people in casual conversations, etc etc), management said we should give harsh looks at the noise-makers, and that social pressure will do the rest.

My employer claims "everyone is doing this", now. I find that difficult to believe, but I'm curious what other developers think: is this really the new trend for Silicon Valley? Are postage-stamp sized desks, no privacy, and no room to even hang a picture of your own, the new trend?

Submission + - Preview 3 of Jaunt's Made-for-VR 360 3D Short Films (roadtovr.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Jaunt (http://www.jauntvr.com/), a company that's raised more than $34 million to create a platform for live-action cinematic virtual reality experiences, has set out to demonstrate their toolset by producing three made-for-VR short films that are shot in 360 degrees and in 3D. Road to VR has an exclusive preview of the films which the company says will have interactive trailers released very soon for Oculus Rift and Android (for use with Cardboard and other smartphone VR adapters).

Submission + - WhiteHouse petition to research intelligence-sapping ATCV-1 virus

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A petition was started at https://petitions.whitehouse.g... (http://wh.gov/ixUiN), asking for more to be done about the ATCV-1 virus, since it appears to be literally making us less intelligent regardless of whether you are a man, a mouse, or pond scum.

To quote an anonymous wit: "Doctors report that they have discovered a cure for apathy, however nobody has shown the slightest interest in it." With this virus, we haven't even gotten that far yet!

Submission + - Platelet-like nanoparticles that can do more than clot blood (ucsb.edu)

Submitted by Chipmunk100
Chipmunk100 writes: UC Santa Barbara researchers have turned to the human body’s own mechanisms for inspiration in dealing with the necessary and complicated process of coagulation. By creating nanoparticles that mimic the shape, flexibility and surface biology of the body’s own platelets, they are able to accelerate natural healing processes while opening the door to therapies and treatments that can be customized to specific patient needs.

Submission + - Using Wikipedia to forecast disease spread (ploscompbiol.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory have used Wikipedia logs as a data source for forecasting disease spread. The team was able to successfully monitor influenza in the United States, Poland, Japan, and Thailand, dengue fever in Brazil and Thailand, and tuberculosis in China and Thailand. The team was also able to forecast all but one of these, tuberculosis in China, at least 28 days in advance.

Submission + - SystemD-resolved has a DNS cache poisoning bug

Submitted by danomac
danomac writes: If you are using systemd you may want to disable resolved. Reported yesterday on seclists, resolved doesn't appear to adhere to rfc5452 and thus is subject to a cache poisoning bug. From seclists:

At its simplest, an attacker triggers a query to a domain he controls via SMTP or SSH-login. Upon receipt of the question, he can just add any answer he wants to have cached to the legit answer he provides for the query, e.g. providing two anser RR's: One for the question asked and one for a question that has never been asked — even if the DNS server is not authoritative for this domain.

Submission + - Rare Murals Discovered in 1,000-Year-Old Liao Dynasty Ancient Chinese Tomb (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: The 1,000-year-old tomb of a rich nobleman from the Liao Dynasty (907-1125 AD) has been discovered in Datong City, Shanxi Province in northern China, featuring beautiful murals, ceilings covered in constellations of stars and a statue of the tomb's occupant.

The tomb, known as M1, was discovered by archaeologists from the Datong Municipal Institute of Archaeology in April 2011, buried 1.5m below ground level near the Datong-Taiyuan Railway line. It is circular in shape and made from brick, consisting of three components – an entrance corridor, a passageway with stairs and a burial chamber.

The walls of the tomb chamber are lime plaster covered with several large murals depicting the daily domestic life of a noble during the Liao Dynasty (also known as the Khitan Empire), which lasted from 907-1125 AD.

The Khitan people were normadic people from Mongolia and Manchuria who dominated parts of China during the Liao Dynasty and rules over the Han Chinese. Very few relics of their reign have survived till today.

Submission + - A Band-Aid that could suck bugs out of your wound (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Scientists have made progress towards a band-aid like device that can literally suck bacteria out of wounds. When they placed nanofibers in a petri dish of Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium involved in chronic infection, the bugs quickly attached themselves to 500-nanometer-wide fibers, but hardly onto fibers with larger diameters. When the researchers coated the nanofibers with different compounds and tested them on the bacteria Escherichia coli, also responsible for chronic wounds, the bugs formed bridges on fibers coated with allylamine, a colorless organic compound, but stayed away from fibers coated with acrylic acid. The researchers, who plan to test the meshes on composites that resemble human skin, hope that they will eventually lead to smart wound dressings that could prevent infections. Doctors could stick the nano–Band-Aid on a wound and simply peel it off to get rid of the germs.

Submission + - Linux Foundation Comments on Microsoft's Increasing Love Affair with Linux (linux.com)

Submitted by LibbyMC
LibbyMC writes: Executive Director Jim Zemlin writes, "We do not agree with everything Microsoft does and certainly many open source projects compete directly with Microsoft products. However, the new Microsoft we are seeing today is certainly a different organization when it comes to open source.

"The company's participation in these efforts underscores the fact that nothing has changed more in the last couple of decades than how software is fundamentally built. "

Submission + - The US-China Climate Deal Changes Everything

Submitted by merbs
merbs writes: As a result of the deal, which negotiators have reportedly hashed out over a nine-month period, in secret, the US has promised to double the rate at which it's cutting carbon pollution—slashing emissions over a quarter from 2005 levels by 2025. Meanwhile, China has pledged to ensure its greenhouse gas output peaks by 2030. The two nations are by far the world's largest contributors to global warming—combined, they account for a jaw-slackening 40 percent of the world's emissions.

And until now, the two nations have not seen eye to eye on fighting climate change. In fact, it's closer to the opposite: they've been outright hostile.

Submission + - Google signed a 60-year, $1 billion Moffett Field Lease

Submitted by Biff Stu
Biff Stu writes: Google has signed a 60-year, $1 billion Moffett Field Lease. This lease includes the large hangars that housed dirigibles that hunted Japanese submarines near the California coast during WW2. According to the article, "a Google subsidiary called Planetary Ventures LLC will use the hangars for "research, development, assembly and testing in the areas of space exploration, aviation, rover/robotics and other emerging technologies." Does this mean that Google is planning to include actual clouds in "cloud" computing?

Submission + - Google to lease and refurbish Naval Air Base for space exploration (go.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Google has signed a long-term lease for part of a historic Navy air base, where it plans to renovate three massive hangars and use them for projects involving aviation, space exploration and robotics. The giant Internet company will pay $1.16 billion in rent over 60 years for the property, which also includes a working air field, golf course and other buildings. The 1,000-acre site is part of the former Moffett Field Naval Air Station on the San Francisco Peninsula. Google plans to invest more than $200 million to refurbish the hangars and add other improvements, including a museum or educational facility that will showcase the history of Moffett and Silicon Valley, according to a NASA statement. The agency said a Google subsidiary called Planetary Ventures LLC will use the hangars for "research, development, assembly and testing in the areas of space exploration, aviation, rover/robotics and other emerging technologies"

NASA plans to continue operating its Ames Research Center on the former Navy site. Google will take over operations at the runways and hangars, including a massive structure that was built to house dirigible-style Navy airships in the 1930s. NASA said the deal will save it $6.3 million in annual maintenance and operation costs

Submission + - Systemd again? Debian drops kFreeBSD as official architecture (itwire.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Debian GNU/Linux project has decided not to support its GNU/kFreeBSD distribution as an official release for the forthcoming version 8.0 which is better known as Jessie. One of the reasons for this decision could be systemd, the new init system that will be the default for the Jessie release. It cannot be used with any kernel other than Linux.

Slashdot Top Deals

The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh

Close