38654831
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
Not only is it a vehicle – it’s a skateboard, more specifically a longboard. silverfishlongboarding tested some prototypes and has a good write up on it.
If you rode a Tony Hawk when you were a kid and are tired of rising gas prices, parking, traffic, etc, this might be for you. With a speed governed 20mph top speed, 6 mile range and regenerative braking, this bad boy could be your next commuter ride.
The Tech
Boosteb Boards founders, all three of whom were engineering students and longboarders at Stanford University, are definitely well-versed in the technologies they've applied to their board project. For reporters like us, drooling over paper with the large, fat pencils the doctors say are safe for us to use, it boils down to sime relatively simple stuff: a custom mounting plate and driveline they bolt onto Landyachtz'es Bear Trucks, independently belt-driven by tandem 1kw, brushless DC "outrider" motors, all powered by a lithium-ion battery pack managed by a heat-sinked mos-fet controller that's directed by a blue tooth handset. Simpler yet: tons of horsepower, 6+ miles of range and only about six pounds heavier than the longboard they start with before adding on the electronics.
24645068
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
In less than a week, the world has lost two tech pioneers. Last week, we mourned the passing of Steve Jobs, and now we say goodbye to computer scientist Dennis Ritchie who also recently died.
Ritchie, or dmr as he was called in programming circles, worked most of his life at Bell Laboratories where he helped create the C programming language and worked extensively on the Unix operating system.
24089518
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
While looking up some documentation for GIT this morning I noticed the kernel.org page for it was down. Curious, I checked the Homepage and found it was down too. It has now been over 8 hours and counting. Anyone know what is going on?
22039880
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
According to the Washington Times, Yet another world champion has been brought low for suspected use of a banned performance-enhancing substance. Rybka, the chess-playing computer program that won the past four World Computer Chess Championship titles, was summarily stripped of its silicon crown this week amid charges its programmer plagiarized the software of two rival programs.
David Levy, president of the International Computer Games Association (ICGA), announced the action against Rybka on Wednesday and imposed a lifetime ban on Czech-American programmer and Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate Vasik Rajlich. He accused Mr. Rajlich of ripping off the coding of two other software programs marketed as Crafty and Fruit. Mr. Levy also demanded the return of trophies and prize money the program won.
Because Fruit and Crafty “open-source” program, its codes are available for anyone to use — but its license strictly prohibits anyone from making money off its code and not giving credit. John Dozier Jr., a lawyer who specializes in Internet copyright issues, said no successful preventive measure from this is in sight.
21532170
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
According to to the LA Times, the state of Alaska is expected to release more than 24,000 pages worth of emails from Sarah Palin's tenure as governor, more than two years after they were requested by news organizations and local activists.
The Palin emails were originally sought to shed light on the then-little-known running mate of 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Their release comes at a very different time — as Palin, who enjoys near-universal name recognition, is contemplating a White House bid of her own.
Apparently, the Alaskan government cannot create something like a zip file or tarball so they will print out each individual email and then release the printed copies to new organizations. Why do I feel this belongs on thedailywtf.com?
17510500
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
The LA Times reports that newly elected Assemblyman Jeff Gorell is on a mission, it just wasn't the one he expected. In March, the freshman Republican from Camarillo, a Navy reservist, will trade his business suit for combat fatigues and report for a year's duty in Afghanistan. Never mind that he hasn't yet hired a staff, opened an office or introduced legislation.
16791198
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
According to BBC, shares in Microsoft fell nearly 2% during US trading, after Goldman Sachs cut its rating of the computer giant. The investment bank cut its rating of Microsoft shares from "buy" to "neutral". It said Microsoft was being threatened by the rise of tablet computers such as Apple's iPad, which do not run Windows software.
6633471
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
On the day before the Windows 7 Launch, The Washington Times ran a prominent story about Ubuntu. above the fold in the Marketplace section of the paper. This is the first mention of Linux as a consumer desktop I have ever seen in a non tech publication, and its focus was clearly for consumers.
Even more interesting was the followup that appeared in the newspaper a week later:
"For a good part of last week, your reviewer's musings about Ubuntu Linux was among the top five most-read stories on washingtontimes.com. Since the other top stories concerned health-insurance reform or the H1N1 vaccine and similar weighty topics, the presence of a geek-oriented column came as a pleasant surprise.
I suspect this may reflect a growing disenchantment among computer users with the high cost of operating systems, specifically Windows operating systems from Microsoft Corp."
5933515
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
According to the Washington post, a D.C. Start-Up Aims to Pitch Oil Made From Plastic Waste. Plastic soda bottles, Big Gulp cups and empty sour cream containers get fed into the top of the three-story machine. About 10 minutes later, out the other side comes a light-brown synthetic oil that can be converted into fuel for a truck or a jet airplane.
The Envion Oil Generator, scheduled for an official unveiling at Montgomery County's Solid Waste Transfer Station on Wednesday, represents a local company's decade-long effort to fight rising fuel costs and help protect the environment. As part of a pilot program, the company recently assembled the first of its fuel-producing generators at the Derwood waste facility.
Envion said its new generator can consume any type of plastic and convert it into synthetic oil; depending on the type of plastic, one ton can be converted into three to six barrels of fuel. Envion said it costs about $10 to convert the plastic waste into a barrel's worth of synthetic oil; currently, crude oil sells for close to $70 a barrel.
How much oil could we recover from the Pacific Garbage Patch?
4070421
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
Apple Australia's John Marx confirms that the new three-tier pricing plan, introduced around the world today, has also kicked in at iTunes New Zealand.
Previously, a sprinkling of higher-resolution 256kbps, DRM (digital rights management)-free "iTunes Plus" songs have been available for the premium price of $1.79.
Now, all nine million songs on Apple's music store are "iTunes Plus", DRM-free, 256Kbps and priced at $1.29, $1.79 or a new top rate of $2.39 depending on popularity.
The lack of DRM, or copy protection, means any song can be transferred to another iPod or indeed, once converted from ACC, to almost any device, rather than tethered to the purchaser's music player.
According to a radio report heard on the way home, any iTunes songs purchased previously with DRM can also be upgraded for $.30 or $3/album
3492997
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
How many of you have wanted the latest games for Linux? Wouldn't it be great if you could just select Linux as your platform instead of Windows or Mac. Well now, you can buy World of Goo at 2dboy.com. Just select your package type (.deb, .rpm or tarball) when downloading. As far as I know, this is the first major commercial game released for Linux at the same time as Windows and Mac.
Every slashdotter who wants games for Linux should download this demo. This game is really fun and worth every cent of the $20 the full version costs. Buy it! Even if you don't really like the game, it is for Linux and has no DRM. And even if you don't like it, your kids will. Mine are both playing it now on Ubuntu. Wouldn't it be cool if half the sales of World of Goo were for Linux? If you want good Linux games without DRM, vote for this one with your pocket book.
2581451
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
This may be old hat to /.ers, but there is a blog driven by a (bash-like) command line interface. You Linux folk should have no problem using it.
1308171
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
On Thedailywtf.com,
Hector just wanted to see what he could do with the Wii. And when he first took a look under the hood, he started with the usual approach — he started poking through Wii game discs. On every disc he tried, the entire contents were encrypted with secure RSA-2048 and SHA-1. The second place he looked — game saves — were signed using elliptic curve cryptography. Nintendo clearly wasn't going to make this easy.
It looked hopeless. That is, until someone looked at the core function via a disassembler that performed the RSA and SHA-1 verification. Hector provided this pseudocode for the check function:
bool is_valid_signature(byte signature[256], byte public_key[256], byte content_sha1[256]) {
byte decrypted_signature[256];
decrypt_rsa(signature, public_key, decrypted_signature);
if(strncmp(content_sha1, decrypted_signature + 236, 20) == 0)
return 1;
else
return 0;
}
632258
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
Another slashdot poster submitted a comment with examples of bad software. Since this is something every slashdotter experiences on a daily basis, this should be a basis for a poll or an article. There is no FA. Not that it matters; nobody reads them anyway. :) Let the flame wars begin!
593152
submission
El_Oscuro writes:
CanSecWest Vancouver 2008 is having their second PWN2OWN contest.
Three targets, all patched. All in typical client configurations with typical user configurations. You hack it, you get to keep it.
Each has a file on them and it contains the instructions and how to claim the prize.
Targets (typical road-warrior clients):
- VAIO VGN-TZ37CN running Ubuntu 7.10
- Fujitsu U810 running Vista Ultimate SP1
- MacBook Air running OSX 10.5.2
Happing hunting! I wonder which will pwned first?