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Quadruped CHEETAH Robot To Outrun Any Human 177

Posted by samzenpus from the robot-gorillas-to-hunt-the-robot-cats dept.
cylonlover writes "Robots are faster than humans at a lot of things, but up until now running hasn't been one of them. That is set to change with robotics company Boston Dynamics recently awarded a contract by DARPA to design and build a quadraped CHEETAH robot that is faster than any human. The contract also includes the creation of an agile, bipedal humanoid robot. It's hard to say which one might ultimately be creepier."
United Kingdom

Dogs Can Be Pessimistic 99

Posted by samzenpus from the dog-in-black dept.
Not that it will change anything, but researchers at Bristol University say that your dog might be a gloom-monger. In addition to the downer dogs, the study also found a few that seemed happy no matter how uncaring the world around them was. "We know that people's emotional states affect their judgments and that happy people are more likely to judge an ambiguous situation positively. What our study has shown is that this applies similarly to dogs," said professor Mike Mendl, an author of the study and head of animal welfare and behavior at Bristol University.
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Researchers Discover Irresistible Dance Moves 215

Posted by samzenpus from the gene-gene-the-dancing-machine dept.
sciencehabit writes "To find out if certain dance moves are more attractive to women than others, researchers recruited a bunch of college guys and used motion-capture to create avatars of them dancing. When women watched the avatars (2 videos included in story), the men they found most attractive were those who kept their heads and torsos moving without flailing their arms and legs. The researchers say dancing is thus an honest signal to women of the man's strength and health, just as it is in crabs and hummingbirds, who also move in special ways to attract mates."
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Medieval Copy Protection 226

Posted by samzenpus from the thou-shall-write-your-own-book dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In medieval times a 'book curse' was often included on the inside cover or on the last leaf of a manuscripts, warning away anyone who might do the book some harm. Here's a particularly pretty one from Yale's Beinecke MS 214: 'In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. In the one thousand two hundred twenty-ninth year from the incarnation of our Lord, Peter, of all monks the least significant, gave this book to the [Benedictine monastery of the] most blessed martyr, St. Quentin. If anyone should steal it, let him know that on the Day of Judgment the most sainted martyr himself will be the accuser against him before the face of our Lord Jesus Christ.'"
Iphone

Submission + - Skype 2.0.1 iPhone Update for iOS 4: Multitasking. (apple.com) 1

Submitted by muonzoo
muonzoo writes: Skype has released the updated version of their application for iOS 4 — now with support for multitasking.

Peter Parkes at Skype writes:

In May, we upgraded our iPhone app to allow users to make calls over 3G data connections. Today, I’m pleased to introduce a brand new version of the app. It allows you to make calls with high quality sound, and supports multitasking. This means you can receive Skype calls while other apps are running, even when your iPhone is locked. And during a call, you can keep the conversation going while you switch to another task, such as checking a movie listing or reading an email. We’ve also updated the app’s graphics to support iPhone 4’s Retina Display.

Download and release details are here at iTMS.

Comment Please, don't inflict this on the kids anywhere (Score 2, Insightful) 148

by cullenfluffyjennings (#32368250) Attached to: OLPC's XO-3 Prototype Tablet Coming In 2010

I did the buy one, donate one to a 3rd world kid program with the first OLPC. I could not believe what a piece of crap the OLPC was when I got it. I could not even IM from it. I felt so bad that I had inflicted that on some poor child somewhere. If I could find the poor kid that ended up with the OLPC I paid for, I would happily send them a MacBook Air as a way of apologizing and showing that not all computers sucked.
Government

US Immigration Bill May Bring a National Biometric ID Card 619

Posted by Soulskill from the fighting-aliens-with-bits-of-plastic dept.
schwit1 sends this quote from the Wall Street Journal: "Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain. Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal US workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker. ... A person familiar with the legislative planning said the biometric data would likely be either fingerprints or a scan of the veins in the top of the hand. It would be required of all workers, including teenagers, but would be phased in, with current workers needing to obtain the card only when they next changed jobs, the person said. The card requirement also would be phased in among employers, beginning with industries that typically rely on illegal-immigrant labor."

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