Comment Re:Ya Ok.. (Score 1) 444
Nah, you'd be fine.
If they came from china the lead would counteract any risk of radiation.
Comment Re:How about Nintendo? (Score 4, Interesting) 292
I borrowed Banjo-Kazooie from one of my cousins many years ago. While giving it back to her, we had a snowball fight and it fell out into the snow somewhere.
Next spring, we found it on the lawn and dried it out. The damn thing still worked fine. A year or so after that, they had brought it on vacation. Their houseboat *burned down then sank*. They recovered it.
To this day the game works fine.
Comment Re:or you can just add a privacy screen (Score 1) 134
That sounds like an actual use for the CAPSLOCK key to me... A simple toggle switch to turn focus tracking on or off.
Copyright Lobby Targets "Pirate Bay For Books" 356
An anonymous reader writes "TTVK, a Finnish national copyright lobby, is threatening a book rental service called Bookabooka for allegedly running the 'Pirate Bay for Books.' Bookabooka however does not offer a torrent tracker service, nor does it enable a user in any way to download eBooks; it simply provides a place for book owners to rent textbooks to each other via the traditional mail service. It is mandatory that all textbooks must be originals. The service is used by a lot of School and University students, and it does not handle the shipping or returns of the textbooks. Nevertheless, the Finnish book publishers' association (Suomen Kustannusyhdistys) is convinced the service is breaching the copyright laws and threatening their business. TTVK has given Bookabooka until Friday to cease operations or face a lawsuit. Bookabooka's founders have vowed to keep the service online and ignore the threat."
Comment Re:I'm still waiting for the Tata Touch... (Score 1) 571
Hydroelectric power accounts for a significant amount of Canada's electric output.
It also happens to be very low on emissions.
Broadband Access Without the Pork? 412
An anonymous reader writes "Like many consumers nowadays, I find more of my time spent on the internet and various wireless devices (e.g. mobile phone). This has gotten to the point where I basically do not use a landline or cable television anymore, and they are essentially pork on my broadband bill, which further subjects the consumer to all sorts of clandestine fees that aren't disclosed until the first bill arrives and add a non-trivial sum (in my case, nearly 100%) to the monthly rate. However, it seems that all broadband access providers have this stipulation, that an internet customer must first have a basic phone or cable TV service in order to sign on for the internet service. Are there any ISPs that can get around this and still deliver broadband internet service at a competitive rate?"
Comment Re:ACTRA/SOCAN (Score 1) 318
The blanket tax also applies to storage media like hard drives and ipods.
Microsoft To Offer Free Anti-Virus Software 448
Dynamoo writes "The good news is that Microsoft have announced free anti-virus software for consumers, dubbed Morro, available late next year. The bad news is ... well, exactly the same. Although Microsoft's anti-malware products are pretty good, this move could drive many competitors out of business and create a dangerous security monoculture; major rivals will be lawyering up already. On the other hand, many malware infections could be prevented even by basic software. So is this going to be a good or bad thing overall?"
Success Not Just a Matter of Talent 247
NinjaCoder writes "The Guardian has an interesting article based on a new book (Outliers: The Story Of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell) which examines some persons of interest to computer technology (Bill Joy, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, amongst others). It examines reasons for their successes and strongly suggests a link between practice (10,000 hours by age 20 being the magic milestone) and luck. This maybe an obvious truism, but the article does give interesting anecdotes on how their personal circumstances led to today's technological landscape. It points out that many of the luminaries of the current tech industry were born around 1955, and thus able to take advantage of the emerging technologies.
New Search Engine Takes "Dyve" Into the Dark Web 55
CWmike writes "DeepDyve has launched its free search engine that can be used to access databases, scholarly journals, unstructured information and other data sources in the so-called 'Deep Web' or 'Dark Web,' where traditional search technologies don't work. The company partnered with owners of private technical publications, databases, scholarly publications and unstructured data to gain access to content overlooked by other engines. Google said earlier this month that it was adding the ability to search PDF documents. In April, Google said it was investigating how to index HTML forms such as drop-down boxes and select menus, another part of the Dark Web."
Left 4 Dead Demo Dated, Cinematic Released 30
Valve has announced that their upcoming horror game Left 4 Dead will have a demo available for play on November 11th. They've also released an impressive four-minute cinematic to show off the game's theme. Left 4 Dead is set to launch on November 18th, and if pre-order numbers are any indication, it will be even more popular than the Orange Box. CVG put together a short survival guide for dealing with those troublesome Infected, and Firing Squad did an interview with Turtle Rock Studios' Michael Booth, in which he mentioned that they want to be able to track stats through Steam so players are able to build a "reputation."
Wikipedia's New Definition of Truth 428
Hugh Pickens writes "Simson Garfinkel has an interesting essay on MIT Technology Review in which he examines the way that Wikipedia has redefined the commonly accepted use of the word 'truth.' While many academic experts have argued that Wikipedia's articles can't be trusted because they are written and edited by volunteers who have never been vetted, studies have found that the articles are remarkably accurate. 'But wikitruth isn't based on principles such as consistency or observability. It's not even based on common sense or firsthand experience,' says Garfinkel. What makes a fact or statement fit for inclusion is verifiability — that it appeared in some other publication, but there is a problem with appealing to the authority of other people's written words: many publications don't do any fact checking at all, and many of those that do simply call up the subject of the article and ask if the writer got the facts wrong or right. Wikipedia's policy of 'No Original Research' also leads to situations like Jaron Lanier's frustrated attempts to correct his own Wikipedia entry based on firsthand knowledge of his own career. So what is Wikipedia's truth? 'Since Wikipedia is the most widely read online reference on the planet, it's the standard of truth that most people are implicitly using when they type a search term into Google or Yahoo. On Wikipedia, truth is received truth: the consensus view of a subject.'"
Dead Space Wants To Scare You 195
Kotaku recently ran a story questioning whether the survival-horror genre still exists, and how Dead Space may or may not fit into it. With reviews for the game starting to come in, Ars Technica reports that the game is, indeed, both scary and good. Gamespy wrote up a Dead Space survival guide, and Gamasutra has a lengthy interview with the game's senior producer. In the production of the game, the developers studied things like car wrecks and war scenes to increase the level of realism. They also want the game's sounds to terrify players, including appropriately timed silence. The launch trailer is also available, though it does contain spoilers.
Web Singletons? 254
tcmb writes "There are an uncounted number of web mail and picture sharing services, there are more than enough web sites for online bookmark management and friend-finding, but as far as I know there is only one Internet Archive. Which are the true web singletons, services that exist only once in this form?" And does anything approach the singular time-wasting abilities of IMDB or Wikipedia?
Windows XP SP3 Causing Router Crashes 337
KrispyBytes writes "Windows XP SP3 has been named as the culprit causing home routers to go into a crash and reboot cycle. One router maker has released firmware updates to fix the problem, but has not yet revealed what is actually different about XP SP3's networking stack or UPnP behaviour that causes the problem. Router maker Billion Managing Director Raaj Menon said "as Microsoft plans to make Windows XP SP3 an automatic upgrade this month, the number of affected routers may increase significantly.""
