Comment Can't resist... (Score 2, Funny) 113
First (com)post!
Comment 5 seconds? (Score 5, Funny) 161
He found that many didn't even have a password and roughly half of home UK Wi-Fi networks could be hacked in less than 5 seconds."
I'm impressed. I can't connect to my own wireless network in less than 5 seconds.
Comment Re:Enforceable? (Score 1) 304
The patent was filed in 2004, and there must be loads of prior art. Companies such as Nvidia and ATI have had GPU-accelerated video encoders for years now.
Are you sure? Video decoders yes, but I'm not so sure about encoders.
Regardless, this patent should never have been granted. It's all because of the patent office's massive backlog, and their decision to accept every random patent to reduce it.
No arguments there...
Comment Re:Nothing personal, but... (Score 2, Insightful) 278
That pretty much sums up the problem though, doesn't it? At my work we regularly work on ideas that seem groundbreaking, but we generally find that even if nobody else happens to have had the same ideas yet, it's only a matter of time before they do.
So if it's an idea that everybody else is going to have anyway given enough time, why should the first person to think of it gain the ability to put a roadblock in front of everyone else who thinks of it?
Comment Re:Hurry up and someone patent.... (Score 2, Funny) 293
I'll be richer than Microsoft, Apple, Government Motors, and the United States Government combined!
Doesn't the United States Government pretty much cancel out the other three?
Comment Re:Java coders should be so lucky. (Score 1) 276
I know a couple of folks who are making a nice living as a COBOL programmer.
Glad to know pair programming works with COBOL as well.
Comment Re:Things like this... (Score 1) 247
1984... you insensitive clod!
Comment Top kill (Score 1) 593
Have I been reading Slashdot too much or did anyone else think that "top kill" meant they were going to nuke it from orbit?
Comment Re:Uneven laws (Score 2, Interesting) 304
I can heartily recommend Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep", which is set in a galaxy where the laws of physics do indeed vary widely depending on your distance from the centre of the galaxy.
Probably not what you'd call hard science fiction, but definitely one of the best "what if" books I've ever read.
The 1-Second Linux Boot 156
An anonymous reader writes "Less than one second Linux boot! This video shows an OMAP3530 capturing video data from a camera and rendering it to an LCD display — the video appears on the LCD display in less than a second from reset."
Comment Re:works fine in Sweden (Score 1) 613
I've lived in Scotland for 39 years and never realized it was broken (or at least not significantly more than anywhere else). In what way would you like us fixed?
Comment Re:* points finger at Duct Tape Programmers (Score 1) 340
I don't know, it seems to me that a bug like this could only have been introduced in the last ten years, which suggests less foresight than either of these types.
Any code that works for 1999, 2009 and everything in between will probably work for 2010 as well. Code written since 2000 on the other hand might never have been tested with dates outside of the 00-09 range.
Mozilla Thunderbird 3 Released 272
supersloshy writes Today Mozilla released Thunderbird 3.
Many new features are available, including Tabs and enhanced search features, a message archive for emails you don't want to delete but still want to keep, Firefox 3's improved Add-ons Manager, Personas support, and many other improvements. Download here."
DX11 Tested Against DX9 With Dirt 2 Demo 201
MojoKid writes "The PC demo for Codemasters' upcoming DirectX 11 racing title, Dirt 2, has just hit the web and is available for download. Dirt 2 is a highly-anticipated racing sim that also happens to feature leading-edge graphic effects. In addition to a DirectX 9 code path, Dirt 2 also utilizes a number of DirectX 11 features, like hardware-tessellated dynamic water, an animated crowd and dynamic cloth effects, in addition to DirectCompute 11-accelerated high-definition ambient occlusion (HADO), full floating-point high dynamic range (HDR) lighting, and full-screen resolution post processing. Performance-wise, DX11 didn't take its toll as much as you'd expect this early on in its adoption cycle."
Bit-tech also took a look at the graphical differences, arriving at this conclusion: "You'd need a seriously keen eye and brown paper envelope full of cash from one of the creators of Dirt 2 to notice any real difference between textures in the two versions of DirectX."
Nintendo Upset Over Nokia Game Emulation Video 189
An anonymous reader writes "Nintendo is investigating potential copyright infringement by Nokia during some video demos of their N900 phone, which can be seen emulating Nintendo games. Nintendo spokesman Robert Saunders says: 'We take rigorous steps to protect our IP and our legal team will examine this to determine if any infringement has taken place.' In the video, Nokia says, 'Most publishers allow individual title usage, provided that the user is in possession of the original title.'"
