Comment Re:Was Jesus riding Nessie? (Score 1) 936
I'd say, "Well, yes and no."
Comment See Bruce Schneier's blog for reasoned analysis (Score 1) 709
A more reasoned analysis -- http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/01/british_tourist.html
Comment look at geocommons.com (Score 1) 316
You might consider looking at geocommons.com to see if it would serve your needs.
Ask Slashdot: Building an Assistive Reading Device? 134
RulerOf writes "A few years ago, my girlfriend's grandfather was diagnosed with Macular Degeneration. Ever since, he has had progressively more trouble with daily activities. While his wife and family are able to help him with most things, at the age of 88 and without many living friends left, he dearly misses the ability to read printed text. He was able to get by for some time with magnifying glasses and other basic aids but now even those do not help. Recently, a local clinic which specializes in treatment for low-sight and blind individuals made him aware of and showed him several assistive reading devices that successfully allowed him to read. He mentioned this to his family members, and when I was told about it, I thought that these devices sounded like they were not much more than a camera attached to an LCD monitor or television with a little bit of special software thrown into the mix." (Read on below for more.)
Zynga To Employees: Surrender Pre-IPO Shares Or You're Fired 554
ardmhacha writes "Zynga seem to think they were overly generous handing out stock to early employees. Fearing a 'Google Chef' situation they are leaning on some employees to hand back their unvested stock or face termination. From the article: 'Zynga's demand for the return of shares could expose the company to employment litigation—and, were the practice to catch on and spread, would erode a central pillar of Silicon Valley culture, in which start-ups with limited cash and a risk of failure dangle the possibility of stock riches in order to lure talent.'"
FEMA, FCC Hope To Forestall Panic Over National Emergency Alert 210
Ars Technica has a piece on the "first-ever nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS)," slated for this Wednesday at 2 p.m. EST. An excerpt:
"This national system will look and sound much like the current (and local) emergency warnings often seen on TV or heard on radio, but the scope is larger and it can be put under the direct control of the President. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Weather Service (NWS) will all coordinate the test, but it's FEMA that actually transmits the alert code. Concerned that such a test might alarm people, the agencies are going to extraordinary lengths to provide a heads-up. I first heard about the test in an e-mail newsletter from my city government, which told residents last week, 'Do not be alarmed when an emergency message will take over the airways... this is only a test.' The test will display a warning message on TV screens, though as my city helpfully noted, 'Due to some technical limitations, a visual message indicating that "this is a test" may not pop up on every TV channel, especially where people use cable to receive their television stations.'"
Comment Hope this gets Picasa more dev love (Score 1) 162
If this gets Picasa some more maintenance, that would be great. I use it and there are some very annoying bugs that Google doesn't seem to have the motivation (read: enough eyeballs) to care about fixing.
Submission + - Microsoft wipes family photos off employee phones (networkworld.com)
jbrodkin writes: "Microsoft employees who forget their phone passwords will see their devices get wiped, even if they're filled with personal data. "At Microsoft, we have a policy that says if you try to log in on a phone five times incorrectly, we actually wipe the phone," says Microsoft's Brad Anderson. "When that one gets wiped, it doesn't differentiate between what is corporate data and what is personal data." For the sake of its employees and customers, Microsoft is working on a system that can treat the corporate and personal data separately, but is so far coming up short. "I know what the problem is, but I'm not sure how we're going to solve it yet," Anderson says."
Submission + - Limewire being sued for 75 Trillion. (law.com)
DarthVain writes: "Apparently 13 record companies are trying to sue Limewire for 75 Trillion. The NYC judge thinks it is "absurd". Its almost like these media companies are their worst enemy trying to make themselves look ridiculous."
Submission + - House Alarm Blasts Burglars With Pepper Spray (gizmag.com) 1
Zothecula writes: This is one home security alarm you won't want to trigger by mistake! Burglar Blaster mounts on a wall inside the home, and once armed, uses an infrared beam to detect when an intruder has entered the house. It then emits a cloud of pepper spray, that will severely inconvenience anyone within 2,000 square feet (186 square meters).
Submission + - Stock trades to exploit speed of light (bbc.co.uk)
SpuriousLogic writes: Financial institutions may soon change what they trade or where they do their trading because of the speed of light.
"High-frequency trading" carried out by computers often depends on differing prices of a financial instrument in two geographically-separated markets.
Exactly how far the signals have to go can make a difference in such trades.
Alexander Wissner-Gross told the American Physical Society meeting that financial institutions are looking at ways to exploit the light-speed trick.
Dr Wissner-Gross, of Harvard University, said that the latencies — essentially, the time delay for a signal to wing its way from one global financial centre to another — advantaged some locations for some trades and different locations for others.
There is a vast market for ever-faster fibre-optic cables to try to physically "get there faster" but Dr Wissner-Gross said that the purely technological approach to gaining an advantage was reaching a limit.
Trades now travel at nearly 90% of the ultimate speed limit set by physics, the speed of light in the cables.
"High-frequency trading" carried out by computers often depends on differing prices of a financial instrument in two geographically-separated markets.
Exactly how far the signals have to go can make a difference in such trades.
Alexander Wissner-Gross told the American Physical Society meeting that financial institutions are looking at ways to exploit the light-speed trick.
Dr Wissner-Gross, of Harvard University, said that the latencies — essentially, the time delay for a signal to wing its way from one global financial centre to another — advantaged some locations for some trades and different locations for others.
There is a vast market for ever-faster fibre-optic cables to try to physically "get there faster" but Dr Wissner-Gross said that the purely technological approach to gaining an advantage was reaching a limit.
Trades now travel at nearly 90% of the ultimate speed limit set by physics, the speed of light in the cables.
Submission + - Cook's Magazine Apologizes - Sort of. 3
taco8982 writes: Cooks Source has published a statement in response to the uproar over claiming the web is public domain a couple of weeks ago. While it does contain an apology, I'll leave it to individual readers to determine how apologetic it actually is.
Antenna Arrays Could Replace Satellite TV Dishes 183
Zothecula writes "There was a time not so very long ago when people who wanted satellite TV or radio required dishes several feet across. Those have since been replaced by today's compact dishes, but now it looks like even those might be on the road to obsolescence. A recent PhD graduate from The Netherlands' University of Twente has designed a microchip that allows for a grid array of almost-flat antennae to receive satellite signals."
'Officer Bubbles' Sues YouTube Commenters Over Mockery
594
An anonymous reader writes "'Officer Bubbles' — the Toronto Police Constable who was videotaped threatening a G20 protester with arrest for assault over the crime of blowing bubbles at a police officer has had enough of mocking videos and comments on YouTube. He has decided to sue everyone involved (commenters included) for more than a million dollars each. The complaint is detailed in his statement of claim — most of the comments seem fairly tame by internet standards; if this goes anywhere, everyone is going to have to watch what they say pretty carefully. The lawsuit appears to have been successful in intimidating the author of the mocking cartoons into taking them down."
2012 Mayan Calendar 'Doomsday' Date Might Be Wrong 144
astroengine writes "A UC Santa Barbara associate professor is disputing the accuracy of the mesoamerican 'Long Count' calendar after highlighting several astronomical flaws in a correlation factor used to synchronize the ancient Mayan calendar with our modern Gregorian calendar. If proven to be correct, Gerardo Aldana may have nudged the infamous December 21, 2012 'End of the World' date out by at least 60 days. Unfortunately, even if the apocalypse is rescheduled, doomsday theorists will unlikely take note."
