Comment Obligatory XKCD for #2 (Score 1) 88
2. An alternative to OpenID
Submission + - Google+ launches opt-in "Find my face" feature (washingtonpost.com)
asto21 writes: From the beginning, Google has taken pains to build in privacy at the basic levels of Google+, likely learning from the missteps that competitor Facebook has made along the way.
So when Google launched a new photo-tagging feature, Find My Face, on its social network Thursday, it was a pleasant but not entirely unexpected surprise to find that Google has made the feature an opt-in.
Functionally, Find My Face is nearly identical to Facebook’s facial-recognition “Tag Suggestions” program that automatically scans pictures posted to the network and offers suggestions about who may be in the photo.
So when Google launched a new photo-tagging feature, Find My Face, on its social network Thursday, it was a pleasant but not entirely unexpected surprise to find that Google has made the feature an opt-in.
Functionally, Find My Face is nearly identical to Facebook’s facial-recognition “Tag Suggestions” program that automatically scans pictures posted to the network and offers suggestions about who may be in the photo.
Comment Re:hmm.... (Score 3, Insightful) 159
I actually agree, sort of. It's not that I have anything against indie developers getting their stuff out there, but the problem is that I find myself less willing to splash out on it. With the Introversion bundle and HIB4 in the same month, I spent less than $25 on both, but with the original bundle, I spent $25 for that on its own.
By far my biggest gripe though is the "developer specific" humble bundles. Again, I don't have a problem with indie devs marketing their stuff, but the Humble Bundle was designed to be something special that gave obscure independent developers some coverage, and also do something nice for charity. With the advent of the Introversion and Frozenbyte bundles though, the whole thing just seems to become marketing noise (and I'm not even sure that Introversion needed the coverage, Darwinia was a fairly highly rated game back in the day).
UK Police Test 'Temporarily Blinding' LASER 398
esocid writes "Called the SMU 100 it costs £25,000 and sends out a three-meter 'wall of light' that leaves anyone caught in it briefly unable to see. Designed by a former Royal Marine Commando, it was originally developed for use against pirates in Somalia. While tasers and CS gas work well over short distances the laser is said to be effective at up to 500 meters (1,640ft). Being targeted by the beam has been compared to staring into the sun before being forced to turn away. Paul Kerr, managing director of Clyde-based Photonic Security Systems, which came up with the design, said 'If you can't look at something you can't attack it.'"
Comment Re:Still waiting for a tabbed OS UI (Score 1) 980
I've got just the thing for what ails ya: Chrome OS
Submission + - Pop artists support Megaupload; Universal censors 1
TheSHAD0W writes: Several well-known artists, including P. Diddy, Will.I.Am, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West produced a song in support of the site Megaupload, recently targeted by law enforcement as a "rogue site". The music video was gaining popularity — until Youtube received a takedown notice from Universal Media Group, claiming it violated their copyrights.
Comment Re:Ice Age Park (Score 2) 302
Why does it always have to be about the money? Let's do it because we can. I mean, lets face it, that's the only reason we've ever been to the moon. It cost a fortune, and many lives, but at the end of the day, we put a man on the fucking moon. Can we bring back the woolly mammoth? I'm sceptical, but let's go for it, because it's science, and the lessons learned along the way could have all kinds of medical benefits, and let's face it, it'd be awesome to see one.
Comment Why are we so far behind? (Score 2) 113
Why is it that the east just seems to be so far ahead of the west with this sort of stuff? I mean, we just seem so reluctant to adopt cool new tech. This stuff is the future, but (in the UK at least) we just seem to be getting left behind!
Comment Penguin Yanking Kindle Books From Libraries (Score 5, Funny) 206
The dastard! He plans to bring illiteracy to Gotham!
Comment Re:About those linux downloads... (Score 2) 203
Technically you're still downloading. ;-)
Comment Re:It's a con trick (Score 4, Interesting) 199
So let me get this straight... The BBC is deceiving the content providers, to protect the rights of it's consumers?
Do hamburgers eat people in the UK too?
Comment Counter intelligence against your own people. (Score 1) 191
Does all this not just amount to counter-intelligence against your own people? I mean, if the people you serve want to know, let them know! I'm not naive enough to think that everything should be available, but a lot of the stuff that has leaked has been really quite important, and evidence enough that if you think you can hide it, people will commit the most attrocious acts in the name of "serving the greater good". We're living in a time that is a horrible cross between 1984 and V for Vendetta, yet the western world seems perfectly happy to bend over and take it!
I'd say that in a hundred years, people are going to look back on this decade as the dark ages of the information age, but we already know that now. Wikileaks was only the start.
Scientists Build Wireless Bicycle Brakes 213
itwbennett writes "Computer scientists at a German university have built a set of brakes controlled using a small motor for a braking mechanism and a wireless signaling device to tell it when to brake and how hard. 'Making a popular set of bike brakes wasn't really the point of the project,' says blogger Kevin Fogarty. 'The project was to find out how to make the wireless connections between two components of a system that has to operate in real time – with milliseconds of difference between success and failure (PDF) – more reliable than systems that are normally connected by a wire.'"
Comment Re:That's the way it works... (Score 1) 48
It's not true for frogs, but it certainly is for humans. No other species falls for the same trick so many times!
Comment Re:That's the way it works... (Score 1) 48
If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.
