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Government

New Declassification Process To Open 400 Million Pages of Records 135

Posted by timothy from the what-do-you-want-to-see dept.
linzeal writes "The newly minted National Declassification Center has been tasked by President Obama with eliminating the backlog of more than 400 million pages of classified records that are more than 25 years old by the end of 2013. The National Archives has prepared a draft prioritization plan to guide its declassification activities, and has invited public input on the plan. A public forum on the subject will be held on June 23. This may be a bonanza for the community of historians and intelligence buffs who have been left without significant source material to work with, in some cases since WWII, especially in terms of any information on cryptography, image analysis, and espionage."

Comment Apples and oranges anyone? (Score 1) 668

by xulfer (#32168150) Attached to: Android Sales Surpass iPhone Sales
Android is an operating system / mobile platform. An iphone is... a phone. This reeks of fanboyism to me. A slew of phones outsold a single phone, but that's really exciting because they all have the same OS! That's like saying IOS outsold a specific series of Juniper, or Redhat outsold a Dell 2950.

Submission + - Celestial Steed a WoW windfall for Blizzard (news.com.au) 2

Submitted by Dexter Herbivore
Dexter Herbivore writes: With the first "useful" object for WoW players for less than a week, over 140,000 players have shelled out US$25 for a pretty picture. Does this signify a shift to Real Money Transactions in conjunction with a subscription model? Has Activision-Blizzard found a winning formula for squeezing even more money out of their users?

Submission + - Former nurse charged with aiding suicides via web

Submitted by mernil
mernil writes: A former US nurse has been charged with two counts of aiding suicides on the internet, US officials say. William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, is accused of encouraging the suicides of Mark Drybrough from Coventry, UK in 2005 and Canada's Nadia Kajouji in 2008. Mr Melchert-Dinkel from Minnesota allegedly posed as a female nurse, instructing people in suicide chatrooms how to take their lives. He reportedly admitted helping five or fewer people kill themselves. Some legal experts say it could be difficult to prosecute Mr Melchert-Dinkel under a rarely used law because he allegedly only encouraged the victims to kill themselves, without physically helping them to take their lives.
Transportation

Submission + - eyeDriver Lets Drivers Steer Car With Their Eyes

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "NPR reports that German researchers have tested a new technology called eyeDriver that tracks a driver's eye movement and, in turn, steers the car in whatever direction they're looking at speeds up to 31 mph. "The next step will be to get it to drive 60 miles per hour," says Raul Rojas, an artificial intelligence researcher at Berlin's Free University. A Dodge Caravan fitted with eyeDriver has been tested on the tarmac at an abandoned airport at Tempelhof Airport, However, it remains unclear when — or if — the technology will be commercialized as questions about safety and practicability abound: What about looking at a cute girl next to the road for a few seconds? Not to mention taking phone calls or typing a text while driving. But the researchers have an answer to distracted drivers: "The Spirit of Berlin" is also an autonomous car equipped with GPS navigation, scores of cameras, lasers and scanners that enable it to drive by itself. And should the technology-packed vehicle have a major bug, there's still an old fashioned way of stopping it. Two big external emergency buttons at the rear of the car allow people outside to shut down all systems."

Comment Re:Legitimate Scrutiny (Score 1) 372

by xulfer (#31937302) Attached to: Group Calls For Google Antitrust Probe

While I think constant vigilance is needed with Google, this looks like nothing more than Microsoft once again using other groups to legitimize it's attacks on a competitor that has with consistent success kicked it in the ass at every turn.

Agreed on both points. This fails to mention the 'two rival companies' these lawyers represent. I'd be willing to bet one of them was from Microsoft.

I did a little digging to see if there was any affiliation between Microsoft and Consumer Watchdog, (ironically using google)... and came up with this link http://techrights.org/2009/05/04/consumer-watchdog-exposed/

Here's a quick summary:
A look beneath the surface reveals that ConsumerWatchdog.org is “the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights”, which is affiliated with/derived from Grassroots Enterprise, a Washington/SF-based AstroTurfer for hire.

If you do even a little digging you can find countless incidences of Microsoft and friends doing this exact same thing. I suppose if you can't beat your competitors in a given market... lobby them into oblivion!

Comment Is this even possible? (Score 2, Insightful) 275

by xulfer (#31786992) Attached to: Oz Pirate Party Tells the Elderly How To Bypass the Net Filter
The article says that each workshop lasts approximately five-and-a-half hours. It's taken me a half-hour just to explain how to properly navigate a website to some of my more elderly firewall. I'm not sure if the allotted time is enough to teach the various concepts and methods of VPN/ssh tunnels and proxies. I've worked with computer science graduates that didn't even properly grasp these concepts after a semester long course. I wish them the best of luck either way.
First Person Shooters (Games)

F.E.A.R. 3 Announced For This Fall 53

Posted by Soulskill from the creepy-psychic-girls-need-employment-too dept.
Warner Bros. has announced that the third game in the F.E.A.R. saga is in production and planned for release this fall. Unlike the first two games, F.E.A.R. 3 will not be developed by Monolith Productions, but by Day 1 Studios, who ported the original F.E.A.R. to the Xbox 360 and PS3. The new game is being developed for those two consoles and for Windows. "Day One is the studio behind MechAssault, MechAssault 2, and Fracture, so they've got all the mech and shooter experience one could hope for, but what about horror? Publisher Warner Bros. Interactive has that covered as well, with famed horror director John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing) and 30 Days of Night writer Steve Niles acting as consultants to enhance the game's scary bits. Alma returns for the third game, but her sons, Point Man and Paxton Fettel, are the stars, both featuring unique powers to help create what the developer is calling divergent co-op, where the characters' powers affect each player's game, and not just their own."
Education

Submission + - Chicago Mayor Calls for 'Brainiac High' 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In a private lunch with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, BusinessWeek's Michael Arndt was taken aback by the mayor's candid monologues against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the failure of public schools — Chicago's included — to adequately train kids today in technology, math, and science. Among the education fixes Daley said he's contemplating are a fifth year of high school and elite math and science academies for Chicago's brainiest students. Endless wars that divert hundreds of billions a year from schools and job training are also undermining America's competitiveness, Daley added, wondering where the public outrage is. Didn't see that coming from the son of Richard J. Daley!
Hardware Hacking

DIY 80GB iPod Touch 110

Posted by timothy from the cloudy-today dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Having recently acquired an iPod Touch, DeviceGuru blogger Rick Lehrbaum soon found himself with an 80GB iPod paperweight knocking around and collecting dust. Then it hit him: why not use a Pogoplug as an iPod server, effectively filling his nifty new iPod Touch with 80GB of music whenever he has WiFi access? The how-to article at DeviceGuru.com explains how a Pogoplug and iPod Touch combined with free web services at pogoplug.com combine to form the 'PogoPod System.' It also introduces the Pogoplug's new UPnP support, and briefly reviews a couple of UPnP media-rendering iPhone and iPod Touch apps."
PlayStation (Games)

PlayStation Network Expanding To Involve Other Devices 63

Posted by Soulskill from the making-toasters-smarter dept.
At CES, Sony's Kaz Hirai confirmed that the company will build out its PlayStation Network for use with other devices, such as televisions, Blu-ray players, and PCs. Quoting: "... the expansion starts next month with the availability of the PSN video store on these other devices, and Hirai explained they are constructing a mechanism to create a single user ID across the entire network (if you have a PSN account, it's good to go on any other applicable Sony device, and if you create one on another device, it'll work on PSN). And finally, Hirai also announced the formation of a new Sony division — called Sony Network Entertainment, Inc. — to drive this expansion of the PSN service into a Sony-wide network."

Comment Re:Where there's a will... (Score 1) 438

by xulfer (#27702557) Attached to: Nintendo and the Decline of Hardcore Gaming
This is exactly right. You'll also notice that with WOTLK's overly easy content users have been flocking to other games. Hardcore gaming isn't in a decline at all. There is simply a rise in casual gaming. I would also say that 'massively outstriping' is a gross over statement. That article cites the top ten selling games in Australia. However, the top ten selling games worldwide tells a different tale entirely.

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