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Beer

Picture Blocking Beer Cooler Keeps Your Face Out of Embarrassing Photos 200

Posted by samzenpus from the bucket-that-has-your-back dept.
cylonlover writes "It may sound like something dreamed up by a cheesy men's magazine as a joke, but apparently this is a real thing that actually exists. Ostensibly, the Norte Photoblocker is a functional beer cooler surrounded by four sensors that can detect the flashes from cameras or cell phones. If a flash goes off in the direction of the Photoblocker, it fires its own flash to flood the resulting photos with bright white and obscure anyone nearby. Now you can go about your usual business of cheating on your spouse, being an idiot around your boss, or drunkenly harassing fellow party-goers without worrying that some wildly irresponsible person will tag you in a photo and posts it online."

Comment Monkey version of Timber (Score 5, Funny) 197

by Kebis (#30373696) Attached to: Monkeys With Syntax
The monkey version of "Timber!" is “Boom boom krak-oo krak-oo krak-oo". So, in monkey it's 8 sylables, and in English it's 2. No wonder humans became the dominant species, we had more time to get out of the way after the falling tree warning.
Intel

Submission + - Intel's New E-Reader for the Visually Impaired (bblogic.com) 3

Submitted by serverguy
serverguy writes: A win for all visually impaired members of society with Intel releasing a new device called the Intel Reader. It allows visually impaired people to take a snap shot of a newspapers, books and magazines and have it read back to them. It's estimated that in the US alone there are as many as 55 million people who could make use of such a device. It comes at hefty price though, costing US$1,499 for the paperback sized device which contains a 5 megapixel camera and is powered by a Linux OCR system that converts text into spoken words. The device can contain up to 2GB of data which would equate around 600 snap shots, in addition to reading text to words the device can also play back a Audio Books in a number of supported files such as MP3s and WAV.

The device is expected to be released next Tuesday.
Power

Submission + - Ten New Nuclear Plants Get Go-Ahead in UK

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Telegraph reports that Britain's Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband has announced ten sites to house the new generation of nuclear power stations to expand Britain’s nuclear power capability as consumer groups warned that fuel bills could rise to pay for building program. The new plants will be built on the sites of old nuclear power stations or those soon to be decommissioned and the first new power plant should be operational by 2018 as the Government hopes that by 2025, nuclear will generate a quarter of the country’s electricity compared to 13 per cent now. "In a world where our North Sea reserves are declining, a more diverse, low-carbon energy mix is a more secure energy mix, less vulnerable to fluctuations in the availability of any one fuel," says Miliband. Conservatives attacked the plans for being "10 years too late" and Greg Clark, the shadow energy and climate change secretary, said: "Ed Miliband’s statement is made necessary by the Government’s admission in July that it expects power cuts in 2017 " adding that "15 successive energy ministers — a new one every nine months — behaved like the ostrich and stuck their heads in the sand rather than face up to the action that was needed to address our energy black hole.""
Patents

Submission + - Supreme Court skeptical of business method patents (scotusblog.com)

Submitted by
Trepidity
Trepidity writes: "The U.S. Supreme Court held oral argument Monday in Bilski , a business-methods patent case that might also have important implications for software patents (Slashdot's previously covered the case several times). The tone of the argument appears to be good news, as the justices were very skeptical of the broad patentability claims. They even brought up a parade of absurd hypothetical patents quite similar to the ones Slashdotters tend to mention in these kinds of debates. Roberts surmised that "buy low, sell high" might be a patentable business method, Sotomayor wondered if speed-dating could be patentable, Breyer questioned whether a professor could patent a lesson plan that kept his students from falling asleep, and Scalia brought up the old-time radio soap opera Lorenzo Jones , featuring a hare-brained inventor with delusions of getting rich."

Comment chestnut vs blue-black (Score 3, Funny) 153

by Kebis (#28745967) Attached to: Study Catches Birds Splitting Into Separate Species
So, the difference comes down to the birds wanting to have sex with other birds with the same belly color? First parrots taught us birds can talk, and ravens taught us birds can use tools, now we find out birds can be racist! Forget the AI Singularity, birds will be the death of us all as soon as they invent their own laser weapons!

Comment Does anyone actually play it? (Score 3, Insightful) 45

by Kebis (#28626953) Attached to: NASA Uses AI Customer Service Robot In <em>Second Life</em>
I am always amazed at how often Second Life is mentioned in various news articles and web sites (and an episode of The Office), because I still have yet to find one person I know who actually plays it or has ever even tried it. Maybe Second Life is really big in the CNN breakroom or something.

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