Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Microsoft

Paul Thurrot Predicts November Debut, $500 Tag For Xbox 720 232

Posted by timothy from the luckily-not-one-of-my-needs dept.
New submitter inkribbon writes that Microsoft blogger Paul Thurrott has now predicted that Microsoft's Xbox 720 console will actually hit the market this November. Thurrott offers a mix of what he considers cold, known facts and "clearly identified conjecture" about the upcoming device. Important to users is this confidently offered claim about the price: "Microsoft will initially offer two pricing models for the console: a standalone version for $499 and a $299 version that requires a two-year Xbox LIVE Gold commitment at an expected price of $10 per month."
Firefox

Emscripten and New Javascript Engine Bring Unreal Engine To Firefox 124

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the cycle-is-nearly-complete dept.
MojoKid writes "There's no doubt that gaming on the Web has improved dramatically in recent years, but Mozilla believes it has developed new technology that will deliver a big leap in what browser-based gaming can become. The company developed a highly-optimized version of Javascript that's designed to 'supercharge' a game's code to deliver near-native performance. And now that innovation has enabled Mozilla to bring Epic's Unreal Engine 3 to the browser. As a sort of proof of concept, Mozilla debuted this BananaBread game demo that was built using WebGL, Emscripten, and the new JavaScript version called 'asm.js.' Mozilla says that it's working with the likes of EA, Disney, and ZeptoLab to optimize games for the mobile Web, as well." Emscripten was previously used to port Doom to the browser.
Linux

Submission + - Torvalds bemoans size of RC7 for Linux kernel 3.5 (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: A host of small modifications and a large number of system-on-a-chip and PowerPC fixes inflated the size of release candidate No. 7 for Version 3.5 of the Linux kernel, according to curator Linus Torvalds' RC7 announcement, made on Saturday. Torvalds wasn't happy with the extensive changes, most of which he said he received Friday and Saturday, saying "not cool, guys" in the announcement. However, the occasionally combustible kernel curator didn't appear to view this as a major setback. "Now, admittedly, most of this is pretty small. The loadavg calculation fix patch is pretty big, but quite a lot of that is added comments," he wrote, referring to the subroutine that measures system workload.

Comment G+ is the future.. (Score 1) 200

by thrillbert (#36962480) Attached to: Is Google+ a Cathedral Or a Bazaar?

G+ is to the internet, what Yellowstone Park was to the U.S. in 1872. A beautiful landscape where people could meet, relax and enjoy the serenity.

Recently I used this example to tell friends about G+ and compared FB to an amusement park akin Disneyland where you had to pay $45 to enter the park, $5 for a coke, $15 for a picture of you and about $200 for lunch for you, your wife and 2 kids.

On the other hand, you have G+ that is not being built to hijack your information, sell you targeted items based on your 'likes and dislikes' or anything of the sort. It is truly a social network.

Whether that makes it a cathedral or a bazaar, I don't know. What I do know is that I left FB and I'm not looking back.

Comment Back in my day... (Score 1) 96

by thrillbert (#33587652) Attached to: Google CEO Confirms Social Integration

Social sites were called channels.. it wasn't a single entity that controlled everything, it wasn't monetized. It was called IRC.. the difference until mIRC came around was that you had to do everything through a command line.. which for the most part kept the dummies out of my social networks, +++ATH0 took care of the rest. :)

Comment Meanwhile in a cave in Afghanistan.... (Score 1) 332

by thrillbert (#30159952) Attached to: Secret UK Plan To Appoint "Pirate Finder General"

Osama bin laden says "hahahaha! Those stupid western infidels are more worried about catching 14yo Billy Johnson than they are of catching me or my 18 virgins! I knew that buying stock in the world wide movie industry would pay off.. now, you, child of allah, did you get my copy of the movie 2012 from Mandelson???"
Image

Parrots Can Dance 104

Posted by kdawson from the elephants-too dept.
juuri sends in an NPR article about the consensus created among scientists that some birds actually dance to music. "The results of this study are reported in the journal Current Biology, along with another scientific paper inspired by YouTube videos of dancing animals. Adena Schachner is a graduate student in the psychology department of Harvard University. She says she was familiar with the idea that some people had made videos of birds supposedly dancing. ... She and her colleagues eventually analyzed more than 5,000 videos. 'Imagine watching YouTube eight hours a day for a month,' she says. 'That's pretty much what we did. It was amusing for perhaps the first couple of hours.'" juuri adds, "While this makes them somewhat unique in the animal world, as only three animals are now known to dance by verifiable proofs, what struck me more was that this was the first time YouTube had helped forge a new scientific understanding. Given the explosive growth of uploading videos and people watching them, what other new understandings and popular misconceptions will be proven or disproved due to this emerging media?"
Privacy

Wikipedia Opts Out Of Phorm 98

Posted by timothy from the phorm-of-their-objection dept.
ais523 writes "Wikipedia (and other websites run by Wikimedia) have requested to opt-out from Phorm; according to the email they sent, they 'consider the scanning and profiling of our visitors' behavior by a third party to be an infringement on their privacy.'" Another reader points to this post on techblog.wikimedia.org which includes a confirmation from Phorm that those sites will be excluded.

Slashdot Top Deals

"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." -- Phil Wayne

Close