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Google

Details of Google's Project Glass Revealed In FCC Report 76

Posted by Soulskill from the attaches-to-head-using-eyeball-clamps dept.
Flozzin writes with news that documents published to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's website have provided new details about Project Glass, Google's augmented-reality headset. "A test report describes video playing on the device alongside audio running to a 'vibrating element.' The description tallies with a patent filing suggesting it plays sound via 'bone-conduction' tech rather than earbuds. Developers are due to receive a test edition of the headset later this year. ... [The FCC's papers] describe data being sent to the small screen display via wi-fi and Bluetooth using a radio unit manufactured by Broadcom. The equipment is also said to be able to store video files internally and can be recharged by plugging a power connector into the computing unit on the right-hand arm of the glasses' frame. However, the most arresting detail is the suggestion that audio is provided without the user needing to wear headphones which might disturb how they hear ambient sounds. Last week Google filed a patent application entitled Wearable Computing Device with Indirect Bone-Conduction Speaker."
IOS

Pod2g Confirms iOS 6, iOS 6.1 Beta 4 Untethered Jailbreak 98

Posted by timothy from the stick-'em-together dept.
hypnosec writes "Well known iOS security researcher Pod2g has confirmed that a working untethered iOS 6 jailbreak is ready and would be released as soon as iOS 6.1 GM is released. In an interview with iDigitalTimes, the security researcher has revealed that they are already in possession of a functional untethered iOS 6 and iOS 6.1 beta 4 jailbreak, and the majority of the work has been done by @planetbeing and @pimskeks. '6.0 is jailbroken, 6.1 beta 4 also. Now we are waiting 6.1 to confirm and release,' said the researcher. He said that the jailbreak would have been possible without him as he came into the iOS 6 jailbreak scene at a later stage and provided pointers that pushed the other researchers to the maximum."

Submission + - 2013 could be an exciting year for Comet watching (independent.co.uk)

Submitted by geirnord
geirnord writes: Later this year the newly discovered Comet Ison [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/brighter-than-a-full-moon-the-biggest-star-of-2013-could-be-ison--the-comet-of-the-century-8431443.html] is expected to appear brighter than the full moon in the sky, looking like a searchlight across the sky. PanSTARRS 2014/L4 is also expected to be a good show.

As usual, fear mongering is starting, is the end nigh? http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2012/11/30/sun-grazing-comets-as-the-trigger-for-electromagnetic-armageddon/
Businesses

Submission + - Has Apple Peaked? 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Joe Nocerna writes in the NY Times that Steve Jobs was a perfectionist with no tolerance for corner-cutting or mediocre products. The last time Apple released a truly substandard product — MobileMe, in 2008 — Jobs gathered the team into an auditorium, berated them mercilessly and then got rid of the team leader in front of everybody. But when Apple replaced Google’s map application with its own, vastly inferior, application, infuriating its customers, it may turn out to be the canary in the coal mine for Apple's future. Part of the reason is that Jobs isn’t there anymore but there is also a less obvious — yet possibly more important — reason that Apple’s best days may soon be behind it. "When Jobs returned to the company in 1997, after 12 years in exile, Apple was in deep trouble. It could afford to take big risks and, indeed, to search for a new business model, because it had nothing to lose." writes Nocerna adding that less than 15 years ago Microsoft appeared to be invincible but once its Windows operating system and Office applications became giant moneymakers, Microsoft’s entire strategy became geared toward protecting its two cash cows. Now it is Apple’s turn to be king of the hill — and, not surprisingly, it has begun to behave in a very similar fashion. "I would be surprised if [Apple] ever gives us another product as transformative as the iPhone or the iPad," concludes Nocera. "It is the nature of capitalism that big companies become defensive, while newer rivals emerge with better, smarter ideas.""

Comment Re:Stop with the drugs already (Score 0) 595

by oldhack (#30634938) Attached to: How Norway Fought Staph Infections

Vaccination is effective, in public health sense, only when enough people are vaccinated to eradicate the infection - it's a stat game. Vaccination scheme where not enough people gets vaccinated may be worse than no vaccination at all, encouraging the growth of resistant varieties rather than eradicating infection.

Kinda opposite of antibiotic over-prescription problem.

Comment Re:Article is confusing (Score 1) 595

by geirnord (#30634930) Attached to: How Norway Fought Staph Infections

I think the important part is 1.

When an MRSA infection occurs all staff and visitors that have come into contact with the patient is screened for MRSA. This is again DNA-sequenced to discovery the specific strain. This allows us to control the spread and and also find the originating vector for the infection.

I feel that other countries just prescribe large amounts of antibiotic to stop the singular detected infection, rather that treat the source of the problem.

Comment Re:As Clifford Stoll Said (Score 1) 290

by Darkness404 (#30634890) Attached to: Is Early Childhood Education Technology Moving Backwards?

Computers in the class room have been around at least 25 years. There was an Apple ][ in every classroom when I was a kid. We used it to die of dysentery on the Oregon Trail. Did we learn anything about history? No. We learned to that all that settlers needed was a 99 rounds of ammunition.

But did you learn something about computers? Chances you did learn something if you are now on Slashdot. The role of computers should be to provide a shiny toy for students to want to figure out how it works. To learn reading to play an RPG, to learn history to learn the backstory behind war games, etc.

Computers in the classroom are just the latest incarnation of the whiz-bang technology that would magically make improve education and test scores, without requiring any more work on the child's, parent's, or teacher's part. Just like television, movies, and filmstrips were hailed as an educator's silver bullet generations before. (Stoll wrote about this 14 years ago, and it stills holds true.)

...And how many kids who are have graduated still remember watching The Magic School Bus and Bill Nye the Science Guy? My guess is a lot of them.

Anyone that has attended class in any "e-learning" classroom, can attest that of the regular occurrences of projectors that don't work. Video and audio links that fail. Overly sensitive microphones and the like. The amount of time wasted trying to just set things up before instruction can begin is non-trivial, and easily can accumulate to entire missed days of instruction. No thank you.

...Mostly because teachers and professors are absolutely clueless on technology having long lost the ability to learn after their last degree

If you really want to improve education, how about removing the distractions, and actually teaching out of the book?

...Because that would be removing over half the class and relying on a book that is usually severely out of date?

Comment Re:Where are the Sand (or Playdough) Tables? (Score 1) 290

by Darkness404 (#30634738) Attached to: Is Early Childhood Education Technology Moving Backwards?
A computer is about the most open ended learning station you can get. Give a reasonably intelligent first or second grader a computer and so long as he has no fear of "breaking" it using software, chances are he will be able to use the computer fairly well, perhaps even better than an adult with low computer skills.

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