robot_guy - Slashdot User

iPod Shuffle Finds Its Voice 379

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday March 14, 2009 @05:13AM from the easy-to-use-easy-to-lose dept.

theodp writes "Steve Jobs wasn't around to convince you that you should be impressed, but on Wednesday Apple unveiled a 4GB Shuffle that's half the size of its predecessor. Holding up to 1,000 songs, the pre-shrunk Shuffle sports a 10-hour battery life and also adds a new VoiceOver feature that can recite song titles, artists, and playlist names, as well as provide status information. Even without a show from Steve, the new player is generally leaving folks dazzled, although there are some complaints." Update: 3/14 at 14:10 by SS: Reader Mike points out some disturbing news that the new Shuffle contains DRM which, according to a review at iLounge, prevents it from fully working with any headphones that don't have an Apple "authentication chip."

The State of UK Broadband — Not So Fast 279

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday November 26, 2008 @06:29AM from the but-you-have-actual-competition dept.

Barence writes "The deplorable speed of British broadband connections has been revealed in the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics, which show that 42.3% of broadband connections are slower than 2Mb/sec. More worryingly, the ONS statistics are based on the connection's headline speed, not actual throughput, which means that many more British broadband connections are effectively below the 2Mb/sec barrier. Better still, a separate report issued yesterday by Ofcom revealed that the majority of broadband users had no idea about the speed of their connection anyway."

Lenovo Service Disables Laptops With a Text Message 257

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 25, 2008 @09:10AM from the say-the-magic-word dept.

narramissic writes "Lenovo plans to announce on Tuesday a service that allows users to remotely disable a PC by sending a text message. A user can send the command from a specified cell phone number — each ThinkPad can be paired with up to 10 cell phones — to kill a PC. The software will be available free from Lenovo's Web site. It will also be available on certain ThinkPad notebooks equipped with mobile broadband starting in the first half of 2009. 'You steal my PC and ... if I can deliver a signal to that PC that turns it off, hey, I'm good now,' said Stacy Cannady, product manager of security at Lenovo. 'The limitation here is that you have to have a WAN card in the PC and you must be paying a data plan for it,' Cannady added."

Judge Orders White House To Produce Wiretap Memos 178

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday November 02, 2008 @10:10AM from the show-and-tell dept.

sv_libertarian sends this excerpt from the Associated Press: "A judge has ordered the Justice Department to produce White House memos that provide the legal basis for the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 warrantless wiretapping program. US District Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. signed an order (PDF) Friday requiring the department to produce the memos by the White House legal counsel's office by Nov. 17. He said he will review the memos in private to determine if any information can be released publicly without violating attorney-client privilege or jeopardizing national security. Kennedy issued his order in response to lawsuits by civil liberties groups in 2005 after news reports disclosed the wiretapping."

Comment Re:Why no source code? (Score 2, Interesting) 72

by robot_guy on Tuesday May 06, 2008 @03:19PM (#23315630) Attached to: Prototyping 50 Games in One Semester

There is a bi-annual 48 hour solo game development competition called Ludum Dare 48h that has just finished its 11th incarnation. All the entries have to supply source so it might be interesting for you to have a look though these. This time there were over 70 final entries but you do have to realise that there is a wide range of polish and completeness.

The competition itself is actually quite fun and provides a good forum for playing at game development as at doesn't take up much time and the end results are not expected to be perfectly polished, complete games.

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