Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment LCARS interface for iPad... (Score 1) 324

by RichardtheSmith (#33210284) Attached to: How Star Trek Artists Imagined the iPad... 23 Years Later
I'm surprised no one's commented on the irony of the fact that, if someone were to submit an LCARS interface for the iPad, Apple would disallow it because they forbid developers from implementing desktop environments or any sort of alternate UI.

This is a pity, because that's probably the only reason I'd buy one.

Here, take a look... http://www.lcarsdeveloper.com/

Comment Re:There are reasons X-10 hasn't gone away (Score 1) 170

by RichardtheSmith (#28091101) Attached to: ZigBee Pro, the New Home Automation Standard?

This web site is interesting...

www.freaklabs.org

A quick look tells me that this is not hobbyist friendly at all. You have to buy a Raven USB stick, but there is no API support, you have to roll your own code to make sense of the 802.15.4 protocol stream before you can even begin to work on the level of devices or events.

Like I said, tell me how to turn my outside lights on at sunset in the Zigbee world. How to I address devices and send commands to them? How do I get status back. X-10 has a flaw in that it's hard to get command confirmation and device state back. So we learn to live with that. But I'm not seeing a compelling case for Zigbee being any better.

Bottom line is the people who write for CE Pro and similar magazines have their own slant on things. And it's a very different slant from Popular Electronics or BYTE or any of the publications that used to show you how to unravel things and make them work your way. And that's what makes HA fun for a lot of people.

Comment There are reasons X-10 hasn't gone away (Score 3, Interesting) 170

by RichardtheSmith (#28086979) Attached to: ZigBee Pro, the New Home Automation Standard?

The nice thing about X-10 is that the protocol is simple and there are lots of devices that work with it, most of which are relatively inexpensive. It's also friendly to the home hobbyist, and the hacker, since you can buy interfaces that will hook up to your PC via a serial port and write your own scripts, or download free software like Misterhouse.

If I can't turn my outside lights on at sunset via a script, then turn that script into a cron job, don't even talk to me about it. I'll write the interface myself, just give me a clean API I can code to.

We hate it when Microsoft or Apple take the attitude of "No, we won't open up our API and play nice with the open source crowd. At best we will make you join our developer program and sign an NDA. At worst we won't talk to you at all."

When the home automation vendors do it, they're no better. They don't deserve our respect or our help.
The Media

Are Newspapers Doomed? 338

Posted by kdawson from the don't-even-say-it dept.
Ponca City, We love you writes "James Surowiecki has an interesting article in the New Yorker that crystalizes the problems facing print newspapers today and explains why we may soon be seeing more major newspapers filing for bankruptcy, as the Tribune Company did last week. 'There's no mystery as to the source of all the trouble: advertising revenue has dried up,' writes Surowiecki, but the 'peculiar fact about the current crisis is that even as big papers have become less profitable they've arguably become more popular,' with the blogosphere piggybacking on traditional journalism's content. Surowiecki imagines many possible futures for newspapers, from becoming foundation-run nonprofits to relying on reader donations to deep-pocketed patrons. 'For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime — intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on — and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can't last. Soon enough, we're going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.'"
Books

An Ethical Question Regarding Ebooks 715

Posted by kdawson from the cui-bono dept.
tytso writes "Suppose there is a book that you want to read on your ebook reader, but it is out of print (so even if you purchase the dead-tree version of the book used, the author won't receive any royalties) and the publisher has refused to make it available as an ebook. You can buy it from Amazon as a used book, but that isn't your preferred medium. It is available on the internet as a pirated etext, however. This blog post outlines a few possibilities, and then asks, 'What is the right thing to do? And why?' I'm also curious if the answers change depending on whether you are a Baby Boomer, or a Gen X, Gen Y, etc. — I've noticed that attitudes around copyright seem to change depending on whether someone is a college student or a recent college graduate, versus someone who can remember a time when the Internet did not exist."
NASA

Urine Passes NASA Taste Test 404

Posted by kdawson from the not-mine dept.
Ponca City, We love you writes "Astronauts flying aboard space shuttle Endeavour are delivering a device to the International Space Station that may leave you wondering if NASA is taking recycling too far. Among the ship's cargo is a water regeneration system that distills, filters, ionizes, and oxidizes wastewater — including urine — into fresh water for drinking or, as one astronaut puts it, 'will make yesterday's coffee into today's coffee.' The US space agency spent $250M for the water recycling equipment but with the space shuttles due to retire in two years, NASA needed to make sure the station crew would have a good supply of fresh water. The Environmental Control and Life Support Systems uses a purification process called vapor compression distillation: urine is boiled until the water in it turns to steam. In space, there's an additional challenge: steam doesn't rise, so the entire distillation system is spun to create artificial gravity to separate the steam from the brine. The water has been thoroughly tested on Earth, including blind taste tests that pitted recycled urine with similarly treated tap water. 'Some people may think it's downright disgusting, but if it's done correctly, you process water that's purer than what you drink here on Earth,' said Endeavour astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper."
Hardware Hacking

D.I.Y. Home Security 377

Posted by kdawson from the try-this-at-home dept.
theodp writes "The NYTimes reports that pre-wired home security installations by alarm companies are on the way out. Thanks to wireless window and door sensors and motion detectors, installing and maintaining one's own security system is becoming a do-it-yourself project, with kits available from companies like InGrid and LaserShield. Time to start cranking out some new iPhone and Android apps, kids?"

Comment Good article, but... (Score 1) 431

by RichardtheSmith (#23258220) Attached to: Why Life On Mars May Foretell Our Doom
The author glosses over the following point: We have no way to prove or disprove the idea that an intelligent non-human species would think in terms that would make technology or communication possible in the first place.

Just as we only have one example of a life-supporting planet, we only have one example of an intelligent species. There is a tacit assumption in science fiction that other species would stumble onto language, mathematics, and advanced technology, even if their brains were organized in a manner totally different from ours. And this assumption in turn seems to taint the scientific discourse on this subject.

Overall I liked the article, but I still think there's too much that we just don't know. I really liked "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem because this is the exact thing he was on about, that as we search for "intelligent life in the universe" what we are really looking for are mirrors of ourselves, and we just need to get past that, and be more willing to stare into the unknown and admit that we don't know what we don't know.

Slashdot Top Deals

THEGODDESSOFTHENETHASTWISTINGFINGERSANDHERVOICEISLIKEAJAVELININTHENIGHTDUDE

Close