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Comment Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop (Score 1) 244

by Fjodor42 (#37782178) Attached to: Ubuntu Turns 7

Are you telling me - in all seriousness - that Unity doesn't work with a multi-head setup? How the hell can they put it as default, then?

Good thing I only run 11.10 on my laptop for now (where I switched to XFCE), so I guess I'll switch to XFCE even before upgrading my desktop, or look into E17, so thank you for the heads-up.
Supercomputing

Could Wikipedia Become a Supercomputer? 165

Posted by timothy from the aggregating-overhead dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Large websites represent an enormous resource of untapped computational power. This short post explains how a large website like Wikipedia could give a tremendous contribution to science, by harnessing the computational power of its readers' CPUs and help solve difficult computational problems." It's an interesting thought experiment, at least — if such a system were practical to implement, what kind of problems would you want it chugging away at?
Cellphones

Apple Camera Patent Lets External Transmitters Disable Features 268

Posted by Soulskill from the say-cheese-only-in-specially-approved-picture-zones dept.
sticks_us writes with news of an Apple patent application, recently published by the USPTO, for an on-board camera system that would include circuitry for processing external infrared signals. The data received from these signals could then be used to present information to the user of the device, or even to modify the device's operation. "For example, an infrared emitter could be located in areas where picture or video capture is prohibited, and the emitter could generate infrared signals with encoded data that includes commands to disable the recording functions of devices. An electronic device could then receive the infrared signals, decode the data and temporarily disable the device's recording function based on the command. ... In some embodiments, a device may apply a watermark to detected images as an alternative to completely disabling a recording function."
IT

Ask Slashdot: Best Certifications To Get? 444

Posted by Soulskill from the i-recommend-terminator-repair dept.
Hardhead_7 writes "Our recent discussion about how much your degree is worth got me thinking. I've been working in the IT field for several years now, but I don't have anything to my name other than an A+ certificate and vendor specific training (e.g., Dell certified). Now I'm looking to move up in the IT field, and I want some stuff on my resume to demonstrate to future employers that I know what I'm doing, enough that I can get in the door for an interview. So my question to Slashdot is this: What certifications are the most valuable and sought-after? What will impress potential employers and be most likely to help land a decent job for someone who doesn't have a degree, but knows how to troubleshoot and can do a bit of programming if needed?"

Comment Re:Is this still... (Score 1) 138

by Fjodor42 (#36070008) Attached to: Australian Tax Office Seeks Keylogger To Combat RSI

Typical for /., I could just have checked - it's still here, but still without excercises.
It does remind me, though, of someone I have bought some hardware from, from time to time. He is a long time Mac user (i.e. before OSX), as his eyesight is bordering on complete blindness, and where the older Mac OS' (as OSX, I imagine) and for some time now also Linux has built-in tools for extreme screen magnification, the Windows versions of the day would only let you select higher contrast colour schemes, unless you shelled out DKK 5,000.- (approx. $1,000,-) for a commercial solution.
I imagine that the Wins are somewhat up to speed nowadays, but the habit of buying things that should be built in appears to die hard...
Communications

Murdoch Voicemail Hacking Story 'Ain't Over Yet' 113

Posted by timothy from the press-7-to-erase dept.
lee317 writes "Reuters is reporting that Rupert Murdoch's headache over the alleged phone hacking by his News Corp's reporters could be small compared to what is ahead. So far, around 20 public figures who believe their voicemail messages were intercepted by journalists at the popular News of the World tabloid are suing News International, the UK newspaper arm of News Corp. After a public apology from the newspaper aimed at 'put(ting) this problem into a box,' a UK judge eluded to the fact that civil cases against the firm could run into next year at least."
Security

France Outlaws Hashed Passwords 433

Posted by samzenpus from the keep-your-receipt dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Storing passwords as hashes instead of plain text is now illegal in France, according to a draconian new data retention law. According to the BBC, '[t]he law obliges a range of e-commerce sites, video and music services and webmail providers to keep a host of data on customers. This includes users' full names, postal addresses, telephone numbers and passwords. The data must be handed over to the authorities if demanded.' If the law survives a pending legal challenge by Google, Ebay and others, it may well keep some major services out of the country entirely."
Music

RIAA/MPAA: the Greatest Threat To Tech Innovation 278

Posted by CmdrTaco from the where-have-i-heard-that-before dept.
TAGmclaren writes "The Harvard Business Review is running an article stating that it's not India or China that are the greatest threat to technological innovation happening in America. Rather, it's the 'big content' players, particularly the movie and music industry. From the article: 'the Big Content players do not understand technology, and never have. Rather than see it as an opportunity to reach new audiences, technology has always been a threat to them. Example after example abounds of this attitude; whether it was the VCR which was "to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone" as famed movie industry lobbyist Jack Valenti put it at a congressional hearing, or MP3 technology, which they tried to sue out of existence.'"

Submission + - Should we expect accountability from journalists? (badscience.net)

Submitted by
Fjodor42
Fjodor42 writes: "Why is it we don't expect journalists to mention their primary sources, when this practice is sure to make you fail miserably in even the most basic levels of academic endeavor (high school for certain, don't know about earlier steps)?
The article mentions three outrageous examples of distortion of facts, but I'm fairly sure that there are more of those kind, than there are of factually sound articles around..."
Medicine

California Healthcare Provider Wants Illness-Predicting Algorithm 341

Posted by timothy from the make-hospitals-smaller dept.
alphadogg writes "The Heritage Provider Network wants to do for healthcare what technology in the film Minority Report did for police work. In other words, it wants to use technology to pre-emptively predict when illness is likely to strike and take measures to prevent costly hospitalizations. This week Heritage announced that it was offering a prize of $3 million for any developer who successfully created a 'breakthrough algorithm that uses available patient data, including health records and claims data, to predict and prevent unnecessary hospitalizations.'"
Education

China To Overtake US In Science In Two Years 362

Posted by Soulskill from the hmm-right-after-the-election dept.
An anonymous reader writes "China is set to overtake America in scientific output as soon as 2013 — far earlier than expected. Chinese research spending has grown by 20% per year since 1999, now reaching over $100bn, and as many as 1.5 million science and engineering students graduated from Chinese universities in 2006. 'I think this is positive, of great benefit, though some might see it as a threat and it does serve as a wake-up call for us not to become complacent,' said Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith. However, the report points out that a growing volume of research publications does not necessarily mean an increase in quality."

Comment Huh? (Score 1) 238

by Fjodor42 (#35574596) Attached to: System Measures Stress In Emergency Callers' Voice

Wouldn't that penalize those of us to take great efforts to keep calm and explain the details of the emergency instead of screaming "HELP! HELP!!! HELP!!!!!" into the microphone?

Very much the same argument as The Archon V2.0 just gave above, but posted anyway, to signify that I concur and feel sorry for people that I might try to call an ambulance for in the future...
Microsoft

Official MS Kinect SDK Coming to Windows 84

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-know-what-i'm-hacking-first dept.
fredr1k writes "Microsoft figured there is some movement in the Kinect hacking scene. They have now announced a Kinect SDK for Windows. (Though only for Academics & Enthusiasts). 'Ever since the November launch of Kinect for Xbox 360, enthusiasts and academic researchers alike have expressed their excitement and intense interest in the possibilities created by the products ability to enable users to bring games and entertainment to life without using a controller. While Microsoft plans to release a commercial version at a later date, this SDK will be a starter kit to make it simpler for the academic research and enthusiast communities to create rich natural user interfaces using Kinect technology.'"

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