Csiko - Slashdot User

Submission + - Apple "invents" wireless charging. Get ready for another patent war! (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by GabriellaKat on Monday December 03, 2012 @12:32PM

GabriellaKat writes: Via The Register
Apple is trying to patent wireless charging, claiming its magnetic resonance tech is new and that it can do it better than anyone else. This would be cool if its assertions were true.

Apple's application, numbered 20120303980, makes much of its ability to charge a device over the air at a distance of up to a metre, rather than requiring close proximity. The Alliance For Wireless Power, which also touts long-range juicing, will no doubt be comparing Apple's designs to its own blueprints.

Submission + - Anonymous hacks Austrian's radio and TV fee agency (austrianindependent.com)

Submitted by Csiko on Tuesday July 26, 2011 @05:21PM

Csiko writes: The Austrian organization GIS is encashing the obligatory fee for using a TV set and receiving the national braodcast ORF in Austria. Data privacy activists have for long criticized the way how GIS is collecting and sloppily protecting data about private households.
The Anonymous net activists now hacked the GIS site and retrieved data sets from more than 214,000 customers. 96,000 of the data featured clients’ bank account information.
Anonymous did publish only a few addresses from people working in goverment but threatened to disclose the data unless GIS was forced to admit to what extend data was stolen. GIS promised to improve their handling of data.

Submission + - Wal-Mart Jumps in the Stream (latimes.com)

Submitted by Endoflow2010 on Tuesday July 26, 2011 @05:21PM

Endoflow2010 writes: Today Wal-Mart has added streaming video to their website. What better a time than now to compete with Netflix? Now that Netflix have raised their prices.

On Wal-Mart's website, the movies will be available the same day the DVDs go on sale in stores. Rental prices range from 99 cents to 599 cents. Digital purchases are priced from $4.99 to $24.99.

Walmart.com general manager Steve Nave said the retailer is following its customers as they increasingly embrace digital movie rentals and purchases.

"We know customers are starting to shift their behavior, in terms of how they consume their media," Nave said, adding, "As as customers make that change, we don't want to lose that customer as they shift to digital."

Wal-Mart, long the nation's leading seller of DVDs, signaled its intent to double down on digital movie distribution in February 2010, when it spent a reported $100 million to acquire Vudu, a Silicon Valley start-up that was gradually being added to home entertainment devices.

Submission + - The Rise of Git (infoworld.com)

Submitted by

snydeq

on Tuesday July 26, 2011 @01:56PM

snydeq writes: "InfoWorld takes a look at the rise of Git, the use of which has increased sixfold in the past three years. Buoyed in large part by interest among the Ruby community and younger developers, Git has been gaining share for open source development largely because of its distributed architecture, analysts note. And the version control system stands to gain further traction on Subversion in the years ahead, as Eclipse is making Git its preferred version control system, a move inspired by developers and members."

Submission + - Student faces 15 years for 'Anonymous' hacktivism (rawstory.com)

Submitted by derGoldstein on Monday July 25, 2011 @11:34PM

derGoldstein writes: TheRawStory reports: "A journalism student at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas who used the online alias "No" and "MMMM" faces 15 years in prison and $500,000 in fines if she is convicted of hacking charges related to the group "Anonymous."... the FBI arrested 20-year-old Mercedes Renee Haefer last week for allegedly participating in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against PayPal’s website." Anonymous responds through @AnonymousIRC: "[they] should know this will not make us stop. Quite the opposite. Expect a shitstorm in case of conviction."

Submission + - IBM's 1st Patent Granted 100 yrs ago - PunchCards (datamation.com)

Submitted by darthcamaro on Monday July 25, 2011 @10:07PM

darthcamaro writes: IBM got its first patent 100 years ago in 1911 for a punch card tabulation machine — i.e an early computing machine. According to IBM the same basic ideas of figuring out how store stuff are relevant today 100 years later.
"The very first patent was the foundation of early automated computing, where the punch card tabulation system is the heart of efficient data processing," Meyerson said. "Although it doesn't seem like mind numbing technology today, the fact of the matter is this was a game changer a hundred years ago."

Submission + - MS caught cashing in on Winehouse death (news.com.au)

Submitted by kaptink on Monday July 25, 2011 @08:19PM

kaptink writes: Microsoft became a target of online ire over the weekend after the companies Twitter account posted an update inviting people to remember Winehouse by buying digital versions of her Back to Black album at social.zune.net.

MS has since apologised after being blasted for seeming to blatantly cash in on the death of Amy Winehouse.

Submission + - NASA Tentatively Approves Combining SpaceX Flights (spacenews.com)

Submitted by thomst on Monday July 25, 2011 @08:10PM

thomst writes: Space News reports that NASA has given tentative approval for SpaceX to combine the two remaining flights designed to prove the Hawthorne, Calif., company can deliver cargo to the international space station, according to William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, although formal approval for the mission is still pending. If NASA does approve the plan, SpaceX's Dragon capsule would be the first civilian spacecraft actually to dock with the International Space Station. According to NASA spokesman Joshua Buck, the current plan calls for SpaceX to launch a Dragon capsule aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on Nov. 30, which would then rendezvous and dock with the space station on Dec. 7 — a day that would live in spaceflight history.

Submission + - Boot to Gecko – Mozilla's Web-Based OS (digitizor.com)

Submitted by

kai_hiwatari

on Monday July 25, 2011 @06:42PM

kai_hiwatari writes: "Mozilla has launched a new project called “Boot to Gecko”. The aim of this project is to develop a complete operating system for the open web. Unlike Google’s version of a web-based OS – the Chrome OS – Mozilla’s version is not aimed at netbooks. With Boot to Gecko, Mozilla is aiming for smartphones – and Android forms a part of their plan."

Submission + - Sun CEO explicitly endorsed Java's use in Android (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25, 2011 @06:30PM

An anonymous reader writes: ZDNet writes: 'If you believe Oracle’s patent lawsuits against Google for its use of Java in Android, Google has stolen not just patented ideas but directly copied Java code. In short, Google is a red-handed thief and should pay Oracle over a billion in damages. There’s just one little problem with this portrayal of Google as an intellectual property (IP) bandit. When Android first came out, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz, then Java’s owner, greeted the news with “heartfelt congratulations.” Whoops.'

Submission + - 70% of Japan's nuclear reactors remain shut (nhk.or.jp)

Submitted by

AmiMoJo

on Friday July 22, 2011 @03:12AM

AmiMoJo writes: "37 nuclear reactors in Japan, or nearly 70 percent of them, remain shut. This includes 2 reactors that were recently closed for regular inspections. Inspections for 11 of the 37 reactors will finish by August, but it is still unknown when any they will resume generating due to the government's new stress-test requirements.

Among the 13 other reactors still in operation, 5 will be stopped by autumn, 6 by winter, and 2 by spring. This would leave Japan with no nuclear reactors in operation by spring next year"

Submission + - Robot Babies: Cute or Creepy? (ieee.org)

Submitted by

Csiko

on Thursday July 21, 2011 @09:07AM

Csiko writes: "Robots can resembe anything but when it comes to kids and babies, does that still look cute or rather creepy. See pictures of 18 baby/kid-like robots and decide for yourself..."

Submission + - Wolfram launches Computational Document Format (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by

Barence

on Thursday July 21, 2011 @08:49AM

Barence writes: "Wolfram Research has launched its own document format, which it claims is "as everyday as a document, but as interactive as an app". The Computational Document Format (CDF) allows authors to embed interactive charts, diagrams and graphics into their documents, allowing readers to adjust variables to see how increasing a price affects profits, for example, or display different segments of a brain scan. Wolfram aims to make the format easy enough for non-programmers to use, based on the linguistic commands used in its search engine. "[Currently] anyone who can make an Excel macro should easily be able to make interactivity for CDF," said Conrad Wolfram. "Where I'd like to get is that anyone who can make an Excel chart can make interactivity in CDFs.""

Submission + - Games in the cloud - Microsof's Azure Toolkit (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk on Thursday July 21, 2011 @08:06AM

mikejuk writes: Desperate for any one to use their Azure cloud system Microsoft have released the Azure Toolkit for Social Games. The idea is that you can use Microsoft's servers to host a multi-player game that you have built using ASP.NET and some HTML5. What is interesting about the API is that it comes with money making opportunities to sell things and generally use virtual or real currencies. This could be the money making change that makes mobile games look old fashioned.

Submission + - A twisted ring at the centre of our Galaxy (cf.ac.uk)

Submitted by

LookingAtStars

on Thursday July 21, 2011 @07:53AM

LookingAtStars writes: "New observations with the Herschel telescope have revealed a massive ribbon of gas and dust in the centre of our galaxy. This ring appears to be twisted, for reasons as-yet unknown; one possibility is that past interactions with other, nearby, galaxies may be involved."

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