Comment The Geek Atlas (Score 2) 363
Get this book... it's very good.
You may also know the author, John Graham-Cumming, as the guy who got the British government to apologize for their persecution of Alan Turing.
-S
Robot Walks Like a Human, Requires No Power 195
MrSeb writes "Today's groundbreaking entry into the Uncanny Valley is a pair of mechanical, robot legs that are propelled entirely by their own weight: they can walk with a human-like gait without motors or external control. Produced by some researchers at Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan, all the legs require for sustained motion (they walked 100,000 steps, 15km, over 13 hours last year) is a gentle push and a slight downwards slope. They then use same 'principle of falling' that governs human walking, with the transfer of weight (and the slight pull of gravity), pulling the robot into consecutive steps."
Comment More likely... (Score 1) 86
It's more likely (or at least possibly) a case of "let's see if we can get HP to cough up their Android code for the Touchpad". Step 1: Claim HP shipped Touchpads with Android. Step 2: Tell HP that this obligates them to share the code. Step 3: Hope HP complies.
TSA Groper Files Suit Against Blogger 699
An anonymous reader writes "TSA employee Theldala Magee has filed a lawsuit against a blogger demanding $500k in damages for alleging a particularly invasive search involving multiple incursions of a finger into the passenger's vagina. The passenger, who likened the feeling to being raped, is being sued for defamation for supposedly sullying the otherwise good name of a checkpoint smurf."
Comment Contact info for Senator Mikulski (Score 2) 134
http://mikulski.senate.gov/contact/
BTW, she's also got a crabcake recipe on her site. That scores points in my book...
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Cisco Accused of Orchestrating Engineer's Arrest 160
alphadogg writes "Cisco Systems orchestrated the arrest of Multiven founder Peter Alfred-Adekeye last year in order to force a settlement of Multiven's antitrust lawsuit against Cisco, a Multiven executive said on Wednesday. Multiven, an independent provider of service and support for networking gear, sued Cisco in 2008, alleging that the company monopolized the market for its software. Cisco countersued, charging that Alfred-Adekeye hacked into Cisco's computers and stole copyrighted software. In May 2010, Alfred-Adekeye was arrested in Vancouver, Canada, on 97 counts of intentionally accessing a protected computer system without authorization for the purposes of commercial advantage, according to his arrest warrant. He could be sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. The arrest came to light only this week after local Vancouver press reported it."
High Schoolers Push Down Price of Near-Space Photography 88
Floodge writes "High School students at Explore Knowledge Academy in Las Vegas, Nevada have launched a near space photography balloon which took over 2000 pictures of Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon, and much more! The 'space craft' was built from used and recycled components for under 60 dollars and was inspired by MIT students Project Icarus in 2009."
Near-space photography via balloon isn't quite new any more, but price is a great frontier to explore. And I'm glad that there's a school called "Explore Knowledge Academy."
Comment Talk to your boss (Score 5, Insightful) 205
Hillary,
Talk to your boss and let him know that a "kill switch" is a bad idea.
Thanks,
The Internet
Comment Extraordinary claims... (Score 1) 319
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." - Marcello Truzzi
Comment It's theater... (Score 4, Insightful) 342
Not to sound like a broken record (does that phase mean anything to people or did I just show my age), but I'm not sure why this surprises anyone. It's not about security. It's about security theater. And until the TSA fundamentally changes the way they do things, it always will be.
Comment Pick a different target (Score 1) 122
There's *actual* crime happening every minute of every day online and this is the target the FCC is wasting its time and resources on?
Come on. Google effed up. They admitted they effed up. There's absolutely no evidence that Google did anything or was planning to do anything with this data and all available evidence points to a mistake rather than anything "evil". And besides, if you don't want your data sniffed, THEN ENCRYPT YOUR STUPID WI-FI CONNECTION!
Please FCC... we pay your salaries. Go after some actual fraud attempts rather than wasting your time (and my tax dollars) on this.
-S
Comment Missed a paragraph (Score 0, Flamebait) 193
If ("journalist employer" == "Fox News")
{
Add Paragraph
Hire wack job pseudo scientist to provide doomsday prediction
Blame Obama
}
Comment Wait Until Dark (spoiler alert) (Score 1) 244
Many years ago, I was going to see the play "Wait Until Dark" (Marisa Tomei and Quentin Tarantino were in the play the time, neither of them very good, but that's besides the point).
I mentioned to my Mom that I was going and she said "Oh, is that the one where he uses the light in the refrigerator at the end?"
"Gee, thanks. I don't know. I've never seen it before."
I spent the play looking at that damn refrigerator waiting for the spoiler.
Anyway, someone going to see a murder mystery has no business researching it online except for maybe reading reviews of known publications if they must. If they look at the Wikipedia article or discussions of the work somewhere else, then it's their own fault for getting spoiled...
-S
Comment And yet.... (Score 3, Insightful) 119
... those same people will continue to use their pet's name as the password to their online bank account.
-S
Comment Re:It'll be a while before we get confirmation... (Score 3, Informative) 512
He gets flack about it because he stood up there talking about something he knew absolutely nothing about, babbling words that some lobbyist paid him (er, um... donated to his campaign) to say.
A shining example of the worst our legislative process has to offer...
-S
