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Comment First World Problem Here (Score -1, Troll) 267

It's okay, left handed people don't have souls. Just like gingers.

Also you're complaining about chirality in technology? Really? How is this news for nerds? This place has become an even bigger gay gang bang since Taco picked up his toys and went home. OMG Ponies had more gravitas than the shit posted on Slashdot of late.

Microsoft

Confessions of a Left-Handed Technology User 267

harrymcc writes "Over at TIME.com, I wrote about my trials and tribulations as a left-handed person who uses technology products. An awful lot of them have clearly been designed with the right-handed majority in mind, even when they claimed they weren't. But the good news is that modern smartphones and tablets are very lefty-friendly compared to the devices that preceded them."
Space

Earth's Corner of the Galaxy Just Got a Little Lonelier 224

Hugh Pickens writes "Only four stars, including Barnard's Star, are within six light-years of the Sun, and only 11 are within 10 light-years. That's why Barnard's star, popularized in Robert Forward's hard-SF novel Flight of the Dragonfly, is often short-listed as a target for humanity's first interstellar probe. Astronomers have long hoped to find a habitable planet around it, an alien Earth that might someday bear the boot prints of a future Neil Armstrong, or the tire tracks of a souped-up 25th-century Curiosity rover. But now Ross Anderson reports that a group of researchers led by UC Berkeley's Jieun Choi have delivered the fatal blow to those hopes when they revealed the results of 248 precise Doppler measurements that were designed to examine the star for wobbles indicative of planets around it. The measurements, taken over a period of 25 years, led to a depressing conclusion: 'the habitable zone around Barnard's star appears to be devoid of roughly Earth-mass planets or larger ... [p]revious claims of planets around the star by van de Kamp are strongly refuted.' NASA's Kepler space telescope, which studies a group of distant Milky Way stars, has found more than 2,000 exoplanet candidates in just the past two years, leading many to suspect that our galaxy is home to billions of planets, a sizable portion of which could be habitable. 'This non-detection of nearly Earth-mass planets around Barnard's Star is surely unfortunate, as its distance of only 1.8 parsecs would render any Earth-size planets valuable targets for imaging and spectroscopy, as well as compelling destinations for robotic probes by the end of the century.'"
Robotics

Submission + - Soft-Shell Robot Comes Complete With Cloaking Abilities (revmodo.com)

heptapod writes: Harvard roboticists are close to mimicking cephalopod camouflage in a lab. This latest bit of bio-mimicry involves soft, silicone-based robots with a web of tiny channels flowing through their silicone skin. Going further, incorporating the muscle structure of cephalopods opens up an entirely new world of flexible, self-camouflaging robotics. More can be found at Harvard's website.

Comment Nitrogen (Score 1, Informative) 434

Get a container which is airtight and watertight. Pump it full of nitrogen.

I disagree with CDs and DVDs not being readable. Compact discs are a mature technology. As long as they're kept someplace cool, dark and dry they should be fine and readable when the container is opened in twenty five years. No idea if memory sticks or hard drives would survive.

Comment How about gameplay? (Score 5, Insightful) 197

One of the bad aspects of modern gaming is games becoming interactive DVDs. Press X, beat the bad guy and earn the privilege of watching a half-hour cutscene that tells you to press O to defeat the next boss to watch the next cutscene.

Create games that are engrossing with gameplay and don't require much of an investment on the behalf of the player.

Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer Market Share Drops To Almost 15% 423

glitch0 writes "Internet Explorer used to be the most prevalent browser with a market share that peaked at 88% in March of 2003. Now they're down to almost 15% due to stiff competition from Google, Mozilla, and even Apple. What implications does this have for the future of Microsoft?"
Privacy

British Airways Plans To Google Passengers 177

itwbennett writes "British Airways wants to be the airline where everybody knows your name. The idea behind the 'Know Me' program is that by using Google Images to ID passengers, they'll be able to recreate the 'feeling of recognition you get in a favourite restaurant,' Jo Boswell, head of customer analysis at BA told the London Evening Standard. But the more privacy minded among us know that the airline could end up seeing a lot more than your face."

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