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Data Storage

Seagate Offers Refunds on 6.2 Million Hard Drives 780

Posted by CowboyNeal from the making-things-right dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Seagate has agreed to settle a lawsuit that alleges that the company mislead customers by selling them hard disk drives with less capacity than the company advertised. The suit states that Seagate's use of the decimal definition of the storage capacity term "gigabyte" was misleading and inaccurate: whereby 1GB = 1 billion bytes. In actuality, 1GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes — a difference of approximately 7% from Seagate's figures. Seagate is saying it will offer a cash refund or free backup and recovery software."
Education

Submission + - MIT's SAT Math Error

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "The Wall Street Journal reports that for years now, MIT wasn't properly calculating the average freshmen SAT scores (reg.) used to determine U.S. News & World Report's influential annual rankings. In response to an inquiry made by The Tech regarding the school's recent drop in the rankings, MIT revealed that in past years it had excluded the test scores of foreign students as well as those who fared better on the ACT than the SAT, both violations of the U.S. News rules. MIT's reported first-quartile SAT verbal and math scores for the 2006 incoming class totaled 1380, a drop of 50 points from 2005."
Encryption

Submission + - Open Challenge To Improve Movie Content Protection (newteevee.com)

Submitted by HarryCaul
HarryCaul writes: Now you too can make money by contributing to the improvment of DRM! The news blog NewTeeVee reports that "Motion Picture Laboratories" is offering up a number of open challenges to improve the protection of movies, both in theaters and in the home. According to the article, "Promising proposals will receive grants anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000 to continue research. These are "strictly problems we think smart people want to solve," CEO Steve Weinstein told me (NewTeeVee) over the phone yesterday."

Challenges include- Remote Content Access, Theatrical Anti-Camcording, and Hiding of Cryptographic Keys, among others.

Founding members of Motion Picture Labs include Paramount, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Disney, and Warner Bros.
Math

Submission + - Extra time dimension could simplify physics

Submitted by
Daniel Dvorkin
Daniel Dvorkin writes: "University of Southern California physicist Itzhak Bars proposes an extra dimension of time to resolve some fundamental physics problems. According to the article, "the math with four space and two time dimensions reproduces the standard equations describing the basic particles and forces." IANAP, but this sounds to me like it might be an elegant solution to some of the ever-increasing complexity of modern physics."
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Blizzard sues Peons4Hire

Submitted by Jeian
Jeian writes: According to Community Manager Eyonix, Blizzard has filed a lawsuit against gold-selling site Peons4Hire. Details are sketchy, but it seems they are demanding that Peons4Hire cease advertising in-game immediately. Depending on the outcome of the suit, it could set an interesting precedent for sites that sell virtual currency.
Data Storage

Submission + - Terabyte Hard Drive Review

Submitted by
hungryhamster
hungryhamster writes: "Let's take a look at the first terabyte hard drive, the Deskstar 7K1000 from Hitachi Global Storage, and see just how it performs. For an impressive $399 ($0.39/gig), is it worth your bucks? Extreme Tech provides an in-depth review of Hitachi's first Terabyte HHD. Benchmark Tests, performance charts, and comparisons with other HHDs are included. This is an interesting read. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2131552 ,00.asp"

Feed Maker Faire 2007 - robots. Lots of robots. And other fun stuff. (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Features, Misc. Gadgets

There was a lot to see at Maker Faire 2007 -- too much, really -- but if you're obsessed with robots like we are, this was THE place for you. Seriously, the last time we saw this many robot kits, sculptures, warriors, and automatons, we woke up in a cold sweat fearing the very destruction of mankind. Anywho, being that there is literally just too much to cover at the Faire, we've gone the lazy route and put up a mammoth photo gallery. The highlights:
If you get a chance to make it out this weekend, we highly recommend!

P.S. -For last year's Maker Faire coverage, see here and here.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Robotics

Submission + - Soliders Bond With Bots, Take Them Fishing

Submitted by HarryCaul
HarryCaul writes: Soldiers are finding themselves becoming more and more attached to their robotic helpers. During one test of a mine clearing robot, "every time it found a mine, blew it up and lost a limb, it picked itself up and readjusted to move forward on its remaining legs, continuing to clear a path through the minefield." The man in charge halted the test, though- "He just could not stand the pathos of watching the burned, scarred and crippled machine drag itself forward on its last leg. This test, he charged, was inhumane." Sometimes the soldiers even take their metallic companions fishing. Is there more sympathy for Robot Rights than previously suspected?
Books

Submission + - Book as College Graduation Present?

Submitted by tigersha
tigersha writes: I am the boss of a young lad who worked for me for a few years as an intern. He is about to graduate with a degree in computer science and I would like to give him a book as present. Does not have to be CS. Any suggestions?
Movies

Submission + - Digital Media Archiving Challenges Hollywood

Submitted by HarryCaul
HarryCaul writes: Movies are moving to digital, but what about long-term archiving of the master source materials? Turns out it's harder for digital media than for contemporary analog. Data is being lost, and studios have to learn to cope. Phil Feiner of the AMPAS sci-tech division says "when he worked on studio feature films he found missing frames or corrupted data on 40% of the data tapes that came in from digital intermediate houses" How to deal with it? Regular migration from old media to new media. Grover Crisp, says Sony has put in a program of migrating every two to three years. Other studios are following suit, but wht about indie features? Will we lose films like we lost the orignals of the 20s?
Security

Submission + - STEAM Hacked, Credit Cards stolen

Submitted by
3Y3
3Y3 writes: "DailyTech is reporting that VALVe's STEAM system has been hacked into by a hacker known only as "MaddoxX", who has wasted no time gloating and publicly releasing internal information, such as credit card numbers, on the anti-Steam website No-Steam."
Media

Submission + - The Math of Text Readability

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Wired magazine has an article that explains The Law of Optical Volumes, a formula for spacing the letters on a printed page that results in maximum readability. Wired's new logo (did anyone notice?) obeys the law. Unfortunately, Web fonts don't allow custom kerning pairs, so you can't work the same magic online as in print. Could this be why some people still prefer newspapers and magazines to the Web?
Biotech

Submission + - Human Sense of smell 'underestimated'

Submitted by
gollum123
gollum123 writes: "The sensitivity of the human sense of smell has been significantly underestimated, a study suggests ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6183379.stm ). The work, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, asked people to follow scents on the ground, as a dog would do, and found they were as good. The researchers from University of California Berkley laid scent trails, including one of chocolate essential oil, in a grassy field, and asked 32 people to find the 10 metre trail and track it to the end. Those who took part were blindfolded and wore thick gloves and earplugs to force them to rely exclusively on smell. Two thirds were able to follow the scent. And while they remained slower than the animals at tracking scents, their performance improved over time. In other tests, it was found that humans required both nostrils to be working to be able to track scents."

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