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Comment Re:Why no iPad user "wish lists"? (Score 1) 453

by arekin (#42438479) Attached to: A Wish List For Tablets In 2013

Droning on about "apps" like some 80s era IBM commercial is just a red herring to distract from the fact that the core platform is crap (just like MS-DOS).

Don't you know, apple products are designed to update social networking and play games. I placed my Galaxy S2 next to a friends iPhone 4s and notices the app disparity immediately. Beside widgets for the various rss feeds I read, My main page has maps, email, VNC Viewer and notes apps. His was facebook and a bunch of games. Now while I know that a single user does not a user base make but among my friends, the ones geeks tend to have android phones full of utility type apps and the iPhone users have games and facebook (and messaging).

Comment Re:So... (Score 3, Insightful) 134

by arekin (#42337535) Attached to: Nokia Dethroned As Top Phone Maker By Samsung
My Samsung laptops are amazingly good, and I have had a Samsung washer and dryer in a rental unit that were very nice. Also the Samsung microwave works rather well at work. Sadly, you have to use HR's break area to use it. I would say that their product line doesn't stop so simply at displays or phones, but I would definitely say that apple supports their products better if you do get a crappy one.
Space

Submission + - BREAKING NEWS: Possible Habitable Planet Just 12 Light Years Away (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Astronomers have discovered what may be five planets orbiting Tau Ceti, the closest single star beyond our solar system whose temperature and luminosity nearly match the sun's. If the planets are there, one of them is about the right distance from the star to sport mild temperatures, oceans of liquid water, and even life.

Submission + - Web-based collaboration tool for non-software projects?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: My buddies and I would like to work on a complex robotics hobby project (we estimate work will be about a year, it involves mechanics, electronics and software). We need a way share documentation (wiki-style), maintain a project plan (there will be hundreds of tasks and having a hierarchical view and task owners is very useful) and have comments for tasks like a bug tracker. I know there are tools such as Huddle or Basecamp, but am not familiar with them (I'm a mechanical engineer). We are 5 people now, maybe more in the future. Free is best, low-cost is acceptable if the tool is good and saves us pain. We'd rather use a service than installing software that we have to maintain ourselves, we have days jobs and we'd like the time spent with the support tools (patches, hosting, backup and so on) to be minimal. Guidance from slashdotters is appreciated.
Programming

Submission + - Whose bug is this anyway? (codeofhonor.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Patrick Wyatt, one of the developers behind the original Warcraft and StarCraft games, has a post about some of the bug hunting he's done throughout his career. He covers familiar topics: crunch time leading to stupid mistakes, bugs in compilers rather than game code, and shares a story about finding a way to diagnose hardware failure for players of Guild Wars. Quoting: '[Mike O'Brien] wrote a module (“OsStress”) which would allocate a block of memory, perform calculations in that memory block, and then compare the results of the calculation to a table of known answers. He encoded this stress-test into the main game loop so that the computer would perform this verification step about 30-50 times per second. On a properly functioning computer this stress test should never fail, but surprisingly we discovered that on about 1% of the computers being used to play Guild Wars it did fail! One percent might not sound like a big deal, but when one million gamers play the game on any given day that means 10,000 would have at least one crash bug. Our programming team could spend weeks researching the bugs for just one day at that rate!'
Privacy

Submission + - Instagram responds to press around it's new Privacy Policy (instagram.com)

Submitted by
hugheseyau
hugheseyau writes: "Yesterday Instagram introduced a new version of their Privacy Policy and Terms of Service that will take effect in thirty days. Since making these changes, many users were confused and upset about what the changes mean.

Instagram now says that "it is not our intention to sell your photos" and that "users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos". This is good news for Instagram users."
Security

Submission + - SANS NetWars tests cybersecurity pros against peers (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: Organizers played "Eye of the Tiger" and "We are the Champions" over the loudspeakers as participants in the SANS Institute's NetWars Tournament of Champions sat down at their laptops and prepared for action. About 200 cybersecurity professionals, and about 30 high school students, gathered last week in Washington, D.C., for two nights of NetWars, a realistic cybersecurity competition, with prizes including an Apple iPad, Star Wars chop sticks and gift cards. But many participants were playing as much for pride as they were for the prizes.
Android

Submission + - New Android botnet makes spam-texting more economical (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
tsamsoniw
tsamsoniw writes: "A new breed of mobile botnets for Android is making its rounds, spread via SMS messages urging recipients to download supposedly free version of popular games. Installing one of these apps transforms your device into a zombie that grabs phone numbers from a C&C servers to continue spreading the malware via SMS. If you don't have unlimited texting on your phone, you get to foot the bill for all those spammy SMSes, too. Per Cloudmark, "this sort of attack changes the economics of SMS spam, as the spammer no longer has to pay for the messages ... Now that we know it can be done, we can expect to see more complex attacks that are harder to take down.""
Iphone

Submission + - Every Apple-Made App On Your iPhone Can Be Replaced By A Better App (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by
Andy Prough
Andy Prough writes: "Business Insider's Steve Kovach writes that he has now replaced all of Apple's built-in iPhone apps with those made by 3rd-party developers: Gmail for Mail, Google Maps for Apple Maps, Fantastical for Calendar, Chrome for Safari, Camera+ for Camera, Clear for Reminders, Evernote for Note, Adappt for Contacts, and others. Kovach states, "And now, all of the Apple-made apps are now in a folder labeled with an Emoji of a smiling pile of poop." While Kovach believes this is a good thing for iPhone users to have access to superior software, the San Francisco Chronicle posits that "it's becoming conventional wisdom that Apple isn't particularly good at making software for the iPhone"."
Google

Submission + - Google brings the Dead Sea scrolls to the digital age (blogspot.com) 5

Submitted by skade88
skade88 writes: Google has been working to bring many old manuscripts to the internet in high resolutions for all to see.

From the Google Press Release:
'A little over a year ago, we helped put online five manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls—ancient documents that include the oldest known biblical manuscripts in existence. Written more than 2,000 years ago on pieces of parchment and papyrus, they were preserved by the hot, dry desert climate and the darkness of the caves in which they were hidden. The Scrolls are possibly the most important archaeological discovery of the 20th century.

Today, we’re helping put more of these ancient treasures online. The Israel Antiquities Authority is launching the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, an online collection of some 5,000 images of scroll fragments, at a quality never seen before. The texts include one of the earliest known copies of the Book of Deuteronomy, which includes the Ten Commandments; part of Chapter 1 of the Book of Genesis, which describes the creation of the world; and hundreds more 2,000-year-old texts, shedding light on the time when Jesus lived and preached, and on the history of Judaism.'
Science

Submission + - Spider that Builds It's Own Spider Decoys Discovered (wired.com)

Submitted by
OakDragon
OakDragon writes: "A newly discovered species of spider — apparently of the genus Cyclosa — has been discovered in the Peruvian Amazon. The spider builds an elaborate decoy out of web, twigs, and other scraps, that appears to be a much larger spider. The spider will even cause the decoy to move, marionette-style, by shaking the web."
Games

Submission + - Solid preview of the Oculus Rift! (pcgamesn.com)

Submitted by skade88
skade88 writes: From the Article: 'Palmer Luckey says he’s not very good at presentations. He begins his address to the Evolve 2012 crowd with this halting caveat. It’s nonsense.

While he might not feel comfortable, he clearly knows his subject. He has an almost intimate knowledge of VR, he understands why it never really worked in the past and, most importantly, he can explain why the failed fantasies of the 1990s can finally be realised.

Virtual reality, he says, is the future of gaming.'
Space

Submission + - Cassini's Christmas Gift: In the Shadow of Saturn (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "As the Cassini mission continues to orbit the ringed gas giant Saturn, it's hard to imagine what magnificent view the NASA spacecraft will show us next. Today, however, is one for the history books. As a very special Christmas holiday treat, the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS) team have processed a magnificent view of Saturn that is rarely seen — a portrait from the dark side of the planet."

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