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Comment These are cool... (Score 1) 37

by ripvlan (#48020707) Attached to: Marines Put Microsoft Kinect To Work For 3D Mapping

The local museum has one of these - it uses a combo of XBox and that poly-sand stuff that sticks together. Kids can make mountains, rivers, and lakes with their hands. The kinect detects the depth and then the XBox animates the terrain.

Rather than having people stack sand - they need a bendable floor that changes shape. Kind of like those toys with 1000's of nails/pins in them that conform to the shape of an object. Place a solenoid on each one and raise/lower to the necessary shape - covered with a plain cloth. Then project onto it.

A new breed of holodeck?

Submission + - How did the 'Berlin patient' rid himself of HIV? (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Researchers are closer to unraveling the mystery of how Timothy Ray Brown, the only human cured of HIV, defeated the virus, according to a new study. Although the work doesn’t provide a definitive answer, it rules out one possible explanation.

Submission + - "The internet poses one of the greatest threats to our existence" (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "The internet poses one of the greatest threats to our existence," said [Australian] Senator Glen Lazarus on Thursday night. Hah! A former rugby player says something dumb, that's always funny, right? No. This mix of ignorance, fear, and sometimes plain laziness infests so many of Australia's lawmakers — and right now that's dangerous.
The Australan Senate was debating new national security laws for Australia. Those laws passed. They give the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) expansive powers to spy on all Australian internet users, and dramatically restrict freedom of the press.

Australian spies will soon have the power to monitor the entire Australian internet with just one warrant, and journalists and whistleblowers will face up to 10 years' jail for disclosing classified information.

The government's first tranche of tougher anti-terrorism bills, which will beef up the powers of the domestic spy agency ASIO, passed the Senate by 44 votes to 12 on Thursday night with bipartisan support from Labor.
The bill, the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, will now be sent to the House of Representatives, where passage is all but guaranteed on Tuesday at the earliest.

Comment Moderator points for today?! (Score 1) 795

by ripvlan (#47965643) Attached to: How Our Botched Understanding of "Science" Ruins Everything

I have been granted moderator points today - and I'm stuck on this article. Going through the comments here I don't know which ones meet the definition of Trolls, Flame, Insightful, or Funny. I could mark everything here as offtopic - or all of the above. Then again - maybe I should go back to the original article and mark it as Flamebait - at least that would better explain the flavor of the comments posted here.

An opinion posing as an actual conclusion. Halfway through I wondered if this was from a sister Onion site.

Maybe the summary should have said, "I found an Opinion piece about science...."

Have at it.

Comment Re:Multiple devices, works great (Score 1) 504

by ripvlan (#47964647) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Is iOS 8 a Pig?

I too haven't any major issues with iOS8 performance or interaction-wise (iPhone 5 & iPad 3). Yes - seems apps launched the first time after upgrading are taking longer to load (and one App even lost it's security activation key - asking me to reactivate my device with their website). Seems the upgrade is "big" and possibly many deleted their cached data. Performance seems to be fine for second+ launches and I'm slowly discovering the new features hidden around the system.

Most annoying thing so far - "this app is tracking your location in the background" - seems Apple is going to ask me this question for each of my 100 apps that use location. More annoying - there is no option for "Only when app is Running" - either On or Off... unless the app supports that new mode. I don't want the weather app tracking my every move in the background - I'm willing to wait for them to update my current weather location when I open the app.

And biggest bug found so far - handsfree integration with my car stereo seems to be broken. Playlists selected won't play (although the car shows the time counting up) - fast forwarding through songs causes samples of audio to play, but silence otherwise, and sometimes loops on the first 1 second (inconsistent repeatability of the problem). Forcing it to fast-forward for about 30 seconds finally made it play. Or picking a playlist from the iPhone works fine (which requires hands-on).

Smallest bug - Unlock screen was overlaid on top of "now-playing" Album art making it impossible to see the PIN keys. After unlocking it I haven't seen this happen since (took a screen shot to prove it happened).

For a major OS upgrade - it seems to be working fine. Battery life seems to be the same, all apps are working, and nothing crashing.

Comment Re:Is Apple going downhill? (Score 1) 358

by ripvlan (#47946765) Attached to: U2 and Apple Collaborate On 'Non-Piratable, Interactive Format For Music'

Arrr matey. The new phone is so large it need an external monitor to wear on your wrist.

Kind of like when the Mac got big and became two parts - an external monitor and the CPU case under the desk? Plus computers got hot, used lots of power, and.... gosh seems like history repeating itself in mobile form.

Submission + - The disaster and ensuing coverup of the Obamacare website

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: New reports reveal significant corruption in the Obama administration’s botched effort to create the Obamacare website.

The Government Office of Accountability released a report earlier this week detailing the security flaws in the site, but a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released yesterday is even more damning. Titled, “Behind the Curtain of the HealthCare.gov Rollout,” the report fingers the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversaw the development of the site, and its parent Department of Health and Human Services.

“Officials at CMS and HHS refused to admit to the public that the website was not on track to launch without significant functionality problems and substantial security risks,” the report says. “There is also evidence that the Administration, to this day, is continuing its efforts to shield ongoing problems with the website from public view.”

The evidence includes emails that show Obamacare officials more interested in keeping their problems from leaking to the press than working to fix them. This is both both a coverup and incompetence.

Comment Re:Where are the links? (Score 1) 425

by ripvlan (#47922055) Attached to: Apple Edits iPhone 6's Protruding Camera Out of Official Photos

Artistic license or great Conspiracy? It is a sort of mixed message isn't it. The "from the side" images don't show this bezel protruding - along with an "artistic" shadow.

As for the other images - they all clearly show the camera bezel. https://www.apple.com/iphone-6... This isn't like it's a great selling feature - meaning - is it material or just marketing?

Scroll down to the "Streamlined: inside and out" and "Elements of Design" and you'll clearly see the camera "protruding."

It's quite possible that the side view looked "strange" with a little hair-thin spec that was removed "for clarity." Kind of like cereal "enlarged to show texture" (or make you hungry) ?

Gosh - having a phone so large it requires an external monitor you wear on your wrist? Or a thin bezel sticking out from the back? Oh the horror.

Comment Re:The protruding lens was a mistake (Score 1) 425

by ripvlan (#47921917) Attached to: Apple Edits iPhone 6's Protruding Camera Out of Official Photos

When I first read the headline I thought it had a huge bulge ala Lumia or that Android phone (name escapes me). This looks like a small ring bezel.

As for ugly design? I kind of welcome a small bump - I keep putting my finger over the lens (or very close to it causing a shadow) because I can't remember which corner the lens is in. Since it has a very wide angle view and rotates automatically - the way I hold it sometimes causes a shadow that I don't see until post editing (esp with video - I use two hands to stabilize the phone). I look like the Queen drinking tea with one pinky held out.

Having a small but obvious bump would provide me some tactile feedback. Personally I'd like a slight hour-glass shape so I could tell up from down when pulling from my pocket (I have black on black and don't use a case). My Palm Pre had a rubber backside and a thinner bottom - so it was easy to align in my hand without looking.

As for the ethics of making the models look thinner and prettier - that's a horse of a different color.

Submission + - Why Is It Taking So Long to Secure Internet Routing? (acm.org)

Submitted by CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: We live in an imperfect world where routing-security incidents can still slip past deployed security defenses, and no single routing-security solution can prevent every attacks. Research suggests, however, that the combination of RPKI (Resource Public Key Infrastructure) with prefix filtering could significantly improve routing security; both solutions are based on whitelisting techniques and can reduce the number of autonomous systems that are impacted by prefix hijacks, route leaks, and path-shortening attacks.

Submission + - Matrix: A new open source standard for IM, VOIP, and video chat (citeworld.com)

Submitted by Gamoid
Gamoid writes: I talked to Matrix, an open source initiative that's trying to build a new, open, federated standard for chat, voice, and video that enables rich applications to be built but that still allow users of different clients to talk to each other. It's only two weeks old, but Matrix has a lot of potential.

Comment Starting to make sense (Score 2) 610

After seeing the keynote I went looking in my iPhone/iTunes for the album - expecting to see a "Free" where "Buy" usually appears (or Buy $0.00). I couldn't even find the album for a long time (still can't find it on my PC w/ iTunes). Next stop - Google, to discover that it was already on my phone. Sure enough - when browsing through my Artist list there was a new entry to U2, and all of the songs marked with the "download from cloud" icon.

From a user perspective it was confusing and expected to "buy it" (first) like any other album. Let's pretend I'm not a U2 fan. Sure I've purchased albums from other band and decided I didn't like it later - and simply deleted it. I now forever have this album in my list that Genius will try to mix and play from when at home on Wifi.

While I appreciate being able to discover "new" music - I'm not in control of it. I can't put it back on the shelf. Kind of ugly.

They assume everyone likes the same entertainment. Sure - U2 is probably more universally liked than the Juicy Bananas.

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