Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:it's nokia that should sue samsung (Score 1) 1184

the PADD description above is too general; it is a list of features.

look at the samsung report prepared by samsung employees as they pour over the iphone interface one app or feature at a time. this shows they were explicitly mining specific aspects of the look, feel, operation, and finish of the phone. they do this for both the mobile device and the itunes interface. one of the 'directions for improvement' comments even reads "Need to provide a diverse user guide manual like itunes"

It is interesting how samsung compared multiple devices against a single apple product and a single piece of apple software. in the document, samsung used aspects of iphone ui for

*web browser
*icon to display how many browsers are open at same time button
*icon to clarify what the "favorites" button on the browser meant
*cut and paste interface
*dialling interface button positioning
*keyboard capslock
*etc

Comment Re:And this is news because...? (Score 5, Informative) 88

Just wondering why this is news. Coelacanths were discovered to still be living in ~1938. Having photos isn't new, as they had live specimens (and dead ones). There were even 2 species found, not just one.

Google for coelacanth pics and it's almost all dead, preserved specimens. This article is news because despite the dead samples in hand (n.b. no live specimens exist in captivity), little is known about the behaviour of the living coelacanth; encountering one at human-diveable depths is an event in itself. This article is not saying it's the first specimen found; it is basically the best in situ photo ever taken of a living coelacanth.

The Military

How a 1960s Discovery In Neuroscience Spawned a Military Project 112

Harperdog writes "This is pretty fascinating: The Chronicle of Higher Ed has an article about a DARPA project that allows researchers to scan satellite photos, video, etc., and have a computer pick up differences in brain activity to tell whether an image has been seen...images that might flash by before conscious recognition. From the article: 'In a small, anonymous office in the Trump Tower, 28 floors above Wall Street, a man sits in front of a computer screen sifting through satellite images of a foreign desert. The images depict a vast, sandy emptiness, marked every so often by dunes and hills. He is searching for man-made structures: houses, compounds, airfields, any sign of civilization that might be visible from the sky. The images flash at a rate of 20 per second, so fast that before he can truly perceive the details of each landscape, it is gone. He pushes no buttons, takes no notes. His performance is near perfect.'"
Japan

Robot Hand Beats You At Rock, Paper, Scissors 100% of the Time 225

wasimkadak writes "This robot hand will play a game of rock, paper, scissors with you. Sounds like fun, right? Not so much, because this particular robot wins every. Single. Time. It only takes a single millisecond for the robot to recognize what shape your hand is in, and just a few more for it to make the shape that beats you, but it all happens so fast that it's more or less impossible to tell that the robot is waiting until you commit yourself before it makes its move, allowing it to win 100% of the time."
Piracy

Hundreds of IP Addresses Make Pirate Bay a Hard Target 224

jones_supa writes "Last week The Pirate Bay added a new IP address which allows users to circumvent the many court-ordered blockades against the site. While this proved to be quite effective, the Hollywood backed anti-piracy group BREIN has already been to court to demand a block against this new address. But that won't deter The Pirate Bay, who say they are fully prepared for an extended game of whac-a-mole using the hundreds of IP addresses they have available. Courts all around the world have ordered Internet providers to block subscriber access to the torrent site, and the end is still not in sight."

Comment Re:American Culture (Score 1) 274

you need to show the epidemiology, otherwise it's not math, it's conjecture. We don't know how the calf was infected; it was a natural mutation or accumulation through diet.

the math indicates that with the population of cattle in the US, a mutation of a ribosome which creates prion-like structures is statistically likely, and inevitable. I suggest we utilize not only math, but critical thinking to determine the cause of a single presentation of BSE.

Comment Re:Antivirus Software on a Mac (Score 1) 285

Sophos also recommends this. However, should one really sign up for a subscription of virus signatures for operating systems they don't use? I don't carry an Epi-Pen around just because I happen to be eating at a restaurant where other people might have peanut allergies.

You're free to run whatever software you'd like on your computer. However, this article is long on FUD, and as a fortunate side effect for Sophos, hundreds of thousands of mac users have downloaded their antivirus software. There is an inherent responsibility and conflict-of-interest in a researcher working in a for-profit company recommending their own software.

Comment Re:Warned about what? (Score 1) 465

Not really. What he did would be pretty consistent with angel dust. If a bunch of people were acting very silly and laughing at things that aren't really funny, I'd suspect pot. It doesn't mean that they couldn't just be silly people, but it'd be *reasonable* to suspect marijuana.

We don't need things like medical doctors and chemical assays as long as we can package your gut feelings and vestigial sense of humour into a body scanner.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller than the both put together."

Working...