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Comment Re:Manned flight (Score 1) 289

if it requires a ballistic chute to not kill anyone if there's a computer or engine failure because this seriously limits the chances of it ever being a certified aircraft by any aviation authority in the world.

Most modern airplanes are flown with Fly by Wire systems that are also computer based. Aviation authorities seem to be happy with them, so, I guess, with the proper redundancy and backup provided, this technology will be welcomed too.
 

Apple

Submission + - Adobe Launches Flash 10.2 with 'Stage Video' (ibtimes.com)

iamrmani writes: Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) launched its Flash Player 10.2 for Windows, Mac, and Linux and features Stage Video, a full hardware accelerated video pipeline for beautiful video across platforms and browsers.

With Stage Video,Flash Player can play even higher quality video while using dramatically less processing power

Comment Re:This is slashdot? (Score 1) 2254

Please tell me one valid reason for having the web browser fullscreen on an 1900px width monitor, that doesn't involve some kind of brain damage.
  And while you are at it, please explain why this "new" design needs at least 1040 (!) pixels of width in order to not show a horizontal scrolling bar. Please...

Slashdot.org

Slashdot Launches Re-Design 2254

Today we are pleased to announce the launch of the third major re-design in our 13.5 year history, and I don't think it looks half bad. The new theme represents a serious gutting of the underlying HTML and CSS, as well as all-new graphics. There will be many design wiggles, bug squashes, and compatibility glitches that survived testing, so bear with us for a bit. Please direct your bug reports and feedback (good and bad!) to Garrett Woodworth who is currently in charge of such things. Thanks to him, Wes, Vlad, Dean, Phil and Tim, who have each worked hard to get this out the door. Juggling the needs of users, editors, and various business functions is a hard job, and you guys did good.

Comment Re:Security Questions Security Risk (Score 5, Insightful) 257

I can't believe that no one blames the online services for requiring and using security questions as a security measure(!). This is such an insecure practice that I'm just baffled from the so much widespread use of it!
  Theoretically, security questions could be used as an ADDED security measure and be marginally effective at that, but in most times you can't know exactly how your answer will be used, so the sane response would be something like kashiqewnchkdhsflakjshflvkdsvhpexiojnasdjlna.

Google

Submission + - Google Voice rejected for its dialer functionality

whoop writes: "From TechCrunch, "In a letter to the FCC today, Google disclosed previously unpublished information about Appleâ(TM)s rejection of their Google Voice application... 'Apple representatives informed Google that the Google Voice application was rejected because Apple believed the application duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone'""
Image

Google Latitude Helps Catch Robber Screenshot-sm 5

linuxwrangler writes "Janina Valiente was robbed by a purse snatcher while waiting for a bus in San Francisco. But she remembered that she had recently downloaded Google Latitude as a joke so she and her sisters could 'stalk each other.' Using a bystander's phone, she called her sister who told her the phone was at Fell and Ashbury which is exactly where police located and arrested the robber."
Privacy

Privacy In BitTorrent By Hiding In the Crowd 240

pinguin-geek writes "Researchers at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University have identified a new 'guilt-by-association' threat to privacy in peer-to-peer (P2P) systems that would enable an eavesdropper to accurately classify groups of users with similar download behavior. While many have pointed out that the data exchanged over these connections can reveal personal information about users, the researchers shows that only the patterns of connections — not the data itself — is sufficient to create a powerful threat to user privacy. To thwart this threat, they have released SwarmScreen, a publicly available, open source software that restores privacy by masking a user's real download activity in such a manner as to disrupt classification."
The Courts

Appeals Court Rules Against Google On Keyword Ads 39

Eric Goldman writes "The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Google in Rescuecom v. Google (PDF), a trademark infringement lawsuit over Google's keyword advertising practices. The court said: 'The Complaint's allegations that Google's recommendation and sale of Rescuecom's mark to Google's advertisers, so as to trigger the appearance of their advertisements and links in a manner likely to cause consumer confusion when a Google user launches a search of Rescuecom's trademark, properly alleges a claim under the Lanham Act.' While this result hampers Google's ability to end trademark lawsuits early, the case is still at an early stage and Google could still win."

Windows 95 Almost Autodetected Floppy Disks 334

bonch writes "Windows 95 almost shipped with a technique for detecting whether a floppy disk was inserted without spinning up the drive. Microsoft's floppy driver developer discovered a sequence of commands that detected a disk without spinup — unfortunately, unspecified behavior in the floppy hardware specification meant that half the drives worked one way and half the other, each giving opposite results for the detection routine. Microsoft considered a dialog prompting the user to insert a disk to 'train' the routine, but the idea was scrapped."
Music

How $1,500 Headphones Are Made 353

CNETNate writes "A tour of Sennheiser's Hanover factory reveals for the first time how its audiophile headphones are assembled by hand. The company recently announced its most expensive and innovative headphones to date, the HD 800, which discarded the conventional method of headphone driver design for a new 'donut-shaped' ring driver idea. Only 5,000 of these headphones can be made in a year, and this gallery offers a behind-the-scenes look at the construction process."
Government

Federal CIO Kundra Takes Leave of Absence After Woes 193

CWmike writes "The fallout from Thursday's arrests of a District of Columbia IT security official and contractor quickly raised questions about the fate of Vivek Kundra, the new federal CIO who until recently ran the office now mired in bribery allegations. Appointed by President Barack Obama as CIO less than two weeks ago, Kundra was CTO for the District of Columbia. But yesterday, Kundra's former office in a downtown government building was a crime scene. A White House official, speaking on background, confirmed today that Kundra took a leave of absence from his new CIO job shortly after federal investigators arrested two men in the DC government office on bribery charges. The official would not elaborate on the reasons for the leave; there were no indications yesterday that Kundra was involved in any wrongdoing. Kundra's decision could slow his plan to create a 'revolution' in the federal government's use of technology."

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