Blacklaw - Slashdot User

Submission + - Congo Start-up Looks To Create a Tablet for Africa (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Blacklaw on Thursday June 30, 2011 @12:14PM

Blacklaw writes: While major manufacturers are dipping their toes in the tablet market opened up by Apple's iPad, smaller companies are looking towards niches that the big players might overlook. Thinq_ interviews Vérone Mankou, founder of African start-up VMK, who is looking to make a tablet more in-tune with the needs of Africa.

Submission + - Ericsson Exec Calls For Rethink On EU Piracy Laws (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Stoobalou on Thursday June 30, 2011 @10:14AM

Stoobalou writes: Mobile maker Ericsson's Director of Government and Industry Relations has called on law-makers to change the way we are all allowed to consume digital content.

Rene Summer makes a scathing attack on Big Media and the way it restricts access to content across Europe by erecting judicial walls which serve only the interests of economic rights holders.

"Through a series of legislative Checkpoint Charlies of which copyright abuse is the most prominent example, these economic-rights holders determine how, when, where and by whom legal digital content can be accessed in Europe," he says.

Submission + - Solar Sinter 3D Printer Runs on Sand and Sunlight (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Blacklaw on Monday June 27, 2011 @11:52AM

Blacklaw writes: Student Markus Kayser has created what could well be the first step on the road to the Replicators seen in the Stargate universe: a machine which turns sun and sand into usable, custom-made physical objects.

Submission + - Sony Canned Security Staff Just Before Data Breach (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Stoobalou on Friday June 24, 2011 @11:30AM

Stoobalou writes: A lawsuit filed this week suggests that Sony sacked a group of employees from its network security division just two weeks before the company's servers were hacked and its customers' credit card details were leaked.

The suit, which seeks class action status, is being brought by victims of the massive data breach that took place in April.

Submission + - Remembering Alan Turing on his 99th birthday (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Blacklaw on Thursday June 23, 2011 @05:41AM

Blacklaw writes: Today marks the 99th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, a noted polymath and cryptanalyst who is regarded by many as being the grandfather of modern computing.

Submission + - Bletchley Park Hut Threat Triggers Everest Trek (thinq.co.uk) 4

Submitted by Blacklaw on Wednesday June 22, 2011 @07:07AM

Blacklaw writes: Information management consultant and ACCU member Astrid Byro has taken on a challenge that takes her well out of her comfort zone: an expedition to Everest's base camp to help save a piece of history at the UK's Bletchley Park. The campaign sees Byro looking for sponsorship for a trek that will take her above 5,360M over a period of about two weeks, risking ice, crevasses, avalanches, and a landing at what has been called the world's most dangerous airport at Lukla. The payoff: to have helped save Hut 6, a historical building in dire need of repair before it is lost to the world.

Submission + - Intel Pushes For HPC Space With Knights Corner (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Stoobalou on Monday June 20, 2011 @08:01AM

Stoobalou writes: Intel has officially announced its next-generation product for the high performance computing crowd: Knights Corner, the latest implementation of the company's 'Many Integrated Cores' architecture. Thinq_ caught up with Intel at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg to find out what's going on.

Intel is justifiably proud of its presence in the small yet lucrative HPC market: back at ISC 2010 Kirk Skaugen, general manager of Intel's Data Centre Group boasted that 82 per cent of the TOP500 list of supercomputers were based around Intel processors. It was an impressive figure, but one that masks a worrying trend: Intel's chips aren't always doing the heavy lifting.

Submission + - Samsung unveils Origen Exynos board (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30, 2011 @02:04AM

An anonymous reader writes: Samsung has announced its first low-cost ARM development board to feature a dual-core Exynos processor, in partnership with open source development collaborative Linaro — and it's due to hit the market at just $199. Dubbed Origen, it's Samsung's answer to the Texas Instrument Beagleboard — and will hopefully convince developers to look at the company's SoC offerings.

Submission + - Core Memory Reborn - As An Arduino Shield (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Blacklaw on Friday May 13, 2011 @05:32AM

Blacklaw writes: A pair of mathematicians have created an electronics project that nostalgic computer buffs will likely recognise straight away: a magnetic-core memory shield for the Arduino electronics prototyping platform.

Submission + - Epiphany Architecture Promises 4,000-Core Chips (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Blacklaw on Friday May 06, 2011 @08:54AM

Blacklaw writes: While chip giants ARM, Intel, and AMD battle for control of your smartphones and PCs, a small company in Massachusetts called Adapteva is starting a revolution: many-core processors using a new architecture called Epiphany that offer a significant performance boost over anything currently on the market. Company foundwe Andreas Olofsson explains just what's going on — and promises 4,000-core low-power co-processors are just around the corner.

Submission + - How The Valve ARG Leads To Portal 2 Early Release (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Blacklaw on Friday April 15, 2011 @05:28AM

Blacklaw writes: An alternate reality game launched by Valve on April the 1st to publicise the launch of its upcoming puzzle title Portal 2 is entering its final stage — with participants believing they hold the key to an early release for the game.

Submission + - Nike Seeks Fellow to Embrace Open Data (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Stoobalou on Friday April 08, 2011 @06:13AM

Stoobalou writes: Nike is looking for a Code for a Better World Fellow, an ill-defined role that demonstrates a surprising commitment to the cause of open software and data from one of the world's largest sporting goods brands — but why?

The company has certainly been making moves into the software market: its launch of Nike+, a GPS-powered fitness package that tracks your daily runs, in partnership with Apple came as a surprise to many — but this latest job opening aims a little higher than allowing users to see how far they've travelled in their trainers.

Submission + - GNOME 3 and GNOME Shell Officially Launched (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Blacklaw on Wednesday April 06, 2011 @04:00PM

Blacklaw writes: The GNOME Desktop team has sent its latest creation into the wild, officially launching GNOME 3.0 — the biggest redesign the project has enjoyed in around nine years. "We've taken a pretty different approach in the GNOME 3 design that focuses on the desired experience and lets the interface design follow from that," designer Jon McCann explained during the launch. "With any luck you will feel more focused, aware, effective, capable, respected, delighted, and at ease."

Submission + - Psonar Takes Aim At Pirates: Penny-Per-Play Music (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Blacklaw on Tuesday April 05, 2011 @10:59AM

Blacklaw writes: Psonar, a digital music locker service, is reinventing itself as the next iTunes — and its creators believe that it has the potential to sway users away from illegitimate music sources and turn pirates into a revenue stream. To find out how, we've had a chat with Psonar's Martin Rigby.

Submission + - Samsung Denies Keylogger Claims, Blames Researcher (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Blacklaw on Thursday March 31, 2011 @04:23AM

Blacklaw writes: Samsung has hit back at reports that it has been installing spyware on its laptops, claiming that researchers fell for a false positive in their scanning software which saw a legitimate Windows system file flagged as suspicious.

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