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Comment 3.0? (Score 1) 387

by pbjones (#49757051) Attached to: 25 Years Today - Windows 3.0

The original release was rubbish, it wasn't unti 3.1 that windoze started to really work. And at that time it was still tagged as a 'graphical interface for MSDOS'

Submission + - Bank Of England Accidentally E-mails Top-Secret Brexit Plan to the Guardian (theguardian.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The first rule of "Project Bookend" is that you don't talk about "Project Bookend."

In retrospect, maybe the first rule should have been "you don't accidentally e-mail 'Project Bookend' to a news agency", because as the Guardian reports, one of its editors opened his inbox and was surprised to find a message from the BOE's Head of Press Jeremy Harrison outlining the UK financial market equivalent of the Manhattan project.

Project Bookend is a secret (or 'was' a secret) initiative undertaken by the BOE to study what the fallout might be from a potential 'Brexit', but if anyone asked what Sir Jon Cunliffe and a few senior staffers were up to, they were instructed to say that they were busy investigating "a broad range of European economic issues."

Comment Battery savings (Score 1) 313

by pbjones (#49755817) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Dumb Phone?

too many variables. If you choose a big name provider then there are more cell towers and lower power required by the phone, thus longer battery life, and put it into flight mode at night, or turn it off, for even longer battery life. No-one ever calls while you are asleep. :-) remove all but essential apps, except messaging and phone, turn off bluetooth and Wifi, and there you have a smartphone made dumb. You didn't mention a need for CDMA, 2G, 3G or 4G, which may limit your choices.

Submission + - Universe's dark ages may not be invisible after all

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: The Universe had two periods where light was abundant, separated by the cosmic dark ages. The first came at the moment of the hot Big Bang, as the Universe was flooded with (among the matter, antimatter and everything else imaginable) a sea of high-energy photons, including a large amount of visible light. As the Universe expanded and cooled, eventually the cosmic microwave background was emitted, leaving behind the barely visible, cooling photons. It took between 50 and 100 million years for the first stars to turn on, so in between these two epochs of the Universe being flooded with light, we had the dark ages. Yet the dark ages may not be totally invisible, as the forbidden spin-flip-transition of hydrogen may illuminate this time period after all.

Submission + - California votes to ban microbeads (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Kristine Lofgren
Kristine Lofgren writes: The California Assembly just passed a vote to ban toxic microbeads, the tiny flecks found in toothpastes and exfoliants. Microbeads cause a range of problems, from clogging waterways to getting stuck in gums. The ban would be the strictest of its kind in the nation.

Submission + - 25 Years today - Windows 3.0 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Windows 3.0 was launched on 22 May 1990 — I know, coz I was there as a SDE on the team. I still have, um, several of the shrink-wrapped boxes of the product — with either 3.5 inch and 5.25 floppies rattling around inside them — complete with their distintive 'I witnessed the event' sticker!

It was a big deal for me, and I still consider Win 3 as *the* most significant Windows' release, and I wonder what other /.ers think — looking back on Win 3?

Submission + - Neural implants let paralyzed man take a drink (foxnews.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Erik Sorto was shot in the back 13 years ago and paralyzed from the neck down. Yet recently the father of two lifted a bottle of beer to his lips and gave himself a drink, even though he can’t move his arms or legs.

Mr. Sorto, 34, picked up his drink with a robotic arm controlled by his thoughts. Two silicon chips in his brain read his intentions and channeled them via wires to the prosthetic arm on a nearby table. The team that developed the experimental implant, led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology, reported their work Thursday in the journal Science.

“That was amazing,” Mr. Sorto said. “I was waiting for that for 13 years, to drink a beer by myself.”

Mr. Sorto’s neural implant is the latest in a series of prosthetic devices that promise one day to restore smooth, almost natural movement to those who have lost the use of their limbs through disease or injury, by tapping directly into the signals generated by the brain.

For years, laboratories at Brown University, Duke University and Caltech, among others, have experimented with brain-controlled prosthetics. Those devices include wireless implants able to relay rudimentary mental commands, mind-controlled robotic leg braces, and sensors that add a sense of touch to robotic hands. In 2012, University of Pittsburgh researchers demonstrated a brain implant that allowed a paralyzed woman to feed herself a chocolate bar using a robot arm.

Submission + - Bill Gates Owes His Career to Steven Spielberg's Dad. You May, Too.

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: On the 51st birthday of the BASIC programing language, GE Reports decided it was finally time to give-credit-where-credit-was-long-overdue, reporting that Arnold Spielberg, the 98-year-old father of Hollywood director Steven Spielberg, helped revolutionize computing when he designed the GE-225 mainframe computer. The machine allowed a team of Dartmouth University students and researchers to develop BASIC, which quickly spread and ushered in the era of personal computers. BASIC helped kickstart many computing careers, include those of Bill Gates and Paul Allen, as well as Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs.

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