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Comment Could the windbelt work as well? (Score 1) 113

I'd wondered before if something like the windbelt (http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/11/2257228) would work in a small stream or river. You would have the same constant flow over the belt, and I'd guess it would create the same oscillations (though probably not as much). I'm not an engineer, just curious.

Censorship

Submission + - Finnish Internet censorship (effi.org)

Thomas Nybergh writes: "The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation maintains a secret list of "child pornography" sites. Some major Finnish ISPs, although currently not required by law to do so, do block access to sites on this list.

The blocking, which is performed by crippling DNS, has been criticized, especially since lapsiporno.info ("childporn.info"), a site discussing the practice, but not containing any illegal material, was added to the list of blocked sites, despite the fact that only sites hosted outside of Finland are allowed to be blocked (Real child porn sites hosted inside Finland are to be shut down and the maintainers prosecuted).

Quite a lot of other sites that have nothing whatsoever to do with "child pornography" are also on the list, and critics of the practice of crippling DNS say that it's only a matter of time before other inconvenient or controversial material will be censored, too. This article on Electronic Frontier Finland's site is the most adequate summary of the situation available in English."

Feed news.com: Google pitches Gphones to Verizon (news.com)

Google is supposedly in serious talks with Verizon Wireless about using its upcoming Google-powered phones on its network, but a deal between the two companies is pretty unlikely.
Handhelds

Submission + - Nokia 810 Revealed

saintlupus writes: Nokia has announced the N810 Internet Tablet, the successor to the N770 and N800 models. More details here and here.
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Sony cuts prices on PS3

An anonymous reader writes: Sony has announced price cuts on the high-end model, and also is introducing a new low-end model in the US($399). The new model has lost the ability to play PlayStation 2 games, a decision based on the "extensive" lineup of PlayStation 3 games. The 80GB model, which retains backward compatibility, will now retail for $499.
Handhelds

Submission + - Palm Foleo cancelled

garyebickford writes: "Palm has just sent out a letter to its newsletter list, announcing the cancellation of the Foleo. The notice is also posted to their Blog.

"As many of you are aware, we are in the process of building our next generation software platform. We are very excited about how this is coming together. It has a modern, flexible UI, instant performance, and an incredibly simple and elegant development environment. We are working hard on this platform and on the first smartphones that will take advantage of it. In the course of the past several months, it has become clear that the right path for Palm is to offer a single, consistent user experience around this new platform design and a single focus for our platform development efforts. To that end, and after careful deliberation, I have decided to cancel the Foleo mobile companion product in its current configuration and focus all our energies on delivering our next generation platform and the first smartphones that will bring this platform to market. We will, of course, continue to deliver products in partnership with Microsoft on the Windows Mobile platform, but from our internal platform development perspective, we will focus on only one."
According to the email, 'Foleo II' will be based on the new platform (which I surmise is the Linux based PDA platform) They also say that this cancellation will cause a $10 million charge-off — 'a lot of money, but less than the costs of supporting two platforms', and offer both thanks and apologies to developers and potential customers."
Graphics

Submission + - AMD 2GB R600-Based Pro Graphics Card Emerges (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: "Images have emerged of the first ATI R600-based graphics card to sport 2GB of frame buffer memory. The Diamond Multimedia VFX 2000 shown here is based on AMD's ATI R600 GPU, but the card's PCB and firmware has been modified from the standard HD 2900 XT reference design to support the workstation-class features inherent to the FireGL line of professional graphics cards. GPU and RAM frequencies were not available, but word is the VFX 2000 will likely be similar to ATI's high-end FireGL V8650 only a lot less expensive."

Feed Wired: Hewlett-Packard Brings Linux To Select Desktops (wired.com)

The world's largest PC manufacturer, Hewlett-Packard, has announced it will start selling Linux-based PCs aimed at the consumer market. For now, the HP Linux models will only be available in Australia, with prices starting at $AU600 (just under $500 USD). The machines will use AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processors and come equipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Desktop.


Microsoft

Submission + - Polands vote on OOXML: yes

An anonymous reader writes: According to PKN Polish decision is "approval with comments":
"approval with comments" — 17 votes
"abstain" — 3 votes
"disapprove" — 0 votes

Here's the official site (in polish):
http://www.pkn.pl/index.php?pid=dis29500&cid=1

Feed Engadget: DirecTV to offer broadband over powerline this year (engadget.com)

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Just as the company's CEO hinted at this past spring, DirecTV will indeed begin offering service bundles that include broadband over powerline, with the Maryland-based Current Group opening up access to its Dallas / Fort Worth BPL network starting at the end of the year. This tie-up is the latest move by the satellite company -- following June's deal with Clearwire -- to strengthen its ability to offer high-speed internet, putting it in a better position to compete with the attractive triple- and even quad-play bundles being touted by cable providers and telcos. It also follows DirecTV's failure to secure any of its own spectrum in last years FCC auction, as you'll recall. Current has stated that as its network grows out beyond Texas, the agreement between the two firms allows DirecTV to market to those customers as well.

[Via MarketWatch]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


Privacy

Submission + - Betcha.com beats US ban on Online Gambling? (zeropaid.com)

Jared writes: "Bills itself as the world's first "honor-based betting platform" that connects people "who like to bet" and likens the site to "gentleman's bets," calling it "betting," not "gambling. Betcha.com claims that it's a legal service under the premise that bettors are allowed to welch on their bets, meaning that there's no gambling actually taking place. Users are given an eBay-style rating based on whether or not they pay up after losing a bet.

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/8859/P2P+Betting%3F+B etcha.com+Exploits+Loophole+in+US+Online+Gambling+ Law"

Upgrades

Submission + - DARPA Urban Challenge

saldate writes: I was surprised that this was overlooked by Slashdot readers, I found it to be pretty cool and somewhat inspiring. The DARPA Urban Challenge (think of it as DARPA Grand Challenge v2.0) is pushing autonomous automotive travel to the next stage of development, the urban zone. Obviously, the initial target of the project is aimed at military application, but simultaneously paves the way for commercial use. Have a look at the video and articles below:

Video:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/ a/2007/06/15/BUROBOCARTEST15.DTL&o=0

Articles:
http://origin.mercurynews.com/news/ci_6147098?ncli ck_check=1
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/06/how_stanford s_r.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/technology/15rob ot.html?_r=1&em&ex=1182052800&en=5ff9a120cd2b0a2d& ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6191180.html
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/15/stanfords-junio r-volkswagen-passes-first-darpa-test/
http://news.com.com/2300-11394_3-6191150-1.html

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