17511458
submission
afabbro writes:
"Parapsychologists have made outlandish claims about precognition – knowledge of unpredictable future events – for years. But the fringe phenomenon is about to get a mainstream airing: a paper providing evidence for its existence has been accepted for publication by the leading social psychology journal. What's more, sleptical psychologists who have pored over a preprint of the paper say they can't find any significant flaws."
17505560
submission
afabbro writes:
GM stated that the 2011 Buick Regal will have the industry's fastest processor: 128Mhz, and 3MB of flash. "Three meg of flash memory and 128 MHz clock speed doesn’t sound like a lot in terms of computing power until you consider the environment these controllers have to live in. Our controllers are made to operate reliably up to 260 degrees (127C) and down to -40 degrees (-40C) for the life of the vehicle."
8358302
submission
afabbro writes:
"Case had rented a coffin here, on a weekly basis, since he'd arrived in Chiba." Apparently, so do some some of Japan's homeless: Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 houses 700 fiberglass sleeping coffins, each 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide, and not tall enough to stand up in.
5004503
submission
afabbro writes:
At 2009-06-26 18:42:37 UTC, BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos, a Netflix Prize team, achieved a 10% improvement over Netflix's Cinematch system and claimed the $1 million Netflix Prize. Other teams have 30 days to best their result, as the official announcement explains.
4346589
submission
afabbro writes:
There are scattered reports today that Apple is building a team to design its own chips, with an eye towards reducing power consumption on iPods and iPhones.
4154059
submission
afabbro writes:
Wizards of the Coast has filed suit against eight individuals for sharing the Player's Handbook 2 on various P2P sites. They've also pulled the plug on all legal PDFs through sites such as DriveThru RPG and RPGNow. Indeed, not only can these sites no longer sell legal PDFs of these books, but they must terminate all pending downloads — even for content already purchased.
3969713
submission
afabbro writes:
Microsoft will be shutting down Encarta on October 31, 2009. Why? "The category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past." In other words: Wikipedia.
3528855
submission
afabbro writes:
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the FTC's bid to impose anti-trust peanalties on Rambus. Without comment, they let an appeals court decision favoring Rambus stand. The FTC found that Rambus undermined competition by getting secretly patented technology included in industry standards but the Supremes evidently didn't agree.
1325599
submission
afabbro writes:
Fifty years ago, before "Pong" and "Space Invaders," a nuclear physicist created "Tennis for Two," a 2-D tennis game that some say was the first video game ever. Built in 1958, it was "gynormous." "In addition to the oscilloscope screen and the controller, the guts of the original game were contained in an analog computer, which is "about as big as a microwave oven." "We have to load it into the back of a station wagon to move it. It's not a Game Boy that you put in your pocket."
373659
submission
afabbro writes:
Wikipedia is again raising funds, on the heels of its million-dollar fundraising event in January. But an analysis of their budget may give you pause. Only about half of their spending is on the technology that powers Wikipedia — the rest is being consumed by a growing overhead. Of the foundation's $4 million budget, nearly $700,000 will be spent on "finance and administration," and an additional $700,000 is budgeted for the Office of Executive Director and the board of trustees salary and expenses alone, including a plan to spend $200,000 to relocate to rent-expensive San Francisco.
297429
submission
afabbro writes:
The Register is reporting that the 802.11n standard is imperiled because the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization has refused to submit a Letter of Assurance, promising not to sue those who implement the standard. "...the realisation that CSIRO holds essential patents, and has failed to provide a Letter of Assurance as required by the IEEE, could prevent the standard ever being finalised."