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Submission + - Amazon seeks US exemption to test delivery drones (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: Amazon.com has asked the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration permission to test drones outdoors for use in its Prime Air package delivery service. In the run up to launching the service, which aims to deliver packages in 30 minutes or less, the online retailer is developing aerial vehicles that travel over 50 miles (80 kilometers) per hour, and will carry 5pound (2.3 kilogram) payloads, which account for 86 percent of the products sold on Amazon.

Submission + - AMD Publishes Open-Source HSA Radeon Linux Driver (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: AMD finally brought the Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) into the open-source world with the announcement of a Radeon HSA driver for the Linux kernel. AMD published a massive open-source driver today with plans to incorporate into the mainline Linux kernel that allow for different processor types to share system resources better. The supported AMD GPUs being their Radeon "Sea Islands" hardware and newer for this Radeon HSA Linux open-source driver.
The Almighty Buck

The Oatmeal Convinces Elon Musk To Donate $1 Million To Tesla Museum 78

Posted by timothy from the carreon-should-donate-too dept.
Ars Technica notes (as does Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman) that Elon Musk has agreed to donate $1 million towards the restoration of Nikola Tesla's old lab as a museum, a project that Inman has been pushing for some time now. And if you happen to get there in a Tesla, you're in luck: Musk is also planning to install one of his company's superchargers in the parking lot. (At the other end of the east coast, you can visit a very different kind of Tesla museum.)
Music

Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? 502

Posted by timothy from the won't-fit-in-my-phone dept.
MojoKid (1002251) writes "Back in the day (which is a scientific measurement for anyone who used to walk to school during snowstorms, uphill, both ways), integrated audio solutions had trouble earning respect. Many enthusiasts considered a sound card an essential piece to the PC building puzzle. It's been 25 years since the first Sound Blaster card was introduced, a pretty remarkable feat considering the diminished reliance on discrete audio in PCs, in general. These days, the Sound Blaster ZxR is Creative's flagship audio solution for PC power users. It boasts a signal-to-noise (SNR) of 124dB that Creative claims is 89.1 times better than your motherboard's integrated audio solution. It also features a built-in headphone amplifier, beamforming microphone, a multi-core Sound Core3D audio processor, and various proprietary audio technologies. While gaming there is no significant performance impact or benefit when going from onboard audio to the Sound Blaster ZxR. However, the Sound Blaster ZxR produced higher-quality in-game sound effects and it also produces noticeably superior audio in music and movies, provided your speakers can keep up."

Submission + - Biohackers Are Engineering Yeast to Make THC 1

Submitted by meghan elizabeth
meghan elizabeth writes: How do you get weed without the weed? By genetically engineering yeast to produce THC, of course.
Once theorized in a stoner magazine column more than a decade ago, a biotech startup working in Ireland is actively trying to transplant the genetic information that codes for both THC and another cannabinoid called CBD into yeast so that "marijuana" can be grown in a lab—no plants necessary.

Comment Re:CFL's lasting almost 30 years (Score 1) 278

by jandrese (#47427121) Attached to: My most recent energy-saving bulbs last ...
You could get a CFL in 1985? Back then "Compact" florescent seemed to be those fixture with the 12" diameter circular tube and a conventional ballast. They certainly did not fit in a traditional socket. I started seeing what we consider CFLs around 2000 or so, and the first versions were pretty bad. There was some seriously defective Chinese garbage all over the market during the first few years. Once I found a bulb I liked (Commercial Electric from Home Depot--they don't appear to exist anymore sadly), I bought a bunch and swapped out most of the bulbs in my house.

Comment Re:2-year CFLs (Score 1) 278

by jandrese (#47427089) Attached to: My most recent energy-saving bulbs last ...
It's strange. Of the many CFLs I've installed, I've only had three failures. Two of which were early Walmart bulbs that were shit. The other was one of the bulbs I settled on for everything else, it got a smoky smell and discolored the plastic near one end of the tube: clearly some magic blue smoke escaped. Other than that, I've had 10 years of reliable service from a couple dozen bulbs. A few of the oldest ones (4 bulbs) have a "warm up" time where they are noticeably dim when you turn them on at first, but all of the other bulbs come on at or near their full brightness.

I do have underground power though, I wonder if comes out cleaner thanks to that?

Comment Re:Dimmable LEDs (Score 1) 278

by jandrese (#47426977) Attached to: My most recent energy-saving bulbs last ...
I tried out a Cree flood in a light I have on a dimmer. The bulb mostly works, but it has somewhat odd behavior on low brightness levels where it will cut out after a few minutes. This only happens when the dimmer is near the bottom (but not totally off). Our workaround is to not use the lowest dimmer setting on that circuit, but it was unfortunate. I considered returning the bulb as defective, but that's effort and I only give a replacement bulb a 50/50 shot at fixing the problem.

Comment Re:To what end? (Score 4, Insightful) 219

by Baki (#47426835) Attached to: After NSA Spying Flap, Germany Asks CIA Station Chief to Depart

No they don't. The supreme court actually has something to say in Germany, and its constitution is pretty strong (also in practice) w.r.t. privacy and citizens rights. I'm not german myself (but living near germany). My impression, also from German newspapers etc., is that most germans including politicians are truely mad and are seriously considering to cool down relations with the USA. The USA is risking to loose one of the few remaining friends it has in the world.
Google

Video On the Significance of Google's New Cardboard (Video) 35

Posted by Roblimo from the recycling-a-post-title-is-good-for-the-environment dept.
On June 29, 2014, Timothy started a Slashdot post with these words: 'Last week at Google I/O, the company introduced Cardboard, its cheap-and-cheerful (it's made of cardboard, after all) approach to nearly instant VR viewing.' Several commenters noted that Viewmaster has been doing something similar for over 70 years; that you can get a slicker 3-D adapter for your smartphone from Durovis, with the Vrizzmo VR Goggles and vrAse coming soon; and that you can buy an iPhone/iPod Touch-only 3-D viewer for about $8 (at the time this was typed), which is a whole lot less than the price of most third-party Cardboard kits that are getting ready to hit the market. || The Google person behind The Cardboard is VP Clay Bavor, whose day job is overseeing Google apps. Clay says you are welcome to make your own Cardboard from scratch instead of buying one (or a kit) from someone else, and of course you can write all the software for it you like. || You may (or may not) remember that Timothy ended that June 29 post about Cardboard with a promise that before long we'd have 'a video introduction to Cardboard with Google VP Clay Bavor.' So here it is, as promised. (Alternate Video Link)

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