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Comment Check the Volvo XC60 (Score 1) 859

This car is a marvel of safety technology, including the system that automatically emergency brakes the car and will avoid a rear ender in speeds up to ~25kph. And at higher speeds it'll still brake in order to reduce the impact.

Adding to this, systems such as the BLIS (blind spot information system or something like that), it's a pretty impressive feat of engineering - if you can afford it!

According to my bro who's put an order for the 2010 model, the test version he tried also alerted him to proximity to the car in front when driving at higher speeds.

For me personally I'm quite intrigued by laser cruise control systems... that would be of huge benefit to me.

Comment Re:Blue, non-polarized, non car = whatever (Score 1) 133

Just wanted to chip in that I too love my polarised (Ray Ban) prescription sunglasses for my driving. They take away almost all the glare from the front (and there's a lot of that!), at the small price of making certain windshields (that have tint treatments) and LCD screens etc technicolour funky.

They were the most expensive pair of glasses I've ever bought, so I treat them with great care and have actually held on to them for over 3 years now. Absolutely love them!

My UV reactive normal glasses are pretty useless in comparision. The change rate is way too slow, and they don't go dark in the car. Anyway those lenses are worn down now so will get replaced with "normal" ones instead of the UV reactive.

I found another bad thing about UV reactive; going dark on an overcast day (I'm in Australia), things would get even more glum than before.

The Courts

Submission + - Popular OZ broadband site sued for forum comments

Stony Stevenson writes: Whirlpool, a popular community-run broadband discussion forum, is being sued by accounting software firm 2Clix Australia for alleged "injurious falsehood". The Statement of Claim submitted by 2Clix's legal representatives to the Supreme Court of Queensland, alleges "registered users recorded statements on the Defendant's website relating to the Plaintiff and its software product that are both false and malicious".

If the software company is successful in its claim, it could raise a nasty precedent for Australian website operators and their users. Pundits are are already speculating that if Whirlpool loses, it might mean the end of criticising companies' products and services online.
Censorship

Submission + - Broadband forum sued over user comments

weighn writes: "PC World (Australia) and The SMH report that "A software firm is suing a community website over comments published on its forum. 2Clix is suing the owner of the popular broadband community site Whirlpool, Simon Wright, for "injurious falsehood", asking for $AUS150,000 in damages and an injunction requiring Whirlpool to remove forum threads highly critical of 2Clix's accounting software.
Dale Clapperton, chairman of the online users lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, said 2Clix was using the law to silence its critics. Whirlpool users have begun donating money to the site to help Wright cover any legal costs."
Software

Submission + - PCWorld refuse hardware repair due to Linux. 10

Tikka writes: "Today I visit PC World (London, UK) because my 5 months old laptop has developed a manufacturing fault, the hinge to the display has started to crack the plastic casing.
Anyone in the know, will know that this is due to the joint inside and this means that ultimately the screen will separate from the keyboard in time.

Repair was refused, because I have Gentoo Linux on my laptop — Replacing the Windows Vista that was pre-installed.

PC World have said that this has void my warranty and there is nothing they will do for me, I spoke to a manager who said that he has been told to refuse any repairs if the operating system has been changed.

I feel this has really gone against my statutory rights and will do everything I can to fight it, I will review comments for your advice."
Windows

Submission + - Vista Validation Totally Cracked

Brian Gordon writes: "The Inquirer reports that cracking group PARADOX has cracked Vista's activation model. The new crack results in an installation virtually identical to that of a legitimately activated license key, which means that cracked installs are eligible for Windows Updates and will pass WGA validation.

From the readme: Microsoft allows large hardware manufacturers (e.g. ASUS, HP, Dell) to ship their products containing a Windows Vista installation that does NOT require any kind of product activation as this might be considered an unnecessary inconvenience for the end-user. The basic concept of the tool at hand is to present any given BIOS ACPI_SLIC information to Windows Vista's licensing mechanism by means of a device driver. In combination with a matching product key and OEM certificate this allows for rendering any system practically indistinguishable from a legit pre-activated system shipped by the respective OEM."
Google

Submission + - Google Docs and Copyrights

Jim_Austin writes: "Hi folks I've been considering using Google Docs for an editorial effort I'm involved in (not-for-profit but professional) and our preliminary experiences are encouraging. But I'm quite troubled by the terms of use. In particular:

By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services.
That's not so good, but, since I'm not making anything public maybe I'm okay. However, my publication is international and one of my editors is in Spain. The version of the terms of service she sees (from Spain) does not include the phrase "which are intended to be available to the members of the public." Here's a link to that page: http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en-GB/terms. html And here's the language from that page:

By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.
Finally, note the provision 1.5, which says:

1.5 If there is any contradiction between what the Additional Terms say and what the Universal Terms say, then the Additional Terms shall take precedence in relation to that Service.
So are people who use Google docs signing over the copyright on everything that passes through it? Thanks, Jim Austin"
Software

Submission + - What 's going on at Apache?

nofactor writes: "Every time i visit the apache.org website i see that they are hosting new projects. Apart from the famous HTTP server, the Apache Foundation now offers a full-text search engine (Lucene), a directory server (ApacheDS), the #1 open source spam filter (SpamAssassin), a database server (DB), a SVG toolkit (Batik), a network application infraestructure (Mina), a robust message broker (ActiveMQ), they are also working on a full-featured Java EE 5 server (Geronimo), etc. Wow, there seems to be an enormous ecosystem developing! Apart from the webserver, does anybody use these pieces of software? Are they production-ready, high quality packages? Will we be droping MySQL for DB in the future? OpenLDAP for ApacheDS? JBoss for Geronimo?"
Security

Submission + - Exoskeleton inventor broke, selling prototype

jimmyholk writes: "Troy Hurtubise, the man whose quixotic quest for a suit of Grizzly-proof armour earned him a documentary (Project Grizzly), a parody in The Simpsons episode The Fat and the Furriest, and a spot in the heart of mad-inventor-lovers everywhere, has gone broke pursuing his latest dream of a full-body, combat-ready armoured exoskeleton. Facing eviction, he's put the Halo-inspired suit up for auction on e-bay: with the fine print warning that, although it's withstood being fired on by an elephant gun, the suit should not be used"for anyting other than a costume setting."Here's a news story which contains links to video of his suit and the ebay auction site with pictures."
Music

Submission + - Steve Jobs urges record companies to drop DRM

paxmaniac writes: Reuters reports that Steve Jobs is urging the 'big four' record companies to drop DRM. According to Jobs:'If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies'

All well and good, but isn't this a little hypocritical given that iTunes sells DRM encumbered songs that are available at other stores (e.g eMusic) without DRM?

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