BillBrasky - Slashdot User

Submission + - Immersion on a Shoestring: Simple Game Obsession (glancevalve.com)

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @12:58PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Intuition tells us that for a game to be immersive, it needs to be big, expensive, and flashy. But GlanceValve takes a look at how certain simple design choices can make all the difference."

Submission + - Nano propellers for drug deliveries

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @12:46PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) have used molecular dynamics simulations to build a nanoscale propeller with molecule-sized blades. This is the first time that researchers are looking at nanodevices able to pump fluids. However, they recognize that such devices will not be available before several years. If these nano propellers ever come on the market, they would be used for applications such as precisely targeting medicines and regulating flow into and out of cells. Read more for additional details and a picture of such a nano propeller."

Submission + - Google cookies expire after two years (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @12:38PM

An anonymous reader writes: The BBC is reporting that Google says that its cookies will now expire after two years, rather than in 2038 — if the user does not visit the website first. 'Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, said in a statement: "After listening to feedback from our users and from privacy advocates, we've concluded that it would be a good thing for privacy to significantly shorten the lifetime of our cookies."'

Submission + - Torvalds Says GPLv3 Backers Full Of "Hot Air&# (informationweek.com)

Submitted by

AlexGr

on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @12:36PM

AlexGr writes: "Last week Paul McDougall wrote in InformationWeek that Linux creator Linus Torvalds called advocates of the Free Software Foundation's GPLv3 license "hypocrites." A few readers complained he had not provided a complete picture of Torvald's feelings. They were right. Linus also thinks FSF leaders are "controlling," "condescending," and full of "hot air." And he's got more choice words for GPLv3 itself. http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/ 2007/07/the_linus_files.html"

Submission + - Gott: Get to Mars Before 2053 Or Else (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @12:33PM

An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times has a piece in which J. Richard Gott III claims we most likely have only 46 years remaining to get off the planet, and that other possible civilizations in the galaxy missed the window. From the article: "The sobering facts," Dr. Gott says, "are that in a 13.7 billion-year-old universe, we've only been around 200,000 years, and we're only on one tiny planet. The Copernican answer to Enrico Fermi's famous question — Where are the extraterrestrials? — is that a significant fraction must be sitting on their home planets."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/science/17tier.h tml?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin

OLPC Has Kill-Switch Theft Deterrent 138

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday February 19, 2007 @01:13PM from the paperweight-maker dept.

Sid writes "Ars Technica reports that the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO has an anti-theft daemon in the OS that can be used to remotely disable machines, much like WGA. The Project added the kill switch at the behest of a few countries concerned about laptop theft. From the report, 'OLPC has responded to such concerns by developing an anti-theft daemon that the project claims cannot be disabled, even by a user with root access. Participating countries can then provide identifying information such as a serial number to a given country's OLPC program oversight entity, which can then disable the devices in certain scenarios.'"

Submission + - Cold Fusion Reborn?

Submitted by Icarus1919 on Monday February 19, 2007 @01:06PM

Icarus1919 writes: New Scientist reports that the scientist who discovered a possible fusion reaction by bombarding a solvent with neutrons and sonic waves (known as cold fusion because you don't have to deal with those sun-like temperatures and magnetic fields) has recently been exonerated of accusations of scientific misconduct Purdue University following the verification of his results by another scientist. Is cold fusion back?

Submission + - Topcoder 2007 announced - marathon added

Submitted by

chrisg_chrisg

on Monday February 19, 2007 @12:43PM

chrisg_chrisg writes: ""TopCoder is thrilled to announce the 2007 TopCoder Open, sponsored by AOL and $260,000 in prize money."
The link to the competition homepage: http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=tourna ments&d2=tco07&d3=about

There are 4 competitions:
Algorithm (corresponding to SRMs)
Component (don't know much about those)
Marathon (a much welcome addition)
Studio (a chance for graphic and web designers too to become rich and famous..)
Apparently you can participate in more than one competition.

See you there, I'm "chrisg" in the marathon competitions :)
If you don't have a topcoder account, you can get one before registering to the competition."

Submission + - Hard Disk Study Leaves Google Surprised

Submitted by bugg_tb on Monday February 19, 2007 @11:47AM

bugg_tb writes: The BBC is reporting on a study performed by Google engineers on regular 'off the shelf' hard drives that Google uses for caching data and how they perform and the likelyhood of them to fail. The author states: "We expected to notice a very strong and consistent correlation between high utilisation and higher failure rates. "However our results appear to paint a more complex picture. First, only very young and very old age groups appear to show the expected behaviour." The report concludes that: there was a clear trend showing "that lower temperatures are associated with higher failure rates". "Only at very high temperatures is there a slight reversal of this trend." You can see the full report here

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