kikawala - Slashdot User

Geek and Gadgets Set Cross-US Speed Record 805

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @02:13AM from the breaker-breaker-need-a-bear-check dept.

Brikus writes "And you thought your car had gadgets. In this story from Wired magazine, we hear about Alex Roy and his quest to break the record time for a cross-USA road trip. One of the biggest roadblocks to breaking the record: highway patrol officers, about 31,000 along the way. So Roy decked out his E39 BMW M5 with a thermal camera, radar/laser detectors, GPS devices, police scanners, and other high-tech gadgets and toys."

Submission + - Cory Doctorow Infringes Copyright

Submitted by idontneedanickname on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @01:38PM

idontneedanickname writes: Cory Doctorow whose recent spat with the SWFA caused quite a stir doesn't seem to believe in respecting other people's copyrights himself. In a recent BoingBoing post he reposted Ursula K. Le Guin's short story "On Serious Literature" in its entirety, without her permission, as well as removing the copyright notice it was originally published with. He even misrepresents the intent of her work to boot. He links to the original source where the copyright notice is displayed clearly. Thanks to BoingBoing's catch-all CreativeCommons footer Doctorow essentially rebranded her story with a new license which could lead his readers to further copy the story. Considering that BoingBoing operates for Doctorow's profit, he should be aware that under copyright law, infringement for commercial gain can be considered a criminal offense. More details can be found here.

Astronomers Again Baffled by Solar Observations 299

Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday May 05, 2007 @05:28AM from the back-to-the-drawing-board dept.

SteakNShake writes "Once again professional astronomers are struggling to understand observations of the sun. ScienceDaily reports that a team from Saint Andrew's University announced that the sun's magnetic fields dominate the behavior of the corona via a mechanism dubbed the 'solar skeleton.' Computer models continue to be built to mimic the observed behavior of the sun in terms of magnetic fields but apparently the ball is still being dropped; no mention in the announcement is made of the electric fields that must be the cause of the observed magnetic fields. Also conspicuously absent from the press releases is the conclusion that the sun's corona is so-dominated by electric and magnetic fields because it is a plasma. In light of past and present research revealing the electrical nature of the universe, this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing."

eBay's Ill-Timed Lifetime Achievement Webby 316

Posted by kdawson on Thursday May 03, 2007 @11:54AM from the do-as-I-say dept.

theodp writes "eBay CEO Meg Whitman will accept a special Webby Lifetime Achievement Award next month on behalf of the eBay Community, which has 'permanently changed the way people connect, discover and interact with each other.' Perhaps by then, people will have forgotten how eBay enabled buyer 'Blazers5505' to hook up with sellers like 'oneclickshooting' just weeks before the worst mass shooting in modern US history, prompting eBay to issue a gun-parts-don't-kill-students-guns-and-ammo-do statement that showed little evidence of its celebrated commitment to social consciousness. CEO Whitman, who received $11.1M last year for her leadership efforts, has kept a low profile since tooting eBay's trust-and-safety horn for Wall Street analysts two days after the Va. Tech rampage."

Apple Goes After the Term 'Podcast' 419

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday September 26, 2006 @10:15AM from the lots-of-frustrated-casters-out-there dept.

Udo Schmitz writes "Earlier this year, Apple went up against companies using the word 'pod' in their product names. Now, Apple is going after the term 'podcasting'. Wired has the complete text of Apple's cease-and-desist letter to Podcast Ready." From the article: "Robert Scoble -- whose own company, PodTech, may be at risk in this witch hunt -- has weighed in on the issue by suggesting that the tech community as a whole adopt other terms like "audiocast" and 'videocast' (or alternately, 'audcast' and 'vidcast') to describe this type of content, while other folks feel that fighting Apple and generating a ton of negative press for Cupertino is the best solution. Our take? Apple should be happy that its golden goose is getting so much free publicity, and if it isn't, we know of several companies that probably wouldn't mind if zencast, zunecast, or sansacast became the preferred terminology."

George the Next Generation AI? 108

Posted by Zonk on Monday September 25, 2006 @05:27AM from the george-and-alice-sitting-in-a-tree dept.

smileytshirt writes to mention a story on the News.com.au site about George the AI, the latest in a line of chatbots intended to mimic real human behavior. What makes AI George different than, say, ALICE is the recent addition of an avatar: a Flash animated body that reacts mostly in real time to the emotional impact of the conversation. From the article: "One can now have an oral discussion with him over the Internet, 'face to face'. George appears on the website www.jabberwacky.com and takes the form of a thin, bald man with yellow glasses who wears a white turtleneck sweater. He can smile, laugh, sulk and bang his fist on his virtual table. He can turn on the charm and wax romantic. But he can also turn coarse at times. It isn't as if George only learned good manners. "

Thrust from Microwaves - The Relativity Drive 567

Posted by Zonk on Friday September 22, 2006 @07:41PM from the yay-for-science dept.

dfenstrate writes "The latest New Scientist has an article about an engine that exploits relativity and microwaves to generate thrust. There is a working prototype." From the article: "Roger Shawyer has developed an engine with no moving parts that he believes can replace rockets and make trains, planes and automobiles obsolete ... The device that has sparked their interest is an engine that generates thrust purely from electromagnetic radiation — microwaves to be precise — by exploiting the strange properties of relativity. It has no moving parts, and releases no exhaust or noxious emissions. Potentially, it could pack the punch of a rocket in a box the size of a suitcase. It could one day replace the engines on almost any spacecraft. More advanced versions might allow cars to lift from the ground and hover."

Comment Linus did not get a fair interview (Score 1) 548

by hansreiser on Sunday August 06, 2006 @06:51AM (#15854738) Attached to: Torvalds Critiques of GPLv3 and FSF Refuted

While I suspect I disagree with Linus on this topic, I think the journalist did not do a good job of portraying Linus's views in a way that best brings out his argument and that argument's strongpoints. Though of course, if I know that Linus did not get a fair opportunity to project his arguments at their best, then maybe I know that I don't know whether I would agree with Linus.....

Bacterial DVD Holds 50TB 268

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @05:06PM from the your-cdrom-wants-penicillin dept.

CAMags writes to tell us that a Harvard Professor is claiming to have developed a new variant of a protein called bacteriorhodopsin (bR) that, when layered on a DVD, can store up to 50TB of data. From the article: "The light-activated protein is found in the membrane of a salt marsh microbe Halobacterium salinarum and is also known as bacteriorhodopsin (bR). It captures and stores sunlight to convert it to chemical energy. When light shines on bR, it is converted to a series of intermediate molecules each with a unique shape and color before returning to its 'ground state.'"

OSS Web Stacks Outperformed by .Net? 349

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @10:40AM from the sad-penguin dept.

Gimble writes "eWeek has an article up that looks at the performance of portals using open source stacks and comparing them to their MS equivalents. The article's conclusion is that .Net outperforms the open source stacks, mainly because of its tighter integration, but also notes that running the open source stacks on Windows (WAMP) delivered strong performance." From the article: "Based on our forays into user forums for many top open-source enterprise applications, there are many IT managers attempting to run open-source products on Windows servers--attracted, no doubt, to the benefits and efficiencies of using open source without having to become Linux administrators. The results of our WAMP stack tests indicate that these folks might be on to something."

Swimsuit Design Uses Supercomputing 253

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sunday July 09, 2006 @09:35PM from the go-with-the-flow dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "These days, most competitive swimmers wear some type of body suit to reduce high skin-friction drag from water. And makers of swimwear are already busy working on new models for the Olympics 2008. According to Textile & Apparel, Speedo is even using a supercomputer to refine its designs. Its engineers run Fluent Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) program on an SGI Altix system."

Dell Chastized Over Customer Service 169

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Saturday July 08, 2006 @07:27PM from the dude-i'm-still-not-getting-a-dell dept.

The Register is reporting that Dell recently agreed to give into demands from the UK's Office of Fair Trading and alter the agreements that accompany their hardware. From the article: "The OFT has spent the past few months sparring with Dell over the company's terms and conditions. The two organizations recently agreed to settle their issues with Dell changing contracts and making them "fairer to consumers," the OFT said. The specific changes, however, remain secret as neither the OFT nor Dell will reveal exact terms and conditions alterations and as Dell has kept old contracts online."

Stephen Hawking Asks The Internet a Question 1171

Posted by Zonk on Friday July 07, 2006 @01:27PM from the what-is-your-name dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Stephen Hawking received about 15000 answers to a question he posted 2 days ago on Yahoo Answers. His question was 'How can the human race survive the next hundred years?'." I imagine you can do better than 'It Can't.' How would you answer Dr. Hawking's question?

Friendster Patents Social Networking 96

Posted by Zonk on Friday July 07, 2006 @12:49PM from the now-how-will-i-make-friends dept.

Pontifex maximus writes "Friendster has said that as of this week, it has a patent covering online social networks. It applied for the patent before the company's downward spiral and recent growth." From the article: "'It's way too early to say' whether the company would pursue licenses and litigation from its competitors, Friendster President Kent Lindstrom told RedHerring.com. 'We'll do what we can to protect our intellectual property.' Though the Friendster patent could be challenged in either the patent system or the courts, opponents would face an uphill battle. 'Once the patent is issued there is a presumption of validity that follows with it,' said attorney Bill Heinze of Thomas, Kayden, Horstemeyer & Risley."

Open Source Point-of-Sale - What's Out There? 61

Posted by Cliff on Saturday July 01, 2006 @09:45PM from the open-source-tools-for-commercial-endeavors. dept.

aztektum asks: "I have taken on the task of designing a building a networked Point-of-Sale system for a friends new restaurant/club. We have looked at out of the box solutions, but their upfront costs are a bit staggering, so I suggested a DIY approach. We are going to buy hardware outright, probably using Elo touch-screens and basic white boxes. It's the software that we're coming up short on. We are looking for a system that has good back-end management (running reports for end of day, from a central location and other such features), has a flexible/customizable UI, and as a bonus doesn't suffer from too much proprietary lock-in. Since Elo's screens have Linux support, I wanted to see if anyone on Slashdot has worked on similar projects and has experience with open source POS solutions. I have Google'd a bit and found some options, but I cannot spend a lot time testing out multiple setups because of a firm deadline. Quite bluntly, what's the best but least expensive option that you know of?" This is not the first time this particular issue has appeared on Ask Slashdot. The last discussion on this particular issue was way back in 2003. What has changed since then?

Slashdot Top Deals