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Technology

Smartphone For the Blind Invented In India 46

Posted by samzenpus from the let-your-fingers-do-the-talking dept.
hypnosec writes "The world's first smartphone for the blind that features a display capable of converting text and pictures into Braille and raised patterns has been invented in India. Based on Shape Memory Technology – a concept whereby metals expand and contract to retain their original shape – the phone's screen has a grid of pins. These pins move up and down based on the text or display to be represented."
User Journal

Journal Journal: Why I can't be a liberal 15

Journal by Marxist Hacker 42

Hatred.

A conversation with a much more left wing friend over the weekend made me realize that most of my conservative politics, are not conservatively sourced. They are sourced in my own personal form of liberalism, which is often repelled by the political rhetoric of other liberals.

Gay marriage for instance. I was once, a decade or so ago, for civil unions. I was considered a liberal for being so. I reveled in the fact of being Catholic and how entire grou

Comment I had a civet (Score 1) 112

by CrackHappy (#43497335) Attached to: Demand for Kopi Luwak May Be Threatening Wildlife
When I was a kid, I lived in Jakarta, and my parents bought me a civet as a pet. BAD idea. It was a captured wild civet. We only had it about 3 months before it having bitten and scratched me so much, we ended up taking it out to the jungle where there were a bunch of wild civets and releasing it. I hope it did ok, and never blamed it for being wild and attacking me occasionally. I think it's terrible to "farm" animals in this fashion for something that we don't actually need really. It's one thing to milk cows, quite another to force feed civets coffee.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Is it possible to launch a drop of water across 10s of meters?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I would like to use an Arduino to make a solenoid valve based squirt gun but I don't want to spray the water, I want to launch a 1-2 mL drop. Is it possible to keep water in a drop across such a distance and if so what is the nozzle design?
Earth

One Giant Cargo Ship Pollutes As Much As 50M Cars 595

Posted by kdawson from the stink-pots dept.
thecarchik writes "One giant container ship pollutes the air as much as 50 million cars. Which means that just 15 of the huge ships emit as much as today's entire global 'car park' of roughly 750 million vehicles. Among the bad stuff: sulfur, soot, and other particulate matter that embeds itself in human lungs to cause a variety of cardiopulmonary illnesses. Since the mid-1970s, developed countries have imposed increasingly stringent regulations on auto emissions. In three decades, precise electronic engine controls, new high-pressure injectors, and sophisticated catalytic converters have cut emissions of nitrous oxides, carbon dioxides, and hydrocarbons by more than 98 percent. New regulations will further reduce these already minute limits. But ships today are where cars were in 1965: utterly uncontrolled, free to emit whatever they like." According to Wikipedia, 57 giant container ships (rated from 9,200 to 15,200 twenty-foot equivalent units) are plying the world's oceans.
Games

Submission + - RAGE on iOS shows promise (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: RAGE from id Software for iOS devices is finally available and has been tested over at PC Perspective. The game obviously looks impressive with a nearly 750MB download (and about double that when uncompressed) and not much else can rival it on the platform. The game itself is a rail-based shooter making the touchscreen interface more intuitive and less cumbersome but it does take away some of the feeling of control in the game. Video of the game running is also included in the short review.
Hardware Hacking

Google Voice Controls Giant LED Display 66

Posted by kdawson from the can-you-understand-me-now dept.
compumike writes "What geek among us has never thought about how cool it would be if you could call your computer and have it do stuff? Josh Davis put together a quick video demo and source code of his Voice Controlled LED Marquee, powered by Google Voice speech recognition and a DIY LED Array Kit. Imagine using the same display for monitoring server uptime, or RSS feeds!"
Government

CA City Mulls Evading the Law On Red-Light Cameras 366

Posted by kdawson from the wrong-on-so-many-levels dept.
TechDirt is running a piece on Corona, CA, where officials are considering ignoring a California law that authorizes red-light cameras — cutting the state and the county out of their portion of the take — in order to increase the city's revenue. The story was first reported a week ago. The majority of tickets are being (automatically) issued for "California stops" before a right turn on red, which studies have shown rarely contribute to an accident. TechDirt notes the apparent unconstitutionality of what Corona proposes to do: "The problem here is that Corona is shredding the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution, the right to a trial by jury. By reclassifying a moving violation... to an administrative violation... Corona is doing something really nefarious. In order to appeal an administrative citation you have to admit guilt, pay the full fine, and then apply for a hearing in front of an administrative official, not a judge in a court. The city could simply deny all hearings for administrative violations or schedule them far out in advance knowing full well that they have your money, which you had to pay before you could appeal."
Transportation

Honda's Answer To the Segway 247

Posted by timothy from the will-change-how-cities-are-built dept.
lcreech writes with an excerpt from the Daily Mail's description of a new Segway-style one-person vehicle being shown off by Honda: "The vehicle looks like a very modern unicycle and to ride it you simply lean your weight in the direction you want to go, whether that's forward, backwards or even sideways. It maintains its own balance travelling up to 3.7MPH. Not very fast."
Privacy

Security / Privacy Advice? 260

Posted by kdawson from the all-ears dept.
James-NSC writes "My employer is changing its policy towards employee use of social networks. I've been asked to give a 40-minute presentation to the entire company, with attendance mandatory, on the security and privacy concerns relating to social networking. While I was putting it together, I ended up with some miscellaneous information that pertains to security/privacy in general, for example: the emerging ATM skimming (mainly for our European employees), a reminder that email is not private, malware/drive-by in popular search results, etc. Since these topics don't directly relate to the subject I've been asked to address, I've ended up with a section titled 'While I have you...' I'm going to have the mandatory attention of every employee and I thought it would be a great opportunity to give advice on security/privacy issues across the board. As it's an opportunity that one seldom gets, I certainly want to utilize it fullly. If you had the attention of an entire company with employees in the US, UK, Asia, and Australia, what security / privacy advice would you give?"

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