gleman - Slashdot User

Submission + - FreeBSD 10 To Use Clang, Deprecate GCC (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 12, 2012 @08:09PM

An anonymous reader writes: Shared in last quarter's FreeBSD status report are developer plans to have LLVM/Clang become the default compiler and to deprecate GCC. Clang can now build most packages and suit well for their BSD needs. They also plan to have a full BSD-licensed C++11 stack in FreeBSD 10.

Submission + - The FIBIAC - a 3D printed electromechanical computer (chrisfenton.com)

Submitted by Brietech on Saturday May 12, 2012 @05:06PM

Brietech writes: "Behold the FIBIAC! Its loud! It computes! It uses actual punch cards!" The FIBIAC is a simple, stepper-motor based, (mostly) 3D-printed electromechanical computer. The program is stored on a loop of paper punch-cards, and the machine uses three, 3-digit electromechanical counters for storage (which could be expanded to support more complicated programs) Watch it in action computing the Fibonacci sequence, or jump on Thingiverse and build your own!

Submission + - Bitcoinica breach nets hackers $87,000 in Bitcoin (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by dynamo52 on Saturday May 12, 2012 @03:41PM

dynamo52 writes: More than $87,000 worth of the virtual currency known as Bitcoin was stolen after online bandits penetrated servers belonging to Bitcoinica, prompting its operators to temporarily shutter the trading platform to contain the damage.

Friday's theft came after hackers accessed Bitcoinica's production servers and depleted its online wallet of 18,547 BTC, as individual Bitcoin units are called, company officials said in a blog post published on Friday. It said the heist affected only a small fraction of Bitcoinica's overall bitcoin deposits and that all withdrawal requests will be honored once the platform reopens.

Submission + - PSA: Dropbox Dropquest begins right now! (engadget.com)

Submitted by

TheGift73

on Saturday May 12, 2012 @01:40PM

TheGift73 writes: "Big Dropbox fan are you? Got plans for the weekend? Cancel 'em. Dropquest 2012 begins right now. If you're unfamiliar — it's the storage company's internet scavenger hunt that involves a series of puzzles, challenges and, erm, origami. If you complete the game, you'll get 1GB of extra space for free, but if you come in first place, you'll get 100GB free for your entire life, while 10 second-placers get 20GB for life and so on. You're not allowed to ask for help on the company's support forum (you'll get disqualified) and you're competing against at least half a million other fans of the service, but if that hasn't daunted you then head on down to the source link and get puzzling!"

Journal Journal: For those who haven't seen it - /. for sale 10

Journal by tqft on Saturday May 12, 2012 @02:44AM

http://investors.geek.net/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=672629
"Geeknet Announces Plans to Conduct Review of Strategic Alternatives for Online Media Business

Submission + - At&t to launch WIFI Commercials (neowin.net)

Submitted by butilikethecookie on Friday April 06, 2012 @05:38PM

butilikethecookie writes: If you are a frequent traveler with a laptop, tablet or even a smartphone, you are likely always on the lookout for a way to get some free WiFi access. More often than not, however, you are forced to pay a fee to link up to a solid WiFi connection and sometimes those prices can be expensive.

Now AT&T has confirmed it will begin an experiment that's designed to give users a free WiFi connection on their network, but as usual there's a catch. GigaOM reports that the service will involve the user watching a 30 second video ad for every 40 minutes he or she is connected to the WiFi network.

The experiment is slated to launch in September at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. While the service has been confirmed for laptop users, there's no word if tablet or smartphone owners will be able to access it as well.

Submission + - Just how big are porn websites?

Submitted by xmas2003 on Friday April 06, 2012 @04:59PM

xmas2003 writes: ExtremeTech has an interesting piece about how big are porn websites. They get some actual traffic/bandwidth data from YouPorn.Com (only NSFW link here) which I'm sure has plenty of naked chicks and Boobies in their 100 Terabyte archive of porn. Every day, they handle over 100 million page views and almost a Petabyte of data transfer — one metric says this is about 10x of Slashdot.

While Sebastian Anthony has some fun with the subject matter — "While it's difficult domain to penetrate ... hard numbers are few and far between" — he plays it straight and provides some interesting facts about some of the most trafficked parts of the internet which present some real scalability challenges (PPT preso) using software such as Redis & Nginx. It's certainly a complicated industry as outlined in the Geek-Kings of Smut.

Submission + - Chinese Kid Sells His Kidney for an iPad and iPhone, Now Needs A Transplant (nytimes.com)

Submitted by assertation on Friday April 06, 2012 @03:46PM

assertation writes: "Though you might say you'd give your left arm for an iPad, you only mean it figuratively. But one Chinese teen actually sold his kidney to make enough money to buy the Apple tablet and an iPhone. Today, Wang suffers from renal deficiency, meaning his kidneys can no longer filter out toxins from his blood. Doctors say he's going to need a transplant of his own"

Submission + - Will Kickstarter Launch A Gaming Renaissance? (itworld.com)

Submitted by

jfruh

on Friday April 06, 2012 @02:21PM

jfruh writes: "Most gamers probably know that legendary game designer Tim Schafer turned to Kickstarter to help raise money a new adventure game; aiming for $400,000, he managed to raise more than $3 million. But you might not know that a host of other game projects are doing well on the crowdfunding site, with creators ranging from industry famous to unknown. By bypassing corporate funding and appealing directly to their audience, these developers are sparking a renaissance in quirky, personal games that probably wouldn't be backed by a big label looking for a sure-fire hit."

Submission + - ZiiLABS Unveils 100-core ZMS-40 Media Processor (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:52AM

MojoKid writes: "ZiiLABS, a media processor and platforms company that's also a wholly-owned subsidiary of Creative Technology, has just unveiled a 100-core ZMS-40 StemCell Media processor optimized for Android. The ZMS-40 combines 96 of ZiiLABS' StemCell media processing cores with four 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A9 CPUs to deliver multi-tasking application and media processing performance. The ZMS-40 can deliver media capabilities to handheld devices such as tablets, including ultra-high-resolution H.264 HP decoding of up to 3840x1080 for true 1080p 3D stereo, 2560x1600 (WQXGA) display resolution support, higher-quality video encoding and immersive OpenGL ES graphics and future support for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)."

Submission + - US 'space warplane' spying on Chinese spacelab (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by PolygamousRanchKid on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:43AM

PolygamousRanchKid writes: The US Air Force's second mysterious mini-space shuttle, the X-37B, could be spying on China's space laboratory and the first piece of its space station, Tiangong-1. Amateur space trackers told the British Interplanetary Society publication Spaceflight that the black-funded spaceplane seemed to be orbiting the Earth in tandem with Tiangong_1, or the Heavenly Palace, leading the magazine to speculate that its unknown mission is to spy on it.

First off, the Chinese spacelab wasn't launched until September 2011, some time after the second X-37B hit Earth's orbit. Secondly, you'd have to wonder why it's worth spying on the Tiangong-1. The lab is unmanned for the moment, so all there'd be to study is the technology of the craft and what experiments it's doing. Still, the US is hugely suspicious of China's space endeavours, so it's more than possible that they'd want to get a look at Tiangong-1 just in case it's doing anything unexpected.

Submission + - It's all downhill from 45... (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by beaverdownunder on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:32AM

beaverdownunder writes: The brain's ability to function can start to deteriorate as early as 45, suggests a study in the British Medical Journal.

Submission + - How to write a Skype Bot (dow.ngra.de)

Submitted by

bogomilshopov

on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:05AM

bogomilshopov writes: "The Skype bot needs a bit more work than your average IRC bot because of the proprietary nature of Skype. There is much clicking and downloading of certificate stuff to get you started for example. Also I want to show you how to put the bot into action, so we will go beyond just the bot."

Submission + - NVIDIA Reveals More Kal-El and Windows 8 Details (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Saturday August 13, 2011 @01:36AM

MojoKid writes: "NVIDIA’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang hosted a conference call yesterday to discuss the company’s Q2 earnings for fiscal year 2012. The financial data looks good for NVIDIA, but the always outspoken Jen-Hsun Huang also revealed a few interesting bits of info regarding 28nm production, Kal-El, and Windows 8. With regard to 28nm products, NVIDIA’s CEO said, "We have working silicon” and mentioned that production will be starting soon. He also said, “...it's looking really good, it's looking much, much better than our experience with 40-nanometer." Just to recap, Kal-El is likely going to be the first quad-core mobile processor. The upcoming chip will be capable of outputting 1440P video content. NVIDIA claims it will deliver 5x the performance of Tegra 2 and ship with a 12-core GeForce GPU."

Submission + - Cursos profissionalizantes gratuitos (concursosecursosead.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 12, 2011 @01:16PM

An anonymous reader writes: A FGV disponibiliza cursos gratuitos pelo site nas áreas de sustentabilidade, metodologia, cursos para professores de ensino médio e outros em diversas áreas de conhecimento

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