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Comment Re:Android does have a C/C++ (Score 1) 90

by fraktus (#34669434) Attached to: VLC For Android May Arrive In Early 2011
What about debugging C++ code with the NDK?
I found that very painful with the previous version of the NDK. I am sure the guys from VLC tried to run their code since a long time but found it not easy. I got some openGL code running with it but when I started to have problems and needed to debug my app it was too painful...

Submission + - Vatican Warns Against 'Excessive Zeal' for IP (arstechnica.com) 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Vatican has written an encyclical warning that 'excessive zeal' for IP rights is harmful. They're not against IP per se, but they are concerned with the problems caused by things like drug patents, which leave the citizens of poor countries unable to afford medicine. In essence, they're arguing that a 'fair regime of intellectual property rights should aim toward the good of all' and that current regimes fall short.
Botnet

Submission + - Bredolab botnet taken down (www.om.nl)

Submitted by sciencewatcher
sciencewatcher writes: The High Tech Crime Team (THTC) of the Dutch Crime Squad today announced the takedown of a dangerous botnet. The botnet had infected at least 30 million computers worldwide. The botnet was part of the Bredolab network, used by cybercriminals to distribute malware to unsuspecting users’ computers. Users of computers with viruses from this network will receive a notice of at the time of next login with information on the degree of infection. They will receive helpful advice on removing the viruses from their system.

Comment Re:Testimony (Score 1) 131

by fraktus (#33920276) Attached to: Benoit Mandelbrot Dies At 85
When I interview developers I show then a shader that draws the Mandelbrot fractal and I ask them what language do you think is this code written and of course what do you think is going to be displayed by this so small code loop, this is leading me to very interesting discussion with the candidate!

Comment The real issue behind this, how to license... (Score 1) 85

by fraktus (#30502786) Attached to: Vimeo Sued For Audio Infringement
To me the real problem of this post is that it's just so difficult to find music to use on your video work.

There should be a way to buy, on a reasonable way, the right to add some music to my holiday videos...

There are a few initiatives out there such as Jamendo but we should be able to license more music to be included in home brewed videos... And guess what the industry could even make some profit from that :-)

Comment Re:Positive move? (Score 3, Informative) 297

by fraktus (#29081591) Attached to: GPL Case Against Danish Satellite Provider
In europe we have a lot of sat receivers built around Linux. I personally use a Dreambox. There are many variations on the distributions with different add ons and themes for interface. My favorite is the Gemini. The ecosystem is very well and alive and is centered around many forums where people exchange their experience

I wonder if this provider uses something based on the Dreambox.

The providers very often don't support using those Linux receiver because they have more options then the locked down proprietary receiver. By example my setup has a rotor so that I can pick many positions and different providers. Another cool thing is that you can stream on your local network the video and see it with VLC on any computer in your home, something that proprietary boxes never allow...

The problem is that there are several Chinese clones because if the software is GPL the hardware is not open sourced.
Businesses

Submission + - New Online Auction Website is Hyper-Addictive

Submitted by zacronos
zacronos writes: A new online auction website called Swoopo.com has figured out a better way to part fools from their money. According to Mark Gimein at thebigmoney.com, Swoopo.com 'fiendishly plays on every irrational impulse buyers have to draw them in to what might be the crack cocaine of online shopping sites'. Unlike eBay, Swoopo.com owns the items being sold via auction. The final prices themselves look like great deals, for example a MacBook Pro for $35.86. The catch is that every bid costs $.60, and in a standard auction each bid can only raise the price by $.12, though in a 'penny auction' the raise is a mere $.01. The result is that Swoopo.com makes far more money on bid fees than on the purchase price of the item, making their auctions behave in some ways more like lotteries, while keeping the addictive properties of each. The article has a full analysis.
Robotics

Submission + - Aussie-made virtual humans better than real staff?

Submitted by
MadMatt
MadMatt writes: "Always on time, never hungover, able to speak many languages and happy to work day and night, Australian designed virtual humans — CyberTwins — are serving as advanced customer support robots for organisations like NASA, AMP and National Australia Bank. Communicating through instant messaging, or voice recognition with third party plug-ins, the Web-based AI constructs are capable of interacting with thousands of clients a second, 24/7, with higher accuracy, up-sell rates and customer satisfaction levels than real people."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Google Announces ChromeOS

Submitted by Lorien_the_first_one
Lorien_the_first_one writes: Looks like Google has announced their own operating system, ChromeOS. Larry Dignan offers coverage at ZDNet for your perusal: "Google is planning to launch lightweight operating system dubbed the Chrome OS that'll target netbooks and Web apps. With the move--clearly targeted at Microsoft--Google's software stack has come into sharp focus in just the last 24 hours. It should be noted, however, that Google's stack is still being formed."

Larry offers some very interesting analysis of the implications as well as a forecast for the market and the impact ChromeOS could have on other players in the operating system market.
Security

Submission + - SPAM: Facebook under fire over privacy settings

Submitted by
ZeeNews
ZeeNews writes: "The latest news for all social media lovers is that the Popular social networking site Facebook is being criticised for planned changes to its privacy settings.

The Facebook officials plan to "simplify" the process so users only have to set them once, instead of for each individual feature.

The change will help people share more information with one another.

However, critics insist that the new settings can persuade members to share too many personal details — their date of birth for example.

"I'm a little bit worried about the settings recommended by Facebook because as far as I can see it's actually sharing quite a lot of information with quite a few people," the BBC quoted Tom Royal, from Computeractive magazine as saying.

"That's not something we'd advise people to do. We'd very much recommend people choose the ''limited'' option instead.

"For example, just your date of birth can be a security question for lots of internet applications," he added.

Meanwhile, Facebook execs say that the ''one size fits all'' approach will make things more straightforward for users.

"The effect of more and more settings has made controlling privacy on Facebook too complicated," said site's chief privacy officer Chris Kelly.

"It's also phasing out regional networks like London and Manchester because Kelly says "they don't adequately reflect a world where people choose the audience they want to share with," he added."
Link to Original Source

Comment Procedural worlds from the creator of Bryce. (Score 2, Interesting) 160

by fraktus (#25818495) Attached to: The Importance of Procedural Content Generation In Games
Amazing things can be done today with mathematics.

Take a look to this http://www.uisoftware.com/Voyager/

Those are completely procedural worlds from the creator of Bryce.
It's based on Artmatics that can be used to generate fantastic textures and then there is a ray tracer that can use ray casting to create the landscape.
The latest move of Eric Wenger was to use that to generate procedural cities and the result to me is fantastic.

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