code shady - Slashdot User

Submission + - No Intel Turbo Memory for desktops until next year

Submitted by

Might E Mouse

on Thursday June 07, 2007 @12:34PM

Might E Mouse writes: "While Intel's 3-series chipsets support Robson/Turbo Memory, the general consensus amongst motherboard manufacturers at Computex is that we're not going to see the technology on the desktop until next year at the earliest. Working modules are on display at the show, but they're not going to be available to buy for a while..."

Submission + - 2012 Olympic Ads cause epileptic siezures

Submitted by monkeyboythom on Thursday June 07, 2007 @12:34PM

monkeyboythom writes: The BBC reports, "The media regulator, Ofcom, has begun an investigation into claims that TV footage promoting the London 2012 Olympics has triggered epileptic seizures." In what may have been a rush to promote the Olympics, the Epilepsy Action said the potential effects should have been identified earlier. The spokesperson for the nonprofit Epilepsy Action, uhm, goes by the name, Simon Wigglesworth. No, I am not snickering.

Massive Cave Found on Mars 310

Posted by Zonk on Thursday June 07, 2007 @12:32PM from the anybody-home dept.

mrcgran writes "Space.com is reporting a very deep hole found on Mars: 'The geological oddity measures some 330 feet (100 meters) across and is located on an otherwise bright dusty lava plain to the northeast of Arsia Mons, one of the four giant Tharsis volcanoes on the red planet. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) used its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument to draw a bead on the apparent deep hole — a feature that may cause more scientists to ponder about potential subsurface biology on Mars. Because the spot lacks a raised rim or tossed out material called ejecta, researchers have ruled out the pit being an impact crater. No walls or other details can be seen inside the hole, and so any possible walls might be perfectly vertical and extremely dark or — more likely — overhanging.' The original image and its cutout at full resolution can be found in the HiRISE site."

Submission + - Camino 1.5 Released

Submitted by lpangelrob on Thursday June 07, 2007 @12:22PM

lpangelrob writes: Camino, the open-source Cocoa-based web browser, has released version 1.5 after a year of work. New features include an upgrade to the Gecko 1.8.1 rendering engine, implementation of OS X spellcheck for form fields, session saving, an improved pop-up blocker, auto RSS feed detection and improved tab preferences.

The main goal of the Camino browser is to combine useful services available only to OS X users, such as Address Book, Keychain, and Bonjour, with the Gecko rendering engine. Camino 1.5 requires OS X 10.3 to run.

Evidence for Console Price Cuts 150

Posted by Zonk on Thursday June 07, 2007 @12:13PM from the encheapening-of-consumer-goods dept.

Next Generation offers up an exhaustive analysis of previous console generation price cuts, and concludes that we are definitely due for some cheaper next-gen action sometime in the near future. The piece includes charts of lowering system prices, as well as a breakdown of how many consoles sold at various price tiers. "Certainly we can use history as a guide, but there are limits to its use for prognostication. The price drops this generation may happen in ways entirely different from what has been suggested above. Maybe the $300 console this generation will be what the $200 console was last generation. Maybe Microsoft will forge ahead with its current price structure until after Halo 3 has come and gone. Maybe Sony will bless the PlayStation 3 with a 33% price drop sometime this year. And maybe Nintendo will give the Wii a small price drop by removing Wii Sports from the package. Those could happen, but don't bet on it."

Submission + - Gamer sues gold farmers

Submitted by navygeek on Thursday June 07, 2007 @12:09PM

navygeek writes: Tired of contending with gold farmers in Blizzard's online sensation, World of Warcraft, gamer Antonio Hernadez has filed a class-action lawsuit against gold farming outfit IGE.

The attorney representing Hernandez in the case, Richard Newsome, told The Escapist, "Guys like Tony [Hernandez, the plaintiff] have paid their $15 for some entertainment, and IGE is polluting that entertainment. It's kind of like, if someone pays for a ticket to go see a movie, and if someone else comes in behind them and kicks their seat, you can get them to stop doing that."
Details on the lawsuit may be found at Gamespot and The Escapist. The actual complaint can be found here, PDF warning.

Submission + - Venter institute claims patent on synthetic life

Submitted by

jimsnail

on Thursday June 07, 2007 @12:00PM

jimsnail writes: "Craig venter and his buddy's at the starship venterprise are boldly going into new territory again — seeking a broad patent that would give them ownership of a "free living organism that can grow and replicate" constructed entirely from synthetic DNA... World Science reports on it here : First patent claimed on man-made life form, and challenged . ETC Group are challenging it here and suggest this new 'syn' organism should have a name -they propose 'Synthia'. better suggestions?"

Submission + - Eve Online to Elect Player Oversight Group

Submitted by StCredZero on Thursday June 07, 2007 @11:56AM

StCredZero writes: From the article: ...CCP plans the radical step of opening itself up to independent oversight: nine player-overseers who will act as ombudsmen for the game's subscribers. The company says it will hold the elections in the fall.

Is this for real, or is it just democratic window dressing? Time will tell. (I hope the latter. It's a great game!)

Submission + - Patent reform on the horizon?

Submitted by Reivec on Thursday June 07, 2007 @11:51AM

Reivec writes: U.S. patent law, already shaken up by a Supreme Court ruling this spring, is facing its biggest overhaul in 50 years, amid a legislative battle that pits drug companies against some major players in the financial and high-tech sectors.

The battle's next round is in the Senate, where a committee is set today to consider legislation backed by Democratic and Republican leaders that would make patents harder to get and easier to challenge. It would also reduce penalties for violating them.

Submission + - Gamecock To Publisher Dementium: The Ward

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Thursday June 07, 2007 @11:47AM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Developers Renegade Kid have announced that Gamecock Media will publish the company's upcoming survival horror title, Dementium: The Ward, due for release on Nintendo DS. "Renegade Kid is looking to move above and beyond what most games are attempting on the DS, and with Gamecock we've found a publisher who is supportive, developer friendly, and willing to give us the freedom to create the game we want", enthused Jools Watsham, creative director at Renegade Kid. Renegade Kid were formed earlier this year, and house a team which have between them worked on many titles including Area 51, Stubbs the Zombie, NBA Jam and LeMans 24 Hours."

Submission + - Microsoft and LG Electronics sign Linux covenant .

Submitted by

rs232

on Thursday June 07, 2007 @11:43AM

rs232 writes: ""Microsoft Wednesday inked another cross-licensing patent agreement, this time with South Korea's LG Electronics, covering the company's Linux-based embedded devices"

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,132662-c,company news/article.html"

Submission + - Online Poker Pwned

Submitted by sanimalp on Thursday June 07, 2007 @11:27AM

sanimalp writes: I just came across a fairly old article (cir. 1999) that details the breaking down of an online poker site's shuffling algorithm. The article details how an off-by-one error combined with an algorithm which doesn't return an even distribution of shuffled decks allows the authors to determine the ordering of the cards. For the nostalgic among us, the article provides a time capsule in which the carefree days of online gambling were unaffected by morality laws.

Submission + - Violent Computer Games or Vision And Psychosis?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07, 2007 @11:24AM

An anonymous reader writes: Really interested article; "There has been much said about violence connected to video game play and apparent addiction for this play. The problem is not game content, computers, or the Internet. In the 1960's designers, engineers, and human factors scientists accidentally found a 'conflict in the physiology of sight' when it caused mental breaks for office workers. The cubicle was designed to deal with the problem and the mental breaks stopped. Today computers placed in homes, two person dorm rooms, and small business offices without Cubicle Level Protection can create the circumstances of those 1960's prototype workstations." Read the whole thing.

Submission + - Reports emerge of possible FireWire bug in Fedora7

Submitted by

lisah

on Thursday June 07, 2007 @11:15AM

lisah writes: "Although Fedora 7 is getting generally good reviews, a possible problem in the FireWire stack has cropped up for some users. There appears to be a reproducible bug that causes external FireWire drive access issues and system lockup. Simply removing the drive seems to correct the problem but, of course, that's not really a long-term solution. From the article,'After disabling desktop effects, I found that I couldn't access my external FireWire drive, and I was receiving error messages when I attempted to reconnect it. I thought the problem might have been a dying drive — until I connected the drive to my Ubuntu desktop and was able to access it with no problem. Since removing the drive, I've had no further problems with Fedora, other than a couple of Firefox crashes.'"

Submission + - U.S. Panel Is Said to Alter Finding on Voter fraud

Submitted by

gollum123

on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @10:43PM

gollum123 writes: "The Nytimes reports that A federal panel responsible for conducting election research played down the findings of experts who concluded last year that there was little voter fraud around the nation ( http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/washington/11vot ers.html?hp ). Instead, the panel, the Election Assistance Commission, issued a report that said the pervasiveness of fraud was open to debate. The revised version echoes complaints made by Republican politicians, who have long suggested that voter fraud is widespread and justifies the voter identification laws that have been passed in at least two dozen states. Democrats say the threat is overstated and have opposed voter identification laws, which they say disenfranchise the poor, members of minority groups and the elderly, who are less likely to have photo IDs and are more likely to be Democrats. And two weeks ago, the panel faced criticism for refusing to release another report it commissioned concerning voter identification laws. That report, which was released after intense pressure from Congress, found that voter identification laws designed to fight fraud can reduce turnout, particularly among members of minorities. In releasing that report, which was conducted by a different set of scholars, the commission declined to endorse its findings, citing methodological concerns."

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