Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Scientists make things float and move in space using the Force (of sound waves)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Looking at this video, it seems like scientists at the University of Tokyo have mastered the Force and they're now able to make things levitate and move in space. But magic this is not, young Skywalker—it's the first time that anyone has achieved such a feat using sound waves. And, given enough energy, they can take an space fighter out of a swamp if they wanted to.

Submission + - Google's New Social Networking Patent is Truly Comical

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: GeekWire reports on Google's just-granted patent on creating and sharing social network status updates in the form of comic strips, a la Bitstrips. Google also envisions an educational role for its new invention, which the search giant has dubbed the Self-Creation of Comic Strips in Social Networks and Other Communications. Google explains, "Aside from humor, such comic strips are also usable for education, for instance in summarizing a real-time conversation between two political leaders as it is happening. By posting such a comic strip on a social network facility such as a social network blog or tweet, others may more readily follow the flow of the conversation than if it had been summarized in plain text." Hey, as the wise Anchorman Ron Burgundy once said, "Instead of giving people the news they need, why not give them the news they want?"

Submission + - Of Her and Humanoids: The Year in Robotics (popsci.com)

Submitted by malachiorion
malachiorion writes: From Google's emergence as a robotics giant to Gypsy Danger's emergence as a giant robot (we can root for), here's my attempt (for Popular Science) to round up the biggest trends in robotics in 2013. Comments are enabled—they usually aren't, on Pop Sci's site—to point out all the stuff that's more important than my picks.

Submission + - New York Investigators Obtain Fraudulent Ballots 97 Percent of Time (nationalreview.com) 8

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: National Review reports, "New York City’s Department of Investigation (DOI) has just shown how easy it is to commit voter fraud that is almost undetectable. Its undercover agents were able to obtain ballots for city elections a total of 61 times — 39 times using the names of dead people, 14 times using the names of incarcerated felons, and eight times using the names of non-residents. On only two occasions, or about 3 percent of the time, were the agents stopped by polling-place officials. In one of the two cases, an investigator was stopped only because the felon he was trying to vote in the name of was the son of the election official he was dealing with. Ballot security in checking birth dates or signatures was so sloppy that young undercover agents were able to vote using the name of someone three times their age who had died. As the New York Post reports: “A 24-year female was able to access the ballot at a Manhattan poll site in November under the name of a deceased female who was born in 1923 and died in April 25, 2012 — and would have been 89 on Election Day.” All of the agents who got ballots wrote in the names of fictitious candidates so as not to actually influence election outcomes."

Comment Re:They Should Lose Public Protection (Score 1) 225

by tomhath (#45830513) Attached to: Public Domain Day 2014

The entire purpose of copyright was to serve as an incentive for creators to add to the public wealth of knowledge and art. It was mutually beneficial: they get public protection for their work, and the public receives high quality art.

The primary purpose of copyright was to ensure that the creators could profit from their work for a reasonable length of time, then the work would enter the public domain so others can use or extend it. I agree that current copyright laws don't serve that purpose very well; the concept needs to be modernized to accommodate corporations which can exist for hundreds of years as well as individuals. More like trademark than copyright.

Submission + - Britain's Costliest Mistake? (theregister.co.uk) 2

Submitted by RoccamOccam
RoccamOccam writes: Five years after UK passage of the 2008 Climate Change Act, the chief proponent of the act, Nick Stern, has responded to "A Review of the Stern Review". The "Stern Review" was a massive economic assessment that helped convince Parliament that climate mitigation measures would be worth the cost.

The result was quite possibly the most expensive legislation ever passed by Parliament. However, it appears that Stern’s analysis may have been deeply flawed.

Comment Re:Clearly losing money? (Score 2) 193

A good example of what you refer to is known as Donationware, basically an honor system where you get the content free and legal, but you are also politely asked to pay what you think it's worth to the author or donate to a worthy cause.

It's a nice Utopian solution to distributing IP. But as far as I know there have only been a few content producers who have been able to make a living off it, and even they don't seem to stay at it for long.

Submission + - Mars Express Orbiter Buzzes Martian Moon Phobos (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: On Sunday, at 5:17 p.m. GMT (12:17 p.m. EST), Europe’s Mars Express orbiter successfully completed a daring low-pass of Mars’ largest moon Phobos. In an effort to precisely measure the gravitational field of the moon, the 10 year-old mission was sent on a trajectory that took it only 45 kilometers (28 miles) from the dusty surface, the closest any spacecraft has ever come to the natural satellite.

Submission + - Feds announce test sites for drone aircraft (ap.org) 1

Submitted by SpaceGhost
SpaceGhost writes: The Associated Press reports "The Federal Aviation Administration announced six states on Monday that will develop test sites for drones, a critical next step for the march of the unmanned aircraft into U.S. skies". The sites will be in Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas and Virginia. They quote Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx saying "These test sites will give us valuable information about how best to ensure the safe introduction of this advanced technology into our nation's skies". This is a first step to allowing commercial drone use.

Submission + - This is what it's like to be at war with your body (medium.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The compulsion to be free of a limb is no imaginary illness. The feelings the condition generates are extraordinarily powerful — so strong that sufferers often seek out the most radical of treatments, and a few unorthodox surgeons risk their reputations to assist.

Now we may know why: the condition's deep neurological roots are being unearthed, with startling implications for sufferers, the medical profession and our own understanding of ourselves. Anil Ananthaswamy delves into the science and accompanies an underground group of sufferers who travel across the world to get the illicit surgery they crave.

Comment You mean like CBS News? (Score 5, Informative) 181

by tomhath (#45818761) Attached to: The Rise of Hoax News
When Dan Rather replaced a story criticizing the war in Iraq with an even better story criticizing George Bush just two months before the 2004 elections he was so excited with the documents that he overlooked what everyone saw as obvious forgeries. He later stated that even though the documents were clearly fake he was sure that the story based on them was true.

Submission + - U.S. requirement for software dev certification raises questions (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: U.S. government contracts often require bidders to have achieved some level of Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) level. CMMI arose some 25 years ago via the backing of the Department of Defense and the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. It operated as a federally funded research and development center until a year ago, when CMMI's product responsibility was shifted to a private, profit-making LLC, the CMMI Institute. The Institute is now owned by Carnegie Mellon. Given that the CMMI Institute is now a self-supporting firm, any requirement that companies be certified by it — and spend the money needed to do so — raises a natural question. "Why is the government mandating that you support a for-profit company?" said Henry Friedman, the CEO of IR Technologies, a company that develops logistics defense related software and uses CMMI. The value of a certification is subject to debate. To what extent does a CMMI certification determine a successful project outcome? CGI Federal, the lead contractor at Healthcare.gov, is a veritable black belt in software development. In 2012, it achieved the highest possible Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) level for development certification, only the 10th company in the U.S. to do so.

Comment Look at the comments (Score 2) 165

by tomhath (#45814589) Attached to: Not All Bugs Are Random
A study by the company I worked for a few years ago only found one thing that correlated with the number of bugs - the number of comments. It wasn't so much that the algorithm was complicated and needed explanation; more often it was just bad programmers tossing in a bunch of commented out print statements and comments that didn't accurately describe what the code was doing.

Slashdot Top Deals

FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer. -- A.J. Perlis

Close