versiondub - Slashdot User

"Road Trains" Ready To Roll 318

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday November 09, 2009 @01:48PM from the new-possibilities-in-war-driving dept.

clickclickdrone writes to mention that "road trains," a system linking vehicles together via wireless sensors, could soon be rolled out in Europe. The system is designed primarily for cutting fuel consumption, travel time, and congestion. "Funded under the European Commission's Framework 7 research plan, Sartre (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) is aimed at commuters in cars who travel long distances to work every day but will also look at ways to involve commercial vehicles. Tom Robinson, project co-ordinator at engineering firm Ricardo, said the idea was to use off-the-shelf components to make it possible for cars, buses and trucks to join the road train."

Comment ummm (Score 1) 191

by versiondub on Thursday January 29, 2009 @01:54PM (#26655831) Attached to: Smart Robot Capable of Hunting For Its Own "Food"

01100010 01110010 01100001 01101001 01101110 01110011

Warner Music Pulls Videos Off YouTube 237

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday December 21, 2008 @02:13PM from the taking-their-toys-and-going-home dept.

iammani writes with this excerpt from Reuters: "Warner Music Group ordered YouTube on Saturday to remove all music videos by its artists from the popular online video-sharing site after contract negotiations broke down. ... The talks fell apart early on Saturday because Warner wants a bigger share of the huge revenue potential of YouTube's massive visitor traffic. There were no reports on what Warner was seeking. 'We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide,' Warner said in a statement." Warner's deal with YouTube to make those videos available came just prior to YouTube's acquisition by Google.

Plasma Plants Vaporize Trash While Creating Energy 618

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday November 13, 2008 @02:14AM from the Mr.-Fusion dept.

Jason Sahler writes "Recently St. Lucie County in Florida announced that it has teamed up with Geoplasma to develop the United States' first plasma gasification plant. The plant will use super-hot 10,000 degree Fahrenheit plasma to effectively vaporize 1,500 tons of trash each day, which in turn spins turbines to generate 60MW of electricity — enough to power 50,000 homes!"

Philosophy and Computer Science Revisited 204

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday November 10, 2008 @05:03PM from the philosophy-goes-nicely-with-many-things dept.

Soren Kierkegaard writes "While reading the two-and-a-half-year-old Slashdot post on Does Philosophy have a role in Computer Science, it occurred to me that over these past few years Philosophy has a more prominent role in Computer Science then ever before. Cognitive Science and Computer Ethics are more established disciplines in universities, and the numbers of philosophy graduates double majoring in computer science and information systems are climbing. Is a merger of Philosophy, a discipline steeped in history and intelligent thought, and Computer Science, a discipline that looks to the future, the best of both worlds?"

Cell Phone For the Blind? 141

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday September 07, 2008 @10:22AM from the can-you-see-me-now? dept.

brigc writes "Here's one that's got me stumped. A friend of mine who is blind asked me for help tracking down a cell phone for him. He's interested in a flip phone with well-defined separations between the keys, and as much voice control as possible. Battery life is the only other thing he mentioned. Preferably something that would work on AT&T's network in the US. We spent part of the afternoon in a local AT&T store checking out all the flip phones they had and didn't find one he really loved. Anyone have any ideas?" There was a story some months back about a phone that would read to you by interpreting pictures from the built-in camera, but it doesn't have much information about usability. I'm sure it'd be handy to have some sort of text-to-speech option for common cell phone features like caller ID and text messaging, or even just reading menu names.

Nukes Not the Best Way To Stop Asteroids, Says Apollo Astronaut 367

Posted by timothy on Sunday July 27, 2008 @07:40PM from the thin-coating-of-flubber dept.

MajorTom writes "Right now, we are not tracking many of the asteroids that could destroy earth. But within the next decade, new telescopes will make that possible, and leave us with the tough decision of what to do about objects with an alarming chance of hitting our planet. Last year, NASA said that the best option is to nuke them. This week, Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, explained that there are far better options, and he has started an organization to prove that they can work."

Submission + - Patent decisions at risk (nytimes.com)

Submitted by diGitalRchitect on Tuesday May 06, 2008 @11:07AM

diGitalRchitect writes: The New York Times is reporting on a legislative mistake that could undo several years worth of patent decisions. It appears that judges appointed since the year 2000 may not be constitutionally appointed.

The problem ... at least arguably invalidates every decision of the patent court decided by a three-judge panel that included at least one judge appointed after March 2000.

Flowers' Smell Not Traveling As Far 113

Posted by kdawson on Sunday April 13, 2008 @08:05AM from the bloom-is-off-the-rose dept.

Ant writes in to note a study indicating that, because of air pollution, the smell of flowers is not wafting as far as it once did. Pollutants from power plants and automobiles destroy flowers' aromas, the study suggests: "The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment, such as in the 1800s, could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 meters; but in today's polluted environment downwind of major cities, they may travel only 200 to 300 meters." The finding could help explain why some pollinators, particularly bees, are declining in certain parts of the world.

Instant Messaging For Introverts 311

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 07, 2008 @08:02AM from the jung-nailed-it-before-meyers-and-briggs dept.

adamengst tips an article up on TidBITS that explores the persistent reluctance of many nerds to embrace fully new communications media such as IM and Twitter. In this thoughtful article Joe Kissell explores, from the inside, the mind of the introvert and how this personality style often struggles with new "always-on" media. The result is a sometimes exasperated incomprehension on the part of the more extroverted. Well worth a read.

Can Architects Save Libraries from the Internet? 270

Posted by Zonk on Sunday March 02, 2008 @06:13PM from the it-would-be-kind-of-awesome-to-live-in-a-library dept.

theodp writes "Slate has an interesting photo essay exploring the question of how to build a public library in the age of Google, Wikipedia, and Kindle. The grand old reading rooms and stacks of past civic monuments are giving way to a new library-as-urban-hangout concept, as evidenced by Seattle's Starbucks-meets-mega-bookstore central library and Salt Lake City's shop-lined education mall. Without some dramatic changes, The Extinction Timeline predicts libraries will R.I.P. in 2019."

Comment Re: Properly Served? (Score 1) 70

by versiondub on Saturday March 01, 2008 @12:38AM (#22608044) Attached to: Wikileaks Gets Domain Back, Injunction Dissolved

You grossly overestimate the US court system's ability to take the things you list into consideration when the plaintiff cites some actual legal precedent and sends lawyers to court (and the defense does not, for in this case obvious reasons). the US legal system is built on adversarial mediation; hence the court is biased towards a form of mediation in which both parties are represented. It's not the judge's job to consider the moral/legal implications of a particular judgement, it's the job of the respective plaintiff/defendant's legal representative(s). The judge here is not guilty of any sort of negligence it's the precedent that he must obey. If it is anyone's job to ensure that censorship like this does not happen again. This responsibility lies on the shoulders of those concerned citizens (you, me, slashdot, and wider nerd-dom) who must translate their political will into votes for those presidential candidates and congresspersons who will work towards the repeal of the sort of predatory and fascistic legal policies implemented during the reign of George II.

Ask the Air Force Cyber Command General About War in Cyberspace 315

Posted by Roblimo on Friday February 29, 2008 @02:44PM from the play-the-ultimate-MMORPG dept.

We ran an article about the new Air Force Cyber Command and its recruiting efforts on February 13, 2008. Now Major General William Lord, who is in charge of this effort, has agreed to answer Slashdot users' questions. If you're thinking about joining up -- or just curious -- this is a golden opportunity to learn how our military is changing its command structure and recruiting efforts to deal with "cyberspace as a warfighting domain." Usual Slashdot interview rules apply.

Best Presidential Candidate, Republicans 1481

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday February 04, 2008 @10:27AM from the since-you-can't-build-robo-reagan dept.

A few days ago we posted a story for you to discuss the best presidential candidates for Super Tuesday, but I figured it would be an interesting idea to try that again, but split the discussion into 2 halves. This is the Republican half — please only discuss the Republican candidates in this story. Huckabee, McCain, and Romney only.

Edward Tufte Weighs In on Apple's iPhone 170

Posted by Zonk on Thursday January 24, 2008 @05:00PM from the word-from-on-high dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Via Daring Fireball, a post from design guru Edward Tufte's site discusses his views on the interface used by the Apple iPhone. The post includes a video presentation by Tufte on the subject of video resolution on the phone. His argument is primarily that while the iPhone does a lot of things very well, Apple hasn't quite realized the platform's full potential by making screen real estate all it could be. "

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