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Iphone

Apple Releases IOS 4.3 Beta To Developers 101

Posted by samzenpus from the taking-it-for-a-test-drive dept.
m2pc writes "Apple has just released iOS 4.3 beta to developers. New features include: Developer access to AirPlay API, Four and Five-finger gestures, and the return of the hardware orientation lock for iPad, a feature that upset many when Apple suddenly removed this feature with no software option to re-enable it. Also interesting to note is the lack of mention of the Mobile Hotspot feature rumored to be included in 4.3 for all iOS devices by the Verizon announcement yesterday."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Kinect reverse engineered (adafruit.com)

Submitted by MrClever
MrClever writes: It was bound to happen eventually but within just hours of the European launch of the Microsoft Kinect, Hector Martin not only wrote a Linux driver for it, but released the source code too. In doing so he scooped the bounty from adafruit industries (link also has video of code in action) who also kicked some coin toward the EFF too. Congratulations Hector!
Graphics

Submission + - World Record London 80 Gigapixel Photo Released (360cities.net)

Submitted by jeffreyMartin
jeffreyMartin writes: I have spent 3 days shooting, and 6 weeks stitching and editing this 80 gigapixel, fully spherical panoramic photo (made of approximately 8000 photos).

The image reveals the highest-resolution view of any city that has ever been captured. From this vantage point — the top of Centrepoint building in central London, 36 stories up in the air — an astonishing number of landmarks, houses, skyscrapers, shops, offices, and streets are visible. Countless people at street level are observable, as well as thousands of windows, many of which reveal glimpses of life inside.

It is a great showcase of today's technology, in terms of camera sensor resolution, optics, robotics (used to move and trigger the camera), computer speed (I used a 12-core, 192GB RAM fujitsu celsius workstation), panoramic stitching software (what took hours this time, would have taken days to render only last year). The creation of an image of this size and quality was impossible only one year ago. It's the future, and you can zoom in really, really far! I challenge you to not get lost for a few minutes at least

The camera used was an 18-megapixel Canon 550D / T2i SLR. This camera was chosen over the higher megapixel canon 5d mk2 because it has a higher pixel density on the sensor, which is the important factor when making the largest stitched image possible.

We've tried to make the presentation as interesting as possible, espeically for people who might not be familiar with the main landmarks of London — You can open the map or thumbnails and click to go to different landmarks. You can click "take a tour" and sit back to watch yourself fly over the roofs to various random unknown places in the city. In two weeks we will also start a storytelling competition, where users can create a cinematic story, using different zoomed-in portions of the image as a canvas to overlay their text. I'm not sure this has ever been done before so I'm very excited to see how it goes.

There is no Waldo here... But there is an astonishing glimpse of a city that's never been captured quite like this before.
Science

Submission + - Scientists use chaos theory to create new chip (techeye.net)

Submitted by bossanovalithium
bossanovalithium writes: Scientists have developed an alternative to logic gates based on the chaos theory which allows the reconfiguration of chips a billion times a second, giving fascinating prospects for processing.

In a paper published by Arizona State University, researchers announced the development of chaotic patterns used to encode and manipulate inputs in order to produce a desired output, demonstrating on silicon the new logic gate systems named ‘chaogates’.

The researchers took patterns from an infinitely random variety offered by a chaotic system, with a subset of these patterns used to map the system inputs. This process provides a method to exploit nonlinear dynamics to design computing devices with a capacity to reconfigure into a range of different logic gates.
Microsoft

Submission + - Internet Explorer 9 Caught Cheating In SunSpider (digitizor.com) 2

Submitted by dkd903
dkd903 writes: A Mozilla engineer has uncovered something embarrassing for Microsoft – Internet Explorer is cheating in the SunSpider Benchmark. The SunSpider, although developed by Apple, has nowadays become a very popular choice of benchmark for the JavaScript engines of browsers.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft finally certifies an open source web app (technet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has caught up with the fact that open source web-based software exists, today announcing an open source project written in PHP is the first "Certified for Windows" software that (a) follows an OSI-approved license and (b) runs via a webserver rather than operating as a native Windows executable.

The software in question is SilverStripe CMS, free software released under a BSD license, that is used to build and manage websites. Certification entails a third-party performing various tests and audits on the software and giving it the green light.

If other open source projects can follow suit, this will be another step in getting business folk to see that open source is ready for enterprise use. And heck, maybe even a .NET application could now seek to be certified!

Comment What about shared servers? (Score 2, Insightful) 457

by MrClever (#33517440) Attached to: Film Industry Hires Cyber Hitmen To Take Down Pirates
My websites generally sit on shared servers. What if a different customer on the same server as my sites hosts something subject one of these DDoS attacks? Answer: I'm boned!! Yeh great idea geniuses! Like others, if these sort of attacks are now legal, then I've got my hitlist ready to go.

Submission + - Australia's Internet Madness Continues (smh.com.au)

Submitted by MrClever
MrClever writes: Australians would be unable to access the internet without having anti-virus and firewall programs installed and a virus-free machine under a new plan put forward by a year-long parliamentary cyber-crime inquiry.

A prominent cyber-security consultant, Alastair MacGibbon, who is a former director of the AFP's Australian High Tech Crime Centre and eBay's former security chief, has called for the proposal to be taken a step further by forcing ISPs to monitor the security of users' machines and block them from connecting if their browsers, security and operating system software are not up to standard.
Databases

Cassandra and Voldemort Benchmarked 45

Posted by timothy from the rifling-the-file-cabinet dept.
kreide33 writes "Key/Value storage systems are gaining in popularity, much because of features such as easy scalability and automatic replication. However, there are several to choose from and performance is an important deciding factor. This article compares the performance of two of the most well-known projects, Cassandra and Voldemort, using several different mixes of access types, and compares both throughput and latency."
Bug

Submission + - A growing storm for Australia's largest ISP (gray.net.au) 1

Submitted by
MrClever
MrClever writes: "Australia's largest ISP BigPond are currently experiencing the largest outage in living memory. Inital reports from affected subscribers suggest the fallout is covering a large proportion of the eastern seaboard. Having spent 45 minutes on hold the word from Telstra is the problem is "major", there is no estimated time to resolution at this stage, and it affects every ADSL subscriber in NSW and Victoria. However, some reports are suggesting the problem extends north in Queensland."

Comment Some things just aren't meant to fly. (Score 3, Informative) 345

by MrClever (#28246769) Attached to: Analysis Says Planes Might Be Greener Than Trains
Not to mention many forms of freight cannot be carried by air at all, and others have extreme restrictions on the amounts that can be carried in a single air consignment. As IATA say, "some things just aren't meant to fly" - like pyrotechnic security attache cases for example (sorry Mr. Bond, you'll have to send that by road/rail/boat).
Microsoft

Microsoft Plans VR Simulation of Everything? 217

Posted by CmdrTaco from the ok-readers-why-is-this-one-evil dept.
Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft recently updated ESP, a virtual reality modeling platform that until now has primarily been used to model aircraft and flight simulations. Microsoft has plans to expand it to other industries such as real estate and urban planning, but one of the most interesting possibilities could be what one observer refers to as a 'simulation of everything,' based on Virtual Earth and perhaps even user-generated content. Indeed, Microsoft's research chief has been promoting the idea of commerce applications and other tools built on top of what he calls the 'Spatial Web', a blend of 3D, video, and location-aware technologies. He gave an example of a shopkeeper creating 3D models of his store's interior and goods with Photosynth and then uploading the results into a large 3D model of local shopping district. Customers could 'visit' the area, browse products, and order them for real-world delivery."

Comment Re:FAA PPL (Score 1) 405

by MrClever (#18259478) Attached to: What is your favorite test?
Congrats :) I've done an Australian ATPL (IATA/EU ATP compatible), and work for the airlines, but I still remember the grin I got when I aced my CPL finals. Well done and remember; greasy side down, shiny side up!

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