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Comment Re:I'm in Japan for six months... (Score 2, Informative) 570

by Tsian (#26249175) Attached to: What Carriers Don't Want You To Know About Texting

Except that that isn't really true anymore anymore. Phones cost around $500, but the major carriers break that out into monthly payments, and give subsidies for agreeing to a long term contract -- generally 2 years (the system variest from Carrier to carrier, but that is basically the situation with AU, Docomo, and Softbank).

The $30 voice plan does cost $30, but then you add in the data plan and you add $10~$42 / month depending on use. And e-mail useage counts towards data use (there are systems analagous to text messaging, but phone e-mail basically plays the role that texts do in America/Canada/Europe).

There is of course still tax and the Universal Access Fee. But, there aren't any "system access fees".

Certainly the plans are generally better and more clearly advertised in Japan, but the situation has changed coinciderably in the last few years.
Role Playing (Games)

eBay Virtual World Delisting Skips Second Life 42

Posted by Zonk from the selective-process dept.
As a follow-up to last week's eBay delisting story, CNET has the word that Second Life content is exempt from this decision. Mr. Durzy, speaking with CNET, specifically cited Second Life content as exempt because of the uncertain role of the virtual world. As the company (and the rest of us) are uncertain whether to label Second Life as a game in the first place, player-created content is still sellable via eBay auction. A perfectly fine explanation, but GigaGamez takes things a step further, pointing out that eBay founder Pierre Omidyar became a major investor in Linden Labs in 2004. It's uncertain if this constitutes a conflict of interest, because confusion about what exactly Second Life is persists pretty much everywhere. Just the same, it's interesting to note. Their article on the subject also has a few words of commentary from Edward Castronova, the well-known commentator on all things RMT.
Privacy

Submission + - Swiss government attempts to censor the web

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: According to the Sonntagszeitung, the swiss government attempts to censor the web from sites containing child pornography. This is illegal according to Swiss Law, which explicitly states "Censoring is forbidden".

There has been some resistance against this decision, starting from ISPs which have to implement the censorship, and from other civilian rights groups like Stop Zensur. The news were also covered by the popular german IT news site Heise.de.

According to Lawblog.de, the list containing the 1200 child pornography sites is already on the loose. Since the blocking is only achieved by creating fake DNS zones, the censorship is stil easily circumvented.
Republicans

Submission + - 13% of Americans haven't heard of global warming

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As amazing as it may sound, over 13% of Americans claim to have neither seen nor heard any information about global warming. As the US is the worlds largest emmitter of greenhouse gases is this result a success for the Bush Administration and their Big Oil cohorts?
Read about it here http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21140785-401, 00.html

Apple Admits to Occasional Excessive Work Hours 362

Posted by Zonk from the bad-apple dept.
rev_media writes "After Apple's release of a report on the labor conditions in their Chinese factories, many took issue with the deliberately vague wording used in the statement. The BBC is now reporting that Apple has admitted to 'excessive' working hours in some locations, and they would be ensuring that a 'normal' 60-hour work week will be adhered to from now on." From that article: "'We found no instances of forced overtime and employees confirmed in interviews that they could decline overtime requests without penalty,' said Apple in a statement. The firm said there were 'overtime limit exceptions in unusual circumstances' and that it supported a healthy work-life balance. But it did not specify what the triggers for 'unusual circumstances' were and what upper limit it set on working hours. Mr Kuczkiewicz said Apple had not asked workers what they preferred - a decent wage or minimum wage and overtime."

African Catfish Hunts On Land 176

Posted by Zonk from the that's-just-creepy dept.
Dave Knott writes "The journal Nature will be publishing a report on an African catfish that hunts its prey on land. The fish wriggles out of the swamps to catch land-based prey. From the article: 'The eel catfish, Channallabes apus, catches unsuspecting victims by arching upwards and descending upon prey, trapping an insect against the ground before sucking it up. The same trick may have been used by the very first vertebrates to venture onto land, the researchers speculate.' There is a video of the fish in action."

Fuel Cell Powered Japanese Trains on Trial in July 295

Posted by samzenpus from the clean-choo-choo dept.
ScorpFromHell writes "As per this yahoo! news item, "East Japan Railway Co. is to conduct a test run of the world's first fuel-cell-powered train in July. The fuel cells, which generate power from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, will help reduce environmental pollution compared to the existing electric and diesel engines, the company said." But I wonder how much energy did it consume to produce those huge amounts of Hydrogen & Oxygen? Will it be lesser than the power generated by the reaction between them? In other words, can this technology be used by countries with not so deep pockets as Japan?"

Anandtech Reviews Mushkin RAM 32

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the maybe-not-quite-the-holy-grail dept.
EisleyRocks writes "Trying to find the right RAM to satisfy your overclocking needs? Anandtech has reviewed the latest offering from Mushkin. From the article: 'For gamers who seek fast timings and high bandwidth at stock memory ratios, the Mushkin XP2-5300 is a very good choice. The same can be said for overclockers looking for the highest DDR2 clock speeds that they can find. There are a few memories that can go higher in speed than Mushkin DDR2, but there are very few current DDR2 modules that can do 3-3-3 timings to DDR2-700 and above, or DDR2 memories that can handle higher voltage as well as this Mushkin. For now, the Mushkin XP2-5300 is a good choice among DDR2 1GB modules in 2GB kits.'"

Aging Japan Looks to Bots For Care 139

Posted by Zonk from the who-doesn't-like-a-nice-bot dept.
An anonymous reader writes to mention a Yahoo! news article about robotics in Japan. While many research bots are working on interacting with their environment, some of Japan's commercial robotics are focusing on building bots for elderly care. From the article: "The 100-kilogram (220-pound) robot can also distinguish eight different kinds of smells, can tell which direction a voice is coming from and uses powers of sight to follow a human face. 'In the future, we would like to develop a capacity to detect a human's health condition through his breath,' Mukai said. Japan is bracing for a major increase in needs for elderly care due to a declining birth rate and a population that is among the world's longest living." That sure sounds familiar.

Everglide s-500 Headphone Review 190

Posted by CmdrTaco from the do-you-ear-what-i-ear dept.
Lincoln 'PrOpHeT' Grixti writes "The Everglide s-500 Headphone is the ultimate tool for gamers that pass long hours using their headset for their gaming needs. It has been designed for gamers, by gamers, with the aid of leading world-wide professionals such as Sander "Voo" Kaasjager and other CPL World Tour Winners. The headset is available for sale with a price tag of $99.99 from Everglide Store. Some might say it's quite expensive for a headset, but when compared to other professional gaming headsets, the price is quite cheap." update Sorry folks, apparently the linked website barfed.

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