robokev - Slashdot User

Permanent Undersea Homes Soon; Temporary Ones Now 122

Posted by timothy on Saturday March 13, 2010 @08:20AM from the meet-our-butcher-dexter dept.

MMBK writes "Dennis Chamberland is one of the world's preeminent aquanauts. He's worked with NASA to develop living habitats and underwater plant growth labs, among other cool things. His next goal is establishing the world's first permanent underwater colony. This video gets to the heart of his project, literally and figuratively, as most is shot in his underwater habitat, Atlantica, off the coast of Key Largo, FL. The coolest part might be the moon pool, the room you swim into underwater."

Microsoft Sends Flowers To Internet Explorer 6 Funeral 151

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday March 05, 2010 @03:08PM from the sorry-about-your-loss dept.

Several readers have written with a fun followup to yesterday's IE6 funeral. Apparently Microsoft, in a rare moment of self-jest, took the time to send flowers, condolences, and a promise to meet at MIX. The card reads: "Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven. The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft."

Comment it Depends (Score 1) 480

by robokev on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @01:23PM (#30657154) Attached to: Can Imaging Technologies Save Us From Terrorists?

Wouldn't a potential bomber be able to smuggle explosive material in a Depends undergarment? From what I've seen of the pictures online, the explosive material might have shown up on a full body scan because the guy was wearing briefs, but it would have been totally missed inside an adult diaper. Considering all the extra security measures imposed (like staying in your seat for last hour of flight), a terrorist could even argue that the Depends undergarment was a preventive measure.

Palm Pre and WebOS Get Native Gaming 49

Posted by Soulskill on Monday January 04, 2010 @03:48PM from the break-out-your-rocket-launcher dept.

rboatright writes "WebOS developers have been waiting, and with the 1.3.5 release, Palm's open source page suddenly listed SDL. Members of the WebOS internals team took that as a challenge and within 24 hours had a working port of Doom running in SDL on the Pre, in a webOS card. 48 hours later, they not only had Quake running, but had found in the latest LunaSysMgr the requirements to launch a native app from the webOS app launcher from an icon just like any other app. At the same time, the team demonstrated openGL apps running. With full native code support, with I/O available via SDL, developers now have a preview into Palm's future intent with regard to native code SDK's, and a hint of what's coming."

The Best Robots of 2009 51

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 23, 2009 @09:59PM from the best-of-show dept.

kkleiner writes "Singularity Hub has just unveiled its second annual roundup of the best robots of the year. In 2009 robots continued their advance towards world domination with several impressive breakouts in areas such as walking, automation, and agility, while still lacking in adaptability and reasoning ability. It will be several years until robots can gain the artificial intelligence that will truly make them remarkable, but in the meantime they are still pretty awesome."

EA Flip-Flops On Battlefield: Heroes Pricing, Fans Angry 221

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @07:50AM from the put-your-money-where-your-gun-is dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."

Comment Prior art in literature (Score 1) 253

by robokev on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @10:53PM (#19486045) Attached to: Location-Based Search Was Patented In 1999

"And the ads. That was what really did it. He could have stood everything else -- but the ads, the whole long way from Ganymede to Earth... He was getting near Terra; the barrage was increasing... [time passes] Thank God, he was past it. The ad dimmed and receded behind, as his fast-moving ship hurtled forward." -- from Sales Pitch by Philip K. Dick, first published 1954

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