Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Toys

LEGO Brick 50th Anniversary 206

Posted by CmdrTaco from the can't-wait-for-them-not-to-be-a-choking-hazard dept.
An anonymous reader writes "'The LEGO brick turns 50 at exactly 1:58pm today. This cool timeline shows these fifty years of building frenzy by happy kids and kids-at-heart, all the milestones from the Legoland themed sets to Technic and Mindstorms NXT, as well as all kind of weird curiosities about the most famous stud-and-tube couple system in the world.'" Of course, it all peaked in 1979 with the space set. These kids these days with their bionacle. bah.
Linux Business

Lotus Notes 8.5 Will Support Ubuntu 7.0 297

Posted by kdawson from the desktop-in-the-enterprise dept.
E5Rebel sends in an article from Computerworld.uk article that reports: "IBM believes Linux on the enterprise desktop is finally ready for widespread adoption. To meet future demand it is preparing to deliver its next versions of Lotus Notes enterprise collaboration software and Lotus Symphony office productivity applications for the first time with full support for Ubuntu Linux 7.0... The Ubuntu support for Notes and Symphony were a direct response to demand from customers."
Music

Warner Sues Search Engine, Tests DMCA Safe Harbor 113

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the lawyers-in-a-quick-draw-holster dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Warner Bros. Records is suing SeeqPod, the music search engine, in an attempt to test the limits of the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions with a theory of contributory, vicarious and inducement liability. While other services like Last.fm have cut deals with the labels, SeeqPod relied on the DMCA Safe Harbor alone to protect it. According to the complaint [PDF] SeeqPod 'deliberately refrains' from adding simple yet ineffective content filters to screen out copyright infringing materials, presumably by not buying those filters from label-affiliated companies. Of course, this lawsuit is merely part of a recent trend seeking to move the responsibility for policing copyrights away from the copyright holders and on to third parties."
The Courts

Anti-Piracy Group Violates Swiss Law to Track File Sharing 95

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the define-zealot dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Another fight appears to be brewing in Switzerland over how file sharers are identified. Logistep, a company that specializes in anti-piracy by collecting computer evidence against file sharers for use in lawsuits, seems to have taken an end run around Swiss law in order to try and settle cases out of court. 'Under Swiss law, the identity of a subscriber to an ISP (Internet service provider) can only be revealed during the course of a criminal case, not a civil one, Schaefer said. The IP (Internet Protocol) address of a computer controlled by the subscriber is considered "personal" information. In order to try to claim damages from people suspected of trading songs or movies, Logistep has asked Swiss prosecutors to open criminal cases, Schaefer said. As the criminal cases progresses, Logistep receives information from prosecutors that identifies the file sharer.'"
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - "God" Immune From Earthly Laws

Submitted by
Mick Ohrberg
Mick Ohrberg writes: "Dem. Nebraska State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha filed a lawsuit against "God", saying "He" is responsible for "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants.". "God", in a response, says that the court has no jurisdiction, and that "He" cannot be held responsible for the action of man, since "He" "...created man and woman with free will and next to the promise of immortal life, free will is ["His"] greatest gift [...]". The response filing had St. Michael the Archangel listed as a witness."
Space

Submission + - Voyager 2 30 years (nasa.gov)

Submitted by
Mick Ohrberg
Mick Ohrberg writes: "The Voyager 2 spacecraft (part of the ongoing Voyager Mission) today celebrates 30 years of faithful service, by far surpassing the 4 years that was its inteded lifespan. Voyager 2 is today 7.8 billion miles from the sun, placing it almost as far out as the heliopause. At the speed of light that's about 12 hours away, and it's clocking about 1 million miles per day. Voyager 1, launched a couple of weeks after Voyager 2, is at 9.7 billion miles from the sun the farthest man-made object. So when are we going to get around to sending up Voyager 6?"
AMD

Submission + - AMD Nearly Out Of Cash

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Following a horrible quarter and market share losses, AMD is within two quarters of running out of cash, according to EETimes. "AMD lost approximately $883 million in free cash flow in the last quarter, worse than expected, and putting the company within two quarters of running out of cash," EETimes quotes Wall Street analyst Chris Caso as saying. It gets even worse for AMD. After losing significant market share in 2006, Intel struck back in the first quarter of 2007, gaining 4.5 percentage points in the microprocessor market. Intel now holds 80.2 percent of the global chip market. Can AMD dig itself out of a hole? Maybe, maybe not. "AMD will look to lessen the capital needs of its models by outsourcing production and partnering up, though we believe this could take much longer than investors anticipate," analyst Doug Freedman of American Technology Research told EETimes.
Graphics

Submission + - How to Overclock the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Series

Submitted by
Olin Coles
Olin Coles writes: "Although this guide covers how to overclock all recent NVIDIA video cards, I have selected the FOXCONN NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS as my test subject, which I reviewed back in November 2006. Presently, the 640MB version of the GeForce 8800 GTS is the second-best video card available on the market. Gamers and computer enthusiasts alike have already speculated on how the GTS could be made to perform to the same level as the GeForce 8800 GTX with some tweaking. Unfortunately, this just isn't possible. What is possible though is taking a great product and making it even better; and do it all for free.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_c ontent&task=view&id=13"
Software

Submission + - What's the best Speech Recognition today?

Submitted by StonyCreekBare
StonyCreekBare writes: A client wants to build a kiosk system intended to interact with the user entirely via speech. Speech Recognition is absolutely key to the success of the project, so an excellent speech recognition engine is absolutely key to success.

Key requirements are Speaker Independence, and a large vocabulary, with a great deal of flexibility for recognizing arbitrary speech. The system needs to interact with arbitrary speakers on a walk-up basis.

I have built a reasonable "Proof-of-concept" prototype using an L&H / Windows based system. I was quite pleased with the overall performance of the system, and believe an optimized system could do even better. My goal is not so much to improve the recognition performance (although there is room for improvement), as to improve the system reliability and to have more control at the system level.

There seems to be two candidates to supply the system. Microsoft and Nuance.

The Microsoft Speech SDK has the unfortunate circumstance of being innately wedded to Windows, and all the other viable systems (such as L&H, and Viavoice) seem to have been acquired by Nuance. Microsoft's system seems to require a lot of training to perform well, which is unacceptable. At least the L&H system is truly speaker independent. I would greatly prefer to use a Linux or BSD solution, if viable, so that requires a *nix compatible solution.

I have seen some other systems, mostly proprietary systems for telephony applications. e.g. Sprint, to name one. I hear about other systems such as Sphinx from Carnegie Mellon, and a system from Phillips, both of which I do not know much about and do not know anyone actually using.

What are Slashdot users experiences with the various systems available? Have I overlooked any good candidates? What is the "bleeding edge" in reliable speech recognition? Am I going to be forced to use Windows?

-Stony
Education

Submission + - Bilingualism slows down Alzheimer's/Dementia

Submitted by
Dee
Dee writes: "From the article: "Bilingual people typically develop dementia about four years later than those who only speak one language, a research team from York University in Toronto and other institutions said. The research was conducted on 184 patients with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia undergoing treatment at the Memory Clinic at the Baycrest Research Centre for Aging and the Brain in Toronto. Researchers analyzed various data on patients including their academic background and occupation. "

This seems like the best motivation I've come across for learning a second language, and it makes sense when you think about it. What with your brain needing to parse information between two seperate formats, just straight up thinking to yourself in different languages seems like it would exercise your grey matter. Maybe it's time to start trying to get the grandparents to learn French!"

Slashdot Top Deals

All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to Gaussian noise. -- James Martin

Close