timonak - Slashdot User

Nintendo Brain Games Effectiveness Questioned 63

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday January 29, 2009 @02:55AM from the flickering-boxes-will-make-us-smart dept.

nandemoari writes "While Nintendo boasts that its Wii can make you fit, the game company's popular line of DS 'Brain Games' have for some time promised to make kids smarter by challenging them with word puzzles and math formulas. However, a French professor isn't buying the shtick. University of Rennes professor Alain Lieury, a cognitive psychology specialist in Brittany, France, recently studied a group of ten-year-old children playing a variety of mentally-challenging games. Not all were video games, however; Lieury pitted more traditional games (including sudoku, Scrabble, and regular old reading and homework) against Nintendo's popular line of DS hits, including Brain Age, Big Brain Academy, and Brain Training. Although he credits the Nintendo DS — one of the best selling consoles of all-time — as 'a technological jewel,' he finds Nintendo's claim that it can actually help kids learn is nothing more than pure 'charlatanism.'"

In-Depth With the Windows 7 Public Beta 785

Posted by kdawson on Monday January 12, 2009 @09:06PM from the ctrl-alt-del-makes-him-blink dept.

Dozer writes "With the Windows 7 public beta out, Ars Technica has an in-depth look at the release. There's praise for Windows 7's UI changes and polish as well much-needed changes to UAC, but also a warning that those who have problems with Vista won't like Windows 7 much better. 'If you couldn't stand Vista's UI (whether it's because you didn't like Explorer, Aero, Control Panel, UAC, or anything else), Windows 7 is unlikely to do much to help, as it builds on the same UI. If Vista's hardware demands were too steep, Windows 7 will likely cause you the same grief, as its hardware demands match. And if Vista didn't work with a program or device you need to use, Windows 7 will offer no salvation, as its compatibility is virtually identical.'"

RIAA May Be Violating a Court Order In California 339

Posted by kdawson on Monday December 15, 2008 @08:48PM from the play-nice-now dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In one of its 'ex parte' cases seeking the names and addresses of 'John Does,' this one targeting students at the University of Southern California, the RIAA obtained an order granting discovery — but with a wrinkle. The judge's order (PDF) specified that the information obtained could not be used for any purpose other than obtaining injunctions against the students. Apparently the RIAA lawyers have ignored, or failed to understand, that limitation, as an LA lawyer has reported that the RIAA is busy calling up the USC students and their families and demanding monetary settlements."

The Best Burglar Alarm In History 137

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 15, 2008 @08:07PM from the suck-it-Edison dept.

Sportsqs writes "When Nikola Tesla got creative with transformers and driver circuits at the turn of the 20th century he probably had no idea that others would have so much fun with his concepts over a hundred years later. One such guy is an Australian named Peter who runs a website called TeslaDownUnder, which showcases all his wacky Tesla ways, or rather electrickery, as Peter calls it." Very cool stuff, I wish I would have had something like this to protect my comic books from my little brother when I was a kid.

Comment Status of site (Score 2, Informative) 229

by timonak on Thursday August 11, 2005 @07:19PM (#13299243) Attached to: The NetBSD Toaster

This is from an email from Jessie Off on the TS-7200 mailing list: We don't have the bandwidth for that so our web site is pretty much down right now. FWIW, we're not being limited by the TS-7200 CPU or RAM. Only 2% of the CPU is actually being utilized currently. I have Apache configured for up to 30 maximum simultaneous connections (of which all 30 are full) and we're satisfying about 10 page loads per second. We also got linked from http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25321 which has been generating a lot of hits all morning so we weren't really in a position to receive the "slashdot effect" //Jesse Off

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