Comment Re:Young people don't drive. (Score 1) 390
I subscribe to Rhapsody, and save my music offline in my iPod. It's no different playing those songs than it is playing albums I've purchased.
Painting The World's Roofs White Could Slow Climate Change 712
Hugh Pickens writes "Dr. Steven Chu, the Nobel prize-winning physicist appointed by President Obama as Energy Secretary, wants to paint the world white. Chu said at the opening of the St James's Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium that by lightening paved surfaces and roofs to the color of cement, it would be possible to cut carbon emissions by as much as taking all the world's cars off the roads for 11 years. Pale surfaces reflect up to 80 percent of the sunlight that falls on them, compared with about 20 percent for dark ones, which is why roofs and walls in hot countries are often whitewashed." (Continues, below.)
Comment I'm the only one that thinks this is a good idea? (Score 0) 346
I'm surprised that nobody thinks this is a good idea. To the poster above that said it's like a car with helicopter blades, I have a better analogy: This is like a car with two motors. One motor is street legal and can be driven in all fifty states. The second is a fully modified fire-breathing 800HP monster that can only be used in closed-course racing. When you're driving to work you use the street legal motor, but you can drive the same car to the race track and get the full potential of the second motor.
As MP3 players get more and more storage space, we're going to see scenarios similar to those in desktop computers - Grandma only needs a fraction of that 500GB drive in her new eMachine. The same will be said for Sally the high school student with her 60GB iPod. If that space is available why not fill it with the highest quality music possible so that music is available wherever one goes? I understand that it won't be playable in my iPod but it will be available to hook up to a stereo or computer etc etc at a friends house / party / barbecue.
Am I alone?
Japan To Get 1Gbps Home Fiber Connections 275
ashitaka writes "KDDI has announced that they will be launching a 1Gbps Internet service to single-family home and condo users in October. The service is supposedly synchronous, with 1Gbps in both directions, although the article implies that speeds will vary with location. Cost will be 5,985 yen/month (about US$56.50) for the basic Internet and IP phone service. This is intended to compete with NTT, who currently control over 70% of the Japanese FTTH market."
Adobe Flaw Allows Full Movie Downloads For Free 166
webax writes with this excerpt from Reuters:
"[An Adobe security hole] exposes online video content to the rampant piracy that plagued the music industry during the Napster era and is undermining efforts by retailers, movie studios and television networks to cash in on a huge Web audience. 'It's a fundamental flaw in the Adobe design. This was designed stupidly,' said Bruce Schneier ... The flaw rests in Adobe's Flash video servers that are connected to the company's players installed in nearly all of the world's Web-connected computers. The software doesn't encrypt online content, but only orders sent to a video player such as start and stop play. To boost download speeds, Adobe dropped a stringent security feature that protects the connection between the Adobe software and its players."
webax also notes that the article suggests DRM as a potential solution to the problem.
Submission + - Mystery Company recruiting puzzle solved! 1
srealm writes: "Less than 24 hours from posting, the Mystery Company job posting has been cracked! With the collaboration of people at the Google Group setup specifically for cracking this puzzle, the three 'challenges' have been solved, and the company un-masked as N-Brain, Inc in Boulder, CO. The date in question is the release date for their flagship UNA product, meant to promote collaborative development."
Submission + - Vista SP1 RC Available (microsoft.com) 1
drwxrxrx writes: A release candidate for Windows Vista SP1 is available for download. According to InformationWeek, the list of changes runs 47 pages, and isn't exhaustive. Computerworld has an article detailing the hoops one must jump through to install the release candidate.
Submission + - Led Zep concert vids shows YouTube filtering holes (itworld.com)
jfruhlinger writes: "One of the ways that YouTube became respectable was by promising to filter out copyrighted content that had been uploaded against the wishes of the copyright holder. But the recent much-anticipated Led Zeppelin reunion concert — and the resulting flood of amateur video footage uploaed to YouTube — demonstrated a hole in YouTube's filtering process: the filter compares uploaded videos to an original version, a process that doesn't work when the videos in question are all taken from different angles and with different cameras."
Submission + - Google Combines MultipleServices in New iPhone App (techluver.com)
Tech.Luver writes: "Today, Google announced the release of a new iPhone application that integrates its multiple services into a single interface, making it easy for iPhone users to find, use and switch between Google search, Gmail, Calendar, Reader, and more.
To use the application, iPhone users simply point their web browser to Google.com.
To accomplish this, Google is taking advantage of browser technologies (like AJAX) that made Gmail and Google Maps possible on the desktop. In supporting these advances in web technology, the iPhone's Safari browser not only delivers an excellent mobile Internet experience.
( http://techluver.com/2007/12/05/google-launches-new-iphone-app-that-integrates-multiple-services-into-a-single-interface/ )"
Submission + - Bezos Patent Reform Chief Patents Lighting Toilets
theodp writes: "Charles Cella, the man tapped by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Tim O'Reilly to lead their 'radical patent reform' effort, was awarded a patent Tuesday for Methods and Systems for Illuminating Household Products, including lighting toilet water. Cella was CEO of BountyQuest, which received a million bucks from Bezos to run contests to find prior art for patents, including one funded by O'Reilly for Bezos' own 1-Click patent. BountyQuest found no winner in the 1-Click contest, an outcome that continues to be offered as proof of 1-Click's patent-worthiness, although the USPTO recently used losing prior art submitted in that contest as the grounds for rejecting a number of Amazon's 1-Click patent claims."
