DarthAle - Slashdot User

Submission + - Euro Playstation 3 to have inferior ps2 emulation

Submitted by Tetsuochris on Friday February 23, 2007 @07:16AM

Tetsuochris writes: Euro Playstation 3 to have software emulation of ps2 games. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070223/tc_nm/sony_pla ystation_europe_dc;_ylt=AjDbmlPU326p52vsCHQ.Qye9Ix IF "The backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as the U.S. and Japan models," a Sony spokesman said. Amazing, so not only will European customers pay more for the ps3 exchange wise, they will also get an inferior model.

Submission + - Study shows file sharing has no effect on CD sales

Submitted by

jibjibjib

on Friday February 23, 2007 @06:10AM

jibjibjib writes: "Ars Technica reports that a study by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf, recently published in the Journal of Political Economy, shows that file sharing is not responsible for declining CD sales figures.

The study, entitled "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis," claims that "a one-standard-deviation increase in file sharing reduces an album's weekly sales by a mere 368 copies, an effect that is too small to be statistically distinguishable from zero.""

Submission + - Fermi Paradox Could Predict Humankind's Future

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19, 2007 @10:11AM

An anonymous reader writes: The Fermi paradox says that if extraterrestrial civilizations exist, at least one of them should have colonized the entire galaxy by now. But since there is no evidence of this, humankind must be the only intelligent life in the galaxy. The Space Review has an article on how the Fermi paradox can be applied to human civilization. It says that, like the extraterrestrials, humans have three choices: colonize the galaxy, remain on Earth, or become extinct.

Submission + - Robert Adler, co-inventor of TV remote, dead at 93

Submitted by

yroJJory

on Sunday February 18, 2007 @11:34PM

yroJJory writes: "Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote, Robert Adler, has died. Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made the couch potato possible, died Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93, Zenith Electronics Corp. said Friday.

In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 U.S. patents. He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime.

In a May 2004 interview with The Associated Press, Adler recalled being among two dozen engineers at Zenith given the mission to find a new way for television viewers to change channels without getting out of their chairs or tripping over a cable.

Adler also was considered a pioneer in SAW technology, or surface acoustic waves, in color television sets and touch screens. The technology has also been used in cellular telephones.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published his most recent patent application, for advances in touch screen technology, on Feb. 1."

Submission + - Take out asteroid soon, UN urged

Submitted by stevedmc on Sunday February 18, 2007 @10:22AM

stevedmc writes: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21247126-2,00 .html

THE United Nations has been urged to launch a space mission designed to take out an asteroid threatening to smash into the Earth in 2036.

In scenes straight out of Hollywood action movie Armageddon, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists say they are monitoring an asteroid named Apophis, which has a one in 45,000 chance of striking Earth on April 13, 2036.

A recent congressional mandate for NASA to upgrade its tracking of near-Earth asteroids is expected to uncover a host of threatening space rocks in the near future, former astronaut Rusty Schweickart said.

"It's not just Apophis we're looking at. Every country is at risk. We need a set of general principles to deal with this issue," Mr Schweickart, a member of the Apollo 9 crew that orbited the moon in March 1969, told an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference.

Mr Schweickart plans to present an update this week to the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space on plans to develop a blueprint for a global response to an asteroid threat.

The Association of Space Explorers, a group of former astronauts and cosmonauts, intends to host a series of high-level workshops this year to flesh out the plan and will make a formal proposal to the UN in 2009, he said.

Submission + - Microsoft Hiring Student Propagandists

Submitted by

Ed

on Friday February 16, 2007 @02:40AM

Ed writes: "It seems Microsoft is looking to hire students for "word of mouth advertising" on college campuses. The marketing service's code of ethics stresses the importance of honesty, but somehow I doubt they'd be willing to pay me to give my honest opinions..."

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