CompotatoJ - Slashdot User

Submission + - Adobe open sources Flex SDK under MPL

Submitted by

andy_from_nc

on Thursday April 26, 2007 @12:20AM

andy_from_nc writes: "Adobe announced that they are open sourcing their Flex SDK under the Mozilla Public License incrementally by December. This move comes on the heels of Microsoft's announcement of their Silverlight and Adobe's CEO's criticism of it. The move will likely please other open source developers who use Flex like me and offer hope that we'll see a full open source version of Flash one day. You can read Adobe's FAQ on the move as well."

Submission + - Inkjet Printer Creates Body Organs

Submitted by Stargaser on Wednesday April 25, 2007 @11:41PM

Stargaser writes: Scientists at Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine are using inkjet printers to create organs and tissues, that's something that could change the very way of studying tissue engineering. Regular ink cartridges available almost everywhere are emptied, cleaned and filled with the cells needed to create the organ. Then, an inkjet printer prints these cells into a substance resembling human tissues. Printed layer by layer, cells form the required shape of muscle or organ. Adopting inkjet printers for the need of tissue engineering resulted in more precise, accurate, fast and, most importantly, controlled creation of biomaterials. It seems to me that inkjet technology for today's science is like an invention of the wheel for our ancestors — it's spread far over the area it was designed for.

Submission + - Citibank breaking support for alternate browsers

Submitted by on Wednesday April 25, 2007 @08:56PM

An anonymous reader writes: Recently went to do some online banking with Citibank at www.citicards.com and found they had so badly altered their website that it was unusable in both Moz 1.6 and in Firefox 1.5. Called their 1-800 tech support and was informed they don't support anything but IE so no help there. I was completely stonewalled by the customer support rep. I simply had to inform them that only fools use IE and that their changes had made it impossible for me to continue doing any business with them. We're done using Citi which has become more aggressive with their terms, fees and interest rates. Website FUBAR's that make it harder to do business with them are the last straw. Anyone else have issues with Citibank and their online site?

Comment I call this FUD... (Score 1) 373

by CompotatoJ on Tuesday April 24, 2007 @11:45PM (#18865543) Attached to: Digital Camera Vs. Camera Phone

The reason the that the camera-phone picture turned out a lot better was because the person did not know how to use the DSLR. I would like to see this test with the EXIF data in tact and not have the pictures edited in Photoshop first. Judging by the high amount of noise on the DSLR picture, the camera was set at a very high ISO. If the person actually knew how to use the camera they could take a lot better picture.

I suspect that the author is just trying to get people to visit his article so CNET can make money off the advertisements.

Submission + - The 'Holy Grail' of gaming sells for $24,100

Submitted by

Mike Ferry

on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @08:07PM

Mike Ferry writes: "(via Destructoid.com — http://www.destructoid.com/the-holy-grail-of-gamin g-sells-for-21-400-31061.phtml)
* * *
A fabled golden Nintendo World Championships 1990 (NWC) cart recently sold within a collection of 23 other games in an online auction for $21,400 — it began on March 18th.

There are only 116 NWC carts in circulation today. Ninety of these cartridges were clad in the standard gray casing, but there were 26 special golden cartridges that were given away through a Nintendo Power contest that ran just before the 1990 championship tour. There were only two ways you could possibly get your meathooks on one of the 116 carts: become a finalist in the championships or be a winner in said contest. That's it.

As you can see, the odds of you or I getting our hands on one or, rather, even seeing one in person are ridiculously slim. The notority of these blessed game cartridges has made them the top pick for avid collector's all over the world and continues to be considered the most sought after piece of gaming history.

However, this auction holds a very unique and interesting tale...

The story behind the auction itself is almost as amazing as the rarity of the game it contains. It was started by a father who had lost his son in the Iraq war. The auction description states that his son passed away a few years ago and now he is deciding to sell some of his son's belongings. Ironically, he would've kept this collection for his daughter, but the NES they owned no longer works.

It is quite tragic for anyone to lose somebody they care for, regardless of the circumstances. Perhaps this auction was his son's final way of paying back his father and easing the pain.

Another thing to note, is that the auction began at a mere $24 — one dollar per game seemed to be a fair price in the seller's eye. Can you imagine going to someone's yard sale and seeing the literal "Holy Grail" of gaming marked for one buck? I think I'd probably pass out just by seeing the friggin' thing.

Nonetheless, a unique treasure of gaming's past deserves an equally unique story to go along with it. See the auction for yourself. (Link to -> http://www.myebid.com/cgi-bin/auction/view?cmd=vie w&listingID=3402)"

Submission + - Aussie education dept picks Apple Macs

Submitted by daria42 on Monday February 26, 2007 @01:15AM

daria42 writes: Western Australia's Education Department will install Apple Macs in a large number of schools throughout the state in a massive new project. The department will install Intel-based iMacs, Mac minis and MacBooks.

Submission + - TV delays drive viewers to piracy

Submitted by Astat1ne on Saturday February 24, 2007 @09:56PM

Astat1ne writes: The Register has a story about the delays Australian TV viewers are experiencing with overseas-produced series and how it is driving many of them to download the shows via BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer networks. From the story: "According to a survey based on a sample of 119 current or recent free-to-air TV series', Australian viewers are waiting an average of almost 17 months for the first run series' first seen overseas. Over the past two years, average Australian broadcast delays for free-to-air television viewers have more than doubled from 7.9 to 16.7 months." According to the article, the situation is compounded by the fact that Australian viewers are unable to download legal copies of the episodes from the US iTunes website and are turning to unauthorised means to get copies of their favorite shows.

Submission + - Creative Commons v3.0 licences launched

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24, 2007 @08:57PM

An anonymous reader writes: Creative Commons announced the release of its licences on Friday 23 Feb 2007. Changes include "Clarifications Negotiated With Debian and MIT", CC-BY-SA "compatibility structure", endorsement control, etc.

Submission + - Study contradicts RIAA on cause of CD sales drop

Submitted by IBuyManyCd on Saturday February 24, 2007 @01:16PM

IBuyManyCd writes: A new research paper (PDF) published in the Journal of Political Economy contradicts the RIAA claim that illegal downloading is the main reason for the 25% drop in CD sales.
A quick overview of the article is presented on the University of Chicago Press site: Downloads are not the primary reason for the decline in music sales. "Researchers from Harvard and Kansas find that impact of P2P sharing on U.S. music sales is "statistically indistinguishable from zero".
The overview also quotes:
"We match an extensive sample of downloads to U.S. sales for a large number of albums", write Felix Oberholzer-Gee (Harvard University) and Koleman Strumpf (University of Kansas). "While file sharers downloaded billions of files in 2002, the consequences for the industry amounted to no more than 0.7% of sales."
The author compiled data on nearly 50,000 music downloads of popular songs (on pop charts) and across eleven genre from 2 major P2P servers. They then compared these with the same pop chart songs CD sales, "it is striking to see that more than 60% of the songs in our sample are never downloaded".
This underlines what many online users have lived first hand. If an album is good enough, reaching the pop chart, it will gladly be bought by fans.

Submission + - Gizmodo Declares March "Boycott The RIAA"

Submitted by

Ryan Draga

on Saturday February 24, 2007 @01:14PM

Ryan Draga writes: "Tech Bloggers, Gizmodo, are declaring March "Boycott the RIAA Month"

From the article: "The RIAA has the power to shift public policy and to alter the direction of technology and the Internet for one reason and one reason alone: it's totally loaded. Without their millions of dollars to throw at lawyers, the RIAA is toothless. They get their money from us, the consumers, and if we don't like the way they're behaving, we can let them know with our wallets.""

Submission + - Finnish Ministry of Justice migrates to OpenOffice

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24, 2007 @12:29PM

An anonymous reader writes: In December 2006, the Finnish Ministry of Justice decided to migrate to the open source OpenOffice.org office suite. The ministry and its administrative sector will also adopt the OpenDocument ISO standard for the file format of office documents.

After the migration, OpenOffice.org will be the primary office suite for 8500 persons and Microsoft Office for 1500 persons. All Windows XP workstations of the ministry and its administrative sector are installed with OpenOffice.org version 2.

http://www.om.fi/Etusivu/Julkaisut/Julkaisusarjat/ Toimintajahallinto/Toiminnanjahallinnonarkisto/Toi mintajahallinto2007/1171362109118

Submission + - Patent row could hit MP3 industry

Submitted by

w1z4rd

on Saturday February 24, 2007 @03:13AM

w1z4rd writes: "The BBC Reports "News that Microsoft has been fined for violating MP3 patents belonging to Alcatel-Lucent could have widespread fallout for the industry. Experts now suggest the US ruling could lead to hundreds of firms — including Apple and RealNetworks — being pursued for payments relating to the format. "Any of the companies that have licensed and implemented that technology have to have great concern about this verdict," said Microsoft vice president Thomas W Burt. And it seems the Federal District Court in San Diego agrees — it ordered Microsoft to pay Alcatel $1.52bn, an award both companies say is the largest patent award in history.""

Submission + - Wikipedia banned as source by history department

Submitted by hrvatska on Saturday February 24, 2007 @12:52AM

hrvatska writes: An article in the New York Times reports on a ban by the history department at Middlebury College on citing Wikipedia in papers or exams. The ban came after a number of students used inaccurate information from the same article on an exam. The ban is being actively debated at the school, and does not apply to all departments. Jim Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, is quoted as saying "Basically, they are recommending exactly what we suggested — students shouldn't be citing encyclopedias. I would hope they wouldn't be citing Encyclopaedia Britannica, either." The article does not say whether or not the history department permits Encyclopaedia Britannica to be cited as a source.

Submission + - Zink Imaging to launch inkless printer

Submitted by

Vinit

on Saturday February 17, 2007 @11:52AM

Vinit writes: "Zink Imaging has developed a unique technology which can print pictures without ink! The innovation could be applied to make hand-held printers that can be integrated into mobile phones and digital cameras. While printing one only needs a paper, I mean Zink paper which is initially colorless, looks and feels like ordinary white photograph paper and is not light sensitive. You can get a copy of picture (5 cm x 7.5 cm) in 30 seconds and the photos are are very durable — they cannot be torn and are also water resistant. The firm plans to launch two products by the end of the year: a small battery-operated, pocket-sized printer for camera-phones and a digital camera with a 2 inch x 3 inch (5 cm by 7.5 cm) printer built in. The company recently demonstrated a working prototype of the camera phone printer at the DEMO 2007 technology conference in California, US. The printer is expected to cost $200 while 100 sheets of paper will cost $20. http://www.pclaunches.com/optical_media/zink_imagi ng_to_launch_inkless_printer.php"

Submission + - First Commercial Quantum Computer Demonstrated

Submitted by

emw2012

on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @02:57AM

emw2012 writes: "As of February 13, D-Wave Systems Inc. of Burnaby, British Columbia has shown a proof of concept of its 16-qubit quantum system, dubbed "Orion". The system was showcased, audaciously enough, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, where D-Wave displayed Orion's power in a drug molecule matching test, followed by such worthy enterprises as solving a party seating arrangement seeking to pair like-minded guests, and deducing a Sudoku puzzle to completion. While time will tell whether Orion is remembered as merely a curious misadventure or the harbinger of revolution in the processing industry, D-Wave has assured us of the later, promising systems able to model molecular dynamics, complex NP-complete optimization problems, and simulate nanoscale behavior in fractions of second, compared to years (or simply not at all) on BlueGene/L and its digital kin.

dwavesys.com, Press Release"

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