transmetal - Slashdot User

Submission + - ioquake3 1.36 Gold

Submitted by

Time Doctor

on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @08:13PM

Time Doctor writes: "The de-facto standard in Quake 3 engine technology, ioquake3, has hit version 1.36 recently. It includes a garbage bag full of improvements: in-game VOIP; optional external Mumble (voip); OpenAL; IPV6; Anaglyph stereo rendering; Full x86-64 architecture support; Rewritten PowerPC JIT compiler, with ppc64 support; New SPARC JIT compiler, with support for both sparc32 and sparc64; Improved console command auto-completion; Persistent console command history; Improved QVM (Quake Virtual Machine) tools; Colored terminal output on POSIX operating systems; Multiuser support on Windows systems (user-specific game data is stored in their respective Application Data folders); PNG format support for textures. Of course there are even more fixes for security holes and other bugs in there. So if you don't like ads and queues in your Quake 3 experience, get a copy off of Steam and copy your data files and key into your ioquake3 directory."

Submission + - Scientists Discover Why You Can't Swat a Fly 1

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Thursday September 04, 2008 @03:53AM

Hugh Pickens writes: "For a creature with a brain hardly deserving of the name, the fly is a marvel of calculating ability. A team led by Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of Technology, have learned how the fly brain calculates the location of the looming swatter, formulates an escape plan and plants its legs in an optimal position to hop out of the way all within about 100 milliseconds of spotting the swatter. Using high-resolution, high-speed imaging of flies in action, the scientists report that the fly, with 360-degree field of view that can see behind itself, begins a series of postural adjustments approximately 200 ms before takeoff that determine the direction of the fly's escape. "When the fly makes planning movements prior to takeoff, it takes into account its body position at the time it first sees the threat," says Dickinson. "The fly somehow 'knows' whether it needs to make large or small postural changes to reach the correct preflight posture." The bottom line: the best way to swat a fly is "not to swat at the fly's starting position, but rather to aim a bit forward of that to anticipate where the fly is going to jump when it first sees your swatter.""

Submission + - SPAM: Massive $208M petascale computer gets green light

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Tuesday September 02, 2008 @10:46AM

coondoggie writes: "The 200,00 processor core system known as Blue Waters got the green light recently as the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and its National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) said it has finalized the contract with IBM to build the world's first sustained petascale computational system. Blue Waters is expected to deliver sustained performance of more than one petaflop on many real-world scientific and engineering applications. A petaflop equals about 1 quadrillion calculations per second. They will be coupled to more than a petabyte of memory and more than 10 petabytes of disk storage. All of that memory and storage will be globally addressable, meaning that processors will be able to share data from a single pool exceptionally quickly, researchers said. Blue Waters, is supported by a $208 million grant from the National Science Foundation and will come online in 2011. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source

Submission + - SPAM: Hairstyles for games and movies

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Saturday August 16, 2008 @11:20AM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "U.S researchers have announced at the SIGGRAPH 2008 conference that they have developed a new method for accurately capturing the look of a person's hairstyle for use in animated films and video games. The research team used multiple cameras, light sources and projectors. Then, the team created 'algorithms to automatically 'fill in the blanks' and generate photo-realistic images of the hairstyles from new angles and new lighting situations.' As said one member of the team, 'we want to give movie and video game makers the tools necessary to animate actors and have their hair look and behave as it would in the real world.' But read more for additional references and a diagram showing how this new method works."

Comment Walk + mp3 player (Score 1) 1806

by transmetal on Tuesday July 29, 2008 @09:50PM (#24395191) Attached to: How Do Geeks Exercise?

I found the easiest thing to do is just run once or twice a week for the length of your favorite podcast. Start out walking once a week, and ramp up the intensity over time as you feel comfortable. My personal favorites for such a run include GFW radio / 1up Yours, which usually have a multi-hour runtime and enough geeky distraction that the time doesn't feel wasted. Eventually it'll just becomes a habit, which is what you want.

Submission + - Cheers as FCC to Act Against Comcast Throttling (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Monday July 28, 2008 @02:24PM

CWmike writes: "Consumer rights groups cheered reports saying that the Federal Communications Commission is ready to take action against Comcast for its decision to slow some peer-to-peer traffic on its network. Democratic FCC members Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein will join Republican Chairman Kevin Martin in voting to punish Comcast for slowing BitTorrent peer-to-peer traffic on its network at times, reports say. Martin, in a statement Saturday, confirmed that a majority of the five-member commission has agreed to take action against the cable provider. "This is good news for consumers and Internet users," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, which filed a complaint about the traffic throttling. "Comcast knowingly blocked lawful Internet use and denied it. The fact that the commission is willing to stand up ... for Internet users is a good sign that the concept of net neutrality is alive and well in Washington.""

Submission + - FAQ: The DNS bug and you (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Monday July 28, 2008 @11:39AM

CWmike writes: "You know a bug is big news when it makes National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Gregg Keizer has put together a must-read FAQ, given that attack code for the flaw hit the street last week. What's your next move?"

Submission + - Microsoft sponsors Apache Software Foundation

Submitted by gbjbaanb on Friday July 25, 2008 @02:30PM

gbjbaanb writes: Ars Technica reports that Microsoft is to sponsor the Apache Foundation to the tune of $100k.

From TFA: "I asked him if this could possibly be the beginning of a broader initiative by Microsoft to increase Apache compatibility with .NET web development technologies, but he says it's still too early to guess Microsoft's future plans for Apache participation."

"He doesn't anticipate a confrontational response from the developers working on individual Apache projects ... The response of the broader open source software community, however, is harder to predict."

So what does the broader community think? Is MS running scared of the increasing relevance of open source software in today's IT world?

(In related news, MS also intends to participate in the RubySpec project)

Submission + - Intel Unveils New System On A Chip Designs

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Thursday July 24, 2008 @08:08AM

MojoKid writes: "Gadi Singer, Vice President of Intel's Mobility Group, and Doug Davis, Vice President of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, held a press call recently to discuss a brand new product line from Intel targeted at security, storage, communications, industrial applications. The Intel EP80579 Integrated Processor family is a bit more than just a new processor. The architecture consists of new SoC designs that integrate a Pentium M core, with a Memory Controller Hub (MCH), I/O hub (ICH), and in some cases specialized IPSec Engines, TDM offload for VOIP, and data path acceleration engines, all which have been dubbed Intel QuickAssist Technology. In addition, the company also disclosed that they have many more SoC projects currently planned internally — many of which are built around the Atom core — including the company's first Consumer Electronics (CE) chip codenamed "Canmore", scheduled for introduction later this year."

Submission + - Microsoft Discloses A Few DirectX 11 Features (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Wednesday July 23, 2008 @12:46PM

MojoKid writes: "Microsoft has disclosed some details regarding the next iteration of its gaming and graphics API, DirectX. The initial DirectX 11 features and specifications disclosed at this point include things like a new compute shader technology that lays the groundwork for the GPU to be used for more than just 3D graphics, so that developers can take advantage of the graphics card as a parallel processor. In addition, multi-threaded resource handling is coming that will allow games to better take advantage of multi-core processors, which should hopefully result in a performance boost. DX11 is also compatible with DirectX 10 and 10.1 hardware, and will support future DirectX 11-class hardware as well."

Submission + - SPAM: First paper-based transistors

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Tuesday July 22, 2008 @12:55PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "Portuguese researchers have created the first paper-based transistors. To be more precise, they've made the first field effect transistors (FET) with a paper interstrate layer. According to the research team, these new transistors offer the same level of performance as 'state-of-the-art oxide based thin film transistors (TFTs) produced on glass or crystalline silicon substrates.' Possible applications for these paper-based transistors include new disposable electronics devices, such as paper displays, smart labels, bio-applications or RFID tags. But read more for additional details and see a picture of the first paper interstrate TFTs."

Submission + - The iPhone 3G Gets Unlocked (yahoo.com)

Submitted by splatter on Thursday July 17, 2008 @11:23AM

splatter writes: Just a few days after its launch, a group from Brazil has managed to unlock Apples iPhone to operate on almost any carrier. On its Web site, DesbloqueioBr posted a video showing the unlocked handset making a phone call. In an interview with gadget blog Gizmodo, developer Breno MacMasi said the unlocking process involved modifying the phone's SIM hardware so the International Mobile Subscriber Identity can be overwritten. The procedure allows iPhone 3G users to makes calls with any compatible GSM carrier, not just ones with which Apple has an exclusive agreement. But users of an unlocked phone wouldn't be guaranteed to have 3G-network access, and Apple could potentially wipe out the hack with a software update.

Submission + - Web Apps Get Real: GDocs vs. ThinkFree vs Zoho (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Wednesday July 16, 2008 @01:58PM

CWmike writes: "Web-based productivity suites, once almost a contradiction in terms, have become real challengers to desktop applications. Google Docs, ThinkFree, and Zoho, have all made major improvements in recent months. They're becoming both broader, with more applications, and deeper, with more features and functionality in existing apps. The question is: Are these three applications really ready to take on a desktop-based heavy hitter like Microsoft Office?"

Submission + - Study: 6 IT fields in top 20 recession-proof list (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Tuesday July 15, 2008 @02:56PM

CWmike writes: "Looking to find one of the hottest IT job tracks in today's downward spiraling economy? If you want to stay employed in IT amid the economic uncertainty, look for jobs in software design and development, networking and systems administration, software implementation analysis, testing and quality assurance, database administration and general IT management with cutting-edge mobile IT and Web 2.0 skills."

Submission + - SPAM: NASA spends $12M to keep advanced aircraft apart

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Tuesday July 15, 2008 @12:07PM

coondoggie writes: "NASA this week awarded $12 million worth of research contracts to two companies to study how new aircraft, such as very light jets, super heavy transports, unmanned airplanes, supersonic transports, vertical and short landing and takeoff (V/STOL) aircraft and private space launches, will impact the nation's air traffic control system. Raytheon and Sensis will get $6 million contracts each to simulate, model and develop recommendations for how to best manage the safety, flight characteristics and overall impact these mostly futuristic aircraft will have on United States airspace. Some of these aircraft are of course already having an impact on current air traffic systems. [spam URL stripped]"
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