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Comment Re:I don't really get it. (Score 1) 213

by martinmarv (#30326426) Attached to: A Look At the Safety of Google Public DNS

My ISP (o2 broadband in the UK) has a particularly bad set of DNS servers that regularly seem to error. Somehow, resetting the router helps, but I think that's because it just gets forwarded to a different pair of o2's DNS servers.

As a result of this, I've switched to OpenDNS, which hasn't errored at all, so far (about 6 months). However, I'm probably going to try Google's offering because I'd prefer to get a NULL response than a search page if I hit an unresolvable URI.
Hardware Hacking

MacBook Mod Gives Base Station Chassis New Purpose 129

Posted by timothy from the hyper-extension dept.
odysseus31173 writes "A little over a year ago, I began developing for the iPhone and needed a working mac (not a Hackintosh), so I decided to purchase a MacBook logic board to save on cost. I modded a Linksys case to accept the logic board (along with all of the other hardware) and made it function again. The Mac currently runs Leopard and has a working iSight and mic along with fully functional WiFi and bluetooth. The RAM is the standard 1 gig, but the hard drive has been upgraded to 160 gigs. The iSight/mic holes in the front panel are hard to see and this could be used as a nanny cam of sorts."
Input Devices

Multi-Button OpenOfficeMouse At OOoCon 2009 265

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the flying-in-the-face-of-simple-design dept.
An anonymous reader writes "WarMouse has announced their new multi-button OpenOfficeMouse for OpenOffice.org at the 2009 OOoCon in Orvieto, Italy. The mouse, which features 18 buttons, a scroll wheel, and an analog joystick, has double-click functionality on every button and stores up to 63 application and game profiles in its 512k of flash memory. The OpenOfficeMouse runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X; its customization software will be released as free and open source software." We couldn't decide if this was a protest against Apple's new magic mouse, an elaborate practical joke, or just plain insanity run amok. In any case, it is hard to imagine a world in which so many tiny buttons on a mouse make sense.
Handhelds

Amazon Hobbles Features For International Kindle 166

Posted by timothy from the someone-call-me-when-the-sinister-starts dept.
Barence writes "Amazon has stripped several key features out of the international edition of the Kindle, PC Pro has discovered. Newspapers and magazines are delivered without any photos, and the web browser has been disabled, presumably because Amazon doesn't want to foot the data bill. There's also a 40% premium on books bought via the Amazon store. 'International customers do pay a higher price for their books than US customers due to higher operating costs outside of the US,' an Amazon spokesperson confessed."
Upgrades

Some Users Say Win7 Wants To Remove iTunes, Google Toolbar 570

Posted by timothy from the you-choose-the-teapot-you-choose-the-tempest dept.
Foofoobar writes "Due to a strike with the UK's postal system, people in Great Britain are getting copies of Windows 7 early and have already posted their experiences about the install process. Some have an easy time but others post installs taking 3 hours including Windows asking them to remove iTunes and Google toolbar prior to installation." The article indicates that many of these early users, though, are having better luck.
Space

Giant Ribbon Discovered At Edge of Solar System 251

Posted by kdawson from the gift-wrapped dept.
beadwindow writes "NASA's IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) spacecraft has made the first all-sky maps of the heliosphere and the results have taken researchers by surprise. The maps are bisected by a bright, winding ribbon of unknown origin: 'This is a shocking new result,' says IBEX principal investigator Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute. 'We had no idea this ribbon existed — or what has created it. Our previous ideas about the outer heliosphere are going to have to be revised.' Another NASA scientist notes, '"This ribbon winds between the two Voyager spacecraft and was not observed by either of them.'"
Science

First Black Hole For Light Created On Earth 244

Posted by CmdrTaco from the better-wear-a-hard-hat dept.
An anonymous reader writes "An electromagnetic 'black hole' that sucks in surrounding light has been built for the first time. The device, which works at microwave frequencies, may soon be extended to trap visible light, leading to an entirely new way of harvesting solar energy to generate electricity. A theoretical design for a table-top black hole to trap light was proposed in a paper published earlier this year by Evgenii Narimanov and Alexander Kildishev of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Their idea was to mimic the properties of a cosmological black hole, whose intense gravity bends the surrounding space-time, causing any nearby matter or radiation to follow the warped space-time and spiral inwards."

Comment Re:Please note that this is C++ only (Score 1) 433

by martinmarv (#29638429) Attached to: "Side By Side Assemblies" Bring DLL Hell 2.0

That's a separate thing entirely. Of course applications built against version "A" of the .NET framework won't run on a machine that doesn't have version "A".

OK, I could be clearer here. There may be .NET assemblies that use Interop to call unmanaged C++ assemblies that could potentially rely on some of the DLLs reference in the article.
However, assemblies that do not rely on C++ DLLs will be fine.

New Zealander Invents Segway Alternative 282

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the looks-like-potential-bruises-to-me dept.
RainbowBrite writes "The YikeBike is the invention of a New Zealander aiming to alleviate city congestion. 'It might look like a collision between a praying mantis and a child's scooter, but it's the result of five years of work to reinvent the wheel, with one important addition: an electric motor. It's a bicycle, but not as we have come to know it. For a start, you sit upright and steer with your hands at your side.'" The YikeBike weighs in at a measly 22 lbs but has a hefty price tag of almost $5,000 US (£3,000). The battery's expected lifespan is only 1,000 charges, but the device has a projected range of around six miles.
PlayStation (Games)

Sony Announces PS3 Slim, Price Cut, Improvements To Home 427

Posted by Soulskill from the worst-kept-secret dept.
Sony's press conference today at the Gamescom convention was full of announcements. They officially revealed the PS3 Slim, which will be 36% lighter and 33% smaller than the normal PS3. It will come with a 120 GB hard drive and list for $299 when it hits retail stores in early September. Normal PS3s will drop to that price as well starting tomorrow. (Unfortunately for Sony, their unveiling was spoiled a bit by several retailers jumping the gun on new advertisements, not to mention the rumors that had been swirling for weeks ahead of time.) Sony also announced a PS3 firmware update as well as new features and customization options for Home. In addition to that, the PS3 and PSP will be getting a digital reader service. At launch it will bring access to Marvel comic books, and will expand from there. They didn't talk much about their upcoming motion control scheme, but promised more details next month at the Tokyo Game Show.
Communications

Wi-Fi Allergy a PR Stunt 174

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the hope-he-made-his-buck dept.
ADiamond writes "There is no Wi-Fi allergy. The English DJ claiming a Wi-Fi sensitivity, chronicled earlier, was a PR stunt to promote his new album. It would appear that the stunt was highly successful, appearing in multiple high-profile media outlets like The Sun, The Telegraph, and Fox News. The article at Ars goes on to discuss the evidence, or lack-thereof, of electromagnetic spectrum sensitivity."
Biotech

Human Sperm Produced In the Laboratory 368

Posted by timothy from the that's-not-starting-from-scratch dept.
duh P3rf3ss3r writes "The BBC is carrying a report from a team of researchers at Newcastle University who claim to have developed a the first 'artificial' human sperm from stem cells. The research, reported in the journal Stem Cells and Development, involved selecting meristematic germ cells from a human embryonic stem cell culture and inducing meiosis, thus producing a haploid gamete. The authors claim that the resulting sperm are fully formed, mature, human sperm cells but the announcement has been greeted with mixed reaction from colleagues who claim the procedure is ethically questionable and that the gametes produced are of inferior levels of maturation."

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