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Comment Re:Seems Unlikely (Score 1) 278

Enter WebGL, recently released as a draft spec by Kronos Group, the people who maintain the OpenGL standard; that problem is close to being solved as well. The only remaining question is whether device vendors will provide web browsers running on their platforms access to OS and hardware APIs on par with the native SDKs.

Comment 4G LTE Networks To The Rescue (Score 4, Interesting) 322

One of the stipulations that Google managed to have placed in the FCC license for commercial 4G LTE spectrum is open device access, which is absent in current wireless spectrum licenses. They did this by getting approval for a clause that if a certain minimum bid for the spectrum was met, that that open device access rule would go into effect, then they bid that amount, and then proceeded to let Verizon outbid them, ensuring that clause would go into effect. Carriers may have been able to get away with this type of draconian control over their networks in the past, but it seems that's coming to an end with the shift to 4G LTE already underway. With this open device access regulation, actual user-accessible open source handsets may finally be able to see widespread use.

Open Source

Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195

diegocg writes "Linus Torvalds has officially released the version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. New features include virtualization memory de-duplication, a rewrite of the writeback code faster and more scalable, many important Btrfs improvements and speedups, ATI R600/R700 3D and KMS support and other graphic improvements, a CFQ low latency mode, tracing improvements including a 'perf timechart' tool that tries to be a better bootchart, soft limits in the memory controller, support for the S+Core architecture, support for Intel Moorestown and its new firmware interface, run-time power management support, and many other improvements and new drivers. See the full changelog for more details."
Image

Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight 140

Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."

Comment Re: Why implants? (Score 1) 314

Personally, I predict that pre-speech recognition will be about as far as most people will be comfortable interfacing with their brains; at least you can somewhat control your pre-speech. Direct and comprehensive neural activity scanning raises much more privacy concerns, as much of it is involuntary, and it can yield much more personal information than semi-controlled (with training) pre-speech.

Comment Re:Wow. (Score 1) 881

The problem with what you're saying is that faith is diametrically opposed to the scientific method. "Faith" is simply incompatible with building a world view on solid foundations that all people can be made to agree on, and in the end, simply represents submitting your will to another person who themselves have no objective basis for their faith, or even worse, who abuse faith in others to accomplish their financial or political goals. As such, faith inevitably leads to divisiveness as people choose to place their faith in competing ideologies with no way to see eye-to-eye, as there is no logical progression that leads to their positions, simply large leaps of faith that are made purely for social reasons. As someone who respects critical thought and rationalism, I simply find it impossible to trust the judgment of a person who is capable of placing their faith in ideas without objective support. The ideal for me is that everything, every scrap of information we're fed, should be questioned and challenged, and that the value of any given idea is defined by the objective support behind it. Ideology without support is without any value to me. It frustrates me that people try to build complex social systems on flimsy, indefensible foundations, and I often wish we would simply discard all of this obsolete cultural baggage and re-factor localized social fabric on a more simple and humble foundation that most non-sociopaths could actually agree on.

I'm done ranting, for now, but my point is that you can't pick and choose when to be rational AND keep my respect. If you can't be made to see the unsupported and untrustworthy nature of most religious mythology, then you have too many blind spots to be trusted as a rational person. That doesn't make you a bad person, or someone I would necessarily strive to avoid, it simply makes you naive and irrational. I don't deny that religion can be useful in giving comfort and happiness, but if it comes at the expense of your ability to reason, then that's too high of a price to pay as far as I'm concerned.

Government

Metadata In Arizona Public Records Can't Be Withheld 103

jasonbuechler writes in with news of the first state to declare that metadata is part of public records and must be released when the records are. "Hidden data embedded in electronic public records must be disclosed under Arizona's public records law, the state Supreme Court said Thursday... The Supreme Court's unanimous decision, which overturned lower court rulings, is believed to be the first by a state supreme court on whether a public records law applies to so-called metadata. 'This is at the cutting edge — it's the law trying to catch up with technology,' [one lawyer said]. The Arizona ruling came in a case involving a demoted Phoenix police officer's request for data embedded in notes written by a supervisor. The officer got a printed copy but said he wanted the metadata to see whether the supervisor backdated the notes to before the demotion."

Comment Re:Disney sells product that solves Disney's probl (Score 1) 498

Software is not the same as movie and music content. The consumer expects the music and movies they buy to be playable on a wide variety of devices for the foreseeable future, and to be able to lend it to a friend or family member. Someone buying software expects it to work on a particular computer OS version or console platform, often tied to a serial number or service account that can only be used by a single person at any given time, and they expect that it will cease to function within a few years. It's dangerous to compare distribution schemes for these two widely divergent content markets.

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