notea42 - Slashdot User

Comment No robots here. (Score 1) 286

by notea42 on Tuesday February 16, 2010 @06:04PM (#31160948) Attached to: Robots To Clear the Baltic Seafloor of WW-II Mines

This would be a lot more interesting if it was actual autonomous vehicles. The article makes this sound like the same old human-labor intensive process, just by a tethered remote vehicle. It seems like a well designed set of robots would be capable of finding, identifying, and destroying the mines with minimal supervision. You could run a mothership to supply power and fresh explosives. A bit of effort could clean up ALL the mines in the area, not just the few that happen to be in the way of this particular pipeline.

Comment Re:Sad, but predictable (Score 1) 540

by notea42 on Thursday December 06, 2007 @02:56PM (#21600813) Attached to: House Bill Won't Criminalize Free Wi-Fi Operators

Agree. The "who learns about the transmission or storage of information about certain illegal activities or an illegal image " part is critical. It doesn't say you have to screen everything that passes through your Wi-fi connection, just that you are obligated to report such a crime if you should happen to spot it.

Submission + - Anisotropic Filtering and Antialiasing Explained

Submitted by

mikemuch

on Wednesday May 30, 2007 @10:18AM

mikemuch writes: "In case you're not up on the techniques that make today's games look smooth and sharp, Jason Cross at ExtremeTech has written a guide to the various flavors of antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. He touches on what current graphics hardware is capable of in these realms and shows "real-life" examples of the techniques in action in current game titles."

Take Two's New Chairman Reassures Investors 12

Posted by Zonk on Monday April 02, 2007 @03:01PM from the calming-the-masses dept.

Via Gamasutra, an article at TheStreet.com talking with the interim CEO of Take Two Interactive. In the wake of the chaos of the board overthrow, Strauss Zelnick is taking pains to reassure investors that stability and security are now the company's goals. He also pointed out that his position as CEO is a short-term situation: "Before we seek to fill the CEO slot we want to stabilize morale, develop our strategy and improve the structure of the company... So, I don't think we will have a new CEO right away but I would guess we have someone in the chair permanently within the next 12 months."

Submission + - Citibank to Offer Obopay Mobile Payments

Submitted by

Chris Blake

on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @12:16PM

Chris Blake writes: "Citi and Obopay to Pilot Innovative Mobile Person-to-Person Payment Service New York — February 28, 2007 — Citi today announced that an agreement has been reached with Obopay, Inc. to pilot an innovative, real-time Person-to-Person mobile payments service later this year. The service will be offered to new and existing Citi credit and debit card customers. Further details, including cities for the consumer pilot, are to be confirmed and announced at a later time. The new Citi-Obopay Mobile Person-to-Person service will allow pilot participants to easily and securely send and receive money instantly via any mobile phone. Participants will be able to remotely track and manage their mobile payment accounts by checking balances, viewing payment histories, and adding funds directly from their mobile phone. Funds received via the Citi-Obopay Mobile Person-to-Person service can also be accessed with a debit card provided with the service. "Citi's commitment is to put clients first. We are working with Obopay on this pilot to continue to meet our customers' needs to access their money the way many increasingly prefer — through their mobile phones — in a fast, convenient, and secure manner," said Amy Radin, Chief Innovation Officer, Global Consumer Group, Citi. "Together, Citi and Obopay are making it easier for consumers to instantly send, spend and get cash when it's needed most," said Obopay CEO Carol L. Realini. "We're proud to be working with Citi to offer their customers a convenient and secure mobile payments solution that supports their mobile lifestyle." About Citi Citi, the leading global financial services company, has some 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 100 countries, providing consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, and wealth management. Major brand names under the trademark red arc include: Citibank, CitiFinancial, Primerica, Citi Smith Barney and Banamex. Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com or www.citi.com. About Obopay Obopay has delivered the first comprehensive mobile payment and social money services in the U.S. The services are enjoying rapid growth among active, on-the-go consumers who want to easily and instantly get, send, spend and track money directly via any mobile phone, anywhere, anytime. Obopay was founded in 2005 and is based in Redwood City, Calif. For more information, please visit www.obopay.com. # # #"

Online Storage 2.0: Six Sites Reviewed 142

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @12:03PM from the who-needs-hard-drives dept.

mikemuch writes "Services like box.net, openomy, and eSnips are more than just places to access your files from the web. Some include media organization tools, Windows shell integration, drag-and-drop uploading, tagging, and social content sharing. ExtremeTech has a review up of six online storage services with Web 2.0 twists."

Submission + - Asus EcoBook -- Bamboo laptop

Submitted by on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @11:46AM

An anonymous reader writes: CNET.co.uk has a photo story of a bamboo laptop created by Asus. The Asus Ecobook looks a lot like a MacBook Pro, but is made of real bamboo. The wood above each of its ports is engraved, the keys on the keyboard are designed to mimic the look of bamboo joints, and best of all it's biodegradeable.

A Myspace Lockdown - Is It Possible? 180

Posted by Cliff on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @11:44AM from the separate-your-workers-from-distractions dept.

Raxxon asks: "We (my business partner and I) were asked by a local company to help 'tighten up' their security. After looking at a few things we ran some options by the owner and he asked that we attempt to block access to MySpace. He cited reasons of wasted work time as well as some of the nightmare stories about spyware/viruses/etc. Work began and the more I dig into the subject the worse things look. You can block the 19 or 20 Class C Address Blocks that MySpace has, but then you get into problems of sites like "MySpace Bypass" and other such sites that allow you to bypass most of the filtering that's done. Other than becoming rather invasive (like installing Squid with customized screening setups) is there a way to effectively block MySpace from being accessed at a business? What about at home for those who would like to keep their kids off of it? If a dedicated web cache/proxy system is needed how do you prevent things like SSL enabled Proxy sites (denying MySpace but allowing any potentially 'legal' aspects)? In the end is it worth it compared to just adopting an Acceptable Use Policy that states that going to MySpace can lead to eventual dismissal from your job?"

Submission + - Merrill Lynch: 30% of U.S. Households to Own Wii b

Submitted by

njkid1

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:56AM

njkid1 writes: "According to a report in the Financial Times, the Wii's sales momentum is so strong that some analysts have upgraded their long-term outlooks for the console. Nintendo's new console just came off a very strong performance in January, easily selling more consoles than either the Xbox 360 or Sony's PS3. http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=1530 9&ncid=AOLGAM000500000000022"

Submission + - ESR gives up on Fedora

Submitted by

greginnj

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:49AM

greginnj writes: "Noted Linux evangelist Eric S. Raymond (ESR) has publicly announced that he is giving up on Fedora and switching to Ubuntu: http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2 007-February/msg01006.html Not content to alert RedHat alone, it appears he has also sent out press releases to alert the media: http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/02/21/13402 37 . The announcement has already drawn smackbacks from David Cantrell of RedHat and Alan Cox."

Submission + - Millions Carry a Torch for the Burning Crusade

Submitted by

njkid1

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:45AM

njkid1 writes: "The massively multiplayer juggernaut from Blizzard recently extended its domination of the MMO space with its first expansion, Burning Crusade. The game immediately became the fastest selling PC title in North America upon its release. We take a look at why it's burning up the charts. http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/toppers/?id=1530 7&ncid=AOLGAM000500000000022"

Submission + - MS dirty tricks archive trickles back to life

Submitted by networkBoy on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:44AM

networkBoy writes: The register is carrying a blurb about the dirty tricks of microsoft archive going off-line, and being pulled from archive.org. It appears that several individuals have the pieces to the puzzle and are looking for hosting sources. Maybe the /. community can help here? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/21/microsoft_ archive_not_lost/

The 3,000 document archive from the Comes antitrust trial, which disappeared from the web abruptly when Microsoft settled the case last week, is beginning to trickle back into view. A week ago the site was placed under password protection, Microsoft withdrew its own account of events, and so-called internet "archive" archive.org apparently also pulled its mirror.

Submission + - What is the cost of using hosted applications?

Submitted by foniksonik on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:39AM

foniksonik writes: I work at a small company, less than 30 people, and yet the leadership refuses to consider using hosted applications for ANY purpose. They won't consider going to Gmail as a POP email provider, or using Basecamp for Project Management or Harvest for timesheets, Salesforce for CRM. etc. even though these hosted applications would save them a lot of effort/grief as well as time = money.

They claim that there is a huge downside to not 'owning' their own data in these areas and that it far outweighs the savings from not having to manage, maintain and support those tools internally. SO we have created a hodgepodge of opensource versions of the tools (dotProject, timesheet, Sugar) which don't interoperate well together either AND take a lot of time to set up, deploy, configure and customize for our needs. We have competent developers and a team in India we contract to for time intensive troubeshooting... but he time they spend on these apps takes away from time they could be devoting to PAID projects.

What do you think Slashdot? Are hosted apps a money loser, does not having ultimate control of your operational business data (as opposed to your code or other proprietary data) keep you from considering them as a time = money saver? If your company has already made the leap to hosted apps for business use, what are your experiences — good and bad?

Building the Interplanetary Internet 334

Posted by kdawson on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:33AM from the ping-and-wait dept.

sighted writes "Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, now a Google VP, is leading a NASA effort to create a permanent network link to Mars within the next two years. As Cerf outlined in a recent talk, the 'InterPlaNet' protocol is designed to handle the delay caused by interplanetary distances. A signal traveling between the Earth and Mars can take up to 20 minutes."

Submission + - Junk Faxes

Submitted by olddoc on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:31AM

olddoc writes: I am having a growing problem with junk faxes. Unlike email, it costs me money when I get a fax so junk faxes really tick me off. A while ago, I gave my number to a removal number and now I am getting more junk faxes than ever! Does anyone know how to make them pay? What devious methods can I use to get even? Can I sign up for a phone number that will drive up their costs when I call the toll free removal number? What have other readers done?

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