Comment Windows, Inc. (Score 1) 378
That logo looks rather bland. Might as well change the name of the company to Windows.
Comment Willing to pay (Score 1) 135
The problem with trying to use another service is that pretty much everyone does the same thing to different degrees. What if I where a hypothetical social network bloke who was willing to pay actual money to avoid that ads and info selling. I know Slashdot has such an offer. But what about Google, or Facebook. If I, as Joe Facebook, was to put my money where my mouth is, where would I even go to pay. How much would it cost per month, $5, $10, $50? How many people like that would it take to make it worthwhile?
Comment Robocop/Terminator Vision (Score 3, Insightful) 126
Yes I know it's all fiction and all that, but I always seem to imagine the whole "Robocop/Terminator" vision thing as taking place inside their brain rather than on the surface of their eyes. Something like video gen-lock that takes the video feed and overlays text on top, bypassing the whole focusing issue. I remember trying to visualize what how that would work in a pair of glasses, so I put my cellphone right up to my eye while trying to keep the screen in focus. I could, sort of painfully. Then I also realized that I would need to focus on the everything else. I would have to focus on something very close and far away, at the same time. I would like to know how they accomplished this.
Can Relativity Explain Faster Than Light Particles? 315
gbrumfiel writes "Two weeks ago, researchers claimed particles called neutrinos were travelling faster-than-light and violating the laws of special relativity. But now it looks as though general relativity might be behind the experiment's unusual result. An independent analysis claims that the original experiment, known as OPERA, failed to take into account differences in earth's gravitational field between the neutrino source and the OPERA detector. As Nature News reports, gravity can distort time according to Einstein's theory, and the effect could explain why neutrinos appear to arrive 60 nanoseconds ahead of schedule. The OPERA team is now reviewing the new analysis."
Comment Re:Apple did this once already (Score 1) 313
They did it several times before. There were a whole series of Macs with built-in TV and the early PowerPC era.
Comment Re:No Free Hands (Score 1) 123
I admit the speedpad is a bit janky, especially the thumbwheel, which I have mapped to zooming in and out. But for how I use it its not too bad. I can imagine if you are using it for an FPS or an RPG you would want it to deal with rapid and precise key presses. For me, as long I press a key and it works I'm good. With that said, I would don't mind a smother thumbwheel and a trackpad for panning images.
Comment No Free Hands (Score 2) 123
I considered getting something like this for my digital art setup. Right now i have an old tabletpc with a nostromo speedpad 51n. In my right hand holds a stylus and my left is on the speedpad. The idea is that I never have to touch the toolbar or the menu with the hand that i draw with. It's very liberating to switch from paintbrush to eraser and to zoom in and out without doing all kinds of keyboard combos. The only problem is that you can't modify color in Photoshop, but you can with GIMP.
Comment Hacking possibilities (Score 1) 330
A few years ago I bought myself a Wiimote just to play around with after watching Johnny Chaung Lee's demos. The Wiimote packed a lot of tech in a small space and I found it finding new and interesting uses for it. This new controller got me wondering about all of the cool ways this could be used on a PC. I mean forget an iPad (yes I know it's not the same), but if I could play PC games, or emulators, or what ever else with this I want it. Sure I might be more expensive than a Wiimote, but I;m guessing it'll be much cheaper than most tablets.
Comment Multi-monitor support (Score 1) 330
I must say I find it interesting, but if it were possible to put that new interface on a second smaller touch screen that would be even better.
Purdue Claims World Record Goldberg Machine
79
With 244 steps The Time Machine, built by by members of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, took first place and broke a world record at the 24th Annual National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. From the article: "It starts with the Big Bang, re-creates the extinction of the dinosaurs, holds a jousting competition, flips over an album, and simulates World War II, a shuttle launch, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and even the alleged apocalypse in 2012. In its precisely executed review of history, 'The Time Machine,' a Rube Goldberg contraption built by members of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, incorporates a record-breaking 244 steps—all to water a single flower."
DARPA's New Hi-Tech Telescope 89
coondoggie writes "You can bet that if there are little red aliens running around on Mars, or spaceships patrolling other planets in our solar system for that matter, a recently powered-up telescope built by researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency might just be able to see them. The Air Force, which operates the DARPA-developed Space Surveillance Telescope says the telescope's design, featuring unique image-capturing technology known as a curved charge coupled device system, as well as very wide field-of-view, large-aperture optics, doesn't require the long optics train of a more traditional telescopes."
'Anonymous' Plans Sony Boycott On April 16 260
Here's an excerpt from PCMag:
"Say you're a hacker trying to cripple a major electronics company for suing its own users: how do you launch a cyberattack without harming the people you're trying to protect? In the case of hactivist group 'Anonymous,' which has spent the week targeting Sony to retaliate against Sony's ongoing lawsuits against PlayStation 3 modifiers, you take it offline.
Anonymous is staging a 24-hour, in-store boycott at Sony stores around the world on Saturday, April 16. So far over 1,000 people have RSVP'd through Facebook."
Minecraft To Officially Launch 11/11/11 235
tekgoblin writes "Minecraft has currently sold about 2 million copies and it's still only in beta. However, the developers have just announced that the game will officially launch on 11/11/11. The date 11/11/11 was actually chosen because it falls on the same date as other various game releases, the most notable being Skyrim."
Comment Videogame peripherals (Score 1) 70
The thing that I find cool about modern video gtame peripherals is that they seem more standardized than in the past (with the exception of the Sega Genesis/Atari 2600
controllers.) They either use USB or Bluetooth, and to the 360's credit you can still use its proprietary wireless pad on a PC.
Software Evolution Storylines, Inspired By XKCD 136
jamie tips this mind-blowing data visualization concept from (naturally) data visualization researcher Michael Ogawa, who explains that it was inspired by "this XKCD comic. It represents characters as lines that converge in time as they share scenes. Could this technique be adapted for software developers who work on the same code?"
