Comment Re:You should actually watch this talk ... (Score 1) 397
WARNING: Silverlight video
Comment Re:stating the obvious... (Score 1) 440
You must have kids.
Submission + - Netflix invests hugely in on-demand content
Alan426 writes: The New York Times reports that Netflix has entered a deal worth about $900 million over five years to acquire the online distribution rights for new releases from three major Hollywood studios.
The Epix deal will add new releases like "Iron Man" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" to Netflix's catalog, greatly enhancing the streaming service that the company markets to subscribers as part of an $8.99 package that also includes DVD deliveries. It was the second film deal for Netflix this summer, coming a month after a pact with Relativity Media, the firm run by Ryan Kavanaugh.
All the more reason for
Comment Re:Mass Panic? (Score 3, Funny) 136
AT&T will charge $9.95 a month if you want to receive toxic gas warnings.
Comment Dollar value for open source assets (Score 1) 128
Another way to look at this move is that open source projects have a significant dollar value, if for no other reason that the project may compete for market share with other products. One could certainly see the strategic benefit of supporting a "hard to kill" project to compete with a market leader. Now, we have an example of such a project becoming an acquisition target.
This is no different than a company which buys out their competitor for the purpose of "integrating" (e.g., shutting down) a competing product line. Luckily, unlike proprietary solutions, this project will fork back to the community and live on, albeit without Sun's corporate backing.
The 1-Second Linux Boot 156
An anonymous reader writes "Less than one second Linux boot! This video shows an OMAP3530 capturing video data from a camera and rendering it to an LCD display — the video appears on the LCD display in less than a second from reset."
Comment Re:Done that.. (Score 1) 532
That seriously happened to me. Every time I look at that (unchanged after one year) website, I remember examples of undocumented hacks in there that made a nice proof of concept but were *never* intended for the production system. I feel a little bad at first, but then I remember why I left that job -- and chuckle.
Comment Newsflash: Linux users install fonts, too! (Score 2, Insightful) 252
What about everyone who installs msttcorefonts for compatibility? Not to mention all the other random fonts you have to accumulate to open documents?
Comment Former Best Buy tech ... (Score 1) 504
I used to run an in-store tech department, back in the day when we wore black shirts and were "Techs" not "Geeks." I never had a moment's pause about selling my customer a $9.99 set-up service or $29.99 optimization. We gave a good service for the money, and spent quite a bit of time helping the customer learn a bit about their new computer. Which, for them, was a very big deal.
The customer was paying for 10 minutes of my time -- and the 15+ years of experience that let me do a job in 10 minutes that would have taken them four hours of reading directions and waiting on hold.
The biggest mistake is assuming a service isn't worth good money to the general public just because it's easy and fun for you.
The customer was paying for 10 minutes of my time -- and the 15+ years of experience that let me do a job in 10 minutes that would have taken them four hours of reading directions and waiting on hold.
The biggest mistake is assuming a service isn't worth good money to the general public just because it's easy and fun for you.
Comment Re:HP (Score 2, Informative) 430
Which is far better than huge, bloated printer drivers that constantly *need* updating (cough ... Canon!).
Comment Re:Both game developers and artists need money (Score 1) 325
So do strippers
Samsung Enters Smartphone Wars With Bada OS 175
MojoKid writes "Samsung is betting there's room for more in the smartphone market and has unveiled its new bada OS. The name 'bada,' means 'ocean' in Korean and was chosen to convey the 'limitless variety of potential applications which can be created using the new platform.' Samsung claims the OS is extremely simple for developers, saying that bada was built to be extremely interactive with its users — including flash control, motion sensing, fine-tuned vibration control and face detection. Samsung is hoping developers will take this user interface and create a variety of applications focused around it, and thus provide different types of apps than exist for the iPhone and Android OS. The bada OS has a variety of sensors, including accelerometers, tilt, weather, proximity and activity. Samsung will be hosting a series of Developer Days in Seoul, London and San Francisco, among other cities, throughout 2010."
NASA Tests Flying Airbag
118
coondoggie writes "NASA is looking to reduce the deadly impact of helicopter crashes on their pilots and passengers with what the agency calls a high-tech honeycomb airbag known as a deployable energy absorber. So in order to test out its technology NASA dropped a small helicopter from a height of 35 feet to see whether its deployable energy absorber, made up of an expandable honeycomb cushion, could handle the stress. The test crash hit the ground at about 54MPH at a 33 degree angle, what NASA called a relatively severe helicopter crash."
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."
Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child
331
Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."
