AugustZephyr - Slashdot User

Submission + - Google Answer Successors?

Submitted by

j.leidner

on Monday April 23, 2007 @06:36PM

j.leidner writes: "ince the popular Google Answers service was shut down, a host of similar services aiming at answering user questions — either automatically or using `crowd wisdom' techniques, i.e. human volunteers — have emerged.

Contenders include Answers.com (and their recent acquisition BrainBoost), AskAlexia, Amazon AskVille Lexxe, Lycos iQ, MasterAnswer.com, Microsoft's Live QnA, Wondir, and Yahoo! Answers.

I wonder which sites are the favourites among ./ readers?"

Submission + - Google's name is worth more than $66 billion

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 23, 2007 @05:51PM

An anonymous reader writes: How much is a company worth that is rolling in dough, making more than a $1 billion a quarter in profits? In Google's case it is currently almost $150 billion — with the brand of the company being estimated to be worth more than $66 billion. Google's brand value has now surpassed everything in its way and is considered to be the most valuable brand out there. Kinda impressive, if I remind myself that the company was founded based on the idea for a search engine that pretty much contradicted every marketing concept when it went online less than 10 years ago.

Submission + - Free unprotected MP3 features Fergie

Submitted by

JGMedia

on Friday April 13, 2007 @04:50PM

JGMedia writes: "This will be another great experiment for the anti-DRM movement. A new artist, Golden, is releasing a free MP3 that features Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. Jun Group is distributing over P2P networks, and you can get it on the Web here: http://stretchtheskies.com/golden.htm"

Submission + - Stay in Sync with Google Calendar and Thunderbird

Submitted by

Rockster

on Friday April 13, 2007 @04:48PM

Rockster writes: "Just tried it, and it works. Finally a calendaring solution for Thunderbird users!"

Submission + - Google humor

Submitted by

raydias

on Friday April 13, 2007 @03:03PM

raydias writes: "Just another sign that the Googleplex is a fun place to work. Check out the 23rd leg of the route.

Directions from New York to London Fun times"

Feed Japan drafts their own version of robot ethics (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed on Friday April 06, 2007 @08:52AM

Filed under: Robots

While it did our carbon-based souls some good to see Europe and S.Korea drafting ethical robot legislation, we couldn't help but notice that Japan -- the true robotic superpower -- was mysteriously absent from the discussion table. No more! Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has drafted what has been called a "hugely complex set of proposals" to keep the robots from turning us all into a matrix of clean-shaven electrical batteries. The 60-pages of "civil service jargon" are said to go far beyond Asimov's original three laws of robotics. Under Japan's plan, all robots would be required to report back to a central database any and all injuries they cause to the people they are meant to be helping or protecting. The draft is currently open to public comment with a final set of principles set to be unveiled as early as May. Fine, but shouldn't we have a unified set of principles governing all robots, regardless of their country of manufacture?

[Via Impress]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Submission + - Geek will soon be in space

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 06, 2007 @08:23AM

An anonymous reader writes: The BBC is reporting that today will see blast-off of a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying Dr. Charles Simonyi, the 450th person and — in his own words — the "first nerd in space". Dr. Simonyi, now a billionaire, once led development of Microsoft Word as his day job. He has spent the past six months training for his $20m trip. During his ten days in orbit, he will perform some measurements of radiation levels within the station, and update his website (charlesinspace.com). His trip was organized by Space Adventures, in case anyone else is interested.

Submission + - Measurable climate change

Submitted by polar red on Friday April 06, 2007 @06:54AM

polar red writes: While the new http://www.ipcc.ch/IPCC-report is being published, even after changes being made to the original text by world leaders, the final text concludes among other things that poor people will be hit hardest and that actual climate change is measured, it is no longer only from models that we learn that climate change is possible. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6532323. stm

Submission + - The First Newspaper on the Web Updated... Finally

Submitted by

zozer

on Friday April 06, 2007 @03:48AM

zozer writes: "The MIT Tech, the first newspaper to publish its content the web, has undergone its first substantial website redesign since the site launched in 1993. While the site layout is based on an open source, commercial design, the scripts running on the backend have been custom built to interact seamlessly with commercial content management systems. All in all, quite a feat for a couple of kids who rarely sleep already."

Submission + - UFO Crash in Somalia

Submitted by maekelae on Tuesday March 27, 2007 @03:51PM

maekelae writes: " A baffling device which resembles a satellite or Unidentified Flying Object (U.F.O) has landed in a rural area close to Buulo-Burde town, 220km north of the Somalia capital Mogadishu, eyewitnesses told Shabelle radio on Monday. " Read more at http://somalinet.com/news/world/Somalia/8920

Submission + - Zoo Hopes Porn Will Help Pandas Mate

Submitted by ZOO on Tuesday March 27, 2007 @12:03PM

ZOO writes: Chuang Chuang the panda has been spending his days in front of a big screen television watching panda porn. Authorities at the Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand hope the images will encourage him to mate with his partner, Lin Hui, and serve as an instructional lesson in how to do it right.

Submission + - Stacking Vista Licenses Too High

Submitted by

walterbyrd

on Tuesday March 27, 2007 @10:39AM

walterbyrd writes: "As many Slashdotters suspected, it appears that Microsoft numbers for Vista sales may have been fudged."

Submission + - HowTo: Play movies on your AppleTV sans conversion

Submitted by

brad-x

on Friday March 23, 2007 @01:35PM

brad-x writes: "Since the Apple TV is running MacOS X, it is possible to install arbitrary codecs and have it play. The following instructions save time by not requiring the user to transcode all their movies (and suffer the lossy conversion), but does involve some expertise. Read on for more.

If the story is approved please approve the one using .nyud.net:8080 as I forgot to include that in the first submission. Sorry. :("

Submission + - AppleTV Hacked?

Submitted by

jspayne

on Friday March 23, 2007 @11:22AM

jspayne writes: "It appears some hackers were able to mount the hard drive of an AppleTV and install an Xvid codec. If this is true, it opens up some exciting new possibilities for a product that has gotten some criticism from the high tech crowd."

Submission + - Alcohol and tobacco more dangerous than ecstasy

Submitted by GBC on Friday March 23, 2007 @09:49AM

GBC writes: The Lancet [lancet.com — free registration required] has published an article about a rational system for drug classification in the UK.

The article claims that "In the UK, the total burden of drug misuse, in terms of health, social, and crime-related costs, has been estimated to be between £10 billion and £16 billion per year."

It proposes that drugs should be classified by the amount of harm they do, rather than "A", "B", and "C" divisions in the UK Misuse of Drugs Act. The three main factors that determine the harm associated with any drug of potential abuse are: physical harm to the individual user caused by the drug; tendency of the drug to induce dependence and addiction; and effect of drug use on families, communities, and society. Each of these factors is further broken down into three sections.

Based on assessments from independent experts and specialist addiction psychiatrists, drugs were then ranked according to these nine parameters. Alcohol and tobacco are considered alongside other drugs in the rankings.

Of the twenty substances examined, alcohol was ranked fifth most harmful (behind heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and street methodone) and tobacco came in ninth (behind ketamine, benzodiazepines and amphetamine).

4-MTA, LSD and Ecstasy (all considered "Class A" drugs under the Act) all ranked lower than alcohol and tobacco. From the article: "Overall there was a surprisingly poor correlation between drugs' class according to the Misuse of Drugs Act and harm score."

As someone who supports an end to the "War on Drugs", it would be nice if this article leads to a more rational examination of drug policy both here in the UK and abroad; I am not holding my breath though.

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