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The Internet

BT Fiber Infrastructure Plans 'Fatal' To Competition 100

Posted by samzenpus from the but-do-you-think-it's-a-good-idea? dept.
twoheadedboy writes "BT today revealed it is to start selling its Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) for fiber broadband product to other providers later this month, but the announcement was met with one particularly cold response. Geo Networks, which is helping deliver superfast networks in Wales in partnership with the Welsh Assembly, said it was going to withdraw bidding for Government-provided BDUK funds and in all next-generation access sales. 'Inadequacies of the current PIA product are fatal to infrastructure competition,' he added. 'The Government's stated desire for a competitive market in the provision of new optical fiber infrastructure is at risk of complete failure.'"
Math

End Bonuses For Bankers 548

Posted by samzenpus from the end-of-the-gravy dept.
theodp writes "NYU risk engineering prof Nassim Nicholas Taleb has a suggestion that won't sit too well with the banksters. In his NY Times op-ed, Taleb writes: 'I have a solution for the problem of bankers who take risks that threaten the general public: Eliminate bonuses.' The problem with the bonus system, Taleb explains, is that it provides an incentive to take risks: 'The asymmetric nature of the bonus (an incentive for success without a corresponding disincentive for failure) causes hidden risks to accumulate in the financial system and become a catalyst for disaster. This violates the fundamental rules of capitalism; Adam Smith himself was wary of the effect of limiting liability, a bedrock principle of the modern corporation.'"
Robotics

Robot Walks Like a Human, Requires No Power 195

Posted by Soulskill from the it-will-chase-you-in-your-nightmares dept.
MrSeb writes "Today's groundbreaking entry into the Uncanny Valley is a pair of mechanical, robot legs that are propelled entirely by their own weight: they can walk with a human-like gait without motors or external control. Produced by some researchers at Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan, all the legs require for sustained motion (they walked 100,000 steps, 15km, over 13 hours last year) is a gentle push and a slight downwards slope. They then use same 'principle of falling' that governs human walking, with the transfer of weight (and the slight pull of gravity), pulling the robot into consecutive steps."
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Commodore4eva Defeats Microsofts Xbox360 XGD3 Disc (c4evaspeaks.com)

Submitted by bigtomrodney
bigtomrodney writes: Renowned Xbox360 Hacker Commodore4eva has not only released his typical custom firmware for Xbox360s allowing them to play home-burned DVDs, but has gone one step further. He has now released his iXtreme Burner Max firmware for PC DVD burners to allow burning a total of 8.7GB to standard dual layer blanks. This allows, ahem, backup enthusiasts to make a full copy of the non-standard and larger than usual XGD3 format discs and again defeat the latest round of Microsofts anti-piracy measures.
Iphone

iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Sell Out 327

Posted by timothy from the it-was-a-black-friday dept.
Perhaps to no one's surprise, the just-announced iPhone 4S has been been leaping off the shelves ... in advance of it ever hitting shelves at all. In fact, as reported by numerous sources (here's the WSJ's version), the company's pre-launch inventory has all been sold — and they only started taking the orders on Friday.

Comment Re:Moderation system (Score 3) 763

by bigtomrodney (#37630282) Attached to: Help Shape the Future of Slashdot
I agreed with everything you said, even about the trolls...but you can't be serious about removing members or making the site invite only. The moderation system does a fine job of silencing dumb comments.

The biggest thing to take from this is the old comment system. I really don't know why everything feels so rubbery and unresponsive, I actually did like the graphical side of the site overhaul but the sluggishness kills me. I'd love the old site back for a month.

Comment Re:Moderation system (Score 5, Insightful) 763

by bigtomrodney (#37630234) Attached to: Help Shape the Future of Slashdot
It's certainly not perfect, but I'd agree it's one of the best systems you'll find anywhere on the 'net. Look at the results of the vote systems on Digg and Reddit. Formerly sites that had intelligent contribution that have been brought to the lowest common denominator and worse. You do get a certain type of comment being approved frequently here but it's certainly a better trade-off than endless memes being rewarded while intelligent discussion is relegated to the darkest corners.
Chrome

Google Prepares Fix To Stop SSL/TLS Attacks 122

Posted by samzenpus from the raise-shields dept.
OverTheGeicoE writes "It was reported Tuesday that researchers had found a way to break the most commonly used SSL/TLS encryption in browsers. According to the Register, Google is pushing out a patch to fix the problem. The patch doesn't involve adding support for TLS 1.1 or 1.2. FTFA: 'The change introduced into Chrome would counteract these attacks by splitting a message into fragments to reduce the attacker's control over the plaintext about to be encrypted. By adding unexpected randomness to the process, the new behavior in Chrome is intended to throw BEAST off the scent of the decryption process by feeding it confusing information.' The fix is supposedly in the latest developer version of Chrome."
Operating Systems

HTC Considering Buying Own OS 240

Posted by samzenpus from the you-got-to-feed-it-and-let-it-outside dept.
An anonymous reader writes "HTC Corp chairwoman Cher Wang announced that the company is interested in buying an operating system. From the article: 'After the global PC heavyweight Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) announced on Aug. 18 a plan to spin off its PC business and stop sales of its TouchPad tablet that uses the WebOS operating system, a slew of manufacturers like HTC and Samsung reportedly have been trying to acquire the WebOS platform to expand their mobile market reach. 'We have given it thought and we have discussed it internally, but we will not do it on impulse,' Wang said in an interview with the Economic Observer of China.'"
Chrome

Google Is Grooming Chrome As a Game Platform 127

Posted by timothy from the ok-you'll-need-these-special-dice dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from Conceivably Tech: "On Friday I noticed that Google is heavily pushing New Game, a game developer conference that is focused on HTML5-based gaming content — and, of course, content that runs in web browsers. The fact that such an event already exists and that there is game content being developed in HTML5, is quite stunning by itself. However, Google also noted that a sandboxed native client (NaCl) with 3D (in addition to 2D) will be available in Chrome soon, which will allow the browser to connect to traditional C and C++ code via its integrated Pepper API."

Comment Re:Got a couple winners here (Score 1) 73

by bigtomrodney (#37123612) Attached to: JooJoo Maker Is Back With a New Tablet
I bought a JooJoo. I believe I may have been the last person ever to do so, they announced that it was cancelled the day after they confirmed my order. I guess from a number I saw inside it that it's only number 293 ever produced.

The fact is that it was very disappointing but it wasn't vaporware. I have it beside me here now. There were two problems with it, the price and the operating system. The OS was pretty much what they said it was so that's on me, but it really was a barebones browser. The hardware was actually pretty sweet but the real downside was a lack of decent alternative operating systems, particularly as most Linux distros are aimed at desktops and there isn't exactly a wealth of decent touchscreen tools or applications. For this reason I've barely used it.

Anyway, FusionGarage have contacted everyone that bought a JooJoo and have claimed that they're sending us all a free Grid 10. I'll be waiting to see if it's the 3G model which would be nice. If it really does arrive as they promise I have to say, at least you can't fault them on marketing or on their ability to see past mistakes.

Comment Re:And (Score 1) 233

by bigtomrodney (#37036804) Attached to: $1.5 Billion Star Trek Theme Park Coming To Jordan
The IRA are not a religious organisation, nor do they have any religious affiliation. The convention of referring to nationalists as Catholics is a generalization, as is calling unionists "protestants". If you want to call the IRA religious you'd have to do the same of the UVF. What they both are is scum.
Nintendo

More Nintendo Console Rumors 150

Posted by Soulskill from the no-wii-stream-jokes-allowed dept.
itwbennett writes "Nothing is official and Nintendo isn't talking, but 'industry sources' runneth over with new information about the company's new gaming console. IGN on Thursday said that Nintendo is ditching 'Wii' and will call the new console 'Stream'. And nothing connotes Internet connectivity like the word stream. 'That's an area Nintendo has really been lax on in the past,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'Pure speculation on my part but I just wonder what, if anything, will be streaming to this new console? Video? Gameplay? A strong online multiplayer component?'" Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto has indirectly confirmed that the new console is in development.

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