DannyiMac - Slashdot User

Broadcom Releases Source Code For Drivers 350

Posted by timothy on Thursday September 09 2010, @03:40PM
from the they-sure-get-my-goodwill dept.

I'm Not There (1956) writes "Broadcom, the world's largest manufacturer of Wi-Fi transceivers, open sources its Linux device drivers. This is a big win for Linux users, as there are a lot of users that face Wi-Fi problems when they use Linux on their laptops. With these device drivers now open source, distributions can ship them out-of-the-box, and that means no Linux Wi-Fi problems for new devices and upcoming distributions at all."

Infinite Mario With Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment 103

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday September 08 2010, @03:29AM
from the there's-always-another-castle dept.

bgweber writes "There's been a lot of discussion about whether games should adapt to the skills of players. However, most current techniques limit adaptation to parameter adjustment. But if the parameter adaptation is applied to procedural content generation, then new levels can be generated on-line in response to a player's skill. In this adaptation of Infinite Mario (with source [.JAR]), new levels are generated based on the performance of the player. What other gameplay mechanics are open for adaptation when games adapt to the skills of specific players?"

The Limits To Perpendicular Recording 222

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 03 2010, @05:30PM
from the moore-was-a-piker dept.

peterkern writes "Samsung has a new hard drive and says it can now store 667 GB on one disk, which comes out to be about 739 Gb/sq. in. That is more than five times the density when perpendicular recording was introduced back in 2006, and it is getting close to the generally expected soft limit of 1 Tb/sq. in. It's great that we can now store 2 TB on one hard drive and that 3-TB hard drives are already feasible. But how far can it go? It appears that the hard drive industry may start talking about heat-assisted magnetic recording again, soon."

Comment: Get your school to apply for grants... (Score 1) 170

by DannyiMac on Thursday January 21 2010, @06:31PM (#30852958) Attached to: Affordable and Usable Video Conferencing?

At the university where I work, we got a $100,000 grant from the USDA to upgrade our aging V-tel units to Tandberg systems a few years ago. If you want this done right, you'll need the right equipment, it's just that the equipment costs an arm and a leg and getting free money from the government helps. Also, perhaps going through a videoconferencing underdog like LifeSize could help get you going. I hear LifeSize is trying to get their foot in the door by providing sweet deals that undercut the likes of Cisco, Tandberg, and Polycom. Good luck!

Licensing Dispute Threatens Future of Skype 282

Posted by timothy on Friday July 31 2009, @04:53AM
from the it-puts-the-lotion-on-the-remote-kill-switch dept.

tomlins writes "eBay is faced with the prospect of having to close down the hugely popular VoIP app Skype due to its reliance on proprietary code still owned by Skype's original founders, who are threatening to pull the plug on the licensing agreement they have with eBay."

Transparent Aluminum Is "New State of Matter" 406

Posted by timothy on Tuesday July 28 2009, @01:01PM
from the baseball-bats-will-never-be-the-same dept.

Professor_Quail writes with this interesting excerpt: "Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminum by bombarding the metal with the world's most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminum' previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion."

Why Game Developers Should Shut Up About Used Games 590

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday July 16 2009, @02:02PM
from the not-that-they-will dept.

Ssquared22 writes "It may feel like a rip-off to some, but you've got to admit that paying $30 for Gears of War 2 sure beats paying $60! Game publishers and developers may not like it, but people are going to trade in used games for new games and those old games will be sold back to other people. There's nothing game developers can do to stop them, and companies like Gamestop continue to laugh all the way to the bank. In an article at Crispy Gamer, David Thomas dissects one of the most critical issues in gaming today: used games and merchants (online and brick-and-mortar) who specialize in this 'sleight of hand.'"

New Service Converts Torrents Into PNG Images 297

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday July 15 2009, @09:42AM
from the pretty-useful-pictures dept.

jamie points out that a new web service, hid.im, will encode a torrent into a PNG image file, allowing it to be shared easily through forums or image hosting sites. Quoting TorrentFreak: "We have to admit that the usefulness of the service escaped us when we first discovered the project. So, we contacted Michael Nutt, one of the people running the project to find out what it's all about. 'It is an attempt to make torrents more resilient,' Michael told [us]. 'The difference is that you no longer need an indexing site to host your torrent file. Many forums will allow uploading images but not other types of files.' Hiding a torrent file inside an image is easy enough. Just select a torrent file stored on your local hard drive and Hid.im will take care the rest. The only limit to the service is that the size of the torrent file cannot exceed 250KB. ... People on the receiving end can decode the images and get the original .torrent file through a Firefox extension or bookmarklet. The code is entirely open source and Michael Nutt told us that they are hoping for people to contribute to it by creating additional decoders supported by other browsers."

US Postal Service Moves To GNU/Linux 477

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 14 2009, @07:44PM
from the cobol-package-management dept.

twitter writes "The US Postal Service has moved its Cobol package tracking software to HP machines running GNU/Linux. 1,300 servers handle 40 million transactions a day and cost less than the last system, which was based on a Sun Solaris environment." The migration took a year. The USPS isn't spelling how big the savings are, except that they are "significant."

YouTube Phasing Out Support For IE6 481

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 14 2009, @03:51PM
from the ding-dong dept.

Oracle Goddess sends word that YouTube is presenting IE6 users with a banner exhorting them to upgrade to a modern browser, and TechCrunch is reporting that YouTube will be phasing out support for IE6 soon. This Twitter search reflects the jubilation breaking out all over the Net at the imminent demise of this most despised and non-standards-compliant browser. The market share for IE6 is now well down in the single digits.