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Medicine

+ - Helium Balloon Ban May Be Necessary To Protect Future Generations-> 1

Submitted by casac8
casac8 writes "A helium balloon ban is not something many people want to consider as the holiday season nears.
But the floating Mylar orbs may need to go the way of the aerosol can in the near future if humans want to avoid a major shortage of the non-renewable gas in the next 40 years.
At least that's the premise of a speech set to be given by Dr. Peter Wothers, a fellow at the Royal Society of Chemistry and chemist at the University of Cambridge."
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Engadget: Lego-powered M&M sorter pleases your palate's imagination (video)->

From feed by feedfeeder

While it's nothing more than a placebo, believe it or not, some people actually argue over which color M&Ms taste better. If the latter speaks to your spirit and you're tired of manually filtering unwanted sweets from your holiday spread, then you might be in luck. A crafty tinkerer who goes by the YouTube handle "Nxt1engineer" has shared a clever contraption that sorts M&Ms by shade. Using tone-detecting sensors, this Lego-powered machine separates and dispenses the popular candy-coated snack, ensuring that everyone receives their favorite hue without any fuss. It's not entirely clear how you might be able to bring this awesome apparatus home, but you can at least see it in action -- check it out in the video after the break.

Continue reading Lego-powered M&M sorter pleases your palate's imagination (video)

Filed under: Robots, Alt

Comments

Via: Gizmodo

Source: Nxe1engineer (YouTube)


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Programming

+ - Adapteva Parallella computer even more open as funding campaign nears its end-> 2

Submitted by LoneTech
LoneTech writes "The Parallella massively multicore computer has been previously mentioned on slashdot, but as the kickstarter campaign nears its end more details have come to light. In particular, the glue logic and CPU are provided by a Zynq FPGA (a reprogrammable logic chip) with gratis development tools — already used in the prototype, but that board costs three or four times as much without the multiprocessor attachment. For the main feature, the Epiphany multiprocessor, much documentation is already public and the development tools are free software (yes, as in libre). Another distinguishing feature is its footprint — not much larger than a credit card, the entire board draws only 5W."
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DRM

Feds Continue To Consider Linux Users Criminals For Watching DVDs 423

Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the don't-watch-that-movie-you-paid-for dept.
An anonymous reader sent in a link to an article in Wired about the latest DMCA loophole hearing. Bad news: the federal government rejected requests that would make console modding and breaking DRM on DVDs to watch them legal. So, you dirty GNU/Linux hippies using libdvdcss better watch out: "Librarian of Congress James Billington and Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante rejected the two most-sought-after items on the docket, game-console modding and DVD cracking for personal use and 'space shifting.' Congress plays no role in the outcome. The regulators said that the controls were necessary to prevent software piracy and differentiated gaming consoles from smart phones, which legally can be jailbroken. ... On the plus side, the regulators re-authorized jailbreaking of mobile phones. On the downside, they denied it for tablets, saying an 'ebook reading device might be considered a tablet, as might a handheld video game device.'" So you can jailbreak a phone, but if it's 1" larger and considered a "tablet" you are breaking the law.

Comment: Check the list (Score 1) 196

by DreddUK (#37831386) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: DD-WRT Upgrade To 802.11n?

Could you not just check the list here:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices

and go with your favourite supplier of quality hardware? Also, bear in mind that some of your connected equipment isn't and can't be N-enabled (PS3 it think from memory). Therefore, you'll want something that can gracefully handle both G and N at the same time (ideally as separately configured wireless networks).

+ - MongoDB and Morphia Performance->

Submitted by DreddUK
DreddUK writes "We recently took the time to review the upgrades that had been made to both the NoSQL database MongoDB, and the Morphia client, which allows for direct mapping between Java Objects and the Datastore. Thankfully, this provided us with a massive increase in performance, which enabled us to start looking at Morphia as a viable production technology."
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Government

H.R. 4279 Would Establish Federal IP Cops 686

Posted by kdawson
from the lawn-forcement dept.
MrSnivvel writes "H.R. 4279, Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008, is gaining momentum in Congress. It passed the House a few days back. It would allow the Feds to seize hardware that has even one file coming from 'dubious origins,' e.g. downloaded from P2P. If passed into law, the bill would establish an Intellectual Property Enforcement Division within the office of the Deputy Attorney General. Rep. John Conyers says the goal is to 'prioritize intellectual property protection to the highest level of our government.'"

Comment: iPhone available non-contract in the UK? (Score 2, Informative) 565

by DreddUK (#23726139) Attached to: Apple Cracks Down On iPhone Unlockers
It appears that O2 (in the UK) is going to offer the iPhone on a Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) deal. This is a non-contract way of running a phone over here. You buy top-up cards with airtime (say £10 or £20) when you run out.

If the premium on the phone isn't huge (you usually pay more for PAYG as it's not a guaranteed income to the operator), it could be a good way of getting a non-contract iPhone to jail-break. If it can be jail broken (I give it 10 hours, any advances).

More info : http://www.o2.co.uk/iphone/paygo

Distress, n.: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

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