Comment: War on Piracy (Score 2) 516
The fact the war can't be won has never stopped them before: See the "War on Drugs", "War on Terror", "War on Poverty", etc.
Peter Jackson Hospitalized w/ Stomach Ulcer 84
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the sauron-is-watching dept.
from the sauron-is-watching dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Hobbit author JRR Tolkien suffered from a perforated ulcer before dying in 1973. Now today, New Zealander Sir Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and soon-to-be-director of the two Hobbit movies, was hospitalized with a perforated stomach ulcer, and underwent surgery. This is only expected to slightly delay the filming of The Hobbit, and he's expected to make a full recovery."
Developers Expect iOS and MacOS To Merge 436
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the i'm-sure-its-been-discussed dept.
from the i'm-sure-its-been-discussed dept.
AHuxley noticed the frightening little Ars story talking about a certain expectation that
iOS and MacOS will merge, leading to a single DRM-locked OS on your MacBook and your iPad. Certainly Apple would love a piece of every app sold. Now I'm sure that this has been discussed over there, but I wouldn't expect it any time soon.
Comment: Wall-E? (Score 1) 1015
"I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet."
Sounds like Stephen has seen Wall-E too many times. Does he have a five-year-old? Anyway, I doubt we'll be conquered by a race of vacuous, immobile, milkshake-slurping space balloons who aren't interested in anything past their viewscreens.
Comment: Apple is a media co now (Score 1) 965
I've been using Apple machines since I was about 6, and much of my geekiness today is due to the software and hardware tinkering I did with them over the years. I'm pretty disturbed by the direction I see Apple going. iTunes was, I think, the beginning of the end, and the iPad is an unsettling glimpse into the future. Since the iTunes store opened, Apple has gone from being a "computer" company to being a "media" company. The iPad is locked down because of Apple's need to keep the content providers at bay. Now, I know Apple makes a boatload of cash serving all this DRMed content, but really they should have just stuck to geekier pursuits like making nice computers with a slick OS, and left all the intellectual property bullshit to somebody else. I don't have an iPhone, but I wasn't too miffed to learn that it was locked down, because most phones are (I know, I know, the N900). But when I heard they were making a tablet, I pictured a MacBook crammed into tablet form with a cool multitouch version of OS X. So I was disappointed to find that it was this giant iPhone that I'll never be able to run X11 or MacPorts or even Firefox on. I'm hoping that people will realize that they don't need an iPad (despite the reality distortion field that undoubtedly surrounds it) and it will fail miserably, and Apple will go back to the way it was when I was doing Logo on my Apple ][c. Something about Apple's stock prices (like the fact that one share costs about as much as an iPod) tells me that this is unlikely to ever occur.
Games Fail To Portray Gender and Ethnic Diversity 590
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the overrepresented-demon-alien-demographic dept.
from the overrepresented-demon-alien-demographic dept.
eldavojohn writes "A new study has found that game characters tend not to reflect cultural diversity. According to the paper from researchers across four universities (PDF): 'A large-scale content analysis of characters in video games was employed to answer questions about their representations of gender, race and age in comparison to the US population. The sample included 150 games from a year across nine platforms, with the results weighted according to game sales. ... The results show a systematic over-representation of males, white and adults and a systematic under-representation of females, Hispanics, Native Americans, children and the elderly.' The researchers also note that games 'function as crucial gatekeepers for interest in science, technology, engineering and math,' and that without these groups represented properly, 'it may place underrepresented groups behind the curve.'"
Want to Eat Chocolate Every Day For a Year?
158
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the dental-nightmare dept.
from the dental-nightmare dept.
Scientists from the University of East Anglia are studying the potential health benefits of dark chocolate, and need 40 female volunteers who would like to eat chocolate every day for a year. The chocolate loving 40 must be post-menopausal and have type 2 diabetes so it can be determined if the flavonoid compounds in chocolate can reduce the risk of heart disease. Dr Peter Curtis, of the UEA's School of Medicine, said, "Our first volunteers are about to return for their final visit to see if the markers of heart health - such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels — have changed. A successful outcome could be the first step in developing new ways to improve the lives of people at increased risk of heart disease."
Swearing Provides Pain Relief, Say Scientists 230
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the take-two-$#&!@-and-call-me-in-the-%!#@!$& dept.
from the take-two-$#&!@-and-call-me-in-the-%!#@!$& dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientific American reports that although cursing is notoriously decried in the public debate, scientists have discovered that swearing may serve an important function in relieving pain. 'Swearing is such a common response to pain that there has to be an underlying reason why we do it,' says Richard Stephens of Keele University in England. A study measured how long college students could keep their hands immersed in cold water. During the chilly exercise, they could repeat an expletive of their choice or chant a neutral word. When swearing, the 67 student volunteers reported less pain and on average endured about 40 seconds longer. How swearing achieves its physical effects is unclear, but the researchers speculate that brain circuitry linked to emotion is involved. Earlier studies have shown that unlike normal language, which relies on the outer few millimeters in the left hemisphere of the brain, expletives hinge on evolutionarily ancient structures buried deep inside the right half like the amygdala, an almond-shaped group of neurons that can trigger a fight-or-flight response in which our heart rate climbs and we become less sensitive to pain."
Why Our "Amazing" Science Fiction Future Fizzled 499
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the i-blame-the-schools dept.
from the i-blame-the-schools dept.
An anonymous reader sends in a story at CNN about how our predictions for the future tend to be somewhat accurate (whether or not we can do a thing) yet often too optimistic (whether or not it's practical). Obvious example: jetpacks. Quoting:
"Joseph Corn, co-author of 'Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future,' found an inflated optimism about technology's impact on the future as far back as the 19th century, when writers like Jules Verne were creating wondrous versions of the future. Even then, people had a misplaced faith in the power of inventions to make life easier, Corn says. For example, the typical 19th-century American city was crowded and smelly. The problem was horses. They created traffic jams, filled the streets with their droppings and, when they died, their carcasses. But around the turn of the 20th century, Americans were predicting that another miraculous invention would deliver them from the burden of the horse and hurried urban life — the automobile, Corn says. 'There were a lot of predictions associated with early automobiles,' Corn says. 'They would help eliminate congestion in the city and the messy, unsanitary streets of the city.' Corn says Americans' faith in the power of technology to reshape the future is due in part to their history. Americans have never accepted a radical political transformation that would change their future. They prefer technology, not radical politics, to propel social change."
Shadow of the Colossus To Become a Movie 72
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the since-street-fighter-did-so-well dept.
from the since-street-fighter-did-so-well dept.
Sockatume writes "SCE's critically acclaimed Shadow of the Colossus is set to become a feature film. The cult boss-rush game will be adapted by Justin Marks, who also wrote the recent Chun-Li movie. A friend of the writer reports that the studio hopes to turn it into an LotR-style fantasy blockbuster, expanding upon the side characters in the original game's minimalistic and solitary storyline. This won't be the game's first trip to Hollywood, however. 2007's Reign Over Me featured characters playing the game, at the suggestion of editor Jeremy Roush."
Comment: Clearly, (Score 5, Funny) 325
It's a trap.
Microsoft Unveils "Elevate America" 325
Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
from the we-really-need-some-good-pr-what-can-we-do dept.
from the we-really-need-some-good-pr-what-can-we-do dept.
nandemoari writes "In response to the current economic crisis, Microsoft Corp. has come out with a stimulus plan of their own. Their goal is to help a large group of individuals use their computers to land employment in ways other than to generate a compelling resume. The new online initiative, Elevate America, is set to equip close to 2 million people (over the next three years) with the skills needed to succeed in the field of technology."
Drug Deletes Fearful Memories 247
Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
from the also-the-memory-that-you-paid-your-bill-already dept.
from the also-the-memory-that-you-paid-your-bill-already dept.
Al writes "Technology Review has an article about a common drug that seems to 'delete' painful memories related to a fearful experience. Experiments carried out by neuro-scientists at Emory University show that propranolol, a drug commonly used to treat high blood pressure, can suppress the emotional part of a fearful memory. The results, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggest a new way to treat anxiety disorders. In recent years, scientists have discovered that the simple act of remembering a past experience requires that the memory be consolidated once again. And both animal research and some human studies have shown that during re consolidation, long-term memories — once thought to be fairly stable — can be more easily meddled with."
Robotic Prostheses For Human Faces 111
Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
from the make-them-wireless-for-fun-and-amusement dept.
from the make-them-wireless-for-fun-and-amusement dept.
holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on a patent application that suggests implanting polymer muscles beneath the skin of people suffering paralysis of the face to give them control of their features. The technique has already been used successfully to reanimate the eyelids of human cadavers. Movement could be returned to other facial features and even paralyzed limbs in the same way, the surgeons at University of California Davis say. The full patent application is also available on the WIPO site."
Drug Giant Pledges Cheap Medicine For World's Poor 317
Posted
by
kdawson
from the shamed-into-it dept.
from the shamed-into-it dept.
bmsleight writes in with a Guardian piece on the decision of the world's second biggest pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline, to radically shift its attitude towards providing cheap drugs to millions of people in the developing world. "[The new CEO] said that GSK will... cut its prices for all drugs in the 50 least developed countries to no more than 25% of the levels in the UK and US — and less if possible — and make drugs more affordable in middle-income countries such as Brazil and India; put any chemicals or processes over which it has intellectual property rights that are relevant to finding drugs for neglected diseases into a 'patent pool,' so they can be explored by other researchers; and reinvest 20% of any profits it makes in the least developed countries in hospitals, clinics, and staff."