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Comment: Looks like someone used to play "Suspended". (Score 1) 77

by Lester67 (#43034573) Attached to: <em>2001: a Space Odyssey</em>'s Dave Returns To Sci-fi In New Film

From what I can see of the trailer, this looks to have several elements from the old Infocom text adventure "Suspended". A human (brain) connected to a cybernetic network maintains a a city (ship) exclusively through the use of robots. If memory serves you even had to build a sixth robot out of spare parts.

Comment: Is this a surprise? (Score 4, Informative) 123

They practiced this, pretty regularly at Hurlburt Field, Florida... within view of the general public. Several of the MC-130's were fitted with the catch arms. (It's even had a wikipedia page for awhile now.)

So, yeah, it's cool... but it's hardly new or a secret.

Android

Why 2012 Will Be the Year of the Android Tablet 584

Posted by Soulskill
from the we-all-scream-for-ice-cream dept.
lseltzer writes "The iPad has dominated the high-end tablet market so far, but that is about to change. At CES in Las Vegas in a couple weeks you will see tablets running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) everywhere and at prices that will make an iPad a lot harder to justify. The competition from the OEM model in the Android markets will massively shift market share away from Apple, just as it has done in the smart phone market."
Businesses

Patent Expires On Best Selling Drug of All Time 491

Posted by samzenpus
from the low-cholesterol-for-everyone dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The U.S. patent has just expired on Lipitor, the best-selling drug of all time, as the first generic versions go on sale, marking the end of a brand that has dominated the drug industry, lowered the cholesterol of tens of millions of patients, and generated $10.7 billion last year in annual sales. But drug manufacturer Pfizer, dependent on Lipitor for almost one-fifth of the company's revenue, does not intend to go down without a fight. Pfizer is employing unprecedented tactics to hold onto as many Lipitor prescriptions as it can with an aggressive marketing plan and forging deals with insurers, pharmacy benefit managers and patients to meet or beat the price of its generic replacements because even at the lower price, Pfizer has a huge profit margin because of the relatively low cost of materials for Lipitor. Some deals require pharmacies to reject prescriptions for low-cost generics and substitute a discounted name-brand Lipitor while other deals block generic makers from mail-order services that account for an estimated 40 percent of all Lipitor prescriptions. 'Pfizer's tactic of dressing up as a generics company is pulling the rug under the incentive system created to foster the development of generic drugs,' says attorney David A. Balto."
Power

Underwater Nuclear Power Plant Proposed In France 314

Posted by timothy
from the precooked-seafood dept.
nicomede writes "The French state-owned DCNS (French military shipyard) announced today a concept study for an underwater nuclear reactor dedicated to power coastal communities in remote places. It is derived from nuclear submarine power plants, and its generator would be able to produce between 50 MWe and 250MWe. Such a plant would be fabricated and maintained in France, and dispatched for the different customers, thus reducing the risk for proliferation."
Security

UVB-76 Broadcasts New Voice Message 560

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the you-can't-handle-the-truth dept.
Doug52392 writes "Following days of increased activity, the Russian numbers station UVB-76 has sent out a new voice transmission. The transmission, sent out on August 23, 2010 at 9:35AM PST, recited the following in Russian: 'UVB-76, UVB-76 — 93 882 naimina 74 14 35 74 — 9 3 8 8 2 nikolai, anna, ivan, michail, ivan, nikolai, anna, 7, 4, 1, 4, 3, 5, 7, 4' The station, believed to be a part of the former Soviet Union's dead man's switch system, has been continually broadcasting for over twenty years, and its purpose has never been fully explained."

Comment: It's not censorship. (Score 1) 588

by Lester67 (#32887414) Attached to: Apple Censors Consumer Report iPhone4 Discussions

That word has been bastardized beyond belief... in an effort to cry about how "oppressed" someone *feels*, they've watered down true censorship.

Apple made a "business decision", maybe a crappy one, but it is still a business decision. The First Amendment (for us U.S. folks) guarantees you the right to say something, but it doesn't require someone hand you the soap box... nor does it suppress *their* right to free speech in countering your argument.

China practices true censorship. People go to jail in an effort to silence them. The government shows up at the door and demands that you delete, or deletes it for you.

Transportation

When the US Government Built Ultra-Safe Cars 520

Posted by kdawson
from the pacer-meets-battlestar-galactica dept.
Jalopnik has a piece on a mostly forgotten piece of automotive history: the US government built a fleet of ultra-safe cars in the 1970s. The "RSV" cars were designed to keep four passengers safe in a front or side collision at 50 mph (80 kph) — without seat belts — and they got 32 miles to the gallon. They had front and side airbags, anti-lock brakes, and gull-wing doors. Lorne Greene was hired to flack for the program. All this was quickly dismantled in the Reagan years, and in 1990 the mothballed cars were all destroyed, though two prototypes survived in private hands. "Then-NHTSA chief Jerry Curry [in 1990] contended the vehicles were obsolete, and that anyone who could have learned something from them had done so by then. Claybrook, the NHTSA chief who'd overseen the RSV cars through 1980, told Congress the destruction compared to the Nazis burning books. ... 'I thought they were intentionally destroying the evidence that you could do much better,' said [the manager of one of the vehicles' manufacturers]."
Medicine

Ultrasound As a Male Contraceptive 599

Posted by kdawson
from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept.
TeslaBoy writes "The BBC has an article about using ultrasound aimed at the testicles as a reversible male contraceptive. This can last for six months. With a grant of $100,000 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, researchers at the University of North Carolina will push ahead with more clinical trials, fine tuning, and safety tests."

"The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones." -- Nathaniel Howe

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