Comment: It can be done, but... (Score 1) 402
Get a swing-out rack - the catch is that most wall-mount racks aren't deep enough for servers of any kind.
Comment: Re:What this really means (Score 5, Funny) 284
I'm sure they can find some small pacific atoll that nobody wants anymore. Maybe do it in conjunction with Shark Week. Maybe you can jump sharks AND hide in fridges all at once.
Comment: What this really means (Score 5, Funny) 284
Is that he denied the Mythbusters a chance to go nuclear.
Comment: Re:Source? (Score 0) 495
Slashdot's getting punk'd?
Comment: Re:Waiting for corroborating evidence (Score 1) 495
Wondering if someone is punking the internets.
Comment: Re:says who? (Score 1) 495
Not really. The blog post on thehill.com is equally deficient in citations. I'm sorry, I'm not buying this one until I hear it from original sources There's nothing in the House proceedings about it, nor has Cantor gone on record with it.
Comment: Re:What an unfortunate name... (Score 3, Interesting) 481
Glad I'm not the only one that thought that.
Naming your company something that sounds like a failed Amway rebranding: FAIL #1.
Not checking to see who was using that brand name as a twitter ID: FAIL #2.
I'm guessing that the CFO recommended spinning off the DVD business ASAP before it bled the entire company dry. I give it 9-12 months.
Comment: This is at least workable. (Score 1) 407
May need to iron out the kinks a little and fine-tune the dollar amount, but conceptually, this is a workable idea (and surprisingly so, coming from the music business!). We've been screaming at the music industry to come up with ideas to allow them to adapt to and survive the new internet reality, and they're delivering on it.
It's not unlike the monthly license paid by commercial entities to Muzak and its ilk for playing background music in public locations or some of the licenses paid by churches for displaying lyrics.
The benefit to end users is the get-out-of-jail-free card for downloading all manner of content. Conceivably, on a package that includes the music/video license, QoS tagging could be implemented to improve the experience, providing the value add to the user. On the flip side, the benefit to an ISP is that they wouldn't have as much administrative headache of dealing with the copyright cops for that class of users. If ISPs have a way of identifying these sorts of users to content providers like Pandora, those content providers could provide a different tier of service, since they wouldn't have licensing to deal with either.
I think it's certainly an idea worth exploring and refining.
Comment: *yawn* (Score 0, Redundant) 393
Kansas City Power & Light has been doing this since 2007.
Arizona Trialing System That Lets Utility System Control Home A/Cs 393
Posted
by
timothy
from the so-you-preferred-the-brownouts-sir dept.
from the so-you-preferred-the-brownouts-sir dept.
AzTechGuy writes "Arizona Public Service Co., Arizona's largest power company, is implementing a test program that would put customers' thermostats under their control to help balance power needs during critical peak usage times. APS will be able to remote control the customers' thermostats to control power draw from their A/C when there is a critical power transmission issue on the grid. Customers will be able to override these settings if they desire."
Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 — Gaming On Six Panels 111
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the for-the-truly-dedicated dept.
from the for-the-truly-dedicated dept.
MojoKid writes "AMD's 6-output Radeon has been seen in action at a number of events, but today the ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition is being officially launched. HotHardware paired the card up with six 22" Dell LCD panels in a 3x2 configuration — with a max resolution of 5760x2160 — and ran it through a number of popular titles including Dirt 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and Crysis. For specialized, high-end graphics cards like this, the market potential may be relatively small. If, however, the idea of multi-monitor gaming is appealing to you and you've got the means to score one of these cards (along with multiple displays), you won't be disappointed."
Reader Vigile adds a different analysis of the card's six-monitor gaming: "PC Perspective found FPS games were basically unplayable because of the bezel through the middle of their vision while RTS and racing games like StarCraft 2 and DiRT 2 were spectacular."
Comment: Re:USAA has been doing this for years (Score 1) 494
USAA has allowed this from their iPhone app for over a year now as well.
Comment: Re:Not cheap, but... (Score 2, Informative) 178
I'll second the Xirrus arrays. They're absolutely amazing for high-density wireless. If it's a one-time event, you may be able to get Xirrus to sponsor it by providing the gear, especially if it's a gathering of geeks.
A "Photon Machine Gun" For Quantum Computers 143
Posted
by
kdawson
from the entangle-this dept.
from the entangle-this dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Generating entangled photons in a reliable way is impossible right now, stalling the development of the optical quantum computers that would use entangled photons as quantum bits (qubits). Because entangled photons can only be produced at random — which takes time — the most powerful optical quantum computing device use only 6 qubits. UK and Israeli quantum physicists have designed a blueprint for a 'quantum machine gun' that fires out barrages of entangled photons on demand. They think within a few years this device will be built, and could lead to quantum computing using 20 to 30 qubits. Every additional qubit doubles the computing power, so these quantum computers could outperform any existing classical computer, the researchers say. The quantum machine gun is described as 'one of the most exciting theoretical proposals I've read in five years' by a leading quantum physicist." The research was published in Physical Review Letters earlier this month.
ASCAP Says Apple Should Pay For 30-sec. Song Samples 463
Posted
by
kdawson
from the thicket-of-rights dept.
from the thicket-of-rights dept.
CNet reports on a new money battle brewing between those who generate music and those who profit from selling it on the Net. "Songwriters, composers, and music publishers are making preparations to one day collect performance fees from Apple and other e-tailers for not just traditional music downloads but for downloads of films and TV shows as well. Those downloads contain music after all. These groups even want compensation for iTunes' 30-second song samples. ... Apparently, the music industry can't obtain the fees through negotiations. They have begun lobbying Congress to pass legislation that would require anyone who sells a download to pay a performance fee..."