Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror

Comment: Re:Legitimizing trolls (Score 2, Interesting) 33

by zyl0x (#29067489) Attached to: How <em>APB's</em> Persistent World Will Work
Please pardon my excessive optimism for a moment, but I think there's a pretty good chance that for every troll that wants to be the biggest, most annoying criminal in the game, that there would be a player who wants to be the famous hero who brings him down. There are a lot of gamers that don't want to be the rampaging criminal, and want to be the good guy instead. Personally, whenever I'm given the choice between good and evil in a video game, I always take the good path. I think being evil is usually the cheap way out of situations. I don't find it very fun. I'm sure there are many others out there like me.

Comment: Re:Stupid summary (Score 1) 179

by zyl0x (#25318777) Attached to: Boston University Working On LED Wireless Networks
Obviously not speaking for the majority of horrendous drivers on the roads today, but as an excellent and safe driver, I don't trust anyone or anything other than myself driving my car. No matter how fast a computer works, it has nothing on a human brain in a life-or-death situation. Our brains are much more capable of taking in way more information into consideration than a computer. As a programmer, I just don't trust computers enough to make life-or-death decisions for me. Unintended side-effects, buggy code.. what happens if the computer is damaged in the accident or pre-accident situation, but the car isn't done moving yet? Am I supposed to now rely on damaged equipment to save my life? Seems a little shady to me.
Software

New P2P protocol faster than BitTorrent?

Submitted by
Jared
Jared writes "New P2P system to be unveiled tomorrow configured to share not only identical files, but also similar ones. Called Similarity-Enhanced Transfer (SET), David G Andersen, assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, and Michael Kaminsky of Intel Research Pittsburgh, have designed a new P2P protocol they claim could significantly increase download speeds because it is configured to share not only identical files, but also similar ones. The two researchers behind SET, along with graduate student Himabindu Pucha of Purdue University, will present a paper describing SET and release the system code at the 4th Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, on April 11th in Cambridge, Mass. http://www.zeropaid.com/news/8620/Faster+than+BitT orrent%3F"
Enlightenment

Google Earth now shows atrocities in Darfur

Submitted by
Josh Fruhlinger
Josh Fruhlinger writes "http://www.switched.com/2007/04/10/darfur-crisis-s hown-in-google-earth/

Google Earth is a fascinating program that allows you to zoom in on virtually any location on earth using satellite imagery. As of today, however, when you search for Darfur, you are shown a large red region titled "Crisis in Darfur." This is one of the first times a search engine of this scale has become involved in international politics. Google looks at it as a way to educate its users to the atrocities occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Sudan.

"At Google, we believe technology can be a catalyst for education and action," Elliot Schrage, Google's vice president of global communications and public affairs told CNN. "'Crisis in Darfur' will enable Google Earth users to visualize and learn about the destruction in Darfur as never before and join the museum's efforts in responding to this continuing international catastrophe."

Crisis hot-spots are shown in red flames. When users zoom in on them, they are shown damaged and destroyed villages with photographic evidence. Also involved is the Holocaust museum which provided much of the content."
Operating Systems

Vista Expert: Why I Don't Like Vista

Submitted by jammag
jammag writes "This is the funniest negative review of the Vista release I've seen. Andy Rathbone, who wrote the "Dummies Guide to Vista" book, actually admits he doesn't use Vista — because he doesn't like it. He provides a list (written in clear, Dummies-style prose) of why the OS is kind of a drag: 1) Security problems, 2) Aero display confusion, 3) Hidden display settings..."
Sci-Fi

Robocop-like Soliders by 2020

Submitted by zyl0x
zyl0x writes "The UK's Daily Mail is reporting on a new bionic warrior for the American Infantry. The DoD hopes to have these babies out as soon as 2020. From the article:

Included in the Pentagon's Future Warrior Concept are a powerful exoskeleton, a self-camouflaging outer layer that adapts to changing environments and a helmet which translates a soldier's voice into any foreign language... If the U.S. military's vision of the future is even half-right, Britain's armed forces will have their work cut out trying to keep up.
Anyone else feel like playing some Crackdown?"
The Matrix

3D visualization of net traffic looks like Tron

Submitted by
boyko.at.netqos
boyko.at.netqos writes "Behold the future of the 1980s today! Network Performance Daily shows a video on "Netcosm," a three dimensional visualization of live network traffic that looks like the love child of Max Headroom and the Last Starfighter. Despite its "retro" motif, the 3D environment provides network status at a glance with dropped packets that explode, and servers that first smoke, then burst into flame."
Privacy

Inside Wal-Mart's 'Threat Research' Operation

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The Wal-Mart Stores Inc. worker fired last month for intercepting a reporter's phone calls says he was part of a larger, sophisticated surveillance operation that included snooping not only on employees, but also on critics, stockholders and the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. As part of the surveillance, the retailer last year had a long-haired employee infiltrate an anti-Wal-Mart group to determine if it planned protests at the company's annual meeting, according to Bruce Gabbard, the fired security worker, who worked in Wal-Mart's Threat Research and Analysis Group. The company also deployed cutting-edge monitoring systems made by a supplier to the Defense Department that allowed it to capture and record the actions of anyone connected to its global computer network. The systems' high-tech wizardry could detect the degree of flesh-tone on a viewed Internet image, and alerted monitors that a vendor sharing Wal-Mart networks was viewing pornography. Wal-Mart has since disconnected some systems amid an internal investigation of the group's activities earlier this year, according to an executive in the security-information industry. The revelations by Mr. Gabbard, many of which were confirmed by other former Wal-Mart employees and security-industry professionals, provide a rare window into the retail giant's internal operations and mindset. The company fired Mr. Gabbard, a 19-year employee, last month for unauthorized recording of calls to and from a New York Times reporter and for intercepting pager messages. Wal-Mart conducted an internal investigation of Mr. Gabbard and his group's activities, fired his supervisor and demoted a vice president over the group as well. Mr. Gabbard says he recorded the calls on his own because he felt pressured to stop embarrassing leaks. But he says most of his spying activities were sanctioned by superiors. "I used to joke that Wal-Mart paid me to be paranoid and they got their money's worth," Mr. Gabbard says. Wal-Mart says it permitted recording employee calls "only in compelling circumstances and with written permission from the legal department." But because pager messages were sent over a frequency that was not secure, Mr. Gabbard inadvertently intercepted pages from non-Wal-Mart employees as well. A U.S. attorney is investigating whether any laws were violated as a result of the phone and pager intercepts. Aside from that possible infraction, Wal-Mart's surveillance activity appears to be legal. U.S. courts have long held that companies can read employee emails, and Wal-Mart employees are informed they have "no expectation of privacy" when using company-supplied computers or phones. The surveillance of people in public places is also legal. http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB117565486864 559297-lMyQjAxMDE3NzA1OTYwNTk0Wj.html"

Are you sure the back door is locked?