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Earth

Evolution of Intelligence More Complex Than Once Thought 453

Posted by timothy from the ah-but-humans-are-still-the-cutest dept.
palegray.net writes "According to a new article published in Scientific American, the nature of and evolutionary development of animal intelligence is significantly more complicated than many have assumed. In opposition to the widely held view that intelligence is largely linear in nature, in many cases intelligent traits have developed along independent paths. From the article: 'Over the past 30 years, however, research in comparative neuroanatomy clearly has shown that complex brains — and sophisticated cognition — have evolved from simpler brains multiple times independently in separate lineages ...'"
The Media

BBC's iPlayer Chief Pushes Tiered Charging For ISPs 172

Posted by timothy from the if-isp-bills-looked-like-phone-bills dept.
rs232 writes with a link to a story at The Register which begins: "The executive in charge of the BBC iPlayer has suggested that internet users could be charged £10 per month extra on their broadband bill for higher quality streaming." The article suggests (perhaps optimistically) that "after years of selling consumers pipes, not what they carry, [tiered, site-specific pricing] would be tough to pull off."
The Internet

Fairpoint Pledges To Violate Net Neutrality 249

Posted by timothy from the we'll-read-it-to-you-over-the-phone dept.
wytcld writes "Fairpoint Communications, which has taken over Verizon's landline business in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, has announced that on February 6, 'AOL, Yahoo! and MSN subscribers will continue to have access to content but will no longer be able to access their e-mail through the third-party Web site. Instead, Yahoo! and other third-party e-mail will be accessed directly at the MyFairPoint.net portal.' Since Verizon spun off its lines to Fairpoint in a maneuver that got debt off of Verizon's balance sheets by saddling Fairpoint with it, there was concern by the public service boards of the three states about how Fairpoint would deal with that debt. Fairpoint's profit plan: force all Webmail users through Fairpoint's portal, by blocking all direct access to Webmail portals other than its own. Will Fairpoint's own search engine portal be next? What can stop them?"

Comment Re:Multiple interpretations (Score 4, Insightful) 542

by johndmartiniii (#26209995) Attached to: The RIAA's Rocky Road Ahead
Of course this is how the statement should be interpreted. It does, however, indicate that the ISP in question might be pretty realistic about the reality of the RIAA interpretation of copyright law: that it is not tenable in the long run and that everyone cannot simply be expected to jump on board. While it is not an unequivocal "no," it does indicate a reluctance to simply comply: though, that reluctance might indeed be assuaged by a little cash (probably a lot of cash.

Maybe the ISP's will charge RIAA so exorbitantly that they it will be a deterrent to their seeking compliance in the first place.
Networking

SoHo NAS With Good Network Throughput? 517

Posted by kdawson from the small-office-home-office dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I work at a small business where we need to move around large datasets regularly (move onto test machine, test, move onto NAS for storage, move back to test machine, lather-rinse-repeat). The network is mostly OS X and Linux with one Windows machine (for compatibility testing). The size of our datasets is typically in the multiple GB, so network speed is as important as storage size. I'm looking for a preferably off-the shelf solution that can handle a significant portion of a GigE; maxing out at 6MB is useless. I've been looking at SoHo NAS's that support RAID such as Drobo, NetGear (formerly Infrant), and BuffaloTech (who unfortunately doesn't even list whether they support OS X). They all claim they come with a GigE interface, but what sort of network throughput can they really sustain? Most of the numbers I can find on the websites only talk about drive throughput, not network, so I'm hoping some of you with real-world experience can shed some light here."
Portables (Apple)

Realtek's Wireless Driver Drives Thoughts of an Apple Netbook 136

Posted by timothy from the can't-get-there-from-here-in-cupertino dept.
Slatterz writes "With Macworld 2009 mere weeks away, one rumour that seemingly won't die is the idea of a Mac OS X Netbook PC. Asking a company to provide OS X drivers for their netbooks has, up until now, been met with silence, and probably a little quaking on the vendor side as they wait for the heavy footsteps of Apple's army of lawyers. It seems, however, that Realtek, who provide the WiFi chip found in the MSI Wind U100, are dipping their toes into the legally iffy world of the Hackintosh. Forum users at MSIWind.Net asked politely for drivers, and after a lot of patience, Beta drivers were provided."

Comment Tin-foil hat (Score 1) 137

by johndmartiniii (#26130475) Attached to: The Best Burglar Alarm In History
I think this is a little ridiculous to be on the front page as well, but did anyone happen to notice the picture in the pool with a tin-foil hat?

I think that this might be the nugget that got it on /. in the first place. Then again, I could be totally wrong. But really, how often do you see pictures of people actually wearing tin-foil hats?
Space

Black Hole At Center of Milky Way Confirmed 392

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-can-see-it-from-here dept.
Smivs writes "The BBC are reporting that a German team has confirmed the existence of a Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way. Astronomers tracked the movement of 28 stars circling the center of the Milky Way, using the 3.5m New Technology Telescope and the 8.2m Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. Both are operated by the European Southern Observatory (Eso). The black hole is four million times heavier than our Sun, according to the paper in The Astrophysical Journal. According to Dr Robert Massey, of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), the results suggest that galaxies form around giant black holes in the way that a pearl forms around grit."
Communications

Apple Disables Egyptian iPhones' GPS 278

Posted by timothy from the just-extrapolate-a-bit dept.
floydman writes "Apparently the Egyptian government is paranoid about its community using GPS devices, to the degree that it demanded Apple remove any GPS functionality from its iPhone 3G. They claim that 'GPS functionality should be limited to military purposes.' Egyptian blogger Ahmed Gabr brought this issue up in another article, and talks about how this does not make sense, since Google maps and the like can be used. I also happen to know for a fact that most of the modern cars in Egypt have built-in GPS systems."

Comment Re:Get it in both forms (Score 1) 715

by johndmartiniii (#25932951) Attached to: An Ethical Question Regarding Ebooks
Download the illegal ebook and then send the author a $20 (you know or whatever amount is appropriate) bill (money order, whatever) anonymously with a note explaining. That way, he gets beer money, you have your ebook. I don't think that anyone is going to complain

Well, the publisher will complain. That is why we keep it relatively anonymous. If you are dealing on a strictly ethical level, I don't see why this solution wouldn't work.

Or, just fuck it and download the ebook.
PC Games (Games)

PC Grand Theft Auto IV Features SecuROM DRM 531

Posted by Soulskill from the players-are-pirates-qed dept.
arcticstoat writes "Game developer Rockstar has revealed that the forthcoming PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV will feature the controversial SecuROM 7 DRM system. Unlike some of EA's recent titles, such as Spore and Mass Effect, GTA IV won't limit the number of times that you can install the game, although SecuROM will be impossible to remove without leaving 'some traces' on your PC. Anyone hoping to avoid SecuROM by downloading the game form Steam will also be disappointed, as Rockstar says that all versions of the game will feature SecuROM, including digital versions online. On the plus side, Rockstar says that it's 'working with SecuROM to post information on our support pages regarding how to remove these inactive traces of the program for users who wish to do so.' Has Rockstar gotten a better balance between draconian DRM and fair copy protection here?"
Government

IT Cutbacks For 2012 London Olympics 190

Posted by timothy from the just-crowdsource-the-whole-thing dept.
Slatterz writes "The IT backbone for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is to be cut. According to the Games' chief integrator, Michele Hyron of Atos Origin, each section of the computing infrastructure will be made more efficient in order to minimise redundant equipment and hopefully reduce energy consumption. Unlike the Beijing Games, the results will be relayed via the public wireless network which will be available in the Olympic Park — this means cutting out the 2,500 results terminals. The team of workers will deliver more than 1,000 servers, 10,000 PCs and 4,000 printers."

Comment Re:why the obsession with speech recognition? (Score 4, Insightful) 109

by johndmartiniii (#25906789) Attached to: Talking Web, Memory Aids, and Solar Phones In 5 Years
Not to mention that we could then say goodbye to the last bastion of literacy: the text based internet.

If we no longer have to read the information from the internet (which is becoming increasingly visual anyway) then only very few will ever read anything at all. People are already not buying books.

That said, I am going to go listen to the robot overlord read /. to me.

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