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Comment Re:Politial speech influenced 6 yrs old chid. (Score 5, Interesting) 368

by genka (#31597068) Attached to: Sergey Brin On Google and China
As someone who lived in Soviet Union until it's collapse in 92 (I was 25) I can tell you that fear was not a fact of everyday life. Generally you didn't feel much more under control than in US. You couldn't say certain negative things about Party and government in public, but in private conversations everything was discussed freely. It is the same as in states- try to voice politically incorrect opinions about race in your place of work, and you will see how "freedom of speech" will protect you. We have more freedom in US as compared to USSR or China, but don't overestimate it.
Handhelds

Apple Removes Wi-Fi Finders From App Store 461

Posted by timothy from the you've-been-very-very-naughty dept.
jasonbrown writes "Apple on Thursday began removing another category of apps from its iPhone App Store. This time, it's not porn, it's Wi-Fi. Apple removed several Wi-Fi apps commonly referred to as stumblers, or apps that seek out available Wi-Fi networks near your location. According to a story on Cult of Mac, apps removed by Apple include WiFi-Where, WiFiFoFum, and yFy Network Finder."
PC Games (Games)

Valve's Battle Against Cheaters 336

Posted by Soulskill from the busting-punks dept.
wjousts writes "IEEE Spectrum takes a look behind the scenes at Valve's on-going efforts to battle cheaters in online games: 'Cheating is a superserious threat,' says [Steam's lead engineer, John] Cook. 'Cheating is more of a serious threat than piracy.' The company combats this with its own Valve Anti-Cheat System, which a user consents to install in the Steam subscriber agreement. Cook says the software gets around anti-virus programs by handling all the operations that require administrator access to the user's machine. So, how important is preventing cheating? How much privacy are you willing to sacrifice in the interests of a level playing field? 'Valve also looks for changes within the player's computer processor's memory, which might indicate that cheat code is running.'"
Games

NYT's "Games To Avoid" an Ironic, Perfect Gamer Wish List 189

Posted by Soulskill from the more-or-less dept.
MojoKid writes "From October to December, the advertising departments of a thousand companies exhort children to beg, cajole, and guilt-trip their parents for all manner of inappropriate digital entertainment. As supposedly informed gatekeepers, we sadly earthbound Santas are reduced to scouring the back pages of gaming review sites and magazines, trying to evaluate whether the tot at home is ready for Big Bird's Egg Hunt or Bayonetta. Luckily, The New York Times is here to help. In a recent article provokingly titled 'Ten Games to Cross off Your Child's Gift List,' the NYT names its list of big bads — the video games so foul, so gruesome, so perverse that we'd recommend you buy them immediately — for yourself. Alternatively, if you need gift ideas for the surly, pale teenager in your home whose body contains more plastic then your average d20, this is the newspaper clipping to stuff in your pocket. In other words, if you need a list like this to understand what games to not stuff little Johnny's stocking with this holiday season, you've got larger issues you should concern yourself with. We'd suggest picking up an auto-shotty and taking a few rounds against the horde — it's a wonderful stress relief and you're probably going to need it."
Hardware

Mobile Phone Users Struggle With Hardware Adoption 386

Posted by samzenpus from the use-it-or-lose-it dept.
Ian Lamont writes "A Google executive speaking at the Emerging Technology conference has described a problem that mobile phone carriers and manufacturers have been struggling with over the last few years: Users aren't taking advantage of many phones' hardware-based features. Rich Miner, Google's group manager of mobile platforms, stated that 80% of mobile phones being sold today have cameras on them, yet the number of people who actually know how to use them or get the images off the phones ranges between 10% and 50%, depending on the model. Miner listed several reasons for this state of affairs, including bad UIs and small screens, but added that the participation of companies with software expertise — including Google — would help increase usage of such features."
Transportation

Submission + - America Takes Another Look at Maglev Trains (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by
longacre
longacre writes: "With highways and airports steadily grinding to a crawl and fuel prices skyrocketing, city planners are taking a new look at high-speed rail solutions such as maglev to alleviate the nation's transportation bottlenecks. At costs of up to $100 million per track mile, the 300 mph, virtually silent, frictionless trains are a hard sell. In places like Los Angeles, however, where the next 30 years will add 6 million people to the population of an area whose transportation infrastructure is already overwhelmed, new capacity is desperately needed. Includes video of a General Atomics maglev prototype in action."
Education

Submission + - University to students: 'All whites are racist'

Submitted by
rockabilly
rockabilly writes: "A mandatory University of Delaware program requires residence hall students to acknowledge that "all whites are racist" and offers them "treatment" for any incorrect attitudes regarding class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality they might hold upon entering the school, according to a civil rights group.

The "education" regarding racism is just one of the subjects that students are required to adopt as part of their University of Delaware experience... Full story here"

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