Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Useless hype ... it's not that trite. (Score 2, Insightful) 272

by Hidyman (#32987230) Attached to: <em>World of Warcraft</em> Can Boost Your Career
I think you are missing the whole "Interacting with humans" dynamic.
You can have a brilliantly scripted game, but it will always be just that, a scripted game.
Humans add an element of unpredictability that will keep you on your toes.
After you master the "game", you start to learn what really makes the game tick, the variability of human interaction.
I think that human interaction is what the original article is referring to, and what elevates an MMORPG above a standard RPG.
This is obviously debatable, but I assure you that leadership of a robot (NPC) squad bears very little resemblance leading 4 or 5 humans into the fray.
United Kingdom

Boy Builds Wall-Climbing Machine Using Recycled Vacuums 96

Posted by samzenpus from the hello-true-believers dept.
Joe McIntosh writes "Hibiki Kono just might be a boy genius. The 13-year-old decided he wanted to climb vertical surfaces like his hero, Spiderman. So, he used two 1,400-watt recycled vacuum cleaners and a little bit of elbow grease to make a machine that allows him to scale walls. Kono has been scaling the walls of his UK school and has told the media that he hopes his invention will help window washers eliminate clumsy ladders from their daily routine."
Microsoft

MS Design Lets You Put Batteries In Any Way You Want 453

Posted by timothy from the dis-orientation dept.
jangel writes "While its strategy for mobile devices might be a mess, Microsoft has announced something we'll all benefit from. The company's patented design for battery contacts will allow users of portable devices — digital cameras, flashlights, remote controls, toys, you name it — to insert their batteries in any direction. Compatible with AA and AAA cells, among others, the 'InstaLoad' technology does not require special electronics or circuitry, the company claims."
PC Games (Games)

King's Quest Fan Project The Silver Lining Is Back 61

Posted by Soulskill from the every-cloud-has-something-something dept.
LoTonah writes "After eight years of development and a Cease & Desist from Vivendi, King's Quest fan project The Silver Lining is back in action. From the website: 'We are extremely happy to announce that our project, The Silver Lining, will definitely see the light of day! In a wonderful turn of events, Activision reached out to the Phoenix Online team a few months ago with a desire to revisit their decision regarding The Silver Lining. After negotiations, the C&D has been officially rescinded, and Phoenix Online has been granted a non-commercial license to release The Silver Lining! Our team is ecstatic about this, and as hard as we've worked for eight years, it's the tireless belief and support of you, our fans, that has made this possible.' The first episode of the project is due to be released on July 10."
Science

Programmable Quantum Computer Created 132

Posted by Soulskill from the four-out-of-five-ain't-bad dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A team at NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) used berylium ions, lasers and electrodes to develop a quantum system that performed 160 randomly chosen routines. Other quantum systems to date have only been able to perform single, prescribed tasks. Other researchers say the system could be scaled up. 'The researchers ran each program 900 times. On average, the quantum computer operated accurately 79 percent of the time, the team reported in their paper.'"

Comment Re:and yet NYC still has traffic jams (Score 1) 882

by Hidyman (#28878025) Attached to: Rude Drivers Reduce Traffic Jams
Were you speeding when they were hanging in your blind spot?
If someone is doing 7-15 MPH over the speed limit in the fast lane and there is no (or very little) traffic on a major highway I will sit about 1 to 2 car lengths behind and one lane to the right of them. That way if a cop is using laser/radar I will be hiding in their shadow.
Hardware Hacking

BodySurf — Audiosurf Meets the Wii Balance Board 34

Posted by timothy
Chardish writes "Forget the hype about Wii Fit — the coolest thing about the Wii Balance Board is its potential as a game controller, and what better way to christen a new peripheral than by rigging it to work with games that predate the peripheral's existence? BodySurf is a (somewhat lengthy) GlovePIE script that manipulates the input of the Balance Board to work with the PC music game Audiosurf. It's fairly sophisticated, and includes Wiimote motion controls, special controls for each character, weight calibration, and a few play options."
Mozilla

Firefox Download Day To Start At 1 p.m. EST 1080

Posted by timothy from the there's-no-pleasing-some-people dept.
boustrophedon writes "Starting at midnight in their local timezones, downloaders have been asking when Firefox 3 will be ready for Firefox Download Day, June 17, 2008. Mary announced on the Spread Firefox Forum that downloads will commence at 10 AM PST." That means 1 p.m. East Coast time, and, in Justin Mason's view, some pretty annoying times of day for many parts of the world. Reader CorinneI supplies a link to PC Magazine's (very positive) overview of the new version's features, which praises the "speedy performance, thrifty memory usage, and, in particular, the address bar that now predicts where you want to go when you start typing (what Mozilla insiders refer to as the Awesome Bar)." FF3, even in Beta and RC form, and even with the extension incompatibilities I've run into, has quickly replaced FF2 as my preferred browser — for me, the improved drop-down autocomplete behavior alone is enough to justify the switch.

More Moderation Madness 316

Posted by CmdrTaco from the three-m's-in-one-title dept.
The quest for a better moderation system continues onward. In response to the huge amounts of feedback I've received in the last 24 hours, I've implemented a few changes to the system that you should note. Click the link below to read about some new features, include the upcoming system for "Meta Moderation".

Slashdot Top Deals

Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. -- Mt.

Close