Roarkk - Slashdot User

Japan's Melody Roads Play Music as You Drive 335

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 14, 2007 @01:15AM from the someone-has-watched-stupid-human-tricks dept.

Krishna Dagli writes "The road works by using grooves, which are cut at very specific intervals in the surface. Just as traveling over small speed bumps or road markings can emit a rumbling tone throughout a vehicle, the melody road uses the spaces between to create different notes."

Submission + - SanDisk introduces flash-based accerator (geekzone.co.nz)

Submitted by on Tuesday November 13, 2007 @06:51PM

An anonymous reader writes: We all know about hybrid HDD — but SanDisk is introducing a flash-based "accelerator" PCI-express card that OEMs can add to their designs to extract the same type of performance enhancement we would expect from a hybrid HDD.

"The SanDisk Vaulter Disk's storage concept transparently speeds up data retrieval for boot and application load operations, as well as unexpected user access to new files. With SanDisk Vaulter Disk, Salomon explained, there is faster response time when a user randomly accesses many small files for repeated operations, such as opening applications, and for unexpected behavior, such as retrieving new applications or entries on the Internet."

Submission + - Will "reminder" protect students from the (insidehighered.com)

Submitted by

Scott Jaschik

on Wednesday November 07, 2007 @11:06AM

Scott Jaschik writes: "The University of Michigan rolled out a service last week that automatically informs students living in residence halls if they're uploading files via peer-to-peer technology. This could be key as experts believe that it is the uploading process that makes students targets of the RIAA. Article is here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/07/bayu"

Submission + - MLB Pulls DRM Plug on Downloads Purchased Pre-2006 (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

z0idberg

on Wednesday November 07, 2007 @09:07AM

z0idberg writes: "Joyofsox blog describes a serious issue with the mlb.com game download service. Beginning in 2003 mlb.com offered fans the chance to download full games to their computer at $3.95 each (currently the price is $1.99 per game). The downloads are protected by Microsoft DRM and on attempting to play the video on WMP (v10.0 required) would connect to mlb.com to obtain/verify your license to play the file. Sometime before April this year the page that checks the license of pre-2006 downloads was removed from mlb.com rendering these videos unplayable. When contacted mlb.com advised this was due to the download service being overhauled and the problem would be looked into, but the issue has still not been resolved with any videos purchased and downloaded prior to 2006 being unplayable. Mlb.com continues to sell games at the moment ($1.99 per game) apparently with new DRM license requirements as presumably these downloads are actually playable."

Submission + - Verizon Hijacking Customer DNS

Submitted by Skavoovie5 on Friday November 02, 2007 @01:30PM

Skavoovie5 writes: Starting today, Verizon has joined the ranks of pond-scum, by attempting to generate revenue from mistyped domain names. Verizon this morning enabled DNS hijacking for its broadband customers. A Verizon customer enters an invalid URL in their browser, and Verizon hijacks the session, redirecting the user's browser to a profit generating search page of absolutely no benefit, hosted at wwwz.websearch.verizon.net and wwwwz.websearch.verizon.net.

Peddling plastic surgery, weight loss gimmicks, and credit repair, the hijacking site is ever so much more hepful than a 404 not found generated by the user's browser: "Sorry, 'www.asdfasdfasdf999999.com' does not exist or is not available! Did You Mean: Asdfasdf". But of course I meant "Asdfasdf"! Thank you so much!

The search page, no better than any cybersquatter page or pharmaceutical spam, reflects that it is "powered by Yahoo Search", and generates a minimum of 6 cookies for each and every single mistyped domain that is hijacked. Each cookie expires in the year 2015.

As if this wasn't bad enough, based upon the cookies being vomitted onto users' systems, they are even using the cookies to harvest their marketing tracking information, gleaning details such as how long the victim remained on their hijack peddling page, what type of URLs the customer is mistyping, and who knows what else.

Screenshot: http://img57.imageshack.us/my.php?image=verizonhijackqf8.png

Submission + - Rechargable Energizer Batteries Exposed (newstarget.com)

Submitted by DaZZl3R on Friday November 02, 2007 @01:17PM

DaZZl3R writes: Energizer "D" Rechargeable batteries are no more powerful than common "AA" rechargeable batteries. In fact, an off-the-shelf Energizer "D" rechargeable battery is actually made of a much smaller AA-capacity battery wrapped in a cheap plastic cylinder with air gaps, designed to make it appear physically like a "D" battery while only delivering the performance of an "AA" battery (2500 mAh).

Submission + - Trent Reznor speaks in protection of OiNK (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Eirenarch on Friday November 02, 2007 @04:18AM

Eirenarch writes: Probably you will be interested in this statement from Nine Inch Nails' frontman Trent Reznor about torrents and why he does not like iTunes -> http://torrentfreak.com/nine-inch-nails-frontman-was-a-member-of-oink-071031/ He says he steals music and he would gladly pay for a service like the recently closed OiNK.

Submission + - UK to imprison for inability to decrypt data

Submitted by mrbluze on Thursday November 01, 2007 @09:57PM

mrbluze writes: Ars technica has an article describing new laws which come into effect on 1st November in the UK. Up to 2 and 5 years imprisonment can be inflicted on any person who refuses or cannot provide keys or decrypt data as requested by police or military for criminal or anti-terror purposes, respectively. From the article:

The Home Office has steadfastly proclaimed that the law is aimed at catching terrorists, pedophiles, and hardened criminals — all parties which the UK government contends are rather adept at using encryption to cover up their activities.
It refers to a potential problem faced by international bankers who would be wary to bring their encryption keys into the UK. Some how I doubt that is the real problem with the law.

Submission + - Super-magnet sheds light on semiconductors

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Thursday November 01, 2007 @05:00PM

Stony Stevenson writes: US researchers have demonstrated a revolutionary magnet design that could literally shed new light on nanoscience and semiconductor research. Developed by engineers at Florida State University's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the Split Florida Helix magnet can direct and scatter laser light at a sample down the centre of the magnet and from four ports on the sides. Due to become fully operational in 2010, the device can generate fields above 25 tesla. The highest-field split magnet in the world currently attains 18 tesla.

Submission + - Two Dozen Projects Announce New ODF Support (techtarget.com)

Submitted by

Rob Isn't Weird

on Thursday November 01, 2007 @04:49PM

Rob Isn't Weird writes: "The ODF Alliance is pleased to note that more than two dozen projects to add ODF support have been announced in the last three months, with almost as many big companies behind them. Almost all the big names are in there, including IBM, Sun, Adobe, Apple, Corel as well as many open source projects. About the only people not supporting ODF at this point are Microsoft and a certain misnamed two bit, two man foundation."

Submission + - Colbert Ballot Bid Shot Down (mtv.com)

Submitted by wizzard2k on Thursday November 01, 2007 @04:36PM

wizzard2k writes: Some of you may have seen Stephen Colbert's bid for the South Carolina Presidential Primary, however it seems his hopes to appear on the ballot as a candidate for the Democratic Party have been shot down.
From the report: "Stephen Colbert's bid to get on the ballot for the upcoming Democratic primary in his home state was shot down on Thursday (November 1) by the executive committee of the South Carolina Democratic Party. Colbert's bid was voted down 13-3 ... Using criteria such as whether the candidate was recognized in the national news media as a legitimate candidate and whether they'd actively campaigned in the state, the committee put the kibosh on the Colbert bid."
A true blow to truthiness fans everywhere.

Submission + - Pilot of Hiroshima bomb dies at 92 (guardian.co.uk) 2

Submitted by

wolfeon

on Thursday November 01, 2007 @04:30PM

wolfeon writes: "Enola Gay, the person who dropped "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, died today who lived to be the age of 92. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 37' and left the forces in 66'. He flew the B-92 Superfortress bomber which was manned by 12 people and dropped "Little Boy". This brave soul who was able to drop the bomb requested no funeral because of protesters, I guess some people are still around who are too stupid to let it go. For those who don't know, "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 which was the first atom bomb to be used in war. Many people protested this action, but the result was Japan surrendering. The glorious United States of America won the war against Japan."

Submission + - Seagate offer refunds on 6.2 million hard drives (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Thursday November 01, 2007 @03:49PM

Lucas123 writes: "Seagate has agreed to settle a lawsuit that alleges that the company mislead customers by selling them hard disk drives with less capacity than the company advertised. The suit states that Seagate's use of the decimal definition of the storage capacity term "gigabyte" was misleading and inaccurate: whereby 1GB = 1 billion bytes. In actuality, 1GB = 1, 073, 741, 824 bytes — a difference of approximately 7% from Seagate's figures. Seagate is saying it will offer a cash refund or free backup and recovery software."

Submission + - NSA able to wirelessly take over your Smartphone.

Submitted by l8f57 on Thursday November 01, 2007 @12:39PM

l8f57 writes: Cryptome.org is reporting that the NSA is able to perform wireless wiretapping of MS based smart phones. From the article: "Microsoft remote administrative privileges allow "backdooring" into Microsoft operating systems via IP/TCP ports 1024 through 1030."

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