Ralconte - Slashdot User

Submission + - Google Losing Its Favourite Game?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22, 2007 @08:34PM

An anonymous reader writes: Data sources are not reliable at all but early results from Alexa and Compete show that Google is significantly impacted by Microsoft's new Vista — Live initiative. Vista pushing Live, the question is will the average user Joe come back to his old good Google or will he sacrifice a little search quality difference for uninterrupted and frictionless experience?

Submission + - Patent Trouble for Xbox Live?

Submitted by

bcaulfield

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @08:20PM

bcaulfield writes: "Google's $23 million deal to acquire Adscape — first reported by Red Herring last week — gives the search giant a patent that could mean trouble for Microsoft's Xbox Live online gaming service."

Submission + - Australian Open Source Survey responses sought

Submitted by

Sigurd

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @08:17PM

Sigurd writes: "Australian academics have formed a survey to learn why we love open source. Also, to look at correlations between being a participant of the open source community and outlook on life, happiness, and careers. Lara Thynne, PhD candidate at Deakin University Australia is asking for 1500+ responses to provide an adequate sample population.

Heading an open source project myself, filling out this survey reiterated to me how diverse the open source community is, and that it's ambitious to survey on large unfamiliar topics. I'm trusting a net gain will be made, despite this being akin to asking parliamentarians through to your neighbour's dog about politics."

Feed IPTV Service Coming to Xbox 360 (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Thursday February 22, 2007 @08:12PM

Microsoft plans to show off its new internet TV initiative, which will let consumers use an Xbox 360 like a TiVo box, next month. In Game|Life.

Feed Google Apps: Should You Switch? (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Thursday February 22, 2007 @08:12PM

Five reasons to make the jump to Google's web-based office software, and five reasons to stay on the Microsoft desktop. By Michael Calore.

Submission + - Twitter with a twist

Submitted by

retrocode64

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @08:11PM

retrocode64 writes: "Let people know how you are feeling at every moment of the day. Join a community where people will send you messages to help you to feel better when ever you are having a bad day."

Submission + - Old islamic tile patterns show modern math insight

Submitted by

arbitraryaardvark

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @08:06PM

arbitraryaardvark writes: "Reuters reports Medieval Muslims made mega math marvel.
Tile patterns on middle eastern mosques display a kind of quasicrystalline effect that was unknown in the west until rediscovered by Penrose in the 1970s.
"Quasicrystalline patterns comprise a set of interlocking units whose pattern never repeats, even when extended infinitely in all directions, and possess a special form of symmetry."
It isn't known if the mosque designers understood the math behind the patterns.
page 2 of story."

Submission + - Gamers perform better on surgical skill test

Submitted by Blindside on Monday February 19, 2007 @06:33PM

Blindside writes: Are surgeons who are also gamers at an advantage in the operating room? A new study showed that gamers had a distinct advantage in a surgical skills test. 'Neither years of training nor number of surgeries performed would predict performance on the laparoscopy skills test. Past gaming and current skills, in contrast, would. Those who had never gamed took significantly longer to complete the skills test, and had an error rate of roughly 1.5 times that of regular gamers. Similar correlations also held when gaming skills were tested: those scoring in the top third made nearly 50 percent fewer errors, and and performed the drill nearly 40 percent faster. For those keeping score at home, Super Monkey Ball 2 had the best correlation with surgical skills, Star Wars Racer Revenge the worst.'

Submission + - HD DVD on-the-fly copy tool announced

Submitted by tronicum on Monday February 19, 2007 @06:30PM

tronicum writes: Heise reports that Antigua based SlySoft announced a tool called "AnyDVD HD" which ripps AACS on-the-fly from HD DVD discs. It also allows to watch movies on a computer without HDCP equipment and comes with built-in UDF 2.5 for Windows XP. It ships for 79 US$.

Submission + - Why should I care about global warming?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19, 2007 @06:30PM

An anonymous reader writes: Everyday, I hear about global warming/climate change. But no one ever states why I should care. Can someone give me a compelling reason in a single sentence why I should care about global warming? Really, what is the big fuss about? Is it because you are concerned that the human race will die out? I do not find this concern compelling enough for me to stop driving a SUV, flying in a jumbo jet, using the A/C or keeping the heater on in the winter. Ultimately, our planet will die anyway when our sun dies. I just wish someone could give me a very simple reason why I should care personally about global warming.... a reason compelling enough for me to want to keep the A/C off and be less comfortable.

Submission + - The Bane of Forced Obsolescence

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19, 2007 @06:11PM

An anonymous reader writes: Everyone hates being forced to upgrade when they don't want to. Especially when it's the hardware or software company forcing them to upgrade. This article discusses some of the reasons behind this, suggestions for changes, and calls for both hardware and software companies to start changing in ways that the customers want, not just what the investors and managers demand or dictate.

Submission + - Registerfly - do you know where your domain is?

Submitted by

hookmeister

on Monday February 19, 2007 @06:07PM

hookmeister writes: "If you registered your domain at Registerfly.com, then you should know it may be locked, and you are at the moment unable to access it through registerfly.com's website. The story as a video. You may even have an un-renewable situation where your domain expires into a status known as redemption through no fault of your own. By all accounts there are just under 2 million domains at risk here, ENOM dumped them as a reseller, Its a Mess... Once clue is that thier SSL cert expired.

Fortunately there is some good news. The Principals in this are trying to restore order. A website www.Registerflies.com (originally crafted as a gripe-zone and forum for regsiterfly users) has gotten inside the ranks of the Regsiterfly management shakeup, made some friends and connections and is creating a back-door problem reporting form that goes directly to those that can correct a domain problem. (The RegisterFly support ticketing system is clogged with thousands of Un-answered complaints.) Go HERE and get at the top of the list, or follow it as the situation evolves."

Submission + - Hollywood training swedish police in Anti-Piracy

Submitted by

Oxygen

on Monday February 19, 2007 @05:54PM

Oxygen writes: "IDG.se reports on it's online newssite that representatives from the MPAA, FBI and the Swedish lobbyorganisation Antipiratbyrån have held seminars for swedish police officers (Swedish only) that are being trained in fighting piracy and copyright violations. From the article: "According to Bertil Ramsell, responsible for the course, the purpose of the visit was to give the invited speakers a chance to explain to the students what their organsation's purpose was. But in a report from the IIPA, the pupose was to educate students in anti-piracy." Educating is one thing, but the acronym MPAA doesn't really spell "objective" or "no hidden agenda" to me."

Submission + - UK: Blair Dismisses Online Anti ID-Card Petition

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Monday February 19, 2007 @05:45PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Elected Dictator / Prime Minister Tony Blair has responded personally via e-mail to 28,000 online petitioners opposing the UK's planned identity card scheme, and has closed the online petition. The e-mail reads: "We live in a world in which people, money and information are more mobile than ever before. Terrorists and international criminal gangs increasingly exploit this to move undetected across borders and to disappear within countries. Terrorists routinely use multiple identities — up to 50 at a time." ..."ID cards which contain biometric recognition details and which are linked to a National Identity Register will make this much more difficult.""

Submission + - Dell XPS 710 H2C Watercooled Desktop Tested

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Monday February 19, 2007 @05:30PM

MojoKid writes: "Dell's XPS 710 H2C Edition is touted as a top-of-the-line, ultra-performance machine built with performance enthusiasts in mind. Not only does the XPS 710 H2C hold the distinction of being Dell's first volume available, factory overclocked computer, but it also uses Dell's first in-house developed liquid cooling system to keep its quad-core power plant cool. This evaluation at HotHardware has plenty of performance data and goes into great detail on the technologies employed in the XPS 710 H2C Edition. It sure seems like a killer system if you can justify the investment."

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