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Transportation

Rutgers Attempts Robot Atlantic Crossing 67

Posted by timothy from the anything-to-get-away-from-camden dept.
RUCOOL writes "Rutgers University students and staff launched a Slocum glider AUV in an attempt to be the first such vehicle to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Progress so far is good, but it will be a long 6- to 9-month journey. Status as well as other information can be tracked here. Media links can be found in the lower left section of page, among images, and storyline blogs." And Google Earth fans can track the vehicle's progress, too.

Comment Their website is full of lies too. (Score 2, Informative) 116

by NEOGEOman (#27728061) Attached to: Taking Gaming To the Next Billion Players

I covered a lot of the Zeebo issues on my own site a while ago. From my site:

"They further claim that hundreds of millions of games have been downloaded wirelessly without one ever being pirated. At first I thought they were joking, as a search on any warez site will turn up hundreds of mobile phone downloads cracked and ready to play, but then I read between the lines: Out of all the wireless games out there, one of them still hasn't been pirated! I wonder which one it is... "

"But hey, at least it has VGA graphics, right? 640x480 video, and since it's VGA we know it'll be non-interlaced (ie: progressive). Too bad it only has composite-video outputs, which can't actually support VGA resolutions."

""Additional enhancements may include [...] new services." Phew, I was worried about the future. But no, the future's awesome: "By 2012, the worldwide video game market is projected to become a $68 billion industry." Yup, from $9.5b in 2007 to $70b in 2012. Only Zeebo allows you to capture a market that will increase in value seven-fold in five years. "

There are so many things wrong with their plan that I can't believe it's anything but a scam run by liars or idiots.
Role Playing (Games)

World of Warcraft 3.1 Patch Brings Dual-Specs, New Raid 204

Posted by Soulskill from the and-swimming-bears dept.
On Tuesday Blizzard rolled out the first major content patch for World of Warcraft since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King last November. The 3.1 patch includes the long-awaited dual-specialization feature, which allows players to quickly and easily switch from one set of talent choices to another. Action bars and glyph choices change as well. The patch also includes a new end-game raid dungeon, Ulduar, which expands upon the variable difficulty modes Blizzard has recently experimented with. The instance contains 14 bosses, 10 of which have an optional "hard mode" that players can attempt for better rewards. In addition, the patch contains a host of class balance changes, bug fixes, and UI improvements. You can see the full patch notes at Blizzard's website, and a brief trailer is also available.
Transportation

Computer-Controlled Cargo Sailing Vessels Go Slow, Frugal 210

Posted by timothy from the using-up-all-the-wind dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Big container ships are taking it very slow these days, cruising at 10 knots instead of their usual 26 knots, to save fuel. This is actually slower than sailing freighters traveled a hundred years ago. The 1902 German Preussen, the largest sailing ship ever built, traveled between Hamburg (Germany) and Iquique (Chile): the best average speed over a one way trip was 13.7 knots. Sailing boats need a large and costly crew, but they can also be controlled by computers. Automated sail handling was introduced already one century ago. In 2006 it was taken to the extreme by the Maltese Falcon, which can be operated by one man at the touch of a button. We have computer-controlled windmills, why not computer-controlled sailing cargo vessels?"

Comment Re:Adequate Reward? Please... (Score 1) 237

by zarkzervo (#27412861) Attached to: Volunteers Simulate Mission To Mars

So... Kudos to those running the experiment. Cheap labor is great.

Isn't this "reward" added to the money they already get? As I understand it, it's not like they are doing the experiment for free. The experiment is their job and the $20.000 is a bonus if they complete the experiment. It's just to motivate the crew to try to stay the whole experiment.

Comment Re:BS. (Score 1) 640

by zarkzervo (#27208781) Attached to: Morality of Throttling a Local ISP?

Lawsuit from what? Slowing down P2P traffic which is mostly illegal downloads anyways?

So in essence, you say that those damned WoW players can blaim themselves for giving money to a company that uses a technology which is "mostly used for illegal downloads". Yes. That should teach them.

Comment Re:What good does this do? (Score 2, Informative) 336

by zarkzervo (#27107437) Attached to: Audio Watermarks Could Pinpoint Film Pirates By Seat
I don't know about USA, but here in Norway, only the smallest cinemas don't have assigned seating. I really like this because you can buy tickets on the internet and pick them up 5 minutes before the start of a premiere and get the best seat in the cinema. If there is no good seats left, I'll wait until the day after.
Earth

Major Cache of Fossils Unearthed In Los Angeles 215

Posted by kdawson from the sticky-underfoot dept.
aedmunde sends along news from the LA Times: "A nearly intact mammoth, dubbed Zed, is among the remarkable discoveries near the La Brea Tar Pits. It's the largest known deposit of Pleistocene ice age fossils... in what might seem to be the unlikeliest of places — under an old May Co. parking lot in L.A.'s tony Miracle Mile shopping district. ...huge chunks of soil from the site have been removed intact and now sit in large wooden crates on the back lot... The 23 crates range... from the size of a desk to that of a small delivery truck... There were, in fact, 16 separate deposits on the site, an amount that, by her estimate, would have taken 20 years to excavate conventionally. ... Carefully identifying the edges of each deposit, her team dug trenches around them and underneath, isolating the deposits on dirt pedestals. After wrapping heavy plastic around the deposits, workers built wooden crates similar to tree boxes and lifted them out individually with a heavy crane. The biggest one weighed 123,000 pounds."
Google

New Google Favicon Deja Vu All Over Again? 227

Posted by timothy from the matters-of-deep-significance dept.
theodp writes "Last June, Google rolled out a new favicon, the small branding icon that graces your URL bar when you visit Google. Which, as it turned out, bore a striking similarity to Garth Brooks' Circle-G logo. Well, Google went back to the drawing board and has come back with a new favicon, which it says was inspired by — not copied from, mind you — its users' submitted ideas. Some are also seeing inspiration elsewhere for the new favicon, which consists of white 'g' on a background of four color swatches. Take the AVG antivirus icon, for instance. Or everybody's favorite memory toy, Simon. Or — in perhaps the unkindest cut of all — the four-color Microsoft Windows logo, shown here with a superimposed white '7'. Anything else come to mind?" What comes to mind for me is just how obsessed many people are with the Google favicon.

Comment No punishment, no point. (Score 0) 507

by NEOGEOman (#26266185) Attached to: Avoiding Wasted Time With <em>Prince of Persia</em>

It's funny, but a friend was telling me not half an hour ago how he picked up this game today, and he just hates it. It's impossible to die: "if you miss a jump, your magic friend saves you and brings you back to the previous piece of ground you were on. And if you're in combat and you lose, your magic friend pulls you out of harm's way"

That's not FUN. Why try hard if you never fail? Stupid design is stupid.

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