Grimfaire - Slashdot User

DOJ Fights To Bury Court Ruling On Government Surveillance 100

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 30, 2013 @05:03PM from the gotta-know-when-t'-holder dept.

coolnumbr12 writes with this IBTimes excerpt: "The Justice Department may soon be forced to reveal a classified document that details unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens. The Justice Department has fought to keep the document secret for about a year, but a recent court order demands that they respond to a formal request filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation by next week, June 7, 2013."

Submission + - NASA Asteroid Capture Mission to Be Proposed in 2014 Budget (yahoo.com)

Submitted by

MarkWhittington

on Friday March 29, 2013 @01:11PM

MarkWhittington writes: "Included in President Obama's 2014 budget request will be a $100 million line item for NASA for a mission to capture and bring an asteroid to a high orbit around the moon where it will be explored by asteroinauts. Whether the $2.6 billion mission is a replacement or a supplement to the president's planned human mission to an asteroid is unclear. The proposal was first developed by the Keck Institite in April, 2012 and has achieved new impetus due to the meteor incident over Russia and new fears of killer asteroids."

Submission + - Human Brain Cells Injected In Mice, They Get Smarter (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by

kkleiner

on Thursday March 28, 2013 @01:56PM

kkleiner writes: "In an experiment that might seem like something only a mad scientist would conjure, researchers injected human brain cells into the brains of mice to see how it would affect the way the mice thought. It did: the mice got smarter. But the cognition boosting cells weren’t neurons, they were the red-headed step-children of neuroscience called astrocytes. The study turns on its head the role historically attributed to astrocytes of simply supporting the all important function of neurons without playing a significant role in how we learn and think."

Submission + - Which HTML5? - WHATWG and W3C Split (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk on Friday July 20, 2012 @11:47AM

mikejuk writes: The two organizations currently responsible for the development of HTML have decided on a degree of separation and this means that in the future there will be two versions of HTML5 — the snapshot and the living standard.
In plain terms this means that the W3C will continue to work on the HTML5 specification. WHATWG on the other hand will continue its work with HTML5 as a "Living Standard". The idea of a living standard is that it never settles down and is always being added to and refined. The task of the browser makers and the programmers using HTML5 is to try to keep up.
Overall this doesn't seem to be a good development. It will no longer be possible to say exactly what HTML5 is — the W3C's snapshot or the living standard of WHATWG. My guess is that Chrome and Firefox will adopt as much of the new stuff as possible and Microsoft will simply pick which bits most suit its corporate interests.
So in the future you will need to choose what HTML5 means to you.

Submission + - Samsung guarantees no one will update to Android 4.0 (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 11, 2012 @11:06AM

An anonymous reader writes: Unless you bought a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, you’re either just now enjoying Android 4.0 or waiting for the update to come through on your device. If you’ve purchased a device within the last year, the chances are good you won’t be waiting too much longer.

In many cases, the Android 4.0 update will happen “Over The Air”. Some of us, particularly the owners of the Samsung Galaxy Note or Galaxy S2, aren’t offered this convenience. Samsung is forcing their users to return to their computers in order to gain access to the update.

The news came out earlier today from AT&T that several devices on their network were ready for an update. The Samsung Galaxy Note was among them, but it was clear that this update was not going to be delivered automatically. Like the Galaxy S2, in order to get the Android 4.0 update you needed to connect your phone to your computer and use an antiquated piece of software Samsung relies on called Kies.

Submission + - How to add a $300 million feature to any smartphone (bgr.com)

Submitted by zacharye on Wednesday July 11, 2012 @10:55AM

zacharye writes: Was buying into Beats a good move for HTC? The answer is open to debate, but HTC’s smartphones have definitely benefited from the company’s tie-up with Beats. The Taiwan-based smartphone maker has launched several new smartphones this year, and enhanced sound courtesy of Beats Audio is among the core selling points HTC focuses on when pitching the devices. But one little $70 accessory could erase all of the technology benefits HTC gained with its pricey purchase...

Comment Tough Road (Score 1) 3

by Grimfaire on Friday June 08, 2012 @11:56AM (#40258265) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Getting a tech job with skills but no formal degree

I've been working in IT for almost 20 years now and my lack of a degree still hurts me on the job market. Doesn't matter that I know more and have been doing actual work if they have a candidate with a degree I lose out every time.

Submission + - Will IBM's Watson Kill Your Career? (slashdot.org)

Submitted by

Nerval's Lobster

on Friday June 08, 2012 @11:08AM

Nerval's Lobster writes: "IBM’s Watson made major headlines last year when it trounced its human rivals on Jeopardy. But Watson isn’t just sitting around spinning trivia questions to stump the champs: IBM is working hard on taking it into a series of vertical markets such as healthcare, contact management and financial services to see if the system can be used for diagnosing diseases and catching market trends. Does this spell the end of your BI career? Not really, but it does raise some interesting thoughts and issues."

Submission + - Scott Kemp on the next arms race: cyberweapons (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by __aaqpaq9254 on Thursday June 07, 2012 @11:32AM

__aaqpaq9254 writes: Scott Kemp writes about the similarities between the nuclear arms race and the use of cyberweaponry for offensive purposes. As the article points out, offensive cyberwarfare leaves a nation's own citizenry vulnerable to attack as government agencies seek to keep weaknesses in operating systems (such as Windows) secret. A very thoughtful article.

Submission + - Fisheries science falls foul of European privacy rules (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo on Thursday June 07, 2012 @11:20AM

ananyo writes: A little-noticed tweak to one of the European Union’s many rules and regulations is leaving fisheries scientists struggling to access vital data.
The rule change (from 2009) means that raw data from devices used to monitor fishing vessels are no longer available to some scientists. This information is vital for proper, scientifically based management of Europe’s troubled fish stocks, according to marine biologists.
At the heart of the problem is information from devices called Vessel Monitoring Systems, which are attached to many European fishing boats to record their position, direction and speed. From these data, the boats' fishing patterns can be reconstructed, allowing researchers to assess fishing activity.
It has now become apparent the changes mean that some scientists can no longer access the detailed fisheries data they need to work out which stocks are being overfished.

Comment Need 2 - sometimes 3 (Score 1) 1002

by Grimfaire on Monday May 16, 2011 @05:46PM (#36145570) Attached to: Do Developers Really Need a Second Monitor?

When I started my most recent job, they gave me a monitor to hook to the laptop they gave me. I mirrored the desktops for a while as the larger print on the monitor made things a bit easier. As time went on and I found myself doing more and more, I switched over to extending the desktop. The ability to have one screen filled with items that are only used occasionally but are often needed quickly and throughout the day and the other filled with dynamic content that is being updated continuously. More than once, I've had times where a 3rd monitor would be helpful. Between remote desktops, instant messaging, email/calendar, ticketing systems, and more; having to keep track of so many different things in a single monitor is just not feasible if you plan on obtaining any sort of production.

Submission + - New MacBook Pro Teardown Reveals 'Shoddy Assembly' (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Monday February 28, 2011 @04:06PM

CWmike writes: "Apple's new MacBook Pro shows some build-quality problems that shouldn't be seen in a notebook that costs $1,800, a teardown expert said on Monday. iFixit.com found several signs of substandard assembly while disassembling a 15-in. MacBook Pro. Among them: A stripped screw near the subwoofer enclosure and an unlocked ZIF (zero insertion force) socket for the IR (infrared) sensor. '[These] should not be things found inside a completely unmolested computer with an $1,800 base price,' iFixit said in the teardown description. iFixit also spotted an unusual amount of thermal paste applied to both the CPU and the GPU. 'Holy thermal paste! Time will tell if the gobs of thermal paste applied to the CPU and GPU will cause overheating issues down the road,' iFixit said. The refreshed MacBook Pro models launched last Thursday in what one analyst called a 'ho-hum' upgrade."

Comment Not so much (Score 1) 1

by Grimfaire on Wednesday November 24, 2010 @01:29PM (#34333984) Attached to: Wikipedia Hacked

After reading this, went to the site on a secure system just to be safe and found no evidence of this. Looks more like the OP was the one with malware.

PC Gamers Too Good For Consoles Gamers? 324

Posted by Soulskill on Friday July 23, 2010 @05:35PM from the commence-flame-war-now dept.

thsoundman sends in a blog post from Rahul Sood, CTO of HP's gaming business, who claims there was once a project in development at Microsoft to let Xbox users compete against PC users playing the same game. According to Sood, the project was killed because the console players kept getting destroyed by their PC counterparts. He wrote, "Those of us who have been in the gaming business for over a decade know the real deal. You simply don't get the same level of detail or control as you do with a PC over a console. It's a real shame that Microsoft killed this — because had they kept it alive it might have actually increased the desire of game developers and gamers alike to continue developing and playing rich experiences on the PC, which would trickle down to the console as it has in the past."

Video Game Legends To Be Inducted Into Hall of Fame 94

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday July 21, 2010 @01:12AM from the fierce-competition-between-tetrominoes dept.

killdashnine writes "Last year we discussed the creation of the International Video Game Hall of Fame and Museum in Ottumwa, Iowa, and a first event in 2009 which brought 3,500 people to witness it. Since then, there's been much progress toward creation of the museum, including the upcoming 'Big Bang 2010' exhibition. Their first event kicks off with formal induction ceremonies, tournaments, record-setting attempts, and an array of concerts from 8-bit music to modern rock. This serves as the first official fundraiser for this new non-profit. Iowa is positioning itself as the Video Game Capital of the World. While some sneer and scoff at this, pointing to LA or Seattle as gaming giants and rightful heirs to the title, the real goal is not to glorify software developers but rather to memorialize the 'heroes of video games,' from the iconic Pac Man to pioneers such as Ralph Baer." Here's a list of this year's inductees. Who gets your vote for next year?

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