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PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - PlayStation Pull-Back Hurts Inexpensive Supercompu (itworld.com)

Submitted by JimLynch
JimLynch writes: Yesterday, April 1st, brought the inevitable round of high-tech hijinks, as individuals and companies jockeyed to see who could be funnier. My personal favorite was Google renaming itself to Topeka, a move sure to consternate anyone not in the know and amuse those who were.

One tech company, however, released a software update that was decidedly unfunny.
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - There go our web standards..... (pwnage.ca) 2

Submitted by blozza2070
blozza2070 writes: Jeff Jaffe (AKA Zonker), Software Patent Supporter, Microsoft Apologist, Ex-IBM, Ex-Novell, FSF hating troll is now the CEO of the W3C. It is the organization responsible for web standards which have been promoted by Firefox, Opera, and Google. The w3c has been known for hiring bad staff but this just takes the cake. How long do you think it will take before MS-invented standards are pushed as defacto standards?

Submission + - Open-Source Javascript Flash Player (HTML5/SVG) (paulirish.com) 1

Submitted by gbutler69
gbutler69 writes: Wow! Someone has gone and done it. Created a Flash Player written in Javascript targetting SVG/HTML5 capable browsers. It's not a complete implementation yet, but, it shows some real promise. Of course, there is the ever-famous vector "Hello World!" called Tiger. This really has promise. How long before HTML5/SVG next-generation browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Epiphany, and other Web-Kit based browsers completely supplant Flash and Silverlight/Moonlight?

Submission + - Second Life destroy's User Content (secondlife.com) 1

Submitted by rodneylee
rodneylee writes: A new fad in Second Life has the Blue Native's from the Movie AVATAR to life in Virtual Reality along with controversy and pain, Several RP (roll playing) Sims have opened in SL and a large market for Clothing, Blue Tiger Skins for the natives, Language translators, creatures and plants, User made content that even mentions Na'vi, AVATAR, Pandora is now being removed from SL web market, xstreetsl.com and from game residents inventory, when it happened to me they claimed it was a bug, left me naked in the game and and robbed my inventory of items I had made and bought that related to that movie, soon I think they will sue India for calling there deities Avatars, is it warner picture putting pressure on Linden Labs, maybe they didn't make enough money and wants our linden dollars also, for me it was alot like being Robbed then lied to by a company I pay hundreds of dollars to each month in order to create content for there game.
Security

Submission + - How to educate government agencies about security?

Submitted by MrNaz
MrNaz writes: Here in Australia we are supposed to have one of the most IT heavy health care systems in the world. Yet, over the years, the general lack of IT savvy has been a problem I have butted up against repeatedly. For example, I was recently involved in a government program which required sending a list of certain patients to a government department for processing. The list had patient names, addresses, Medicare numbers and a few other details. In the instructions that I received from the department, I was instructed to generate the list as a MS Excel file, and then password protect it before burning it to a CD and mailing it. Now, we all know the folly of relying on Excel passwords to protect lost CDs from becoming an ID thief's wet dream, but how to educate the government about this? Anyway, how does this even happen? When deciding on a procedure, whichever suited bureaucrat came up with the idea could have and should have at least consulted the IT guy down the hall. How can we instill a practice whereby decision makers at least bring it up with someone in the know before making an on-the-spot decision that could result in disaster?
AMD

Submission + - AMD Delivers DX11 GPU for under $100 (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: The new AMD Radeon HD 5670 launches today and is the first graphics card to bring DirectX 11 support to the sub-$100 market and truly offers next-generation features to almost any budget. The Redwood part (as it was codenamed) is nearly 3.5x smaller in die size than the first DX11 GPUs from AMD while offering support for DirectCompute 5.0, Eyefinity multi-monitor gaming and of course DX11 features in upcoming Windows gaming titles. Unfortunately, performance on the card is not revolutionary even for the $99 graphics market though power consumption has been noticeably lowered while keeping the card well cooled in a single slot design.
Technology

Submission + - RCA reveals Wi-Fi harvesting recharger (criticalgamer.co.uk) 1

Submitted by unknown_gamer
unknown_gamer writes: A hidden gem from this year’s CES; the RCA Airnergy Charger, a product sent straight from the future that convert air to electricity. Or rather, it somehow picks up on Wi-Fi signals and uses them to charge batteries. Apparently it does this surprisingly well, charging a Blackberry from 30% to full battery in 90 minutes. If this sounds like magic then prepare to stare disbelievingly at the proposed price: $40.
Power

Submission + - So What's the Bad Wiring Advice?

Submitted by Residentcur
Residentcur writes: The popular press is full of stories about a recall of Sunset DIY books on home wiring. The recall is based on supposed bad advice contained in these books and going back three decades, but neither the government body responsible for it nor the publisher is willing to say what the problem is. In my view, it defies logic that this should be kept secret, since presumably many will fail to turn in these dangerous books and may well continue to follow their guidance going forward. No doubt someone in possession of such a book could scour it for at least a likely explanation for the recall. So far I have been unable to find even a speculation about the nature of the bad advice, amongst all the "this will teach you not to try to do it yourself" drivel. Can anyone enlighten this avid home electrician what to look out for in these books?
Networking

Submission + - Bell Labs Says Networks Can Be 1000 Times Greener (eweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes: Bell Labs believes that data networks can be more efficient and has launched a consortium which aims to develop technology that uses 1000 times less energy, by 2015. The Green Touch initiative is going to focus a lot on wireless, making smaller cells for instance, according to the founders. Cynics might say Alcatel Lucent is using its research division to distract attention from its troubles — the Financial Times described it as "a poster chiled for much that is wrong in the telecoms equipment industry" — but Bell Labs still commands respect and support, and the goal it has set is an interesting one.

Submission + - Smart Pen syncs audio w/ notetaking on plain paper (hexus.net)

Submitted by quintin3265
quintin3265 writes: The Pulse Smart Pen, released by Livescribe at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Showcase, allows users to draw their own user interfaces on paper they can print for freeat home. The pen records audio while a lecture is occurring, and as notes are taken, the position of the words the user writes is stored in 2GB or 4GB of onboard memory. Later, when the user taps a word that was previously written, it plays the portion of the lecture beginning at the time the word was written.

In the linked video, the company's CEO also demonstrates an application that allows the user to draw a piano on a piece of paper, and the pen plays the keys that are tapped. Should the user decide (s)he prefers not to play his or her own music, (s)he can draw a menu bar to select a song by a classical composer. Finally, by writing and clicking on words, the pen recognizes the words that are written and translates them into a selection of languages. And should the user be dissatisfied with the controls printed at the bottom of the paper, (s)he can draw custom interfaces to access the pen's various features. Best of all, this gadget isn't a pipe dream, but one that's on sale right now for around $220.

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