Some1too - Slashdot User

Google Shooting For Smartphone Universal Translator 178

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday February 08, 2010 @06:12PM from the ford-why-is-this-fish-in-my-ear dept.

nikki4 writes to tell us that in giving some major improvement tweaks to its existing voice recognition tool for the Smartphone, Google is aiming for new translator software that will provide instant translation of foreign languages. "The company has already created an automatic system for translating text on computers, which is being honed by scanning millions of multi-lingual websites and documents. So far it covers 52 languages, adding Haitian Creole last week. Google also has a voice recognition system that enables phone users to conduct web searches by speaking commands into their phones rather than typing them in. Now it is working on combining the two technologies to produce software capable of understanding a caller’s voice and translating it into a synthetic equivalent in a foreign language."

Pen Still Mightier Than the Laptop For Notetaking? 569

Posted by kdawson on Sunday February 07, 2010 @04:31PM from the highly-evolved-metaphor dept.

theodp writes "While waiting to see if the iPad is a game-changer, this CS student continues to take class notes with pen and paper while her fellow students embrace netbooks and notebooks. Why? In addition to finding the act of writing helps cement the lecture material in her mind, there's also the problem of keeping up with the professor: '[While taking notes on a laptop] every five minutes I found myself cursing at not being able to copy the diagram on the board.' So, when it comes to education or business, do you take notes on a notepad/netbook, or stick with good old-fashioned handwriting? Got any tips for making the transition, or arguments for staying the course?"

Dinosaur Feather Color Discovered 219

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 27, 2010 @05:28PM from the horsefeathers-still-a-mystery dept.

anzha writes "Do you remember being a kid and told we'd never know what colors the dinosaurs were? For at least some, that's no longer true. Scientists working in the UK and China have closely examined the fossils of multiple theropods and actually found the colors and patterns that were present in the fossilized proto-feathers. So far, the answer is orange, black and white in banded and other patterns. The work also thoroughly thrashes the idea that fossils might not be feathers, but collagen fibers instead. If this holds up, Birds Are Dinosaurs. Period. And colorful!"

Unpacking the Secrets of ACTA 169

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday January 27, 2010 @12:42PM from the oh-i'm-sure-it'll-be-fine dept.

An anonymous reader writes "As negotiations in the 7th round of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement talks continue this week in Mexico, Michael Geist has been posting a comprehensive guide to the secret copyright treaty. He started with a review of the substance of the treaty, then posted links to all the leaked documentation, and has now unpacked the secrecy associated with the talks, including why governments have made it secret, the public concern, and why this isn't business as usual."

PlayStation 3 Hack Released Online 164

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday January 27, 2010 @11:57AM from the let-the-games-begin dept.

itwbennett writes "On Friday, George Hotz, best known for cracking Apple's iPhone, said he had managed to hack the PlayStation 3 after five weeks of work with 'very simple hardware cleverly applied, and some not so simple software.' Days later, he has now released the exploit, saying in a blog post that he wanted to see what others could do with it. 'Hopefully, this will ignite the PS3 scene, and you will organize and figure out how to use this to do practical things, like the iPhone when jailbreaks were first released,' he wrote. 'I have a life to get back to and can't keep working on this all day and night.'" Reader MBCook points out an article written by Nate Lawson "explaining how the hack bypasses the hypervisor to gain unrestricted access to memory. It seems the trick is to use a pulse to glitch the hypervisor while it's unmapping memory, leaving a favorable page table entry."

Comment Re:GSM Providers (Score 1) 238

by Some1too on Wednesday January 27, 2010 @01:54AM (#30914032) Attached to: Canadian Android Carrier Forcing Firmware Update

I couldn't have said it better. Hopefully with the recently opened new market/competition we'll begin to see some short term changes. I've worked in the industry and still have several friends in both of the large carriers. I'm still mad at Bell for their throttling; I was hoping for a stronger response from our government (and people) regarding the issue. Cheers,

Comment It's interesting but.. (Score 1) 432

by Some1too on Friday January 15, 2010 @09:24PM (#30786622) Attached to: A Space Cannon That Might Actually Work

I'd be curious to see how deep the cannon needs to be. Being at the equator you'd also have to ship the 'merchandise' to it and then find a way to load it into the cannon. I can't image it would be trivial to load this cannon. Simply dropping it down the canon itself would be one personality. I'm also very curious how the necessary energy would be created to fire this container. I'm all for anything that helps open up the travel off this rock but the one provided link is a little slim on details.

Slashdot's Disagree Mail 100

Posted by samzenpus on Friday October 17, 2008 @01:11PM from the good-things-come-in-small-packages dept.

Ernest Hemingway's micro-story, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn," is one of my favorite examples of how less is sometimes more. Sometimes a few sentences say it all; you don't always need a hundred pages to convey an idea. Most of the mail I get is brief and to the point. Others are just brief. To be honest, I appreciate the short, crazy email more than the long rants, and they can be just as funny. Read below for this week's mail snippets.

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