Comment Re:Farmers are often on the cutting edge (Score 1) 153
Spot on comment, wish I had mod points today.
Submission + - Magic Trackpad: The Beginning of the End for OS X (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Is the magic trackpad the first step towards a new fully multitouch-enabled, completely database-driven, Mac OS X with a simpler, modal user interface? Looking at how Apple is moving, it may very well be. It looks like death and rebirth of Mac OS X may be around the corner.
Submission + - Sky UK HD boxes switch over to open source (sky.com)
jogu writes: Sky have just started rolling out over the air updates to their SkyHD boxes. Big news in the new update is they seem to have moved from OpenTV's closed OS over to linux — along with many of the common associated components: xfree86, busybox, ISC dhcp. They seemed to be going out their way to comply fully with the GPL and other licenses. It raises all sorts of questions — why have Sky done this now? Will this open the way to a healthy modding community?
Submission + - A New Book About Classic Graphic Adventure Games (blogoscoped.com)
j_philipp writes: As a fan of the genre, I've compiled and edited a book called "Graphic Adventures: Being a Mostly Correct History of the Adventure Game Classics By Lucasfilm, Sierra and Others, from the Pages of Wikipedia". As the title says, it's collected from the pages of Wikipedia, with slight or heavy editing as well as additional material — depending on what was needed to make it work in book form — and with many additional creator interviews I conducted with people like Al Lowe (Leisure Suit Larry) or David Fox (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken...). There's also many screenshots from the games. If you liked to play Loom, Monkey Island, Space Quest, Myst and many others, perhaps this is something of interest... and because the book is GNU-licensed, you can grab the free download if you like.
Submission + - HDMI and its stupid labelling requirements (pcauthority.com.au)
An anonymous reader writes: In many ways HDMI has revolutionized the way we connect devices. By unifying video and audio into a single cable manufacturers have been able to make their products easier to setup than ever before. Until recently there hasn't actually been much difference in HDMI cables. But things are about to get confusing with the introduction of HDMI 1.4. By the 1st of January 2012 manufacturers of products with HDMI ports won't actually be able to call HDMI 1.4 by itst real name. In fact, come November 18 this year those selling cables won't be able to use HDMI 1.4 or HDMI 1.3 to delineate between different products. Instead cables that support version 1.4 of the HDMI standard will have to use one of five different labels. The new labels? Well, as this story explains, they're going to cause a new level of confusion for anyone hooking up a home cinema. Add to this the fact that the HDMI organisation keeps the specifics of its specifications secret and translation between version numbering and marketing speak is nigh on impossible.
Comment Re:Content still under copyright? (Score 1) 133
Depends. Use this handy tool to find out:
http://www.librarycopyright.net/digitalslider/
Comment Re:Controversial? (Score 1) 53
There actually is a federal law, if the library in question receives certain federal funds for Internet access or computers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Internet_Protection_Act
Many states laws take this forced censorship even further.
Comment Re:What's up with the punctuation (Score 0, Offtopic) 256
Absolutely. When I worked on the editorial staff of an academic journal, all ellipses not present in the original text were to be enclosed in brackets.
Submission + - Amazon launches Linux-based eBook reader (linuxdevices.com)
nerdyH writes: Amazon today launched its $400 "Kindle" electronic book reader, a lightweight tablet that connects readers to Amazon's electronic bookstore via a CDMA cellular data modem. Produced by Amazon's "Lab126" skunkworks team, and codenamed "Fiona" during development, the Kindle boasts a claimed 30 hours of battery life, thanks to a 2.6.10 XIP (execute-in-place) Linux kernel with "fpow" power saving architecture, and an E-ink "electronic paper" display, a kind of electrical Etch-a-Sketch that consumes no electrons once an image has been "printed" to it.
Submission + - Linus blasts GCC developers (lkml.org)
An anonymous reader writes: Linus blasted GCC developers on LKML today stating that "The gcc developers seem to have had a total disregard for what people
want or need, and every time some code generation issue comes up, there's a lot of people on the list that do language-lawyering, rather than admit that there might be a problem."
He also noted OpenBSD's efforts but regarded them as impractical, stating that "I think the OpenBSD people decided to actually do something about this, and I suspect it had *nothing* to do with license issues, and everything to do with these kinds of problems. I wish them all the luck, although personally I think LLVM is a much more interesting project."
Read more on the LKML GCC flamewar here : http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/10/25/186
Submission + - Driving to shops better for planet then walking?
apodyopsis writes: The Times Online has done some research into uses of carbon, and come up with some startling research.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/a rticle2195538.ece
from TFA:
"The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/
from TFA:
"The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby."
Submission + - UK rejects lengthening of copyright (yahoo.com)
timrichardson writes: The British Government has rejected extending copyright for sound recordings. This is an important development in the face of trends to extend copyright duration, although it leaves British copyright protection for music recordings at a shorter duration than for written works. The decision was despite fierce lobbying from the large British music industry. The music industry will now lobby direct to the European Commission, but without the support of the national government, its position is significantly weakened. British copyright for music recordings therefore remains at 50 years after the death of the artist, in contrast to 95 years in the US and 70 years in Australia.
Submission + - Safari on Windows (apple.com)
cubricon writes: "Steve Jobs announced today at the WWDC in San Francisco that Safari 3 is coming to Microsoft Windows. The public beta is available for download now."
Submission + - Safari on Windows
Anonymous Coward writes: "As per Steve, Safari will soon be available on Windows. I'm scratching my head going huh? because Safari is such a crappy browser that fails to properly render a large number of sites and whose javascript fails to properly execute code on many sites. I use a Mac and so Safari is part of the environment I use, but I never use it because it fails on so many sites. Huh?"
Submission + - NASA 'Absolutely' to Work with Private Moguls (popularmechanics.com)
mattnyc99 writes: Just before the successful launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis this weekend, Popular Mechanics sat down with NASA administrator Michael Griffin, who gave some very revealing answers to their "10 tough questions." In addition to sharing his opinions on the Moon vs. Mars manned space debate, the 2008 elections and NASA's global warming research, Griffin acknowledged that he's been working on partnerships with the Richard Bransons and Elon Musks of the world in a collaboration that might—just might—make all this private and public space research funding add up to something truly meaningful. From the article: "Absolutely. I see a day in the not very distant future, where instead of NASA buying a vehicle, we buy a ticket for our astronauts to ride to low-Earth orbit, or a bill of landing for a cargo delivery to space station by a private operator. I want us to get to that point."
