Comment Re:Witless stenographers? (Score 1) 664
Maybe you should do a bit of research before you try calling other people's comments bullshit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysgraphia
Comment Re:What's the big deal? (Score 1) 483
How is this any different from the requirements for developing for the XBox, Sony Playstation/PSP, or the Wii/Gameboy?
I don't know much about Sony or Wii, but with respect to XBox at least, you can develop for it using XNA - and it doesn't come with such a restrictive license agreement.
Then also, for gaming consoles, the model of restricted SDK and publishing has been a de facto standard for a while now, for better or worse. With smartphones, though, only Apple is trying to lock things down - everyone else on the market has been open, and remains so.
Comment Re:Hydrophopic (Score 1) 133
Super-hydrophobic would do. It takes more hydrophobicity to repel oil than to repel water, since oil has lower surface tension than water.
MIT Produces Electricity Using Thermopower Waves 157
MikeChino writes "MIT scientists have discovered a never-before-known phenomenon wherein carbon nanotubes can be used to harness energy from 'thermopower waves.' To do this they coated the nanotubes with a reactive fuel and then lit one end, causing a fast-moving thermal wave to speed down the length of the tube. The heat from the fuel rises to a temperature of 3,000 kelvins, and can speed along the tube 10,000 times faster than the normal spread of this chemical reaction. The heat also pushes electrons down the tube, which creates a substantial electrical current. The system can output energy (in proportion to its weight) about 100x greater than an equivalent weight lithium-ion battery, and according to MIT the discovery 'opens up a new area of energy research, which is rare.'"
Facebook Founder Accused of Hacking Into Rivals' Email 261
An anonymous reader notes a long piece up at BusinessInsider.com accusing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of hacking into the email accounts of rivals and journalists. The CEO of the world's most successful social networking website was accused of at least two breaches of privacy. In a two-year investigation detailing the founding of Facebook, Nicholas Carlson, a senior editor at Silicon Alley Insider, uncovered what he claimed was evidence of the hackings in 2004. "New information uncovered by Silicon Alley Insider suggests that some of the complaints [in a court case ongong since 2007] against Mark Zuckerberg are valid. It also suggests that, on at least one occasion in 2004, Mark used private login data taken from Facebook's servers to break into Facebook members' private email accounts and read their emails — at best, a gross misuse of private information. Lastly, it suggests that Mark hacked into the competing company's systems and changed some user information with the aim of making the site less useful. ... Over the past two years, we have interviewed more than a dozen sources familiar with aspects of this story — including people involved in the founding year of the company. We have also reviewed what we believe to be some relevant IMs and emails from the period. Much of this information has never before been made public. None of it has been confirmed or authenticated by Mark or the company." The single-page view doesn't have its own URL; click on "View as one page" near the bottom.
Whatever Happened To Programming? 623
Mirk writes "In a recent interview, Don Knuth wrote: 'The way a lot of programming goes today isn't any fun because it's just plugging in magic incantations — combine somebody else's software and start it up.' The Reinvigorated Programmer laments how much of our 'programming' time is spent pasting not-quite-compatible libraries together and patching around the edges." This 3-day-old article has sparked lively discussions at Reddit and at Hacker News, and the author has responded with a followup and summation.
MIT's Flyfire To Paint Images In the Sky Using Micro-Helicopters 65
@engadget mentions that a new project dubbed "Flyfire" at MIT is looking to launch a fleet of LED-equipped micro-helicopters and coordinate them in synchrony to create massive floating images. "By using LED-equipped drones the project pledges to build free-floating 3D displays, endowing them with enough smarts and positional awareness to organize themselves into an airborne canvas. It sounds deliciously exciting and challenging."
Comcast Shoots For New Image, Rebranding As Xfinity 356
artemis writes "Comcast is making efforts to repair and restore its 'former glory' by the act of transformation, rebranding itself as Xfinity. Hopefully step 2 is an actual change in quality and customer service. 'Comcast will use the Xfinity rebranding to talk up its improved customer service as well as its technical upgrades. “There’s a lot to be proud of,’’ said Steve Hackley, Comcast’s senior vice president for the Greater Boston region. “We want to take credit for it.’’ W2 Group’s Weber said such a rebranding is “a bit old-fashioned’’ and a new name is unlikely to impress consumers. “I think the public is smarter than that now,’’ he said.'"
Verizon Blocking 4chan 677
An anonymous reader writes "According to 4chan's owner and administrator 'moot,' Verizon has explicitly blocked all traffic on their network from boards.4chan.org, where all of 4chan's boards are located. Moot explains that only traffic to and from port 80 is being dropped and they were able to confirm that it was intentional. 4chan's downtime for Verizon users has been in effect for at least 72 hours since Saturday, February 7."
MPEG LA Extends H.264 Royalty-Free Period 260
Sir Homer writes "The MPEG LA has extended their royalty-free license (PDF) for 'Internet Video that is free to end users' until the end of 2016. This means webmasters who are registered MPEG LA licensees will not have to pay a royalty to stream H.264 video for the next six years. However the last patent in the H.264 portfolio expires in 2028, and the MPEG LA has not released what fees, if any, it will charge webmasters after this 'free trial' period is over."
Comment no more flying through the UK for me then (Score 0, Troll) 821
as I don't live there, I don't have to either.
I guess this will mean this islander nation is more of an islaneder by now. any UK person I'll meet, I can be sure they conceded in having their genitals exposed to some underpaid 'security' asshole
what a bunch of perverts...
Comment Re:So what does it do? (Score 1) 159
If you are referring to ATI's proprietary driver, then I'll have to agree with you. I've never been fond of ATI's own proprietary drivers for Windows or *nix, though they have improved greatly over the years. I especially hate the fact that ATI feels it necessary to advertise their own products, inside their drivers. And I'm not talking about "advertising" for the hardware you already have. Add-on TV tuners, latest Radeon cards, etc., have all been advertised within their drivers. No thanks ATI.
Honestly, I still prefer NVIDIA's drivers for their stability and reliability. I have worked extensively with NVIDIA hardware over the past few years in a professional field, utilizing GP-GPU and CUDA. They may not currently have the fastest hardware at the moment, but it works well. And their drivers are solid. I'm not saying NVIDIA's drivers are perfect, they are not, but they generally work well and I have had few issues over the years. I still believe ATI's drivers are a weak point for their hardware, which is currently very good. The UI for the CCC is also poorly designed and looks amateur-ish, imho.
Today, I'd much rather have a solid, closed-source binary driver that "just works", than a much less functional OSS one for ideological reasons. Let's see what happens over the next few years.... it could be interesting.
Comment Re:Another reason not to fly via Heathrow (Score 1) 821
Indeed - it's interesting that the 2005 bombing didn't AFAICR get used as an excuse for more draconian laws. But a failed attempt in another country has resulted in the UK bringing new measures in.
Comment Re:Really? (Score 1) 821
Terrorists will always find a way to get explosives on planes if they feel they need to.
Why bother? Thanks to security theatre, they can now simply blow themselves up in the scanner queue, which will kill the hundred or so people packed in there, will probably shut down the entire airport, and will cause the government to rape us even harder than before.
Comment Re:the more prevalent it remains, the bigger the r (Score 1) 319
That, and the fact that its largely compatible with all the IE only corporate SHIT out there (i'm looking in your direction, sharepoint) means it will be stuck on corporate networks for some time.
Given the choice between having to support 350 clients on IE8 with auto patching via WSUS, etc - or Firefox/Chrome by relying on 350 PCs to go off and get their own updates whenever the user feels like it - I choose IE8 as the corporate standard.
