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Sci-Fi

Submission + - Smarter-than-Human Intelligence (singinst.org)

Submitted by
runamock
runamock writes: "Brilliant technologists like Ray Kurzweil and Rodney Brooks are gathering in San Francisco for The Singularity Summit. The Singularity refers to the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence beyond which the future becomes unpredictable. The concept of the Singularity sounds more daunting in the form described by statistician I.J Good in 1965: 'Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.' What do Slashdotters think about the hypothetical Singularity? Could it happen and what are the technologies that are likely to lead us to the Singularity?"
Sci-Fi

Submission + - The Babylon Project finished

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: (Please write a story out of this while it's fresh, it seems to be flying under the radar and Slashdot ought to have some Babylon 5 fans!)

Just informing that this project is now finished at the "3.4" version. I just tried it for the first time and I felt like I was playing Tie Fighter, it's so professionally done. You couldn't tell it's free total conversion from the graphics or the size of 2 GB.

Only the voice acting isn't quite up there but I've heard worse in commercial games.

So if you ever liked Tie/Xwing/Freespace/I-War or B5 generally this is definitely worth getting.

You may need to install OpenAL, the game itself is here: http://www.mininova.org/tor/793103 and players/devs at http://www.hard-light.net/
X

Submission + - X.org Foundation releases Xorg 7.3 (x.org)

Submitted by
srealm
srealm writes: "Xorg has finally released their landmark release Xorg 7.3. This release includes major improvements such as both output (ie. monitor) AND input (ie. tablet) hot plugging (laptop users rejoice!). As well as such nifty things as DTrace for Solaris builds. Get it while its hot!"
AMD

Submission + - AMD/ATi to release graphics specs

Submitted by Ganesh999
Ganesh999 writes: A recent Phoronix article hinted that despite the large number of substantially improved AMD/ATi drivers just released, there was more exciting news in the pipeline.

This seems to have been confirmed at the Linux kernel summit yesterday. From LWN :

'AMD's representative at the summit has announced that the company has made a decision to enable the development of open source drivers for all of its (ATI) graphics processors from the R500 going forward. There will be specifications available and a skeleton driver as well; a free 2D driver is anticipated by the end of the year. The rest will have to be written; freeing of the existing binary-only driver is not in the cards, and "that is better for everybody." Things are looking good on this front. More in the kernel summit report to come.'

General reaction from the kernel developers seems to be positive :

'It's definitely not a 'you're on your own' kind of proposition: this is exactly what was asked for, giving the community all the information it needs to complete a proper driver.'
Enlightenment

Submission + - realtime ASCII Goggles (englishrussia.com)

Submitted by jabjoe
jabjoe writes: Russian artists from Moscow have created goggles with image filtering, interestingly ascii. This allows you to view the world in real time as ascii. Pointless but cool. Link
Linux Business

Submission + - AMD to open ATI specs (0xdeadbeef.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: AMD has announced they are releasing the specs for all new radeon chipsets, and will be working with the open source community to develop a fully functional 2d and 3d graphics driver. AMD appears to be following in Intel's footsteps with upcoming releases. If AMD is successfull NVidia will have real competition in the GNU/Linux gaming arena. While past support by ATI was unsatisfactory the new AMD buyout appears to be having some effect.
Graphics

Submission + - AMD to open up graphics specs

Submitted by RAID10
RAID10 writes: according to lwn.net AMD has promised to open up the graphics specs. Finally we can have open source drivers for ATi AMD cards!
AMD

Submission + - AMD frees ATI graphics hardware specs (lwn.net)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Check this out, corbet of LWN fame reports on a major happening at the Linux Kernel Summit. "AMD's representative at the summit has announced that the company has made a decision to enable the development of open source drivers for all of its (ATI) graphics processors from the R500 going forward. There will be specifications available and a skeleton driver as well;" Wohoo!!!
Graphics

Submission + - ATI/AMD Announces Driver Breakthrough (phoronix.com)

Submitted by
schestowitz
schestowitz writes: "AMD has just dropped the bomb when it announced a major driver breakthrough. To Linux users, the effect of this news is enormous. To gamers and to projects like Compiz-Fusion, this will be the end of a lot of trouble. Phoronix.com seems to have had some insider information because the site already boasts extensive benchmarks and detailed information. From one among five articles: 'Whether you are using a Radeon X300 purchased a few years ago or the Radeon X1950PRO, the 8.41 driver is noticeably faster. How much faster? In many cases it is about 50% faster while in some configurations it may go as high as 90% or more. In fact, in some benchmarks the Mobility Radeon X300 was over 10x faster!'"
XBox (Games)

Submission + - MS says: Linux is inappropriate language

Submitted by
mocm
mocm writes: "The Inquirer has a story about a guy who wanted to use "linux" as his XBox Motto and got the message that this is inappropriate language. I tried it myself and got the same result. It seems that "linux" is on the same level as "sucks" and "baka" which it also won't accept. It will accept "linuxx" though and also "msbaka""
AMD

Submission + - AMD Linux Driver Interview Opportunity

Submitted by
Sarah Vella
Sarah Vella writes: "AMD would like to set up an interview with Slashdot.org for September 4th or 5th to discuss a major development on their open source drivers. AMD would like to share this news first with the Slashdot community.

Let me know if Slashdot is open to having an interview with Chris Schlaeger our resident Linux guru and Pat Moorhead, VP, Marketing.

Cheers,
Sarah Vella
High Road Communications
416 644-2270"
Education

Submission + - Baby Hacking 1

Submitted by LanMan04
LanMan04 writes: My wife and I are expecting our first child to be born in about 3 months, and I wanted to ask the /. crowd for any "Baby Hacking" projects/recommendations. I'd define baby hacking as any early childhood education project that can give the baby a head start (i.e. early language acquisition, accelerated learning, etc), with an emphasis unconventional ideas. This is especially important, with recent research showing that those Baby Einstein videos are actually detrimental. Also, any really "cool" projects you wish your parents could have done from day 1 (e.g. take a picture of the baby's face every day, starting at birth, to see how it changes over the years, etc) would be appreciated as well. Thanks Slashdotters!
Space

Submission + - Spelunking the caves of Mars

Submitted by OriginalArlen
OriginalArlen writes: After earlier images caught glimpses of mysterious cave openings on flanks of the Martian volcano Arsia Montes, the MRO's superb HiRISE camera has now captured amazing close-up images of this cave / "skylight" on Arsia Montest. How big is the cavern below? What does it look like inside? Somehow I doubt we'll get data from inside in my lifetime, so let the wild-eyed speculation begin!

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