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Emulation (Games)

A JavaScript Gameboy Emulator, Detailed In 8 Parts 62

Posted by timothy from the behind-the-scenes dept.
Two9A writes "JavaScript has shed its image of being a limited language, tied to DOM manipulation in a browser; in recent years, new engines and frameworks have given JS a reputation as a language capable of bigger things. Mix this in with the new elements of HTML5, and you have the capacity to emulate a game console or other system, with full graphical output. This series of articles looks in detail at how an emulator is written in JavaScript, using the example of the Gameboy handheld: starting at the CPU, and (as of part 8) running a copy of Tetris."
Space

Supermassive Black Hole Is Thrown Out of Galaxy 167

Posted by samzenpus from the moving-to-better-quarters dept.
DarkKnightRadick writes "An undergrad student at the University of Utrecht, Marianne Heida, has found evidence of a supermassive black hole being tossed out of its galaxy. According to the article, the black hole — which has a mass equivalent to one billion suns — is possibly the culmination of two galaxies merging (or colliding, depending on how you like to look at it) and their black holes merging, creating one supermassive beast. The black hole was found using the Chandra Source Catalog (from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory). The direction of the expulsion is also possibly indicative of the direction of rotation of the two black holes as they circled each other before merging."
Earth

Planned Nuclear Reactors Will Destroy Atomic Waste 344

Posted by Soulskill from the but-where-will-we-get-our-superheroes dept.
separsons writes "A group of French scientists are developing a nuclear reactor that burns up actinides — highly radioactive uranium isotopes. They estimate that 'the volume of high-level nuclear waste produced by all of France’s 58 reactors over the past 40 years could fit in one Olympic-size swimming pool.' And they're not the only ones trying to eliminate atomic waste: Researchers at the University of Texas in Austin are working on a fusion-fission reactor. The reactor destroys waste by firing streams of neutrons at it, reducing atomic waste by up to 99 percent!"
Graphics

Disney Releases 3D Texture Mapper Source Code 83

Posted by timothy from the nice-of-them dept.
dsavi writes "Ptex, Walt Disney Animation Studio's cutting-edge 3D texture mapping library which was first used on nearly every surface in the 2008 animated feature Bolt, was released under the BSD license on Friday. Quoting the announcement on monophyl.com: 'We expect to follow Ptex with other open source projects that we hope the community will find beneficial. We will soon be launching a new Walt Disney Animation Studios Technology page under disneyanimation.com. It will include links to our open source projects as will as a library of recent publications.' This looks good for open source 3D graphics."
Image

Own Your Own Fighter Jet 222

Posted by samzenpus from the only-one-on-the-block dept.
gimmebeer writes "The Russian Sukhoi SU-27 has a top speed of Mach 1.8 (more than 1,300 mph) and has a thrust to weight ratio greater than 1 to 1. That means it can accelerate while climbing straight up. It was designed to fight against the best the US had to offer, and now it can be yours for the price of a mediocre used business jet."
Image

Tower Switch-Off Embarrasses Electrosensitives 292

Posted by samzenpus from the radiation-placebo dept.
Sockatume writes "Residents in Craigavon, South Africa complained of '[h]eadaches, nausea, tinnitus, dry burning itchy skins, gastric imbalances and totally disrupted sleep patterns' after an iBurst communications tower was put up in a local park. Symptoms subsided when the residents left the area, often to stay with family and thus evade their suffering. At a public meeting with the afflicted locals, the tower's owners pledged to switch off the mast immediately to assess whether it was responsible for their ailments. One problem: the mast had already been switched off for six weeks. Lawyers representing the locals say their case against iBurst will continue on other grounds."
Cellphones

Duke Nukem 3D Ported To Nokia N900 95

Posted by Soulskill from the all-outta-gum dept.
andylim writes "It looks as if Duke Nukem isn't completely 'nuked' after all. Someone has ported the 90s classic on to a Nokia N900. As you'll see in the video, you control Duke using the Qwerty keypad and shoot using the touchscreen. I'm wondering how long it will take for this to get on other mobile platforms." In other Duke news, reader Jupix points out that 3D Realms' CEO Scott Miller recently said, "There are numerous other Duke games in various stages of development, several due out this year. We are definitely looking to bring Duke into casual gaming spaces, plus there are other major Duke games in production."
Science

Aussie Scientists Find Coconut-Carrying Octopus 205

Posted by timothy from the concealed-carry-in-australian-waters dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from an AP report: "Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal. The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot. ... 'I was gobsmacked,' said Finn, a research biologist at the museum who specializes in cephalopods. 'I mean, I've seen a lot of octopuses hiding in shells, but I've never seen one that grabs it up and jogs across the sea floor. I was trying hard not to laugh.'"

Comment My work has similiar concerns... (Score 3, Insightful) 228

by flyingsled (#28331249) Attached to: Better Tools For Disabled Geeks?
At my work, they're grappling with the same problem. They have a number of blind people working the phones, and their workstations have all sorts of expensive specialised hardware to help them work. The problem is, as more apps move from older green screen technology (yep, there's still lots) to newer wiz-bang web applications, those web-apps have to be created with accessibility in mind. They use JAWS (a commercial product from Freedom Scientific) to make internal applications accessible. As for why there's not much work on the open source front, I guess it's one of those things where a competent developer hasn't had the urge to work on it. But I agree that making computers accessible at a reasonable price (or free) is very important, especially given as a huge chunk of society is getting to the age where this stuff will be needed a lot.
Censorship

Submission + - Judge shields Craigslist from prosecution in SC (cnn.com) 1

Submitted by
viyh
viyh writes: "A South Carolina judge has ordered the state attorney general's office to stop pursuing criminal charges against Craigslist.com while a lawsuit related to prostitution ads on the popular classifieds site makes its way through the courts."
NASA

Submission + - Shuttle Mission Ends Era of Satellite Repair 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "When the space shuttle Atlantis lands later today, it will cap off a mission to Hubble and mark the end of the servicing era. The astronauts' fifth overhaul of the Hubble Space Telescope was the last planned mission to repair the telescope, or any satellite for that matter. "This is the last scheduled servicing mission of Hubble with the space shuttle, and what I think it's demonstrated is the extreme utility of having people working in space and accomplishing things that are different than what was expected," said astronaut John Grunsfeld, who has helped fix Hubble on three different missions. In all, there have been 10 space repair missions by shuttle crews, half of them to Hubble, a major source of pride for NASA — most notably in 1993 when astronauts successfully installed an instrument on Hubble to fix a flawed mirror that had been built into the telescope. NASA's replacement spaceship, the Orion Crew Module, will not have the ability to rendezvous with Hubble or other satellites to repair them. "There is no person out there, there is no leadership out there, there is no vision out there to pick up the baton that we're about to hand off and carry it forward," says Hubble project scientist David Leckrone. "And I think that's just a shame to abandon one of the most impressive, refined, sophisticated capabilities that this agency as a whole — human side and robotic side — has achieved.""

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