romit_icarus - Slashdot User

Comment Why is this significant? (Score 2, Interesting) 229

by romit_icarus on Tuesday September 15, 2009 @05:28AM (#29423793) Attached to: Most Detailed Photos of an Atom Yet

The ability to directly measure electron density is quite an old technique. STMs and AFMs have been doing this since the very beginning.. I agree with the researcher's quote in the article that it's good to develop a complementary technique(FEEM) abd at best that's its contribution. I'd be happy to hear what else it contributes. though I don't quite agree with his or the editors spelling! ;) "it's always good to have complimentary approaches,"

Journal Journal: hi

Journal by romit_icarus on Wednesday April 15, 2009 @03:43PM

I'm a ho

Comment marketing gimmick (Score 3, Insightful) 88

by romit_icarus on Tuesday March 31, 2009 @12:48AM (#27398043) Attached to: Early Look At the New <em>Wolfenstein</em> Game

Pluck an epic game from the past, slap on a 'feature' = cheap marketing and product development = low-risk/decent return game product.

Submission + - Beyond "KDE vs. GNOME" (earthweb.com) 1

Submitted by

jammag

on Sunday March 29, 2009 @04:32PM

jammag writes: "Setting aside the now tired debate about whether KDE or GNOME is the "better" Linux desktop, Bruce Byfield compares their contrasting development approaches and concludes that KDE is moving far ahead. "In the short term, GNOME's gradualism seems sensible. But, in the long-term, it could very well mean continuing to be dragged down by support for legacy sub-systems. It means being reduced to an imitator rather than innovator." In contrast, "you could say that KDE has done what's necessary and ripped the bandage off the scab. In the short term, the result has been a lot of screaming, but, in the long-term, it has done what was necessary to thrive." If the phrase 'no pain, no gain,' applies to development, KDE is leaving the staid GNOME in the dust."

Submission + - Graphic Artists Condemn UK Ban on Erotic Comics

Submitted by mdwh2 on Saturday March 28, 2009 @12:43PM

mdwh2 writes: Graphic artists, publishers and MPs have condemned the UK's Coroners and Justice Bill, which will criminalise possession of sexual depictions that appear to show someone under 18 (the age of consent is 16 in the UK), as well as adults where the "predominant impression conveyed" is of someone under 18, and even if they are merely drawn as being present whilst sexual activity took place between adults. The definitions could include Lost Girls, Watchmen, and South Park. The Comic Book Alliance has launched a Petition against the law.

Submission + - UN Attacks Free Speech (newsblaze.com) 1

Submitted by

newsblaze

on Saturday March 28, 2009 @01:56AM

newsblaze writes: "The UN Human Rights Council Assaulted Free Expression today, in a 23-11 vote that urges member states to adopt laws outlawing criticism of religions. The proposal came to the UN from Pakistan, on behalf of the Organization for the Islamic Conference. There were 13 abstensions. South Korea, Japan, India, Mexico and Brazil, all strong democracies, allowed this to pass by abrogating their responsibility. While the resolution doesn't mention the online world, where does this subject get mentioned most, if not online."

Submission + - Google Voice fixes security flaw, almost (voxilla.com)

Submitted by

gardel

on Wednesday March 25, 2009 @12:41AM

gardel writes: "Google appears to have fixed a significant security hole in its two-week-old Voice calling service though some vulnerabilities remain. Until about 7pm PDT Tuesday, an unauthorized party could use a SIP device to spoof a phone number attached to a Google Voice account to call the Google Voice number, giviing the spoofer access to greetings and voicemail, and the ability to make outbound calls, including expensive international calls. Though spoofing via SIP is no longer possible, continued existence of some vulnerability was still apparent Tuesday night. Voxilla was able to set the caller ID of a PBX extension to a mobile number attached to Google Voice account and call in, using a business VoIP trunk, to gain access. (Note: posted by a Voxilla editor)"

Submission + - Last.fm to start charging international users (mashable.com) 2

Submitted by

tdobson

on Tuesday March 24, 2009 @03:44PM

tdobson writes: "The popular online radio service, Last.fm, has announced that users outside of the UK, USA and Germany will need to start paying 3.00 (about $4.40 USD/£2.80 GBP) per month to continue streaming music on their service.

Last.fm doesn't offer much of a reason as to the change, other than writing on their blog that "There will be a 30 track free trial, and we hope this will convince people to subscribe and keep listening to the radio"

Already, there appears to be quite a backlash in responses so far, amongst subscribers and non-subscribers of all nationalities — has this killed Last.fm's appeal, globally?"

Submission + - In India, MS losing out on xbox 360 profits

Submitted by

romit_icarus

on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @11:36AM

romit_icarus writes: "In India, the duty for imported xbox 360s is set at a high 54%. So what did the Indians do? They waited until a supply route of hacked xbox 360s was set up from China. The result: xbox360s at real prices and pirated game DVDs for little over USD 3!

Read the story here: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Xbox_360_sales _on_the_rise/articleshow/1697086.cms"

Submission + - Meeting the Swedish bank hacker

Submitted by

Hades1010

on Sunday January 28, 2007 @08:15AM

Hades1010 writes: "For the price of 3,000 dollars, our reporter was offered his personal bank Trojan. In an interview with Computer Sweden, the hacker behind the recent Internet frauds against Sweden's Nordea bank claims responsibility for more intrusions. "99 percent of all bank intrusions are kept secret," he insists. http://computersweden.idg.se/2.139/1.93344"

Submission + - Dotcoms snap up best real estate on Google Maps

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28, 2007 @08:06AM

An anonymous reader writes: Google organized a flyover of Sydney, Australia last Friday for Australia Day. The images taken on the day will be posted to Google Maps in a few weeks. A number of dotcoms spent hours making huge signs that would be visible from the air. It will be interesting to see whether Google will repeat the event in other cities. If they do, get prepared early. What sign would you make?

Submission + - Open Source marketing model

Submitted by

Tim Ward

on Sunday January 28, 2007 @08:06AM

Tim Ward writes: "Twice in the last few weeks I've come across open source projects where the software download is, as expected, free of charge, but no documentation is available. In both cases these appears to mean "no documentation has ever been written, but you can hire us to give you technical support".

In other words, as the companies can't make money charging for the software, they make money instead charging for support. Which sounds fair enough but ... these are "pre-sales enquiries" we're talking about where I'm trying to learn enough about the product to evaluate whether it has some chance of doing the job I need done or not.

Nobody in the commerial world charges you for pre-sales support at this level! — sure, if you want the vendor to scope out and design a system for you you pay for that, but that's not what I'm talking about — you don't pay for information at the level of basic product brochures and specifications!!

No problem, you might say, just download the software and try it out. Er, yes, and that costs how much, exactly, at my charge-out rate, reverse engineering some undocumented downloaded software to try to work out whether or not it will do what my client needs done? I don't think so.

I'm afraid that I'm much more likely to say to my client: "There's this commercial product, which in my professional judgement will do the job, and it will cost you $x, or there's this open source product, but I'm afraid that I haven't a clue whether it will do the job, and it will cost money to find out, and there isn't any documentation so any time we have a basic simple question about the product it will cost more money. Which would you like me to buy for you?"

You can guess the answer. "I'll have something that works that costs $x, please, not something that may or may not work and isn't documented and I don't have a clue how much it will cost me".

So my Ask Slashdot question is:

How come these open source vendors have managed to come up with such a broken business model? Aren't they even trying to compete?"

Submission + - Wiinja - Wii modchip

Submitted by

Andreas

on Sunday January 28, 2007 @07:38AM

Andreas writes: "The first modchip for Wii making it possible to play backups have surfaced. The chip, like so many other, requires some soldering, but with only five wires it has to be considered a pretty simple solution. Tools for opening Nintendo's console can be bought on eBay for practically nothing. While games appeared already a month ago on peer-to-peer networks, they have not been playable until now. There is a catch with the chip though, the games has to be of the same region as the console, which shouldn't be a problem though if you really are playing backups. Videos (here and here) seem to confirm the authenticity of the chip."

Submission + - How to close opened CD-R drive?

Submitted by

em8chel

on Sunday January 28, 2007 @07:14AM

em8chel writes: "I wanted to install Debian on my father's PC the other day. After putting the install disc on the tray I nudged it with my finger to send it automatically gliding back into its bay. My brother saw what I did and immediately protested against my atrocity: I should always use the eject button to close a CD-ROM drive; pushing the tray is bad for the spring mechanism and would permanently damange the drive one day. That makes a lot of sense, but when I went through the Plextor user's manual by chance later, it says, to close the drive, "gently press against the front of the disc tray until it closes".
Is my brother right or is he out of his mind? This is probably something nobody really pays much attention to. Still I'd be interested to hear what you guys have to say."

An Essay On Subscription Television 306

Posted by kdawson on Sunday January 28, 2007 @05:52AM from the wishes-and-horses dept.

dpu writes "Who would pay $1.99 to download a television episode that only costs about $0.0014 to see on cable? This is a short essay on the current and past state of subscription television, and a hope for the future. It skips a lot of points that the thinkers among us might care about, but it does the math and drives a nail into Big Content's pinky toe."

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