Comment Re anyone? (Score 1) 170
Any guesses as to how many newb-owned computers he just hosed?
Comment Re:6 digits need love too (Score 1) 1582
We don't matter. Sad but true.
ACLU Wins, No Sexting Charges For NJ Teens 406
Following up on the "sexting" case we've discussed in recent days, oliphaunt sends word from the Times-Tribune that a New Jersey federal judge has ordered the prosecutor not to file charges in the cases of three teenage girls whose cell phones were confiscated. "Wyoming [NJ] County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr. cannot charge three teenage girls who appeared in photographs seminude traded by classmates last year, a judge ruled Monday. US District Judge James M. Munley granted a request by the American Civil Liberties Union to temporarily stop Mr. Skumanick from filing felony charges against the Tunkhannock Area School District students."
Comment Re:Negative Option Billing (Score 1) 93
Correct. Negative option billing is illegal in Canada.
Comment Re:Is it going to come to Linux? (Score 1) 110
Downloaded and ran it as a result of that story. Ironically, going to code.google.com in Chromium caused a segfault. It's definitely not ready for primetime, something the devs are the first to admit!
Comment Re:This could be big (Score 1) 78
It says in TFA that SUNY told the students they were intending to comply with the motion to identify. Thus, they were able to defend themselves. Normally, they don't get this luxury.
Comment Try Team Fortress 2 (Score 1) 763
It runs great on old equipment, is still being updated (with a new huge update coming this week), and only costs $20!
Comment NVIDIA has this. (Score 1) 171
It works on XP and Vista with the vast majority of games available today. It's completely changed the way I game. Check it out.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d_stereo.html
Comment Re:How can it be both effective and invisible? (Score 5, Interesting) 520
The most invisible form of DRM I've seen is Steam. That's because it isn't just DRM, it's a fairly significant service. I can't sell my game, but I can play it on any number of computers, even if I don't have the original disc. I can chat with friends during my game, and every so often, I can play a game for free for a weekend, or give out a guest pass to my friends for a month or two. Given these benefits, and because the only thing it restricts is reselling, I hardly ever think of it as DRM.
Submission + - Why do games still have levels? (blogspot.com) 1
a.d.venturer writes: Elite, the Metroid series, Dungeon Siege, God of War I and II, Half-Life (but not Half-Life 2), Shadow of the Colossus, the Grand Theft Auto series; some of the best games ever (and Dungeon Siege) have done away with the level mechanic and created uninterrupted game spaces devoid of loading screens and artificial breaks between periods of play. Much like cut scenes, level loads are anathema to enjoyment of game play, and a throwback to the era of the Vic-20 and Commodore 64 when games were stored on cassette tapes, and memory was measured in kilobytes. So in this era of multi-megabyte and gigabyte memory and fast access storage devices why do we continue to have games that are dominated by the level structure, be they commercial (Portal, Team Fortress 2), independent (Darwinia) and amateur (Nethack, Angband)? Why do games still have levels?
Retailers Leak New TiVo HD Specs and Price 163
Brent writes "Retailers goofed and posted most of the specs of the forthcoming TiVo Series 3 Lite, which Ars says may be called 'TiVo HD' at launch. A comparison with the standard Series 3 shows that for a savings of $300, you only lose the OLED screen (do you need a screen on your TiVo?), the glowing remote (which you can pickup for $50 anyway), THX certification (worthless) and 90GB of storage. Looks like it may be a TiVo hacker's dream."
Submission + - Say good bye to internet bargains on eBay (typepad.com)
ScaredOfTheMan writes: Companies are using the Supreme Court's decision in Leegin Creative Leater Products v. PSKS to force eBay to start pulling auctions because the prices are too low, or (You won't believe this) the auction itself is an infringement of their intellectual property rights.
The Consumer Law & Policy Blog has the story.
How do we get this silly law overturned (reverted really) & when will this craziness end?
The Consumer Law & Policy Blog has the story.
How do we get this silly law overturned (reverted really) & when will this craziness end?
Submission + - Testing Einstein's 'spooky action at a distance'
smooth wombat writes: Travelling to a time in the past is, as far as we know, not possible. However, Einstein postulated a faster-than-light effect known as 'spooky action at a distance'. The problem is, how do you test for such an effect? That test may now be here. If all goes well, hopefully by September 15th, John Cramer will have experimented with a beam of laser light which has been split in two to test Einstein's idea.
While he is only testing the quantum entanglement portion, changing one light beam and having the same change made in the other beam, his experiment might show that a change made in one beam shows up in the other beam before he actually makes the change.
An interesting sidenote is that the money for this project was raised not from the scientific community but from the public at large. His fans have sent him the money necessary to purchase the equipment to test Einstein's idea.
While he is only testing the quantum entanglement portion, changing one light beam and having the same change made in the other beam, his experiment might show that a change made in one beam shows up in the other beam before he actually makes the change.
An interesting sidenote is that the money for this project was raised not from the scientific community but from the public at large. His fans have sent him the money necessary to purchase the equipment to test Einstein's idea.
Submission + - Wii puts Japanese TV stations under pressure
Knuckles writes: "The Times reports that "Japanese desert prime-time TV to play on their Nintendo Wii". Recent figures from Japan's audience-tracking firms show that "last week was the first in nearly two decades where no single show on any commercial station attracted more than a 9 per cent audience share. "According to one senior executive of the country's largest commercial television channel, Fuji TV, families who used to tune in to its colourful diet of soap operas, panel games and comedy variety shows may, instead, be drifting away and choosing to spend the same, economically-critical "golden hour" time playing on their Wii."
Personally, I'd like new games, but I can bridge the gap with the virtual console. If only it worked with PAL games over component cables."
Personally, I'd like new games, but I can bridge the gap with the virtual console. If only it worked with PAL games over component cables."
Submission + - IRENE Makes Old Sound Recordings Audible Again
orgelspieler writes: "NPR is running a story on a safe way to reproduce sound from ancient phonographs that would otherwise be unplayable. The system, called IRENE, was installed in the Library of Congress last year. It can be used to replay records that are scratched, worn, broken, or just too fragile to play with a needle. It scans the groves optically and processes them into a sound file at speeds approaching real time. IRENE is great at removing pops and skips, but can add some hiss. Researchers are also working on a 3D model that is better at removing hiss."
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One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they never have to stop and answer the phone.
