Comment Looked for the Simon Travaglia reference (Score 1) 174
Leaving sad and unimpressed.
Comment Aperture Science Did this years ago (Score 1) 111
For this next test we put nanoparticles in the gel. In layman's terms, that's a billion little gizmos that are gonna travel into your bloodstream and pump experimental genes and RNA molecules and so forth into your tumours. Now maybe you don't have any tumours. Well don't worry, if you sat on a folding chair in the lobby and weren't wearing lead underpants we took care of that too. - Cave Johnson Aperture Science CEO
Submission + - 'Digital Universe' to Add 1.8 Zettabyte in 2011 (datacenterknowledge.com) 1
1sockchuck writes: More than 1.8 zettabytes of information will be created and stored in 2011, according to the fifth IDC Digital Universe study. A key challenge is managing this data deluge (typified by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which generates 1 petabyte of data per second).
Comment Cave Johnson here (Score 1) 175
Just a heads up, we're gonna have a super conductor turned up full blast and pointed at you for the duration of this next test. I'll be honest, we're throwing science at the walls here to see what sticks. No idea what it'll do.
Submission + - World's largest amateur rocket, 2nd attempt (copenhagensuborbitals.com)
Plammox writes: Last year, non-profit, voluntary-based Copenhagen Suborbitals failed at launching what they call the world's largest amateur rocket, because of a frozen LOX-valve. This year, the sea launch platform "Sputnik" has become self-propelled, eliminating the need for their home-built submarine(!). Sputnik is on its way into the Baltic Sea right now and a launch attempt is expected on Friday. However, one of the founders warns that even if ignition should occur, it might very well look like this.
Submission + - 5 Out Of 11 Crashed Unity In Canonical's Study (digitizor.com)
dkd903 writes: "Today the results of the Default Desktop User Testing for Ubuntu 11.04 was published by Canonical’s Rick Spencer. The test was done using 11 participants from different backgrounds to test the new Unity interface that that Ubuntu 11.04 will have. The test was interesting in many ways."
Submission + - Comcast's 105MBit Service Comes With Data Cap (itworld.com) 2
itwbennett writes: "Comcast just announced the ultrafast, ultra-broadband "Extreme 105" 105 Mbit/sec Internet service for an introductory price of $105, when bundled with other services. That's the good news. The bad news: Comcast 'put a data cap on the service of 250 Gbit per month — about five hours worth of full-bandwidth use,' writes blogger Kevin Fogarty. 'There's no guarantee you'll be able to take full advantage of all that bandwidth, either.'"
Submission + - XXX Goes Live in the Root Servers (domainnamenews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier today IANA added the .XXX Top Level Domain to the root nameservers. While the registry operator Afilias is still in their setup process for ICM registry, the zone is currently propagating. While a number of registrars have already been taking pre-registrations, the actual timeline for the launch has not yet been published.
Submission + - Need a receipt on taxes? The Federal Tax Receipt (whitehouse.gov)
ndogg writes: "The White House has opened up a tool that lets you see where your tax dollars are being spent. I put my numbers in and it showed that a little over a quarter goes towards defense and military spending (I'm not sure I'm getting my money's worth on that one), and a little under a quarter for health care."
Submission + - Cheaper, more powerful alternative to FPGAs (technologyreview.com) 2
holy_calamity writes: "Technology Review takes a look at a competitor to FPGAs claimed to be significantly faster and cheaper. Startup Tabula recently picked up another $108m in funding and says their chips make it economic to ship products with reconfigurable hardware, enabling novel upgrade strategies that include hardware as well as software."
Submission + - TSA Investigates ...People Who Complain about TSA
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "CNN has obtained a list of roughly 70 "behavioral indicators" that TSA behavior detection officers use to identify potentially "high risk" passengers at the nation's airports and report that arrogant complaining about airport security is one indicator TSA officers consider when looking for possible criminals and terrorists and when combined with other behavioral indicators, it could result in a traveler facing additional scrutiny. "Expressing your contempt about airport procedures — that's a First Amendment-protected right," says Michael German, a former FBI agent who now works as legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's circular reasoning where, you know, I'm going to ask someone to surrender their rights; if they refuse, that's evidence that I need to take their rights away from them. And it's simply inappropriate." Interestingly enough some experts say terrorists are much more likely to avoid confrontations with authorities, saying an al Qaeda training manual instructs members to blend in. "I think the idea that they would try to draw attention to themselves by being arrogant at airport security, it fails the common sense test," says CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen."
Submission + - Apple facing class-action lawsuit over kids' in-ap (arstechnica.com)
suraj.sun writes: Apple facing class-action lawsuit over kids' in-app purchases:
Garen Meguerian and a team of lawyers are taking Apple to task for "inducing" children to spend hundreds of dollars of their parents' money on in-app game purchases. Meguerian filed a class-action lawsuit this week in California acknowledging that Apple has already addressed the problem, but saying that the company continues to unfairly profit from sales of virtual "smurfberries" and "fish bucks."
arstechnica: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/04/apple-facing-class-action-lawsuit-over-kids-in-app-purchases.ars
Garen Meguerian and a team of lawyers are taking Apple to task for "inducing" children to spend hundreds of dollars of their parents' money on in-app game purchases. Meguerian filed a class-action lawsuit this week in California acknowledging that Apple has already addressed the problem, but saying that the company continues to unfairly profit from sales of virtual "smurfberries" and "fish bucks."
arstechnica: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/04/apple-facing-class-action-lawsuit-over-kids-in-app-purchases.ars
Comment Ted Nelson is on drugs (Score 1) 357
Ted Nelson is on drugs. plain and simple.
Submission + - America's tech decline: A reading guide (computerworld.com) 3
ErichTheRed writes: Computerworld has put together an interesting collection of links to various sources detailing the decline of US R&D/innovation in technology. The cross section of sources is interesting — everything from government to private industry. It's interesting to see that some people are actually concerned about this...even though all the US does is argue internally while rewarding the behaviour that hastens the decline.
Submission + - Predator out does Kinect (i-programmer.info)
mikejuk writes: A real breakthough in AI allows a simple video camera and almost any machine to track objects in its view. All you have to do is draw a box around the object you want to track and the software learns what it looks like at different angles and under different lighting conditions as it tracks it. This means no training phase — you show it the object and it tracks it. And it seems to work really well!
The really good news is that the software has been released as open source so we can all try it out! This is how AI should work.
The really good news is that the software has been released as open source so we can all try it out! This is how AI should work.
