Blair16 - Slashdot User

Comment Re:So, seriously... (Score 1) 350

by Trejkaz on Saturday June 23, 2007 @10:15PM (#19624809) Attached to: Take Two Shelves Manhunt 2

So you're saying the ESRB didn't know Nintendo and Sony wouldn't licence an AO game? Because if they knew that, then they are directly responsible for the game not being sellable.

In any case I wouldn't call the kills in Manhunt prolonged. I think the longest one was maybe five seconds in the first game.

IE and Firefox Share a Vulnerability 207

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 27, 2007 @01:51AM from the upload-with-daring-and-whimsy dept.

hcmtnbiker writes with news of a logic flaw shared by IE 7 and Firefox 2.0. IE 5.01, IE 6, and Firefox 1.5.0.9 are also affected. The flaw was discovered by Michal Zalewski, and is easily demonstrated on IE7 and Firefox. The vulnerability is not platform-specific, but these demonstrations are — they work only on Windows systems. (Microsoft says that IE7 on Vista is not vulnerable.) From the vulnerability description: "In all modern browsers, form fields (used to upload user-specified files to a remote server) enjoy some added protection meant to prevent scripts from arbitrarily choosing local files to be sent, and automatically submitting the form without user knowledge. For example, '.value' parameter cannot be set or changed, and any changes to .type reset the contents of the field... [in this attack] the keyboard input in unrelated locations can be selectively geared toward input fields by the attacker."

Bloggers Immune From Suits Against Commenters 142

Posted by kdawson on Monday February 26, 2007 @07:27PM from the common-carrier dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Suppose a commenter posts a libelous comment here at Slashdot. Can Slashdot and its owners be sued for defamation? A federal appeals court just held that no, they cannot. The court noted that a federal law was designed to ensure that 'within broad limits, message board operators would not be held responsible for the postings made by others on that board,' adding that, were the law otherwise, it would have an 'obvious chilling effect' on blogger speech."

Surveillance Cameras Get Smarter 186

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday February 26, 2007 @06:05PM from the walk-without-rhythm-and-you-won't-attract-the-one dept.

kog777 writes to mention that the IB Times is taking a look at where surveillance camera technology is headed. Soon researchers tell us that cameras will be available that not only record, but are able to interpret what they see. "The advancements have already been put to work. For example, cameras in Chicago and Washington can detect gunshots and alert police. Baltimore installed cameras that can play a recorded message and snap pictures of graffiti sprayers or illegal dumpers. In the commercial market, the gaming industry uses camera systems that can detect facial features, according to Bordes. Casinos use their vast banks of security cameras to hunt cheating gamblers who have been flagged before."

Submission + - Intel squeezes 1.8 TFlops out of one processor

Submitted by

jagzjagz

on Monday February 12, 2007 @01:49AM

jagzjagz writes: "It appears as though Intel has been able to squeeze 1.8 TFlops out of one processor, as indicated here: http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/11/intel_80_core/ . Intel has been able to make an 80 core research CPU. Where will they go next?"

Cosmic Rays and Global Warming 548

Posted by kdawson on Monday February 12, 2007 @01:21AM from the yet-another-theory dept.

Overly Critical Guy writes "The former editor of New Scientist has written an article in the TimesOnline suggesting that cosmic rays may affect global climate. The author criticizes the UN's recent global warming report, noting several underreported trends it doesn't account for, such as increasing sea-ice in the Southern Ocean. He describes an experiment by Henrik Svensmark showing a relation between atmospheric cloudiness and atomic particles coming in from exploded stars. In the basement of the Danish National Space Center in 2005, Svensmark's team showed that electrons from cosmic rays caused cloud condensation. Svensmark's scenario apparently predicts several unexplained temperature trends from the warmer trend of the 20th century to the temporary drop in the 1970s, attributed to changes in the sun's magnetic field affecting the amount of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere."

Special Molecule Gives Birds a Magnetic Biocompass 276

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 11, 2006 @09:37PM from the bio-magneto-driver dept.

Aaron Rowe writes "CORDIS news reports that a team of scientists has identified a family of molecules called cryptochromes that allow migratory birds to sense magnetic fields. Curiously enough, these molecules only function when accompanied by blue light. The article also mentions, 'The researchers also suggest that, as cryptochromes have been strongly conserved throughout evolution, all biological organisms could have the ability to detect magnetic fields, even if they do not use them.'"

Microsoft Claims OpenDocument is Too Slow 553

Posted by Zonk on Friday May 26, 2006 @09:09AM from the compared-to-the-blazing-speed-of-.doc dept.

SirClicksalot writes "Microsoft claims that the OpenDocument Format (ODF) is too slow for easy use. They cite a study carried out by ZDNet.com that compared OpenOffice.org 2.0 with the XML formats in Microsoft Office 2003. This comes after the international standards body ISO approved ODF earlier this month." From the ZDNet article: "'The use of OpenDocument documents is slower to the point of not really being satisfactory,' Alan Yates, the general manager of Microsoft's information worker strategy, told ZDNet UK on Wednesday. 'The Open XML format is designed for performance. XML is fundamentally slower than binary formats so we have made sure that customers won't notice a big difference in performance.'"

Americans Gearing up to Fight Global Warming 1104

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday April 04, 2006 @09:10AM from the war-on-melting-icecaps dept.

TechnoGuyRob writes "Global warming has been one of the most controversial and debated issues in the political and scientific sphere. A recent poll published in the Chicago Sun-Times now shows that 'An overwhelming majority of Americans think they can help reduce global warming and are willing to make the sacrifices that are needed, a new poll shows. After years of controversy, 71 percent of Americans now say they think global warming is real.'" (Jamie adds: and all it took was twelve years of overwhelming scientific consensus.)

DRM and the Myth of the Analog Hole 314

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 29, 2006 @09:06PM from the scuttle-the-screencap dept.

Art Grimm writes "Movie studios want to punish legitimate customers for legally purchasing content, while the real pirates go right on stealing. ZDNet's George Ou writes: "There seems to be a persistent myth floating around the board rooms of the movie companies and Congress that analog content is the boogie man of music and video piracy. In fact, they're so paranoid about it that they're considering a mechanism called ICT (Image Constraint Token) that punishes law-abiding customers for content that they legally purchased. But ironically, the real content pirates who make millions of bootleg movies have no intention of ever taking advantage of the so called "analog hole" because that is the slowest and lowest quality method of stealing content.""