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Sci-Fi

Futurama Returns! 226

Posted by Zonk from the teach-me-to-love-you-squishy-poet-from-beyond-the-stars dept.
Random BedHead Ed writes "Good news everyone! After a five year vanishing act the sci-fi spoof Futurama returned this week with a direct-to-DVD feature. Wired has an article about its return, including the story of the show's origins, a behind the scenes gallery, interviews with creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, and some interesting trivia. For example, did you know the ship has an overbite like a Simpson's character? Or that the show's title is taken from an exhibition at the 1939 Worlds Fair?." We just talked about this a bit the other day, too, in reference to a great interview on TVSquad.
Censorship

Submission + - Turkey Censors YouTube

Submitted by
FM Reader
FM Reader writes: "After a controversial mock-up video reportedly submitted by a Greek member about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, Turkish courts ordered the national ISPs to ban the online video service, YouTube. YouTube hostnames are currently redirected at the DNS level to a page that announces the court order."

Comment That's just like your opinion...man. (Score 2, Insightful) 48

by BrickM (#18187994) Attached to: Casual Play on 360 Live Arcade
Obviously both consoles have fun, short/small downloadable games for cheap prices. In the end, the article is more about personal preferences in games, than any sort of comparable quality. Especially since the 360 has an entire year head start over the Wii.

Personally, I'd rather play Super Mario world and Legend of Zelda than most of the games on Live Arcade. One of the reasons is that they're known quantities, whereas many of the Live ports have been very dubious in quality (anyone who made the mistake of getting Contra knows what I'm talking about here). Everything from Nintendo has been incredibly well emulated, with the added bonus of being able to have a "save state" that means you can pause the game, turn off the console and come back to play later. Man, I wish my NES and SNES had that years ago.

So while I'd come down on the side of the Wii in this debate, in the end it's totally personal preference on the games - just like it always is with this console debates.
Education

College Freshmen Struggle With Tech Literacy 298

Posted by Zonk from the gotta-grow-up-nerd-to-get-ahead dept.
snow_man writes to mention an article on the E-Commerce News site about techno-literacy problems with incoming college freshmen. Some schools, like CSU, are planning on including a technology comprehension test alongside their English and Math evaluations for new students. From the article: "Not all of Generation M can synthesize the loads of information they're accessing, educators say. 'They're geeky, but they don't know what to do with their geekdom,' said Barbara O'Connor, a Sacramento State communications studies professor involved in a nationwide effort to hone students' computer-research skills. On a recent nationwide test to measure their technological 'literacy' -- their ability to use the Internet to complete class assignments -- only 49 percent of the test-takers correctly evaluated a set of Web sites for objectivity, authority and timeliness. Only 35 percent could correctly narrow an overly broad Internet search."
Google

Google Reaches Second-Most Visited Site Status 191

Posted by Zonk from the frequent-googing dept.
Another anonymous reader has written to mention a story carried by Bloomberg, which has the news that Google is the second-most visited site on the internet. This puts it out in front of Yahoo!, which previously held the position. Google is now just behind Microsoft which, as the submitter pointed out, is the site that IE defaults to. From the article: "Visitors to Google's sites rose 9.1 percent to 475.7 million in November from a year earlier, while those to Yahoo sites rose 5.2 percent to 475.3 million, ComScore Networks Inc. said today. Both sites trail Microsoft, which had 501.7 million visitors, ComScore said. It is the first time that Mountain View, California-based Google attracted more visitors than Yahoo, reflecting Google's growing popularity outside the U.S."
Microsoft

Microsoft Applies to Patent RSS in Vista 119

Posted by Zonk from the don't-jump-the-rails-just-yet dept.
Cyvros wrote in with a link to Wired's Monkey Bites blog, which is featuring a post on Microsoft applying for a patent on RSS. As the article points out, this isn't as crazy as it seems at first blush. From the wording of the application, post author Scott Gilbertson interprets their move as a patent on RSS only within Vista and IE7. From the article: "The big mystery is what Microsoft is planning to do with the patents if they are awarded them. The sad state of patent affairs in the United States has led to several cases of Microsoft being sued for technologies they did arguably invent simply because some else owned a generic patent on them. Of course we have no way of knowing how Microsoft intends to use these patents if they are awarded them. They could represent a defensive move, but they could be offensive as well -- [self-described RSS inventor Dave] Winer may end up being correct. It would be nice to see Microsoft release some information on what they plan to do with these patents, but for now we'll just have to wait and see whether the US Patent and Trademark Office grants them."
Censorship

White House Forces Censorship of New York Times 356

Posted by Zonk from the beating-on-the-grey-lady dept.
VE3OGG writes "It would seem that scientists are not the only ones facing censorship from the White House. According to several news sources the New York Times originally had intended to run an article co-authored by a former employee of the National Security Council, critical of the current administration's policies toward Iran. The article had passed the CIA's publication review board, but was later redacted on orders from the White House. Article authors Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann were former advisers to the White House, and thus all of their publications are scrutinized by a board before they can be published. Of the numerous documents this pair has published since leaving their positions, they say this was the first that was actively censored.
PlayStation (Games)

360 vs. PS3 vs. Wii - The Designer's Perspective 361

Posted by Zonk from the both-have-motion-sense,-one-is-a-good-blunt-object dept.
Gamasutra is running a piece today written by Ernest Adams, a frequent contributor to the site and an amusingly opinionated game designer. He writes to weigh in on the console war debate from the perspective of a game designer. He runs down the usual list of pros and cons for each machine, and then digs into the most creative aspects of each machine. Finally, lays out what he sees as the end result of this hardware generation: "So who, at the end of the day, will be the also-ran in this generation of consoles? On the global scale, I'd say it could well be neither the PS3 or the Wii, but the Xbox 360. The PS3 will win over the hardcore gamers who have to have the fastest, most amazing machine available. The Wii will skim off the younger players and those who don't have as much money to spend. Both have the advantage of being made in Japan, so they'll crowd the Xbox right out of that market. In the US and Europe, it's harder to say, but I see the Xbox's early start as more of a liability than a benefit."
Google

Google Search Convicts Hacker 116

Posted by Zonk from the scroooooood dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Google search terms have helped convict a wireless hacker. The queries the hacker performed were introduced into evidence at court, where Matthew Schuster was charged with disrupting his former employer's wireless network and imitating other users' MAC addresses to obtain access. From the article: 'Court documents are ambiguous and don't reveal how the FBI discovered his search terms. That could have happened in one of three ways: an analysis of his browser's history and cache; an Alpha employee monitoring the company's wireless connection; or a subpoena to Google from the police for search terms tied to his Internet address or cookie. Google has confirmed that it can provide search terms if given an Internet address or Web cookie, but has steadfastly refused to say how often such requests arrive.'
Wii

Virtual Console Christmas is Retrotastic 79

Posted by Zonk from the screw-mario-it's-all-about-belmont dept.
1up reports the good news that we're finally going to be seeing some of those great Virtual console games here in the U.S.. You know, the ones the Japanese have been enjoying since launch? Christmas day should see the release of Super Mario Bros, Toejam & Earl, R-Type (Turbografx 16), Street Figher II: The World Warrior, and Super Castlevania. The scintillating Baseball and Urban Champion will be making an appearance on New Year's Day. These last two dubious additions will put the Virtual Console lineup at 33 games.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Christmas Slashdot Functionality

Journal by CmdrTaco
The discussion2 system had 2 notable changes in this weeks code refresh that I'd love to hear feedback on (use email if you can't post here). The first is Scott's very excellent new draggable slider control. Everyone mostly figured out the slider tool before, but it was very unresponsive... but no longer! It has some layout niggles under some browsers, but it functions properly in most of them.
Privacy

Neuroscience, Psychology Eroding Idea of Free Will 867

Posted by Zonk from the good-to-know-i've-never-offended-anyone dept.
pragueexpat writes "Do we have free will? Possibly not, according to an article in the new issue of the Economist. Entitled 'Free to choose?', the piece examines new discoveries in the fields of neuroscience and psychology that may be forcing us to re-examine the concept of free will. The specifically cite a man with paedophilic tendencies who was cured when his brain tumor was removed. 'Who then was the child abuser?', they ask. The predictable conclusion of this train of thought, of course, leads us to efforts by Britain: 'At the moment, the criminal law--in the West, at least--is based on the idea that the criminal exercised a choice: no choice, no criminal. The British government, though, is seeking to change the law in order to lock up people with personality disorders that are thought to make them likely to commit crimes, before any crime is committed.'"
Wii

Wii's Opera Browser Now Downloadable 92

Posted by Zonk from the they-see-us dept.
As we discussed earlier this week, the Opera browser for the Wii is available in a sort of trial form today. Game|Life has apparently been so taken with this offering, that they've redesigned their site so that it can be easily viewable via the Wii browser. They also have the official details on the download. From that article: "Nintendo is currently offering a free trial of Opera for Wii which is now available for download. The release of the final version of the Opera browser for Wii is currently scheduled for late March 2007. Opera for Wii will remain a free download until June 30, 2007. After June 30, Opera will be available for download from the Wii Shop Channel for 500 Wii points. Users who download Opera before June 30, 2007, can continue to use the browser at no cost for the lifetime of the Wii system." The release goes on to mention how you can develop for the browser, with helpful website links and references.
Math

Science's Breakthrough of the Year 92

Posted by CmdrTaco from the break-this-science dept.
johkir writes "Last year, evolution was the breakthrough of the year; We found it full of new developments in understanding how new species originate. But we did get a complaint or two that perhaps we were just paying extra attention to the lively political/religious debate that was taking place over the issue, particularly in the United States. Perish the thought! Our readers can relax this year: Religion and politics are off the table, and n-dimensional geometry is on instead. This year's Breakthrough salutes the work of a lone, publicity-shy Russian mathematician named Grigori Perelman, who was at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences until 2005. The work is very technical but has received unusual public attention because Perelman appears to have proven the Poincaré Conjecture (Our coverage from earlier this year), a problem in topology whose solution will earn a $1 million prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute. That's only if Perelman survives what's left of a 2-year gauntlet of critical attack required by the Clay rules, but most mathematicians think he will. There is also a page of runner-ups. Many of which have been covered here on Slashdot."

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