Daniel Rutter - Slashdot User

Tremulous Switching To Xbox Live, Exclusively 43

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 01, 2010 @03:20PM from the console-yourself dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Darklegion Development and Microsoft have apparently been working on a new version of Tremulous for the Xbox 360. Timbor, project founder and a main developer of Tremulous, said this in a recent announcement: 'What does this mean for you? You will now be able to play Tremulous on Xbox Live with thousands of other gamers, earning achievements and showing off your gaming skill. In the best interest of maintaining a steady and secure Tremulous playerbase, Tremulous is going to be exclusively available for Xbox Live. Existing infrastructure will no longer receive official support. Players who have already been playing for at least three months can apply for a €5/$7 coupon as a show of our appreciation of your enthusiasm so far! What does this mean for the community? Hopefully nothing! While the production of Tremulous switches from its current open source development to a closed source environment handled by the very capable and experienced Microsoft engineers, the efforts of the community will still be valued. In this collaboration we have made it very clear that the Tremulous community is very important to the game, and Microsoft agrees with us on this point. We are confident that this move will not stifle the creative output of the community.'"

Want a Body Piercing With That Server? 19

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday April 01, 2010 @11:35AM from the this-will-only-hurt-for-a-little-while dept.

1sockchuck writes "The web hosting business is known for promotional gimmicks. But here's an unusual one: ServerBeach UK is offering a free body piercing with every new server ordered on April 1st. 'We were tired of the typical boring giveaways that have been done to death' said ServerBeach's Dominic Monkhouse. The stunt revives memories of earlier guerrilla marketing efforts by web hosts, like the 'human billboard' who was paid $7,000 to tattoo a hosting company's logo on the back of his head."

Scientists Say Toads Can Predict Earthquakes 66

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday April 01, 2010 @04:38AM from the does-the-toad-think-it's-safe? dept.

reillymj writes "Researchers claim toads sensed a severe earthquake last year five days before it hit. Last spring's L'Aquila earthquake devastated the medieval city of the same name in Italy. Five days earlier, a group of biologists noticed some toads behaving strangely in a pond nearby that would later be the quake's epicenter."

Fossil of Ant-Eating Dinosaur Discovered In China 64

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday March 31, 2010 @11:29PM from the ancient-picnic-defender dept.

thomst writes "Charles Q. Choi of LiveScience reports that a farmer in southern Henan Province in China has dug up the first known ant-eating dinosaur, a half-meter-long theropod (the dinosaur family to which T. Rex belongs), whose fossilized remains were described as 'fairly intact'. The 83- to 89-million-year-old pygmy dinosaur has been named named Xixianykus zhangi by Xig Xu, De-you Wang, Corwin Sullivan, David Hone, Feng-lu Han, Rong-hao Yan, and Fu-ming Du, whose paper on the critter, A basal parvicursorine (Theropoda: Alvarezsauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous of China, was published in the March 29 issue of Zootaxa (the abstract is available in PDF format for free, the full article is paywall-protected.)"

Submission + - Gadets Taking Over Our Brains (reuters.com)

Submitted by

skotte

on Saturday July 14, 2007 @02:44AM

skotte writes: "According to a Trinity College survey released Friday, the boom in mobiles and portable devices that store reams of personal information has created a generation incapable of memorizing simple things. While perhaps not news to slashdotters, the implication is a little unsettling."

Submission + - John Knoll on CGI, Tron and 25 years of change

Submitted by StonyandCher on Tuesday July 10, 2007 @08:42PM

StonyandCher writes: Monday marked the 25th anniversary of of the relase of Tron, whose computer graphics were seen as revolutionary at the time. With that anniversary in mind, Computerworld spoke with John Knoll, a visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). Knoll, who served as visual effects supervisor for such films as Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith; Pirates of the Caribbean; Star Trek: First Contact, and Mission: Impossible, weighed in on the limitations of CG back then and how far it's come in the last quarter century. (Knoll may also be known in the IT world for his role in the creation of Photoshop, which he developed with his brother Thomas.)

Submission + - Ancient robot (60AD) was programmed with rope

Submitted by Pingu93 on Saturday July 07, 2007 @10:14AM

Pingu93 writes: New Scientist has a feature about the 'worlds first' programmable robot, dating from 60AD. It was designed by a Greek inventor who was, appropriately enough, called Hero. He designed his rolling machine so that it could be programmed using rope and pegs in different configurations. Some of the writers at New Scientist went so far as to build there own version of the robot and the technology blog has some video of it in action.

Anger Over EU Medical Data-Sharing 85

Posted by Zonk on Saturday January 27, 2007 @03:42AM from the keep-it-secret-keep-it-safe dept.

ukhackster writes "A row is brewing in Europe over plans to make medical records available across the EU. The scheme calls for interoperability between health systems in 22 different countries. Experts are predicting that security problems could expose confidential patient records, with one calling the affair 'a colossal waste of money and energy.' This 'e-Health' initiative reflects similar projects in the United States, and raises many of the same issues discussed here. The article makes it clear that many important issues, such as security, privacy, and the rights of patients, are still up in the air as the project moves forward. Could this be another huge IT project disaster on the horizon?"

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