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Comment Re:I doubt the ruling matters... (Score 1) 285

Around here at least, and I have reason to suspect it's similar in Germany, automatic traffic control camera pictures can't be used for fining a driver unless the driver itself is recognisable in the picture. Yes, this means you get out of a ticket if you always drive with a ski-mask. In practice, the picture is included on the backside of the fine which is sent by mail to the registered owner of the vehicle, and if the photo doesn't portray you, you take it to an police station and have it invalidated.

Comment Re:razer synapse (Score 1) 249

It's a sloppy hardware manufacturer. I very much doubt their windows drivers are less than 100MB with the complete bundle of crap they force upon you. Multiply that with ~3 generations of windows apis and add something for macos and some copyright-infringing bad idea for linux, and it won't fit in 512 MB.

Submission + - Former US Register of Copyrights Says New Technology to be Presumed Illegal (techdirt.com)

TrueSatan writes: Reminiscent of buggy whip manufacturers taking legal action against auto makers the former US Register of Copyrights Ralph Oman has given an amicus brief in the Aero case http://jstyre.com/misc/Oman_Amicus_20120921.pdf stating that all new technology should be presumed illegal unless and until approved by Congress. He goes further in stating that new technology providers should be forced to apply to Congress to prove that they don't upset existing business models.
Education

Submission + - Teachers write an open textbook in a weekend hackathon (blogspot.fi)

linjaaho writes: "A group of Finnish mathematics researchers, teachers and students write an upper secondary mathematics textbook in a three-day booksprint. The event started on Friday 28th September at 9:00 (GMT+3) and the book will be (hopefully) ready on Sunday evening. The book is written in Finnish.

The result — LaTeX source code and the pdf — is published with open CC-BY-license.

As far as the authors know, this is the first time a course textbook is written in three-day hackathon. The hackathon approach has been used earlier mainly for coding open source software and writing manuals for open source software.

The progress can be followed by visiting the repository at Github or the project Facebook page."

Games

Submission + - Minecraft Creator Refuses To Certify Game For Windows 8 (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: "The backlash against Windows 8 from various developers continues, but this time the game's creator isn't just expressing discontent. Notch, the developer behind smash hit Minecraft, has declared that he won't be working with Microsoft to certify Minecraft for Windows 8. Note that this doesn't mean Mincraft won't run on Windows 8. The certification process in question is Microsoft's mandatory rules for submitting content to the Windows game store. In order to be listed there, an application must be Metro-compatible and conform to a laundry list of other conditions. The real problem with Windows 8 is that it locks ARM users into a second class experience. If you buy an x86 tablet, you can download programs from Sourceforge, Github, or any file mirror. If you're an ARM user, you can download programs from the Microsoft store and that's it. The bifurcated permission structure is the problem, and it makes WinRT tablets categorically impossible to recommend for anyone who values the ability to install whatever software they please."
Space

Submission + - TALISE aquatic rover may explore a lake on Titan (gizmag.com)

cylonlover writes: Titan is Saturn’s largest moon, and it’s said to be one of the most Earth-like celestial bodies in the Solar System. It has a thick atmosphere, and is covered with a network of seas, lakes and rivers – albeit ones made up of liquid hydrocarbons instead of water. Now, a team of scientists are proposing sending a boat-like probe to Titan, that would travel across its largest lake. The probe, which is still in the concept stage, is known as TALISE – that stands for Titan Lake In-situ Sampling Propelled Explorer, although it’s also an Iroquois word for “beautiful water.” The plan calls for it to land in the middle of Ligeia Mare, which is near the moon’s north pole. It would then set out on a six-month to one-year mission, taking scientific measurements and obtaining samples as it makes its way to the closest shore.
Biotech

Submission + - First mammals observed regenerating tissue (nature.com)

ananyo writes: "Two species of African spiny mouse have been caught at something no other mammal is known to do — completely regenerating damaged tissue. The work could help improve wound healing in humans.
The species — Acomys kempi and Acomys percivali — have skin that is brittle and easily torn, which helps them to escape predators by jettisoning patches of their skin when caught or bitten. Researchers report that whereas normal laboratory mice (Mus musculus) grow scar tissue when their skin is removed, African spiny mice can regrow complete suites of hair follicles, skin, sweat glands, fur and even cartilage (abstract). Tissue regeneration has not been seen in mammals before, though it is common in crustaceans, insects, reptiles and amphibians."

Networking

Submission + - Terabit Ethernet is Dead, for Now (slashdot.org)

Nerval's Lobster writes: "Sorry, everybody: terabit Ethernet looks like it will have to wait a while longer.

The IEEE 802.3 Industry Connections Higher Speed Ethernet Consensus group met this week in Geneva, Switzerland, with attendees concluding—almost to a man—that 400 Gbits/s should be the next step in the evolution of Ethernet. A straw poll at its conclusion found that 61 of the 62 attendees that voted supported 400 Gbits/s as the basis for the near term “call for interest,” or CFI.

The bandwidth call to arms was sounded by a July report by the IEEE, which concluded that, if current trends continue, networks will need to support capacity requirements of 1 terabit per second in 2015 and 10 terabits per second by 2020. In 2015 there will be nearly 15 billion fixed and mobile-networked devices and machine-to-machine connections."

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