Hazrek - Slashdot User

More Than 1500 Schools To Deploy DDR By 2010 110

Posted by Zonk on Monday April 30, 2007 @12:31PM from the i-just-got-hit-in-dodgeball dept.

The New York Times is reporting on the popularity of Dance Dance Revolution in augmenting school gym programs. Adopted by educators as a way to fight obesity among young people and encourage participation, the article states that by the end of the decade some 1500 institutions will be using the game in classes. "As Leighton Nakamoto, a physical education teacher at Kalama Intermediate School in Makawao, Hawaii, put it: 'The new physical education is moving away from competitive team sports and is more about encouraging lifetime fitness, and D.D.R. is a part of that. They can do it on their own, and they don't have to compete with anyone else.' Mr. Nakamoto said that he had used the game in class for four years and that his school had also installed the game in its "Active Lifestyle" room, where students are allowed and encouraged to play in their free time."

Shigeru Miyamoto Nominated in Time Magazine 28

Posted by Zonk on Monday April 30, 2007 @11:55AM from the don't-call-him-shiggy dept.

Splitt3r wrote with a link to the Kotaku site on Shigeru Miyamoto's Nomination as one of this year's 100 most influential people at the Time Magazine site. "PRO: Most successful game designer, creator of Super Mario, Donkey Kong and The Legend of Zelda, whose new platform, the Wii, is currently the top-selling game console. CON: His perfectionist tendencies often result in games being significantly delayed and, despite the Wii's gameplay innovation, its graphics are far behind the competition." Voting is currently ongoing at the site, if you're interested in swaying the vote.

Feed RIAA: Pay $3,000 for Song Swaps (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Friday March 09, 2007 @05:32PM

The music industry group dangles fat settlement offers in front of 50 Ohio University students who face lawsuits for allegedly sharing music illegally. By the Associated Press.

Comment Hedy Lamar (Score 4, Informative) 560

by Hazrek on Wednesday November 22, 2006 @10:13AM (#16949036) Attached to: Top Ten Geek Girls

Seriously, Paris Hilton and Lisa Simpson, but they snubbed Hedy Lamar? I mean seriously, how can you top a gorgeous movie star geek?

Hedy Lamarr (November 9, 1913 - January 19, 2000) was an Austrian/American actress and communications technology innovator. Though known primarily for her great beauty, she also co-invented the first form of spread spectrum, a key to modern wireless communication.

Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil received U.S. patent #2,292,387 for their Secret Communication System. This early version of frequency hopping used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam. The patent was little-known until recently because Lamarr applied for it under her then-married name of Hedy Kiesler Markey. Neither Lamarr nor Antheil made any money from the patent. It had expired by the time the U.S. military barely began using this system after 1962. It took electronics technology a long time to catch up with the concept.

Lamarr's frequency-hopping idea served as the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology used in devices ranging from cordless telephones to WiFi Internet connections. In 1997, the two of them received an EFF Pioneer Award for the invention.

Now that's hot, Paris.

Microsoft's Patent Pledge "Worse Than Useless" 140

Posted by Zonk on Friday November 10, 2006 @04:22PM from the infinity-bad dept.

munchola writes "The Software Freedom Law Center has declared that Microsoft's patent pledge to open source developers is 'worse than useless'. SFLC chief technology officer, Bradley Kuhn, has written to FOSS developers warning them that 'developers are no safer from Microsoft patents now than they were before'. According to Kuhn: 'The patent covenant only applies to software that you develop at home and keep for yourself; the promises don't extend to others when you distribute. You cannot pass the rights to your downstream recipients, even to the maintainers of larger projects on which your contribution is built.'"

Has Verizon Forfeited Common Carrier Status? 721

Posted by kdawson on Monday November 06, 2006 @05:24PM from the single-point-of-failure dept.

An anonymous reader writes, "Freedom of speech, the future of the Net, you name it. In October, a U.S. vigilante group asked Verizon to cut off Net access to Epifora, a Canadian ISP that hosts a number of (entirely legal) web sites offering support to minor-attracted adults. Shortly thereafter, Verizon gave 30 days notice to Epifora, ending a 5 year relationship. Telecos have traditionally refrained from censoring legal content, arguing that as 'common carriers' it is outside of their scope to make such decisions. Furthermore, they have refrained because if they did so in some cases, they might be legally liable for other cases where they did not exercise censorship. The questions are: has Verizon forfeited their claim to common-carrier status by selectively censoring legal speech that they do not like? And can the net effectively route around censorship if the trunk carriers are allowed to pick and choose whom they allow to connect?"

Slashdot Top Deals