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Submission + - The Story of NESticle, the Ambitious Emulator That Redefined Retro Gaming (vice.com)

Submitted by martiniturbide
martiniturbide writes: For those who lived the console emulator and retrogaming boom on the late 90’s there is this interesting article about the story of Nesticle posted at Motherboard. Nesticle was Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console emulator that had a huge success in the early internet and helped to start the emulation scene. The author of the story, Ernie Smith, also posted an extra sencond part of the story with more interesting tips.

Submission + - Google's New Compression Tool Uses 75% Less Bandwidth (thenextweb.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google just released an image compression technology called RAISR (Rapid and Accurate Super Image Resolution) designed to save your precious data without sacrificing photo quality. Claiming to use up to 75 percent less bandwidth, RAISR analyzes both low and high-quality versions of the same image. Once analyzed, it learns what makes the larger version superior and simulates the differences on the smaller version. In essence, it’s using machine learning to create an Instagram-like filter to trick your eye into believing the lower-quality image is on par with its full-sized variant. Unfortunately for the majority of smartphone users, the tech only works on Google+ where Google claims to be upscaling over a billion images a week. If you don’t want to use Google+, you’ll just have to wait a little longer. Google plans to expand RAISR to more apps over the coming months. Hopefully that means Google Photos.

Comment About the long game. (Score 1) 225

by Ke7dbx (#53467485) Attached to: Why Did Japan Just Ratify The TPP?
I think they hope that the US will eventually pass it. There is no time limit as far as I know for ratification on this treaty. So if it takes 10 years to happen then it takes 10 year in their eyes. About playing the long game not the short game. Just like if Congress wanted to they could ratify the Kyoto agreement today even tho it has been over 15 years from the time it came out.

Submission + - 'Stranger in a Strange Land' Coming to TV

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: EW reports that Paramount TV and Universal Cable Productions are teaming up to develop Robert A. Heinlein's classic 'Stranger in a Strange Land' into a TV series on Syfy. The 1961 sci-fi book, set in the aftermath of a third world war, centers on Valentine Michael Smith, a human born on Mars and raised by Martians, who, as a young adult, has returned to Earth. The true driving forces of the novel are religion and sex, which Heinlein’s publisher at the time wanted him to cut out. But as the author noted to his literary agent, if religion and sex were removed from the text, what remained would be the equivalent of a “nonalcoholic martini.” “From my point of view, Stranger in a Strange Land isn’t just a science fiction masterpiece it also happens to be one of my favorite books ever!” says NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Chairman Bonnie Hammer. “The story is timeless and resonates more than ever in today’s world. As a fan, I can’t wait to see it come to life as a world-class television event.” A previous attempt at adapting Heinlein’s novel came in 1995, when Batman Returns' Dan Waters penned a script designed for Tom Hanks and Sean Connery.

Submission + - First New US Nuclear Reactor In 20 Years Goes Live (cnn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Tennessee Valley Authority is celebrating an event 43 years in the making: the completion of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant. In 1973, the TVA, one of the nation's largest public power providers, began building two reactors that combined promised to generate enough power to light up 1.3 million homes. The first reactor, delayed by design flaws, eventually went live in 1996. Now, after billions of dollars in budget overruns, the second reactor has finally started sending power to homes and businesses. Standing in front of both reactors Wednesday, TVA President Bill Johnson said Watts Bar 2, the first US reactor to enter commercial operation in 20 years, would offer clean, cheap and reliable energy to residents of several southern states for at least another generation. Before Watts Bar 2, the last time an American reactor had fired up was in 1996. It was Watts Bar 1--and according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it cost $6.8 billion, far greater than the original price tag at $370 million. In the 2000s, some American power companies, faced with growing environmental regulations, eyed nuclear power again as a top alternative to fossil fuels such as coal and oil. A handful of companies, taking advantage of federal loan guarantees from the Bush administration, revived nuclear reactor proposals in a period now known as the so-called "nuclear renaissance." Eventually, nuclear regulators started to green light new reactors, including ones in Georgia and South Carolina. In 2007, the TVA resumed construction on Watts Bar 2, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The TVA originally said it would take five years to complete. The TVA, which today serves seven different southern states, relies on nuclear power to light up approximately 4.5 million homes. Watts Bar 2, the company's seventh operating reactor, reaffirms its commitment to nukes for at least four more decades, Johnson said Wednesday. In the end, TVA required more than five years to build the project. The final cost, far exceeding its initial budget, stood at $4.7 billion.

Submission + - Secton 230 of the CDA under threat. (mercurynews.com)

Submitted by whoever57
whoever57 writes: The CEO of Backpage was recently arrested for "pimping". It is likely that the charges will not stick because of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), under which publishers are protected from liability for the postings of their users. However, this could just be the first shot in the battle to weaken section 230. . This could endanger other sites, such as Craigslist, and ultimately, any site with user-written content.

Submission + - Maryland Hobbyist Suing the FAA over Drone Registry 1

Submitted by jenningsthecat
jenningsthecat writes: Maryland drone builder and attorney John Taylor, who in January took the FAA to court over its drone registry program, is now receiving financial help with his suit from DC DUG, the D.C. area Drone User Group. In his Petitoner's Brief, (PDF), Taylor maintains that "(f)or the first century of American aviation and beyond, the federal government made no attempt whatsoever to regulate recreational model aircraft", and that "(t)he FAA seeks to revise history when it argues its failure to register model aircraft, or otherwise treat them in any manner as ‘aircraft,’ in the past was the exercise of an ‘enforcement discretion'"

As of this writing I have been unable to find any news on the progress of the suit beyond its having been filed.

Submission + - RIP John Ellenby, godfather of the modern laptop (nytimes.com)

Submitted by fragMasterFlash
fragMasterFlash writes: John Ellenby, a British-born computer engineer who played a critical role in paving the way for the laptop computer, died on Aug. 17 in San Francisco. He was 75.

Mr. Ellenby’s pioneering work came to fruition in the early 1980s, after he founded Grid Systems, a company in Mountain View, Calif. As chief executive, he assembled an engineering and design team that included the noted British-born industrial designer William Moggridge.

The team produced a clamshell computer with an orange electroluminescent flat-panel display that was introduced as the Compass. It went to market in 1982. The Compass is now widely acknowledged to have been far ahead of its time.

Submission + - CP/M Creator Gary Kildall's Memoirs Released as Free Download (ieee.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The year before his death in 1994, Gary Kildall—inventor of the early microcomputer operating system CP/M—wrote a draft of a memoir, “Computer Connections: People, Places, and Events in the Evolution of the Personal Computer Industry.” He distributed copies to family and friends, but died before realizing his plans to release it as a book.

This week, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, with the permission of Kildall’s children, released the first section and it is available for a free download. The rest of it, which they say did not reflect his true self, will not be made public.

Submission + - Oracle may have stopped funding and development efforts on Java EE (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: ArsTechnica is reporting that Oracle has quietly pulled funding and development efforts away from Java EE, the server-side Java technology that is part of hundreds of thousands of Internet and business applications. Java EE even plays an integral role for many apps that aren't otherwise based on Java, and customers and partners have invested time and code. It wouldn't be the first time this has happened, but the implications are huge for Java as a platform.

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