LarsBB - Slashdot User

Comment They are excluding game frameworks as well (Score 1, Insightful) 711

by LarsBB on Sunday April 11, 2010 @09:49AM (#31807484) Attached to: Steve Jobs Weighs In On iPhone Programming Language Mandate

All modern games are written to game engines or game libraries that this rule would (does) exclude. The unreal engine, the PopCap engine and SDL all call the iPhone through an abstraction layer, which is not allowed. But, as has been pointed out elsewhere, in a strict interpretation, designing your game in sudo code is also not allowed.

Music By Natural Selection 164

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 21, 2009 @03:57PM from the survival-of-the-grooviest dept.

maccallr writes "The DarwinTunes experiment needs you! Using an evolutionary algorithm and the ears of you the general public, we've been evolving a four bar loop that started out as pretty dismal primordial auditory soup and now after >27k ratings and 200 generations is sounding pretty good. Given that the only ingredients are sine waves, we're impressed. We got some coverage in the New Scientist CultureLab blog but now things have gone quiet and we'd really appreciate some Slashdotter idle time. We recently upped the maximum 'genome size' and we think that the music is already benefiting from the change."

Swedish Pirate Party Gains 3000 Members In 7 Hours 410

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday April 17, 2009 @05:33PM from the unintended-consequences dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Due to outrage over the verdict in The Pirate Bay trial, the Swedish Pirate Party has gained 3000 members in less than 7 hours. It is now bigger than 3 of the 7 parties represented in the Swedish parliament. 'Ruling means that our political work must now be stepped up. We want to ensure that the Pirate Bay activities — to link people and information — is clearly lawful. And we want to do it for all people in Sweden, Europe and the world, continues Rick Falk Vinge. We want it to be open for ordinary people to disseminate and receive information without fear of imprisonment or astronomical damages.'"

Submission + - U.S. House says the Internet is terrorist threat

Submitted by

GayBliss

on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @07:18PM

GayBliss writes: "The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill (H.R. 1955) last month, by a vote of 404 to 6, that defines the Internet as a terrorist tool that Congress needs to develop and implement methods to combat. The first 3 "findings" pretty much sums it up:

`The Congress finds the following:

`(1) The development and implementation of methods and processes that can be utilized to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States is critical to combating domestic terrorism.

`(2) The promotion of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security.

`(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.

The bill now moves to the Senate for a vote. So where do you suppose they are going with this? Should we wait around to find out, or is it time to call your congressman?"

Submission + - Torvalds on where Linux is headed in 2008

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Sunday November 25, 2007 @08:59PM

Stony Stevenson writes: In this new interview, Linus Torvalds is excited about solid-state drives, expects progress in graphics and wireless networking, and says the operating system is strong in virtualisation despite his personal lack of interest in the area.

From the article: "To get some perspective on what lies ahead in 2008, we caught up with Linus Torvalds via email. His responses touched on the Linux development process, upcoming features, and whether he's concerned about potential patent litigation."

Torvalds on Linux biggest strength: "When you buy an OS from Microsoft, not only you can't fix it, but it has had years of being skewed by one single entity's sense of the market. It doesn't matter how competent Microsoft — or any individual company — is, it's going to reflect that fact. In contrast, look at where Linux is used. Everything from cellphones and other small embedded computers that people wouldn't even think of as computers, to the bulk of the biggest machines on the supercomputer Top-500 list. That is flexibility. And it stems directly from the fact that anybody who is interested can participate in the development, and no single entity ends up being in control of where it all goes.

Submission + - High-quality YouTube videos coming soon (webware.com)

Submitted by

mlauzon

on Friday November 16, 2007 @10:07AM

mlauzon writes: "YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, speaking at the NewTeeVee Live conference today, confirmed that high-quality YouTube video streams are coming soon. Although YouTube's goal, he said, is to make the site's vast library of content available to everyone, and that requires a fairly low-bitrate stream, the service is testing a player that detects the speed of the viewer's Net connection and serves up higher-quality video if viewers want it.

Why wouldn't they? Because the need to buffer the video before it starts playing will change the experience. Hence the experiment, rather than just a rapid rollout of this technology. On stage, he said the current resolution of YouTube videos has been "good enough" for the site untill now.

Chen told me he expects that high-quality YouTube videos will be available to everyone within three months.

Chen also confirmed that in YouTube's internal archive, all video is stored at the native resolution in which it was sent. However, he said, a large portion of YouTube videos are pretty poor quality to begin with — 320x240. Streaming them in high-quality mode isn't going to help much."

Submission + - Wal-Mart's $200 Linux PC Sells Out (ecogeek.org)

Submitted by

hankmt

on Sunday November 11, 2007 @04:49PM

hankmt writes: "About a week ago Wal-Mart began selling a $200 linux machine running on a 1.5 ghz Via C7 processor and 512 megs of RAM. While the specs are useless for vista, it works blazingly fast on Ubuntu with the Enlightenment Window Manager. The machine is now officially sold out of their online warehouses, and the product sales page at WalMart.com is full of glowing reviews from new and old linux users alike."

Submission + - AR Facade Moves Beyond the Lab (gatech.edu)

Submitted by

Renata

on Friday November 09, 2007 @03:10PM

Renata writes: "Researchers from Georgia Tech's GVU Center have installed AR Façade at the Grand Auto Text exhibition at the Beall Center for Art and Technology in Irvine, CA. The AR Façade installation presents an augmented reality version of desktop-based game Façade.

The exhibit marks the first time this elaborate "augmented reality" interactive drama has been seen outside the GVU lab.

AR Façade Experience
The AR Façade immersive drama presents the virtual characters of Façade inside a real, physical apartment. Players play the role of an old friend invited over for drinks at a make-or-break moment in the collapsing marriage of the reactive characters, Grace and Trip. While some players attempt to pacify the characters, others break the ice with comic relief, performing for friends who can observe the unfolding drama from outside the exhibit. The uneasy social situation becomes all too real as players are able to move freely throughout a physical apartment and use gestures and speech to interact with the autonomous characters who appear graphically imposed in the space using a video-mix head-mounted AR display.

The three month long exhibition will be open to public until December 15th.

AR Façade
An augmented reality adaptation of Façade
Steven Dow, Blair MacIntyre, Michael Mateas, Manish Mehta
Original game design and AI: Michael Mateas & Andrew Stern
www.gvu.gatech.edu/arfacade"

Submission + - Russia to Build New Spacecraft by 2020 (techluver.com)

Submitted by

Tech.Luver

on Friday November 09, 2007 @01:26PM

Tech.Luver writes: "Russia has launched a project to create a new generation of spacecraft and boosters, the head of national space administration said on Friday, making clear that they would not appear on orbit before 2020. "A tender to design a new booster and spaceship has been announced," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Roskosmos chief Anatoly Perminov as saying. Leadership in space exploration was an issue of national pride in the Soviet Union, which was the first to launch a satellite and a human into space. Although badly hit in the years of post-Soviet political and economic turmoil, the space sector remains one of a few where Russia remains competitive and on which it pins hopes to diversify its economy heavily reliant on oil and gas exports. ( http://techluver.com/2007/11/09/russia-to-build-new-spacecraft-by-2020/ )"

Submission + - 3 Bots Win Pentagon's Robotic Rally (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 03, 2007 @07:14PM

An anonymous reader writes: We've got a winner in the Pentagon's $3.5 million all-robot street rally, the Urban Challenge. Three, actually. WIRED reports that 'bots from Stanford, Virginia Tech, and Carnegie Mellon all completed the course within the six-hour time limit. The robo-cars had to complete different missions taking varying times, so the flesh-and-blood judges will take a day to figure out who takes home first prize.

Submission + - Apple Adds Memory Randomization (ALSR) to Leopard

Submitted by

.mack

on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @06:49PM

.mack writes: "Apple has announced plans to add code-scrambling diversity to Mac OS X Leopard, a move aimed at making the operating system more resilient to virus and worm attacks. The security technology, known as ASLR (address space layout randomization), randomly arranges the positions of key data areas to prevent malware authors from predicting target addresses. Another new feature coming in Leopard is Sandboxing (systrace), which limits an application's access to the system by enforcing access policies for system calls."

Submission + - Nokia Takes Third Swing at Internet Tablet

Submitted by __aajbyc7391 on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @06:15PM

__aajbyc7391 writes: It looks like Nokia is intent on knocking the ball out of the park with its Linux-powered Internet tablets. Today, the company unveiled the N810, its third attempt at hitting a home run with the concept. The new model adds a slide-out hardware keyboard, and also a built-in GPS receiver and FM transmitter (for in-car listening), among a number of other enhancements (such as a faster CPU and more memory). At this point, the device is positioned as an email and browsing tool, a social networking aid, a GPS, a VoIP phone, and a multimedia player (and streamer, thanks to built-in WiFi). But are the fans jumping out of their seats at this latest swing from mobile phone heavy-hitter Nokia?

Submission + - Consumer group demands XP for Vista victims (blorge.com)

Submitted by thefickler on Friday October 12, 2007 @11:37PM

thefickler writes: Dissatisfaction with Windows Vista seems to be swelling, with the Dutch Consumers' Union (Consumentenbond) asking Microsoft to supply unhappy Vista users with a free copy of Windows XP. Not surprisingly, Microsoft refused. This prompted Consumentenbond to advise consumers to ask for XP, rather than Vista, when buying a new computer. Can this be going any more wrong for Microsoft?

Submission + - The Google Phone is a Reality.

Submitted by

MrCrassic

on Friday October 12, 2007 @11:01PM

MrCrassic writes: "It appears that Google is initiating talks with well-known PDA/smartphone manufacturer HTC to make the Google phone a reality. With impressive tech specs and an already impressive concept underway , could Google be the next company to make a mark in the wireless device industry? From the main article:

However, a recent report by CrunchGear states that its own sources at mobile handset provider HTC have tipped the site off to multiple gPhone handsets being prepped for launch in the first quarter of 2008 and that the handsets will be coming out of Taiwan. There will supposedly be over 20 different handsets to choose from — some with GPS — and they will carry special versions of Google Maps, Google Calendar, Gmail, and VoIP-enabled Google Talk. Speaking of software, Google is rumored to be developing its own operating system for the gPhone. According to reports by Engadget, the OS has been in development since 2005 after Google's acquisition of a mobile software company called Android. The Android team has since developed a Linux-based mobile OS while at Google — a detail that is corroborated by the CrunchGear report — which of course comes with tight Google integration. Both sites appear to agree that their sources indicate Google isn't currently looking to develop the hardware... for now.
"

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