MrClever - Slashdot User

Comment FInally...hope (Score 1) 101

by MrClever on Thursday September 13, 2012 @01:33AM (#41320619) Attached to: Stem Cells Turn Hearing Back On

I have a degenerative hearing condition called cochlear otosclerosis which wasn't diagnosed until after I had established myself as a successful airline pilot; a career I loved and was deeply invested in both professionally and personally. I have since retrained and I'm now a certified (degree-carrying) computer science nerd. Unfortunately, not a career path that was even vaguely close to first choice, but it pays the bills.

Having this condition also means there is a not insignificant risk I can pass the genes onto my children. This treatment could provide a cure for myself and a "get out of jail" for my children. I cannot describe how delightfully excited I am about the possibilities in medical science right now!

Comment Re:Make the technology scale down... (Score 1) 237

by MrClever on Monday February 06, 2012 @05:16AM (#38940017) Attached to: The Engineer Who Stopped Airplanes From Flying Into Mountains

One sentence got munged...it should've read:

GPS is good, so is the altimeter, but neither are perfect all the time - if they were, ground proximity warning systems (GPWS...aka "WHOOP WHOOP, PULL UP!!") wouldn't be needed. Unfortunately GPWS are prohibitive for small aircraft operators.

Sorry

Comment Make the technology scale down... (Score 5, Interesting) 237

by MrClever on Monday February 06, 2012 @05:13AM (#38940007) Attached to: The Engineer Who Stopped Airplanes From Flying Into Mountains

Now all we need is to make the technology down-scale in both size/weight and cost. It would be great to see these systems adapted and installed in smaller, lighter aircraft. There are still far too many CFIT fatalities in the private and small aircraft world. They have synthetic terrain warning (superimposing the aircraft's position from GPS and altimeter over a topographic data to determine horizontal and vertical proximity to terrain) but no active warning systems. GPS is good, so is the altimeter, but neither are perfect all the time - if they were, ground proximity warning systems (GPWS...aka "WHOOP WHOOP, PULL UP!!") still are prohibitive for small aircraft operators. Kudos to the GPWS team though - they saved my ass on at least one occasion in a previous life when I was professional pilot!

Comment Re:What about CentOS? (Score 5, Informative) 201

by MrClever on Thursday March 24, 2011 @07:37PM (#35606498) Attached to: Red Hat Nears $1 Billion In Revenues, Closing Door On Clones

Under the GPL, my understanding is that RedHat need to make the source code available. This then allows CentOS to grab the source (RPMs) and re-badge/recompile it into a new distribution. So I don't think this distro is going away any time soon.

Submission + - 3TB hard drives square off aginst everything else (techreport.com)

Submitted by crookedvulture on Monday March 14, 2011 @05:48PM

crookedvulture writes: Last week, Western Digital announced its intention to buy rival drive maker Hitachi. Interestingly, those are the only two companies with 3TB hard drives available for sale. The Tech Report takes a closer look at how the two models compare with each other and over 30 different hard drives and SSDs. The resulting data paints a detailed picture of the storage landscape and is worth skimming for anyone curious about how spindle speeds and flash memory impact performance, power consumption, and noise.

Submission + - Angry Birds Exec: Console Games Are Dying (ibtimes.com) 3

Submitted by RedEaredSlider on Monday March 14, 2011 @04:54PM

RedEaredSlider writes: Angry Birds marketing lead Peter Vesterbacka went on the offensive today against his console counterparts, arguing that the model pursued by companies like Nintendo is "dying."

In a panel discussion at the South by Southwest Interact vice conference in Austin, Texas Vesterbacka said that innovation wasn't coming from large development firms like EA and Ubisoft, but from smaller, more nimble developers like his own.

Vesterbacka also pointed to the major concern over the price model for console games. Compared to mobile titles like Angry Birds that run for 99 cents, games on large consoles hover around fifty dollars. Still, the executive did admit that the business model for mobile games had yet to be completely figured out.

Comment Re:I haven't watched the video but... (Score 1) 499

by MrClever on Thursday March 03, 2011 @07:19PM (#35374730) Attached to: Upgrading From Windows 1.0 To Windows 7

My thoughts exactly...but as soon as I'm untethered (Optus GSM...you suck!) and on some real bandwidth, I'm watching the video :) I too have far too much spare time!

Submission + - Infected Androids Run Up Big Texting Bills

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Monday February 28, 2011 @08:20PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Computerworld reports that a rogue Android app is hijacking smartphones and running up big texting bills to premium rate numbers before the owner knows it. Chinese hackers grabbed a copy of Steamy Windows, a free program, added a backdoor Trojan horse to the app's code, then placed the reworked app on unsanctioned third-party "app stores" where unsuspecting or careless Android smartphones find it, download it and install it. "This one stands out," says Vikram Thakur, a principle security response manager at Symantec. "It's pretty comprehensive in what it's doing." The app also has a built-in filter that blocks incoming texts from the user's carrier, a trick it uses to keep victims in the dark about the invisible texting. "It monitors inbound SMS texts, and blocks alerts telling you that you've already exceeded your quota," says Thakur adding that smartphone owners won't be aware of the charges they've racked up texting premium services until they receive their next statement. "If you're hell-bent on using [unauthorized app stores], look at the permissions the app requests when it installs. A [rogue] app will request more permissions than the legitimate version.""

Submission + - Intel completes McAfee acquisition (idg.com.au) 2

Submitted by

angry tapir

on Monday February 28, 2011 @07:45PM

angry tapir writes: "Intel has completed its US$7.68 billion acquisition of security vendor McAfee, the chip maker has announced. The all-cash deal makes Intel a security industry powerhouse, giving it a broad range of consumer and enterprise security products. Intel had been working to get the deal approved by U.S. and European Union regulators since it was announced last August. The European Commission, in particular, had expressed concerns that Intel would give McAfee special treatment when it came to its processors and chipsets, locking other security vendors out of the technology."

Submission + - PlayStation 3 Banned In Europe Temporarily (tekgoblin.com)

Submitted by

tekgoblin

on Monday February 28, 2011 @07:30PM

tekgoblin writes: "Looks like Sony is in some trouble at least in Europe. LG had recently sued Sony with a Patent dispute over their blu-ray technology and have been granted a preliminary injunction in the matter. This injunction prevents the PlayStation 3 from currently being imported to Europe. For at least the next 10 days, every PlayStation that is imported will be seized by Government officials."

Submission + - Facebook Password Requests Suspended

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Tuesday February 22, 2011 @11:56PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Washington Post reports that Maryland's Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services has suspended a roughly year-old practice of asking prospective employees to voluntarily divulge their user names and passwords to social media Web sites such as Facebook. In a statement, the department said requests for user names and passwords had been voluntary, and had not been taken into account when evaluating job applicants. Nonetheless, "in light of these concerns raised by the ACLU and because this is a newly emerging area in the law, the department has suspended the process of asking for social media information for 45 days to review the procedure and to make sure it is being used consistently and appropriately.""

Apple Releases IOS 4.3 Beta To Developers 101

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 12, 2011 @08:52PM from the taking-it-for-a-test-drive dept.

m2pc writes "Apple has just released iOS 4.3 beta to developers. New features include: Developer access to AirPlay API, Four and Five-finger gestures, and the return of the hardware orientation lock for iPad, a feature that upset many when Apple suddenly removed this feature with no software option to re-enable it. Also interesting to note is the lack of mention of the Mobile Hotspot feature rumored to be included in 4.3 for all iOS devices by the Verizon announcement yesterday."

Submission + - Internet Explorer 9 Caught Cheating In SunSpider (digitizor.com) 2

Submitted by dkd903 on Wednesday November 17, 2010 @04:19AM

dkd903 writes: A Mozilla engineer has uncovered something embarrassing for Microsoft – Internet Explorer is cheating in the SunSpider Benchmark. The SunSpider, although developed by Apple, has nowadays become a very popular choice of benchmark for the JavaScript engines of browsers.

Submission + - Microsoft finally certifies an open source web app (technet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 16, 2010 @09:23PM

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has caught up with the fact that open source web-based software exists, today announcing an open source project written in PHP is the first "Certified for Windows" software that (a) follows an OSI-approved license and (b) runs via a webserver rather than operating as a native Windows executable.

The software in question is SilverStripe CMS, free software released under a BSD license, that is used to build and manage websites. Certification entails a third-party performing various tests and audits on the software and giving it the green light.

If other open source projects can follow suit, this will be another step in getting business folk to see that open source is ready for enterprise use. And heck, maybe even a .NET application could now seek to be certified!

Comment What about shared servers? (Score 2, Insightful) 457

by MrClever on Thursday September 09, 2010 @01:32AM (#33517440) Attached to: Film Industry Hires Cyber Hitmen To Take Down Pirates

My websites generally sit on shared servers. What if a different customer on the same server as my sites hosts something subject one of these DDoS attacks? Answer: I'm boned!! Yeh great idea geniuses! Like others, if these sort of attacks are now legal, then I've got my hitlist ready to go.

Slashdot Top Deals