Comment Re: The real reason (Score 1) 109
You'll note that those reasons are conjecture on the part of the article, but they do have some interesting thoughts on why IBM might be making the changes.
Comment Don't forget these (Score 4, Insightful) 42
Comment Another android choice (Score 1) 800
Yeah, the iris app is making good progress. See also the Jeannie app (which identifies itself as "Voice Actions" once installed). The feature set of Jeannie is better (e.g. "enable bluetooth"), but it doesn't have the iris/siri-like display of the chat dialog. Maybe these 2 apps should get together and combine forces.
Comment UNIX time vs TAI (Score 1) 376
Not so. UNIX time is strictly defined in POSIX, as are the arithmetic relationships between it and human time, e.g. a time_t % 60 gives you the elapsed seconds in the current minute, which would not be true if unix time included leap seconds.
What you are describing is TAI, or International Atomic Time. If you were to choose to run your system on TAI, you would need some conversion routines if you wanted your system to remain POSIX compatible (which is what modern unix/linux apps expect) -- e.g. time() and stat() would need to continue to report unix-time values, and you'd need TAI-compliant library functions to request the equivalent items with their raw TAI values.
For more details, see the Wikipedia entry on Unix time.
Comment Not competing standard, competing hardware designs (Score 4, Informative) 269
This isn't about competing USB 3 standards -- the spec is being designed by a group, and there is only one. This is about the design of the hardware used to implement a host controller that can comply with the spec. This is something that any company can develop if they want to, but since Intel is going to license their design of the host controller for free, most companies will just wait for that design and use it to implement USB 3.
Submission + - Vista vs. the Gibbon 4
ricegf writes: If you had 7 computers running various versions of Windows and Linux, on which machine would you choose to do most of your work? Rupert Goodwins describes his experience thus: 'So here's the funny thing. I've used Windows since 1.0. I've lived through the bad times of Windows/386 and ME, and the good times of NT 3.51 and 2K. I know XP if not backwards, then with a degree of familiarity that only middle-aged co-dependents can afford each other. Then how come I'm so much more at home with Ubuntu than Vista?'
Submission + - Virtually non-stick gum created (bbc.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: A new polymer has been developed by Professor Terence Cosgrove that allows gum to become non-sticky. In testing the gum was removed by weather while the competitors gum was not removed 4 out of 5 times. There are tons of possible applications for this polymer beyond gum. More info and ideas are on their site @ www.revolymer.com
Submission + - NetApp hits Sun with patent-infringement lawsuit (computerworld.com)
jcatcw writes: Computerworld reports: "Network Appliance Inc. today announced that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sun Microsystems Inc. seeking unspecified compensatory damages and an injunction that would prohibit Sun from developing or distributing products based on its ZFS file system technology. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Lufkin, Texas, charges that the Sun ZFS technology infringes on seven NetApp patents pertaining to data processing systems and related software."
Submission + - GPL Violations On Windows Go Unnoticed?
Scott_F writes: I recently reviewed several commercial, closed-source slideshow authoring packages for Windows and came across an alarming trend. Several of the packages I installed included GPL and LGPL software without any mention of the GPL, much less source code. For example, DVD Photo Slideshow (www.dvd-photo-slideshow.com) included mkisofs, cdrdao, dvdauthor, spumux, id3lib, lame, mpeg2enc and mplex (all of which are GPL or LGPL). What's worse is that the company tried to hide this by wrapping them all in DLL's! There are other violations in other packages as well. It seems that use of GPL software in commercial Windows applications is on the rise based on my testing of other software. My question is how much are GPL violations in the Windows world being pursued? Does the FSF or EFF follow-up on these if the platform is not GPL? How aware is the community of this trend?
Submission + - "Viacom hit me for infringing my own copyright (blogspot.com) 2
Chris Knight writes: "Long story short: I ran for school board where I live this past fall and created some TV commercials including this one with a "Star Wars" theme. A few months ago VH1 grabbed the commercial from YouTube and featured it in a segment of its show "Web Junk 2.0". Neither VH1 or its parent company Viacom told me they were doing this or asked my permission to use it, but I didn't mind it if they did. It was great to see the commercial was being enjoyed by a far wider audience than I'd expected. I was honored that they chose to use it and thought that Aries Spears's commentary about it was pretty hilarious, so I posted a clip of VH1's segment on YouTube so that I could put it on my blog. This morning I got an e-mail from YouTube saying that the video has been pulled because Viacom is claiming that I'm violating its copyright. Viacom used my video without permission on their commercial television show, and now says that I am infringing on THEIR copyright for showing the clip of the work that Viacom made in violation of my own copyright! Talk about chutzpah! Needless to say, I would like to fight this: not for any kind of monetary compensation, but just for the right to employ my own self-created material per Fair Use."
Feed news.com: Movie theaters deal with woes in converting films to digital formats (com.com)
Video: Movie theaters deal with woes in converting films to digital formats. On August 23, Dolby Laboratories held an event at its headquarters in San Francisco, showcasing the differences between the look of a movie on film, as opposed to in a digital format. CNET News.com's Greg Sandoval takes a look at the technology movie theaters are using to project films digitally--and at what problems they face in making the conversion.
Journal Journal: Set the wayback machine, Sherman...to 1993 1
As the danger of another Clinton presidency looms large, it is necessary to put out a little reminder of what we're dealing with
Submission + - Rodriguez slaughters Open XML
Elektroschock writes: "Stephane Rodriguez, a reengineering specialist who became popular for his article on MS-Office 2007 binary data, slaughters Microsoft's new Open XML format. With small case studies he demonstrates the disadvantages for third party developers. His conclusion: It is 'defective by design'. Next week members of the International Standard Organisation are likely to approve the format as a second official ISO standard for office documents. However, most nations submitted comments. Rodriguez claims to be "not affiliated to any pro-MS or anti-MS party/org/ass"."
Journal Journal: Google requests removal of Google Maps support from MGMaps
Mobile GMaps (http://mgmaps.com) is a free Java application for Java-enabled phones, like my Sony Ericsson K790a, which turns your phone into a GPS-enabled mobile mapping system, complete with on-line tracking, custom mapping, and a slew of other features continually being added.
Feed Science Daily: Cheap And Easy Technique To Produce Hydrogen From Visible Light Is Almost Ready (sciencedaily.com)
There is a revolution in solar hydrogen on the horizon. The prospect for the wide spread use of hydrogen as a portable energy carrier is dependent on finding a clean, renewable method of production. A research group headed by a professor of electrical engineering is "only a couple of problems away" from developing an inexpensive and easily scalable technique for water photoelectrolysis - the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen using light energy -- that could help power the proposed hydrogen economy.
