Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Comment Music Industry parallels (Score 1) 1162

by PolarBear3 (#35870890) Attached to: Why Has Blu-ray Failed To Catch Hold?

I remember ripping my CDs to mp3 when it took 12 hours to rip and encode. Just about the time it was getting down to an hour per disc I could purchase mp3/aac online. I've purchased maybe 3 CDs since that time. My 80 GB song library is now about half/half CD rips and online purchase. The CD format is what, 30 years old now? And is the last physical medium for audio. When CD came out it was 10 years before cassette tapes weren't sold alongside them.

Now I rip my DVDs and BluRays to mkv/m2ts. A couple years ago it took 8 hours to rip and encode a bluray. Now I can rip/encode in 1 hour. I can also purchase digital copies of movies and tv shows online. I think the pricing model is still too high for now, and I hate streaming options - I want all my library available without having to pay again. (Amazon mp3 in the cloud sounds better - give me video on there with no storage limit for stuff I purchase from Amazon and we are there!)

Soon, however, we will be thinking back on when BluRay was released as the last physical medium for video.
Perl

10 Forces Guiding the Future of Scripting 190

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the blur-the-line dept.
snydeq writes "InfoWorld examines the platforms and passions underlying today's popular dynamic languages, and though JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Groovy, and other scripting tools are fast achieving the critical mass necessary to flourish into the future, 10 forces in particular appear to be driving the evolution of this development domain. From the cooption of successful ideas across languages, to the infusion of application development into applications that are fast evolving beyond their traditional purpose, to the rise of frameworks, the cloud, and amateur code enablers, each will have a profound effect on the future of today's dynamic development tools."
Science

CO2 To Fuel, Closing the "Carbon Loop" 316

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the squeeze-as-much-as-you-can dept.
leprasmurf writes "Inhabitat has posted an article detailing a recent announcement of a process to turn CO2 into fuel. The process, which used to be considered too energy inefficient, uses a multi-step, low pressure, and low temperature biocatalyst to break the CO2 into 'basic hydrocarbon building blocks.'"

Antec Releases "Skeleton" PC Case 124

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the case-but-not-a-case dept.
ThinSkin writes "It is appropriate to say that Antec was 'thinking outside the box' when the idea of the 'Skeleton' PC Case sprung to mind. The Antec Skeleton is an open-air PC case with a pair of shelves for the motherboard and other components — held up by arching arms. There are no side panels. This is ideal for the computer user who is constantly fidgeting with his PC parts, or someone who wants to show off his fancy components. Just have a compressed air can nearby. There is also a slideshow of Antec Skeleton images available."
Biotech

Repairing Genetic Mutations With Lasers? 65

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the shed-a-little-light-on-your-genes dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "German researchers at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU) think they've proved that genetic information can be controlled by light. The group studied the interaction between the four DNA bases — adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T) — by using femtosecond time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. The researchers think that they've demonstrated that DNA strands differ in their light sensitivity depending on their base sequences. The team thinks that it might be possible in the future to repair gene mutations using laser radiation. One of the project leaders said that 'it might even be possible under some circumstances to make transistors from DNA that would work through the hydrogen bonds.' It's not the first time I've heard about DNA computing, but this new approach looks promising."
Microsoft

Microsoft Woos Developers Under the Silverlight 300

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the go-on-start-wooing dept.
CWmike writes to tell us that with the impending release of their Silverlight 2.0 product, Microsoft is poised to enact the next phase of their plan, wooing developers and designers directly. Microsoft is funding a French open-source project designed to allow programmers to utilize the Eclipse framework to build Silverlight apps. "Microsoft is also releasing for free a set of programming templates called the Silverlight Control Pack under its Microsoft Permissive License, as well as the technical specification for Silverlight's Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) vocabulary via Microsoft's Open Specification Promise. The latter, said Goldfarb, should make it easier for would-be Silverlight developers."
Education

University Tries "One iPhone Per Student" 281

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the enrollment-and-dropout-numbers-to-spike dept.
alphadogg writes to tell us that one freshman class has a little more than usual to be excited about. When students at Abilene Christian University showed up for their first days of class they were greeted with the choice of either a new iPhone 3g or an iPod Touch plus a package of custom web apps to use on them. "The hardware is part of the Texas university's pilot mobile learning project, which has been gestating for over a year. About 650 first-year students chose the iPhone, and about 300 the iPod Touch, which is a very similar device but without the 3G radio (both devices incorporate an 802.11g Wi-Fi adapter). ACU pays for the hardware, student (or their parents) select and pay for their monthly AT&T service plan."
Games

Fallout 3 Gets Leaked, Goes Gold 249

Posted by Soulskill from the sorry-about-your-luck dept.
Fallout 3 is due to be released in a few weeks, and Bethesda recently announced that all versions of the game have gone gold. They provided the systems specs for the PC release as well. Unfortunately for them, the Xbox 360 version was leaked onto torrent sites almost three weeks early. Bethesda is "looking into" how the game was distributed. In preparation for the launch, game director Todd Howard spoke at length with Gamasutra about the scope of the project, and the differences from their previous games, such as Oblivion. CrispyGamer recently ran a three-part series detailing their four hours of hands-on time with the game. We've previously looked at some gameplay videos for Fallout 3, and discussed the fact that no mod tools will ship with the game.
Debian

Bugs Delay Release of Debian Lenny 227

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the better-late-than-buggy dept.
A. B. VerHausen writes to tell us that over 200 release-critical bugs continue to push back Debian Lenny's release date. Originally slated for a September release, there is still a long road to be traveled before Lenny sees the light of day. Project leader Steve McIntyre says they may consider dropping some packages for the release if they continue to cause problems, and while an end of October release is the goal, only time will tell.
Science

Current Scientific Publishing Methods Problematic 154

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the accurate-problem-bad-analysis dept.
A recent examination of current scientific publishing methods shows that they are problematic at best, treating the entire process like an economic system, with publishers as bidders at an auction, authors as sellers, and the community at large as consumers. "The authors then go on to discuss a variety of economic terms that they think apply to publishing, but the quality of the analogies varies quite a bit. It's easy to accept that the limited number of high-profile publishers act as an oligarchy and that they add value through branding. Some of the other links are significantly more tenuous. The authors argue that scientific research suffers from an uncertain valuation, but this would require that the consumers — the scientists — can't accurately judge what's significant. "
Google

Google's Chrome Declining In Popularity 489

Posted by CmdrTaco from the still-no-mac-version dept.
holy_calamity writes "After launching in a blaze of publicity that even warmed Slashdot, Google's browser grabbed a 3% share of the market, but has been slipping ever since, and now accounts for 1.5%. Google has also stopped promoting the browser on its search page. Assuming they wanted it to grab a significant share of the browser market, have they dropped the ball, or is this part of the plan?" On Slashdot, Chrome is still the #4 browser (after FF, IE, and Safari) but it was ahead of Safari for a few days, hitting almost 10% of our traffic.
Medicine

Study Links Personal Music Players To Hearing Loss 405

Posted by CmdrTaco from the time-for-this-again dept.
fprintf writes "A recent NY Times article discusses links between personal music players and hearing loss. This is not anything new; personally, I have hearing loss from listening to my Sony Walkman cassette player many years ago. However, given the widespread use of the personal music players, I see people using earbuds everywhere; is there a technical solution to the potential danger?"

New MacBook Case Leak Rumors 243

Posted by CmdrTaco from the dear-god-i-need-a-new-machine dept.
Someone noted that there are more macbook case leaks which look to all but confirm a new MacBook and possibly a MacBook Pro expected to be announced for later this week. There seem to be fewer ports, and no leaks of a 17" aircraft carrier laptop.
Software

OpenOffice.org 3.0 Is Officially Here 284

Posted by CmdrTaco from the who-needs-office-anyway dept.
SNate writes "After a grinding three-year development cycle, the OpenOffice.org team has finally squeezed out a new release. New features include support for the controversial Microsoft OOXML file format, multi-page views in Writer, and PDF import via an extension. Linux Format has an overview of the new release, asking the question: is it really worth the 3.0 label?"

Slashdot Top Deals

Chemistry is applied theology. -- Augustus Stanley Owsley III

Close