Comment Re:I'd rather make peanuts telecommuting (Score 2) 470
Umm . . . just a century or two ago, cholera was common, as was drinking beer in place of water since it had been boiled and made sterile.
Inventor Creates Flotation Device Bazooka 144
Australian inventor Sam Adeloju has won the £20,000 ($32,000) James Dyson Award for inventing the coolest piece of life-saving equipment ever. The Longreach is a modified bazooka which can fire an expanding flotation device up to 150m to a person in distress. From the article: "Mr Adeloju told NEWS.com.au that the Longreach was inspired by a grenade-launch training session with the Army Reserves. Weighing just 3.5kg, it shoots the rescue device 150m in a manner similar to the way the army uses a grenade launcher to deliver flares and aerial observation devices. Hitting the water activates an expanding foam unit in the Longreach rescue unit, which also incorporates LED illumination and a vortex air whistle."
G2 Detects When Rooted and Reinstalls Stock OS 406
RandyDownes writes "And you thought the Droid X's kill switch was bad. HTC and T-Mobile's new G2 can detect when it's been rooted and responds by reinstalling the factory OS. This seems like a violation of the Apache license Android is licensed under and is especially ironic given Eric Schmidt's recent statement about not requiring carriers to give consumers the option to install Google's own version of the OS. Schmidt called it a violation of the principles of open source."
Update: 10/06 17:47 GMT by S : As readers have noted, the G2 is not from Motorola. Here's a better source, and here's the XDA Developers thread discussing the issue.
Firefighters Let House Burn Because Owner Didn't Pay Fee 2058
Dthief writes "From MSNBC: 'Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee. Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat. "They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.'"
Apple Accepts, Then Rejects BitTorrent iPhone App 163
An anonymous reader writes "Apple recently approved an iPhone app called IS Drive, which lets users check and manage downloads from ImageShack.us, while also offering users the option to use the company's BitTorrent service to download files to their ImageShack account. Once Apple got wind of what the app was capable of, however, it was promptly removed from iTunes."
Comment Re:Forget chocolate rain (Score 1) 324
and the sprinkler idiot) is troubling. Not just because these cops are stupid, but because it reflects a general failure of critical thinking across our society.
Drawing such a broad conclusion from two anecdotes reflects a failure in your critical thinking.
Tower Switch-Off Embarrasses Electrosensitives 292
Sockatume writes "Residents in Craigavon, South Africa complained of '[h]eadaches, nausea, tinnitus, dry burning itchy skins, gastric imbalances and totally disrupted sleep patterns' after an iBurst communications tower was put up in a local park. Symptoms subsided when the residents left the area, often to stay with family and thus evade their suffering. At a public meeting with the afflicted locals, the tower's owners pledged to switch off the mast immediately to assess whether it was responsible for their ailments. One problem: the mast had already been switched off for six weeks. Lawyers representing the locals say their case against iBurst will continue on other grounds."
Comment Re:They will get their money one way, or another (Score 1) 353
More agreeable to what you are saying, I couldn't be.
They are sleazeballs and unethical. If they are breaking the terms of their agreement people can and should take them to court. But I'm shared they're prepared for that and have taken it into account.
As far as the fact they are a private enterprise making money hand over fist on top of an infrastructure paid for by taxpayers . . . man, don't get me started, my blood pressure is high enough as it is.
Comment Re:They can either do it openly or covertly (Score 5, Insightful) 353
. . . I'm going to guess it's much more fair by using the electric utility model and much more profitable by using the "heads-I-win_tails_you_lose" model of cell phone companies.
Guess which model they're going with?
Comment Re:They will get their money one way, or another (Score 1) 353
I wasn't suggesting that--if anything they can make their operation more profitable by increasing the margin on the amount they charge for the bandwidth that actually is used.
Comment They will get their money one way, or another (Score 0) 353
The only people who logically wouldn't support a tiered system like this, are those who use far more bandwidth than the "average" person--and who therefore, are currently NOT paying for it. As a comparatively low bandwidth person myself, I prefer a tiered solution, where I just pay for what I use.
Now if only we could buy our cable channels the same way, where you only pay for what you want and not for the bazillion shopping channels too . . .
Submission + - The Best VHS Capture System using Free Software?
mrcgran writes: "I have been trying to find the best solution to transfer VHS tapes to a digital format using Free Software only. I would like to lose as little as possible in the conversion, sampling optimally, minimizing noise and being in control of every step of the process. Storage is not a problem. I'm expecting to use around 5GB+ for each hour of raw captured footage.
The software part seems promising: VLC and mencoder for conversion of raw footage, Cinelerra and many others for video editing.
However, the hardware is being tricky. Most try to bloat the device adding functions like TV/compression/edition instead of focusing on the raw A/D conversion. Chipsets are hidden, and parameters like signal-to-noise, sampling rate etc are unavailable for comparison. Information is scattered and very difficult to find.
Which chipsets/products should I look for, specially for use with Linux and BSD? Which ones allow oversampling of pixel resolution and number of frames (in order to average the values and reduce the noise)? Which setup should I use: S-Video/Composite, sampling rate/oversampling, suggestions on high-quality VHS players/heads/tape cleaning processes, etc? Has anyone tried to use scaling algorithms such as hq/scalenx to upscale video and sound resolution? Pitfalls?"
The software part seems promising: VLC and mencoder for conversion of raw footage, Cinelerra and many others for video editing.
However, the hardware is being tricky. Most try to bloat the device adding functions like TV/compression/edition instead of focusing on the raw A/D conversion. Chipsets are hidden, and parameters like signal-to-noise, sampling rate etc are unavailable for comparison. Information is scattered and very difficult to find.
Which chipsets/products should I look for, specially for use with Linux and BSD? Which ones allow oversampling of pixel resolution and number of frames (in order to average the values and reduce the noise)? Which setup should I use: S-Video/Composite, sampling rate/oversampling, suggestions on high-quality VHS players/heads/tape cleaning processes, etc? Has anyone tried to use scaling algorithms such as hq/scalenx to upscale video and sound resolution? Pitfalls?"
Survey Finds Few Intend to Upgrade to Vista 429
thefickler writes "A recent Harris Poll has found that while most online computers users are aware of Microsoft's Windows Vista, few are intending to switch over to the new operating system anytime soon. The Harris Poll of 2223 US online adults in early March found that 87% were aware of Vista. Unfortunately for Microsoft, only 12% of Vista-aware respondents were intending to upgrade to Vista in the next 12 months."
Feed Photos: April Fools' prank at Sun (com.com)
Sun pranksters installed a mock "EcoBox" executive suite at the campus.
Feed Intel gets official on Centrino Pro, adds vPro (engadget.com)
Filed under: Laptops
Things are shaping up nicely for prospective laptop buyers holding out for Santa Rosa systems before they make the plunge. Intel just confirmed that the platform will be making its way into laptops in the second quarter of this year, and clarified that Centrino Pro is only part of the action, not the whole dealio. Intel also has come forward with a welcome feature addition for enterprise types: vPro, which Intel unleashed on the desktop side last year, will be included in Centrino Pro, allowing for remote management and upgrades of systems by IT folks, and improved virtualization. Of course, it'll also involve signing up for a smorgasbord of Intel-only parts, such as the 802.11n MIMO WiFi, but that's just the way Intel rolls.[Via Laptoping]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Slashdot Top Deals
Disraeli was pretty close: actually, there are Lies, Damn lies, Statistics, Benchmarks, and Delivery dates.
