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Comment Re:Familiarity counts? (Score 1) 59

But with VR, specially VR that replicates physical actions into the game world (so that stepping forward in the game involves stepping forward in real life, not just pressing a key), that line may well become significantly blurred to the point where video games might actually have harmful effects (in this case, suppressing the instinct to not step off buildings).

This is a really interesting idea that is addressed in the David Cronenberg film eXistenZ . The film is about a virtual reality game designer on the run from a "realist underground" and deliberately plays with tropes about gaming and film watching. In a lot of ways it is to video games what Videodrome is to television.

Chrome

Chrome To Get 'Do Not Track' 111

puddingebola tips news that support for the 'do-not-track' privacy setting will soon be coming to Google Chrome. The feature was implemented for Chromium v23.0.1266.0 in a recent revision. Google has said DNT will make it into the public release of Chrome by the end of year. This will bring Chrome up to speed with Firefox, which has had it for a while, and IE 10, which will have it turned on by default. As for why Google is the last of the three do implement it, the LA Times points out a post earlier this year from Google's Susan Wojcicki: 'There’s been a lot of debate over the last few years about personalization on the web. We believe that tailoring your web experience — for example by showing you more relevant, interest-based ads, or making it easy to recommend stuff you like to friends — is a good thing.'"

Comment Re:It's like this. (Score 1) 878

It seems like you're confusing grammar and punctuation in your example. The formatting of the ellipses doesn't really matter to the meaning of the words, just like the recent arguments over one or two spaces between sentences. Grammatically, ellipses are used to indicate omission, so unless you've omitted something between any of those words which we are magically supposed to intuit, I think you've missed the point of your own example.

Comment Re:"Quikster" split a dumb move to begin with (Score 1) 253

Except that it is starving the company of funds. According to this article, DVDs cost almost $1 just to ship. Factor in the cost of the disc, the infrastructure, etc. and it barely pays for itself for normal customers. With super-users who can get 2 or 3 DVDs per week on a one disc plan, Netflix is practically hemorrhaging funds to keep the system around. Hence, the plan to split and, soon after, sell-off that half of their business.
Toys

A Monster LED Array For Irresponsible Fun 225

Tesladownunder writes "This huge LED is on steroids and then some. It is intended for use as a streetlight. It has a 7000 lumen output at 100W and will burn a hole in a CD case without focusing. And that's without the infrared that a halogen or discharge lamp has. Very efficient and low maintenance. Stronger than HID car headlights or a 500W halogen. Hit the site for lots of data and pics of it in action including burning and irresponsible bicycle luminosity. You'll want one to attach to your keyring, too."

Comment Re:Much better summary (Score 1) 209

From the link:
"The lid of the touchbook also pops off, so you have easy access to the hardware and it's two internal USB ports you can use for dongles you dont want hanging off the side of the tablet"

That may be the most exciting bit I've seen. An easily accessible MB with internal USB ports on a laptop? There's an extra 8 GB storage for another $15. Awesome.

Comment Re:Viewer Quality (Score 1) 575

When Netflix became available on XBox, my PC feed became useless as well...since I began watching everything on my XBox. And the quality from there is outstanding, in "HD" in some cases.

In all honesty, if I didn't have an XBox, I think it would be worth it to shell out the $100 for a Roku device. It has HDMI out, a dedicated remote, and you don't have to futz around with a computer, no Silverlight/Moonlight/Flash/whatever.

Now, I can already hear the cries of, "Why should I have to pay more..." but, in the end, if you want to use the Netflix streaming on a regular basis, you have an HDTV, and you don't own a 360, that's the way to go.
Space

Most Extreme Gamma-Ray Blast Yet Detected 128

Matt_dk sends in a quote from a story at NASA: "The first gamma-ray burst to be seen in high-resolution from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is one for the record books. The blast had the greatest total energy, the fastest motions and the highest-energy initial emissions ever seen. ... Gamma-ray bursts are the universe's most luminous explosions. Astronomers believe most occur when exotic massive stars run out of nuclear fuel. As a star's core collapses into a black hole, jets of material — powered by processes not yet fully understood — blast outward at nearly the speed of light. The jets bore all the way through the collapsing star and continue into space, where they interact with gas previously shed by the star and generate bright afterglows that fade with time. ...Fermi team members calculated that the blast exceeded the power of approximately 9,000 ordinary supernovae, if the energy was emitted equally in all directions."
Books

Tools & Surprises For a Tech Book Author? 325

Fubari writes "I have questions for those of you who have written books: what writing tools have you found helpful? I want to start my book off right (so I'm pretty sure I don't want to write it in MS Word). What has and has not worked well for you? So far I have thought of needs like chapter/section management, easy references to figures (charts, diagrams, source code), version control (check in/check out parts like chapters, figures, etc.), and index generation. I would also welcome advice about what I don't know enough to ask about. Did you encounter any surprises that you wish you had known about back when you started out?"

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