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Hardware

Submission + - Valve Hiring Hardware developers (develop-online.net)

Submitted by Canazza
Canazza writes: "PC games giant Valve wants to “invent whole new gaming experiences” and is looking for people to help create new hardware, the Washington studio has confirmed.

Off the back of a wave of speculation that the studio is building its own games console – a rumour which Valve has not specifically denied – the company now appears to be increasing capacity of its hardware development division."

Is Valve designing a new Console? or is this an expansion of it's Biometric controls research? Either way, something big is going down at Valve.

Comment Re:Just what we needed (Score 1) 238

by Spills (#33537922) Attached to: King's <em>Dark Tower</em> Series To Be Adapted For Film, TV

The reason the ending bothered me (aside from being singularly unsatisfying) was that it pretty much destroyed the premise of the entire seven-book series. The driving force for the whole plot was that the Dark Tower was in terrible danger, and the universe along with it, right?

Roland did save the Tower (and the universe). The point was that saving the Tower was never really Roland's goal, he was obsessed with completing his quest to what he thought the ending should be (reaching the top of the tower) and thus (possibly) doomed the universe again. I thought King tried to link Roland's obsession with getting to the top of the Tower to the obsession some readers have for a satisfying ending. Or something like that :)

Submission + - SPAM: IBM, Intel execs arrested over insider trading

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Executives from IBM and Intel have been arrested amid allegations they were involved in an insider trading scam. According to a report from the Associated Press, six people were arrested today as part of an insider trading case, including Bob Moffat, senior vice president and general manager of IBM's Systems and Technology Group; Rajiv Goel, director of strategic investments at Intel Capital; Anil Kumar, a director at management consultancy McKinsey & Co; and Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of the $7bn Galleon Group hedge fund. ...
Link to Original Source
Space

Submission + - Rydberg molecule created for the first time

Submitted by krou
krou writes: The BBC is reporting that the Rydeberg molecule has been formed from two atoms of rubidium. Proven in theory, this is the first time it's been created, reinforcing the fundamental quantum theories of Enrico Fermi. Chris Greene, the theoretical physicist who first predicted that the Rydeberg molecules could exist, said: "The Rydberg electron resembles a sheepdog that keeps its flock together by roaming speedily to the outermost periphery of the flock, and nudging back towards the centre any member that might begin to drift away." It's a sheepdog with a very short life-span, however: the longest lived molecule only lasted 18 seconds. Vera Bendkowsky, who led the research, explained how they created the molecule: "The nuclei of the atoms have to be at the correct distance from each other for the electron fields to find each other and interact. We use an ultracold cloud of rubidium — as you cool it, the atoms in the gas move closer together. We excite the atoms to the Rydberg stage with a laser. If we have a gas at the critical density, with two atoms at the correct distance that are able to form the molecule, and we excite one to the Rydberg state, then we can form a molecule."
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Targets New Colleges, Still Avoids Harvard

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Billboard reports that the RIAA has filed its eighth round of "early settlement" letters to twenty-two colleges. Continuing its practice of avoiding Harvard, the RIAA's new round does not include any letters to that institution, where certain law professors have counseled resistance to the RIAA and told the RIAA to "take a hike". The unlucky institutions on the receiving end of the 403 new letters include Arizona State University (35 pre-litigation settlement letters), Carnegie Mellon University (13), Cornell University (19), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (30), Michigan State University (16), North Dakota State University (17), Purdue University — West Lafayette and Calumet campuses (49), University of California — Santa Barbara (13), University of Connecticut (17), University of Maryland — College Park (23), University of Massachusetts — Amherst and Boston campuses (52), University of Nebraska — Lincoln (13), University of Pennsylvania (31), University of Pittsburgh (14), University of Wisconsin — Eau Claire, Madison, Milwaukee, Stevens Point, Stout and Whitewater campuses (62)."
Games

Jack Thompson Decides He's In GTA IV 230

Posted by Zonk from the i-bet-i'm-in-there-toooo dept.
gzerphey writes "Outspoken anti-games lawyer Jack Thompson has decided that a representation of a 2nd amendment lawyer in GTA IV is a mocking version of him. He has declared that if the representation is not removed he will attempt to block the release of the game. Excerpt from GamePolitics: 'The showcasing play of the game to Game Informer revealed that the first killing mission of the hero of the game, Niko, is to kill a certain lawyer. When Niko comes into this lawyer's office, having used subterfuge to do so, Niko pulls a gun on the lawyer who says, that the firm supports the second amendment and that 'Guns don't kill people. Video games do.'"
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - US teen trades hacked iPhone for Nissan 350Z (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
PieGuy107
PieGuy107 writes: "A New Jersey teenager has cut a deal to trade a hacked iPhone for a new set of wheels and three further iPhones, Yahoo! reports. Seventeen-year-old George Hotz, of Glen Rock, made the announcement on his blog, having successfully unlocked the Jesus phone. Duly released from the shackles of AT&T, the device was then swiftly offered for sale. Hotz said: "Terry Daidone, the founder of Certicell contacted me this morning, and offered to make a trade for the iPhone. I traded it for a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones." He described the trade as "a great end to a great summer", and he can only hope AT&T's attack lawyers don't provoke a sudden autumn chill."
Media

Submission + - "Viacom hit me for infringing my own copyright (blogspot.com) 2

Submitted by
Chris Knight
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."
Math

Submission + - An Optical Solution For an NP-Complete problem? (opticsexpress.org)

Submitted by 6
6 writes: Tobias Haist and Wolfgang Osten have proposed a novel idea for solving the traveling salesman problem...

We introduce an optical method based on white light interferometry in order to solve the well-known NP-complete traveling salesman problem. To our knowledge it is the first time that a method for the reduction of non-polynomial time to quadratic time has been proposed. We will show that this achievement is limited by the number of available photons for solving the problem. It will turn out that this number of photons is proportional to NN for a traveling salesman problem with N cities and that for large numbers of cities the method in practice therefore is limited by the signal-to-noise ratio. The proposed method is meant purely as a gedankenexperiment.
Space

Submission + - New Theory Explains Periodic Mass Extinctions

Submitted by i_like_spam
i_like_spam writes: The theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid impact, the K-T extinction, is well known and supported by fossil and geological evidence. Asteroid impact theory does not apply to the other fluctuations in biodiversity, however, which follow an approximate 62 million-year cycle. As reported in Science news, a new theory seems to explain periodic mass extinctions. The new theory found that oscillations in the Sun relative to the plane of the Milky Way correlate with changes in biodiversity on Earth. The researchers suggest that an increase in the exposure of Earth to extragalatic cosmic rays causes mass extinctions. Here is the original paper describing the finding.
Education

Submission + - Monkeys and humans learn the same way (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "A new study from UCLA showed that monkeys, like humans, learn faster by being actively involved in the learning process rather than just having information placed before them, according to a story in ScienceDaily. In the study, two rhesus macaque monkeys learned to put up to 18 photos on an ATM-like touch screen in a row. 'The monkeys did much better on the first three days when they had the help than when they didn't, but on the test day, it completely reversed.'"
Space

Submission + - Public Discussion on Space Solar Power Opened (wordpress.com)

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "The National Security Space Office (NSSO), an office of the DoD, has taken a novel approach to a study they are doing on space based solar power. They've opened a public forum for it and are interested in anyone and everyone's expertise, experience and ideas on the best means to harvest energy in space. I suppose this is similar to the DoD's $1 million for an energy pack just without the award. Still, if you want to have an influence on the US's plans in space, this would be an easy armchair place to start — if there's one thing in abundance on Slashdot, it's armchair speculation. Space.com has more on the details."
Space

Submission + - Top Ten Discoveries of Mars Rovers (space.com)

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Space.com brings us the top ten discoveries of the Martian rovers that landed there in 2004. They were expected to last three months but, as Slashdot has covered time and time again, they have lasted over three years. From mere discoveries about the formation of Mars & images of atmospheric phenomena to definitive proof of a wet Mars (at some point in time), these two robots Opportunity & Spirit have definitely reserved themselves a place in the history books. Pending a dust storm, they may not even be done with their mission yet."
Biotech

Submission + - All Humans Evolved from a Single Origin in Africa (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Researchers at the University of Cambridge have combined studies of global human genetic variations with skull measurements worldwide to conclusively show the validity of the single origin hypothesis. The alternative hypothesis contended that different populations independently evolved from Homo erectus to Home sapiens in different areas. The lead researcher explains, 'The origin of anatomically modern humans has been the focus of much heated debate. Our genetic research shows the further modern humans have migrated from Africa, the more genetic diversity has been lost within a population. However, some have used skull data to argue that modern humans originated in multiple spots around the world. We have combined our genetic data with new measurements of a large sample of skulls to show definitively that modern humans originated from a single area in Sub-saharan Africa.' The article abstract is available from Nature."

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IBM Advanced Systems Group -- a bunch of mindless jerks, who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes... -- with regrets to D. Adams

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