Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Comment Re:N64 cartridges (Score 2, Interesting) 185

by TSDMK (#29021469) Attached to: Classic Game Console Design Mistakes
Optical discs as a storage medium suck. They're fragile, slow to read in non-sequential order and make the machines noisy and more prone to failure. They can't die fast enough.

I always find it a bit sad that game consoles have almost entirely gone from the switch it on and play instantly to the PC's wait-half-an-eternity-to-install-and-patch routine (I'm looking at the PS3 in particular).
Movies

Slumdog Millionaire Takes Home 8 Oscars 317

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-see dept.
Ben Burtt was robbed of his overly deserved Oscars for the sound on Wall-E, and Heath Ledger's Joker unsurprisingly got a posthumous statue, but the big winner for the night was Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire with Picture, Director, Song, and five others. Go ahead movie nerds: talk amongst yourself.
Hardware Hacking

Most Hackable Coupon-Eligible DTV Converter? 479

Posted by timothy from the least-locked-down dept.
An anonymous reader writes "So I've finally gotten my DTV coupons, now I have to choose a converter before the analog signals go dark. I'd like to get one that is hackable, but haven't had much luck finding information about the internals of the units available. My question is: What chipsets do the different coupon eligible converters use, and which one is the most hackable? It'd be great to be able to send my own MPEG stream and have it displayed, or to grab the raw stream out of the device."

Comment Re:I've uninstalled AVG Free after using it for ye (Score 1) 297

by TSDMK (#24073475) Attached to: AVG Backs Down From Flooding the Internet
I use AVG8 Free fairly stripped down but this hasn't happened to me. Did you install SafeSurf/SafeSearch? I found those features useless and annoying you couldn't deselect them at install.

/REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch as a command switch to the installer will remove those two features.

I'll agree that AVG8 Free by default is pretty annoying and memory hog-ish, but if you get rid of the silly Internet Security features you're left with a reasonable on-access scanner with a UI better than Avast!'s IMO.
Software

ISO Puts OOXML On Hold 138

Posted by kdawson from the system-is-working dept.
schliz alerts us that ISO, in response to the four appeals (Venezuela, India, Brazil, South Africa) filed in recent weeks, has put the OOXML standardization process on hold. Here is ISO's press release, which says that ISO/IEC DIS 29500 will not be published for at least "several months" while the appeals process goes forward.
Update: 06/11 10:13 GMT by KD : Reader Alsee points out that the fourth officially recognized appealing country is Venezuela, not Denmark as originally stated. The protests of Denmark and Norway are being disregarded, as they do not come from the administrative heads of their national organizations.
Role Playing (Games)

A Veteran GM's First Impressions of D&D 4th Edition 330

Posted by timothy from the oooh-glossy dept.
Martin Ralya writes "I spent several hours with the three core D&D 4th Edition books on launch day, and wrote a detailed look at all of them based on my first impressions. Two big takeaways: Yes, the World of Warcraft comparisons are fair (and a good thing), and the way character powers work now will make the game more fun for everyone."
Operating Systems

How to Turn a PlayStation 3 Into a Linux PC 276

Posted by timothy from the sleek-box-of-ubuntu dept.
MahariBalzitch writes "Popular Mechanics shows step by step guide on how to install Ubuntu Linux on a PlayStation 3 and still keep the PS3 gaming functionality. Now I just need to get my hands on a PS3." Not bad specs for the price, either, since Blu-Ray players still aren't cheap. And though the article calls the procedure "somewhat complicated," it's a lot simpler than was installing Linux from floppies not so many years ago.
Encryption

Finnish Appeals Court Rules Breaking CSS Illegal 165

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-thank-god-nobody-knows-how-to-do-that dept.
Thomas Nybergh writes "Due to an appeal court decision from a couple of days back, breaking the not-very-effective CSS copy protection used on most commercial DVD-Video discs is now a criminal act in Finland (robo translated). The verdict is contrary to what a district court thought of the same case last year when two local electronic rights activists were declared not guilty after having framed themselves by spreading information on how to break CSS. Back then, it was to the activists' benefit has CSS been badly broken and inneffective ever since DeCSS came out."
It's funny. Laugh.

Manager Disables Web Server by Sneaking Away Xbox 129

Posted by CmdrTaco from the solve-with-a-post-it-note dept.
nz17 writes "While the administrator is away the managers will play. A custom Web server went missing at an unnamed public university, but who was the culprit? The department manager. Thinking that the Linux Web server (which used a Microsoft Xbox for its hardware) was a normal game console, he snuck the device out of the server room and home for his son to play over the holiday weekend. The philosophy students who used the server for their class were not amused."

Feed Engadget: GSM cellphone technology celebrates 20 years, aims for 20 more (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Cellphones

Just this summer we saw text messaging party down after turning 15, and now its time to get your weekend started right by celebrating 20 whole years of GSM. Reportedly, "15 phone firms signed an agreement to build mobile networks based on the Global System for Mobile (GSM) Communications" on this day in 1987, and while it took "12 years for the first billion mobile connections to be made," things have pretty much taken off since then. So here's to 20 incredibly fruitful years, GSM, you've earned it.

[Thanks James; image courtesy of RetroBrick]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
The Courts

$500M Piracy Ring Busted In China 154

Posted by kdawson from the but-did-you-arrest-the-red-army dept.
Blahbooboo3 writes "Reported by several news organizations, pirated software worth more than $500 million has been seized by authorities in China as part of a joint operation run by Chinese police and the FBI. Microsoft estimates that the software piracy of an international counterfeiting syndicate, over the past six years, cost the company at least $2 billion in lost software revenue. Microsoft said that key information in the investigation came from its Windows Genuine Advantage program, an anti-piracy system that can check whether an OS is legit. It's generally accepted that Microsoft has done well out of software piracy: it helps products become widely used, and as the market matures, people start to pay for their software. And this has been a major factor in Windows beating Linux in China, as Bill Gates has admitted."

Feed MIT's wireless electricity demoed, dubbed WiTricity (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Wireless

We always knew Tesla was right: MIT physics professor Marin Soljacic and his team of researchers behind the latest wireless electricity scheme have reportedly demoed their magnetically coupled resonator technology on a 60-watt lightbulb that wasn't plugged in. Of course, no technology should be without a name, and so they've dubbed it WiTricity. Apparently Soljacic thinks it's possible to commercialize WiTricity within the next few years, which would be totally amazing if it was powered by Steorn's humanity-saving infinite energy device. [Warning: subscription req'd for link]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Slashdot Top Deals

Neutrinos have bad breadth.

Close