ThumperByTrade - Slashdot User

Submission + - Google rolls out Chrome 7

Submitted by on Wednesday October 20, 2010 @12:04PM

An anonymous reader writes: Google on Tuesday released a new stable version of its internet browser, Chrome 7. The latest update is part of Google's promise in July to release a new stable version of Chrome about every six weeks.Chrome 7 comes with hundreds of bug fixes, an updated HTML5 parser, the File API, and directory upload via input tag. It is available in the stable and beta channels for Windows, Mac, and Linux. “The main focus was the hundreds of bug fixes”, Jeff Chang, a Google product manager, wrote in a blog post.

Submission + - Batteries smaller than a grain of salt

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20, 2010 @10:59AM

An anonymous reader writes: Lithium-ion batteries have become ubiquitous in today's consumer electronics — powering our laptops, phones, and iPods. Research funded by DARPA is pushing the limits of this technology and trying to create some of the tiniest batteries on Earth, the largest of which would be no bigger than a grain of sand. These tiny energy storage devices could one day be used to power the electronics and mechanical components of tiny micro- to nano-scale devices.

Do Gamers Want Simpler Games? 462

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday May 05, 2010 @03:20AM from the i'd-say-no-but-i-used-to-love-frogger dept.

A recent GamePro article sums up a lesson that developers and publishers have been slowly learning over the last few years: gamers don't want as much from games as they say they do. Quoting: "Conventional gaming wisdom thus far has been 'bigger, better, MORE!' It's something affirmed by the vocal minority on forums, and by the vast majority of critics that praise games for ambition and scale. The problem is, in reality its almost completely wrong. ... How do we know this? Because an increasing number of games incorporate telemetry systems that track our every action. They measure the time we play, they watch where we get stuck, and they broadcast our behavior back to the people that make the games so they can tune the experience accordingly. Every studio I've spoken to that does this, to a fault, says that many of the games they've released are far too big and far too hard for most players' behavior. As a general rule, less than five percent of a game's audience plays a title through to completion. I've had several studios tell me that their general observation is that 'more than 90 percent' of a game's audience will play it for 'just four or five hours.'"

Comment future of Wii (Score 1) 582

by ThumperByTrade on Thursday June 11, 2009 @12:32PM (#28295573) Attached to: Does the Wii Provide A "Watered-Down" Game Experience?

"The question remains, as Kotaku points out, whether the Wii's audience will persist after the other systems match its casual-gaming capabilities."

People act like Nintendo can't make a more powerful version of the Wii. They got a good market share by providing a fun and unique gaming experience at a price that most people can afford. Releasing another version of the console that has the power of a PS3 is easy to do and if that's what it takes to compete, I'm sure they will.

Comment VHS to 8 Track - Bad Analogy (Score 2, Insightful) 339

by ThumperByTrade on Thursday November 16, 2006 @09:09PM (#16878856) Attached to: Variety Declares VHS Dead

Comparing VHS and cassettes is a much better analysis. 8 track was never a popular medium for home recording like cassettes and VHS. Even today, a substantial portion of portable radios still come with cassette players. I say that VCRs will last until all forms of physical media are made extinct by on demand services.

Cosmic Radiation Speeds up Aging in Space? 218

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday March 22, 2006 @06:27PM from the space-raisins dept.

SpaceAdmiral writes "The Theory of Relativity tells us that the faster a person travels the slower time passes for that person relative to someone left on Earth. This means that traveling at high velocities in a spacecraft should reduce one's aging. However, recent research suggests that cosmic radiation may counteract that anti-aging effect. Iron-nuclei radiation affects the aging of cells, which is possibly one of the reasons astronauts who have been to the Moon tend to get cataracts about 7 years earlier than other astronauts."

Intel Launches New Pentium Extreme Edition 965 139

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday March 22, 2006 @02:52PM from the more-fuel-for-the-fires-of-war dept.

RL-20 II Rider writes "Although Intel is hard at work readying their next-gen Conroe core for a proposed 2H '06 release, it seems engineers at the company are still improving upon the existing 65nm Presler core. This review of the brand-new 3.73GHz Pentium Extreme Edition 965 dual-core processor shows that the CPU is based on a new stepping of the Presler core that runs cooler and overclocks higher than older chips, while consuming a bit less power as well."

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