arniebuteft - Slashdot User

Look What's Cooking At Microsoft Labs 125

Posted by timothy on Tuesday December 02, 2008 @12:17PM from the smart-people-cool-toys dept.

stinkymountain writes "Writer John Brandon spent two days at Microsoft Research Labs in Redmond and got an inside look at some pretty interesting projects under development, including a robotic receptionist, a new type of touch screen for people with fat fingers, and an electronic table that allows multiple people to collaborate in real time. Brandon also talks about some of these research projects on this NPR podcast."

Bay Area To Install Electric Vehicle Grid 388

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 25, 2008 @06:50PM from the recharge-it dept.

Mike writes "Recently San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland unveiled a massive concerted effort to become the electric vehicle capitol of the United States. The Bay Area will be partnering with Better Place to create an essential electric vehicle infrastructure, marking a huge step towards the acceptance of electric vehicles as a viable alternative to those that run on fossil fuels." Inhabitat.com has some conceptual illustrations and a map showing EV infrastructure, such as battery exchange stations, stretching from Sacramento to San Diego — though this is far more extensive than the Bay Area program actually announced, which alone is estimated to cost $1 billion.

Ethical Killing Machines 785

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 25, 2008 @03:53PM from the i-for-one-welcome dept.

ubermiester writes "The New York Times reports on research to develop autonomous battlefield robots that would 'behave more ethically in the battlefield than humans.' The researchers claim that these real-life terminators 'can be designed without an instinct for self-preservation and, as a result, no tendency to lash out in fear. They can be built without anger or recklessness ... and they can be made invulnerable to ... "scenario fulfillment," which causes people to absorb new information more easily if it agrees with their pre-existing ideas.' Based on a recent report stating that 'fewer than half of soldiers and marines serving in Iraq said that noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect, and 17 percent said all civilians should be treated as insurgents,' this might not be all that dumb an idea."

Samsung Mass Produces Fast 256GB SSDs 280

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday November 24, 2008 @06:31PM from the i'm-sure-this-will-be-a-bargain dept.

Lucas123 writes "Samsung said it's now mass producing a 256GB solid state disk that it says has sequential read/write rates of 220MB/sec and 200/MBsec, respectively. Samsung said it focused on narrowing the disparity of read/write rates on its SSD drive with this model by interleaving NAND flash chips using eight channels, the same way Intel boosts its X25 SSD. The drive doubles the performance of Samsung's previous 64GB and 128GB SSDs. 'The 256GB SSD launches applications 10 times faster than the fastest 7200rpm notebook HDD,' Samsung said in a statement."

Bill Allows Teachers to Contradict Evolution 1049

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @01:01PM from the legislating-science-is-a-challenge dept.

Helical writes "In an attempt to defy the newly approved state science standards, Florida Senator Rhonda Storms has proposed a bill that would allow teachers to contradict the teaching of evolution. Her bill states that 'Every public school teacher in the state's K-12 school system shall have the affirmative right and freedom to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological origins.' The bill's main focus is on protecting teachers who want to adopt alternative teaching plans from sanction, and to allow teachers the freedom to teach whatever they wish, even if it is in opposition to current standards."

Comment Re:VHS vs. Beta (Score 2, Insightful) 527

by arniebuteft on Thursday January 11, 2007 @06:29PM (#17564714) Attached to: Adult Film Industry Chooses HD-DVD

Dual-format players that cost only a little more than a single-format player are quite probable in the HD-DVD vs. BD war. With VHS and Beta, it was all or nothing - the technology didn't lend itself easily to a dual-format system. With the HD war, you're dealing with spinning, shiny, dimpled disks of plastic being read by a 405nm laser. Sure, the disks need different optics for reading, and the data's arranged a bit differently, but it shouldn't cost that much more for a dual-format player, once the tech is more mature. I think there are already two dual-format players available (or nearly available) on the market.

Wouldn't it be funny if this whole format war never materialized? All that effort by Sony to develop a competing format, and it goes nowhere.

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