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Comment Dialing out of service range? (Score 4, Insightful) 337

by bhpratt (#40022043) Attached to: Apple Tells Siri To Stop Recommending Nokia

I hate siri 1.0...so voice dialing or voice control of the music fails when out of service range.

How often do you find yourself needing to dial a number when you have no service? I can't see voice dialing helping much in this situation :-)

Of course, you can get the normal voice control back by turning off Siri in your iPhone's settings, but I admit that toggling this when you're in and out of service should probably be automatic.

Comment Basic Components??? (Score 1) 628

by bhpratt (#39774851) Attached to: University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department

Computer Engineering is more of a hardware level approach, where the goal is is optimize basic elements but not complex systems.

I'm sorry for my Computer Engineering bias showing so obviously here, but..."basic elements"? If you, as a Computer Scientist, see devices such as microprocessors as "basic elements," I think you need to branch out a bit. Sure, there's much more to a computer system than the processor, and you need plenty of software to get all the hardware components working together, but I still would classify an ARM or Intel or GPU (or countless other types of) processor as a "complex system."

Nothing against Computer Scientists or software engineering or anything...lets just give credit everywhere its due.

There, I feel better now :-)

Space

2008, The Year of the Spaceship 126

Posted by CmdrTaco from the need-to-win-the-lottery-and-buy-a-ride dept.
DynaSoar writes "2008 Could be a the year of the Spaceship. Virgin Galactic intends to unveil White Knight 2 as well as Spaceship 2 during the next year, at this point planning for January. Burt Rutan, always reticent to comments on progress of any project, says nothing to support or contradict Virgin Galactic's announcement. However, the report states that Spaceship 2 is 50% complete and White Knight 2 is 60% complete. In addition, Virgin Galactic is considering using White Knight 2, or possible its successor White Knight 3, to put small satellites in orbit for a cost of US$3 million, less than half the current front runner in (projected) low cost orbital launches; SpaceX's Falcon at US$6.7 million. Tourism aside, this could be an extremely lucrative spin off of Virgin Galactic's original plans. If this turns out to be a profitable endeavor, the cost of tourism flights could drop significantly."

Feed Engadget: Man charged with manslaughter in "exploding battery" case (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Cellphones

In one of the more bizarre turns we've seen stories take, new information has come to light in the recent exploding battery death we reported on. It turns out that the LG battery which had initially been blamed for the "accident" wasn't the cause at all, rather, a co-worker of the victim has admitted to hitting the man with a 15-ton hydraulic rig while driving in reverse, and has been charged with manslaughter. Kwon Young-sup, who had originally reported that he had heard an explosion and discovered the man's body, has now told police that he invented the story as a cover-up for an accident. So, you can now return to placing calls on your LG without fear -- but watch your back on the job-site.

[Via Sky News, Image courtesy of Yonhap News]

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

Opera 9.5 Beats Firefox and IE7 As Fastest Browser 510

Posted by CowboyNeal from the internet-races dept.
Abhinav Peddada writes "Ars Technica takes Opera 9.5, the latest from Opera's stable, for a test run and finds some interesting results, including it being a 'solid improvement to an already very strong browser.' On the performance front, Ars Technica reports 'Opera 9.5 scored slightly higher (281ms) than the previous released version, 9.23 (546ms). And Opera 9.x, let it be known, smacks silly the likes of Firefox and Internet Explorer, which tend to have results in the 900-1500ms range on this test machine (a 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo with 2GB RAM). Opera was 50 percent faster on average than Firefox, and 100 percent faster than IE7 on Windows Vista, for instance.'"
The Courts

Class Action Initiated Against RIAA 315

Posted by kdawson from the bandwagon-starting-to-roll dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Ever since the RIAA's litigation campaign began in 2003, many people have been suggesting a class action against the RIAA. Tanya Andersen, in Oregon, has taken them up on it. The RIAA's case against this disabled single mother, Atlantic v. Andersen, has received attention in the past, for her counterclaims against the RIAA including claims under Oregon's RICO statute, the RIAA's hounding of her young daughter for a face-to-face deposition, the RIAA's eventual dropping of the case 'with prejudice,' and her lawsuit against the RIAA for malicious prosecution, captioned Andersen v. Atlantic. Now she's turned that lawsuit into a class action. The amended complaint seeking class action status (PDF) sues for negligence, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, federal and state RICO, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright law, and civil conspiracy."
Displays

3D Animations In Mid-Air Using Plasma Balls 234

Posted by kdawson from the what's-that-crackling-sound dept.
An anonymous reader clues us to research at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology that has produced the ability to make animations by creating small plasma balls in mid-air. The technology doesn't use vapor or strange gases, just lasers to heat up oxygen and nitrogen molecules above the device: up to 1,000 brilliant dots per second, which makes smooth motion possible. When the tech improves it could be used for street signs or advertising.
Space

3 Ton Meteorite Stolen 273

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-in-frat-boys-basement dept.
morpheus83 writes "Russian news agency Interfax is reporting that thieves have stolen a three-ton meteorite from the yard of the Tunguska Space Event foundation, whose director said it was the part of meteor that caused a massive explosion in Siberia in 1908. The massive three tonne rock was bought to Krasnoyarsk after an 2004 expedition to the site of the so-called Tunguska event- a mysterious mid air explosion over Siberia in 1908 was 1,000 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The foundation's director Yury Lavbin claimed to have discovered the wreckage of an alien spacecraft during the expedition."
NASA

Gouge Found on Shuttle Endeavour's Underside 151

Posted by Zonk from the i-hear-duct-tape-works-well dept.
SonicSpike writes " NASA has discovered a chunk missing from the underside of the space shuttle Endeavour. It was discovered after the shuttle docked with the ISS earlier today. Technicians theorize it may have been caused by ice ripping free of a fuel take during takeoff. From the article:'The gouge — about 3 inches square — was spotted in zoom-in photography taken by the space station crew shortly before Endeavour delivered teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan and her six crewmates to the orbiting outpost ... On Sunday, the astronauts will inspect the area, using Endeavour's 100-foot robot arm and extension beam. Lasers on the end of the beam will gauge the exact size and depth of the gouge, Shannon said, and then engineering analyses will determine whether the damage is severe enough to warrant repairs. Radar images show a white spray or streak coming off Endeavour 58 seconds after liftoff. Engineers theorize that if the debris was ice, it pierced the tile and then broke up, scraping the area downwind. Pictures from Friday's photo inspection show downwind scrapes."

Comment The irresitible force wins (Score 1) 537

by bhpratt (#20086401) Attached to: Federal Agents Raid Homes for Modchips

> Are legitimate backup copies of a piece of software you own illegal under the DMCA?"

The question doesn't make any sense. If they're legitimate, then they're legal by their very nature. If they're illegal, then they're not legitimate. It's like asking `what happens if an irresistible force meets an unmovable object`.

That's not quite a fair comparison, but the question is still interesting. I say the the "unmovable object" is destroyed in its place by the "irresistible force."
Biotech

Ancestry.com To Add DNA Test Results 223

Posted by kdawson from the who's-yer-daddy dept.
Spamicles writes "For less than $200 and a cheek-swiped cotton swab, you will soon be able to add DNA results to family tree Web sites. Ancestry.com plans to launch the DNA testing product by the end of summer, offering customers the possibility of finding DNA matches in the site's 24,000 genealogical databases. By taking a simple cheek-swab test and comparing results against DNA profiles in a test-results database, virtually anyone can uncover genealogical associations unimaginable just a few years ago. Users can easily connect with and discover lost or unknown relatives within a few generations, as well as gain insight into where their families originated thousands of years ago."
IBM

SCO Relies On IBM-donated Servers With Groklaw 100

Posted by Zonk from the come-together-right-now dept.
Technician writes "It appears that SCO and Groklaw have the exact same tie to IBM: the ibiblio service. 'An eagle-eyed Groklaw ninja, sk43, has spotted an ftp site where you can get binary copies of Linux libraries needed by SCO's OpenServer and UnixWare customers who use lxrun. But you can't get the source code from that sco.com ftp site. SCO directs their customers to .... sunsite.unc.edu. Why bless my stars, sunsite.unc.edu is the old name for what is now ibiblio!'"

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