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Comment Re: Study financed by (Score 3, Informative) 285

I live in Chicago and have followed this story as it was happening. The yellow light time didn't decrease, just the time when the cameras went off. The government has a standard of 3 seconds for a yellow light, but it also has a legal limit do the variation due to hardware accuracy. That limit means that legally a yellow can go for 2.9 seconds (or something similar) to account for hardware that doesn't hit exactly 3 seconds every time. The red light camera company began using this slightly lower limit as their standard, instead of 3 seconds. That is what caused the increase in the number of tickets. When they got caught they admitted that the city asked them to use the lower standard and then it was changed. I believe the courts upheld the tickets that were issued in the end, since technically they met the federal standards.

Comment Re:This is different from what Facebook did (Score 1) 161

Actually, Facebook did the exact opposite. They specifically removed positive news from people's feeds to produce a negative affect. They were literally trying to make people unhappy. Also, "facebook wants users to feel happy" is not true. There's already been research showing that Facebook tends to make people less happy, and that less happy people spend more time on Facebook. Knowing this, it's in Facebook's interested to ensure people are unhappy.

Comment Will lead to higher prices (Score 2, Interesting) 437

Seriously people, the truth is that this is too good to be true. It's a short term solution for the record companies to take pricing power away from Apple. All they had to do was do everything Apple wanted them to do but with Amazon, who doesn't have the pull to make long term contracts for specific pricing. Now everyone's jumping out of iTunes and the record companies have bargaining power that will allow them to charge whatever the hell they want to. I know that the prices are all lower now, but it's just the introductory rate and they are sure to go up given time. Hell, gain enough power back in the online music industry and they can even slip DRM back in. That leaves us with an end game of higher priced music heavily controlled by the record companies.

Also, for those saying competition here is a good thing, remember that these distributors are running at extremely low margins. What they are basically doing is competing against each other for how much the record companies will give them out of the profits. They aren't competing for the consumer's money so much as for the record companies' money. All this does is give the record companies the power that normal competition should give the consumer.
AMD

Submission + - AMD's Radeon HD 2900 XT put through the paces

J. Dzhugashvili writes: The folks at The Tech Report have whipped up a detailed expose of the new AMD Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics card's architecture and features, with plenty of benchmarks to boot. While the card dazzles with 320 stream processors, a 512-bit memory bus, and oodles of memory bandwidth, its performance and power consumption seem disappointing in the face of Nvidia's six-month-old GeForce 8800 graphics cards.
Space

No Winner In NASA's Moon-Dirt Digging Competition 115

Engadget is reporting that NASA's recent moon-dirt digging competition has concluded without a winner being named. "The excavator built by Technology Ranch was able to notch first place by relocating just over 143-pounds in 30 minutes, but fell quite short on picking up any award monies. So for those of you who weren't exactly ready to go mano-a-mano with these guys and gals this time around, next year you've all got $750,000 on the line."
Space

Journal Journal: Sevastyanov Reaffirms Plans for Manned Moon Landing by 2015

Nikolai Sevastyanov is the President of the state controlled S.P. Korolev Rocket & Space Corporation Energia. Yesterday, he reaffirmed his plan for a manned lunar landing by 2015: 'I believe that our country is better equipped for such a task, since we have technology, highly-qualified experts and scientific data that would allow not only to substantially reduce technical risks, but also increase economic efficiency'.
Microsoft

Submission + - Why Microsoft Won't List Patent Violations

BlueOni0n writes: "Earlier today, Microsoft announced it will begin actively seeking reparations for patent infringement by Linux and the Open Source Community in general. One opinion on this issues is that it's fear of having these IP-infringement claims debunked or challenged that's keeping Microsoft from publishing these 235 alleged infringements to the public — and instead waiting until the OS community comes to the bargaining table. But a more optimistic thought is that Microsoft is afraid to list these violations not because it's afraid they're false but because it knows they can be worked-around by the open-source community — leaving Microsoft high & dry without any leverage at all."

Feed Eye Of The Hurricane Reveals A New Power Source (sciencedaily.com)

In the eye of a furious hurricane, the weather is often quite calm and sunny. But new NASA research is providing clues about how the seemingly subtle movement of air within and around this region provides energy to keep this central "powerhouse" functioning.
Software

Norway Moves Towards Mandatory Use of ODF and PDF 202

Andy Updegrove writes "Norway has become the latest European country to move closer to mandatory government use of ODF (and PDF). According to a press release provided in translation to me by an authoritative source, Norway now joins Belgium, Finland, and France (among other nations) in moving towards a final decision to require such use. The Norwegian recommendation was revealed by Minister of Renewal Heidi Grande Roys, on behalf of the Cabinet-appointed Norwegian Standards Council. If adopted, it would require all government agencies and services to use these two formats, and would permit other formats (such as OOXML) to be used only in a redundant capacity.Reflecting a pragmatic approach to the continuing consideration of OOXML by ISO/IEC JTC 1, the recommendation calls for Norway to 'promote the convergence of the ODF and OOXML, in order to avoid having two standards covering the same usage.' According to the press release, the recommendation will be the subject of open hearings, with opinions to be rendered to the Cabinet before August 20 this summer.The Cabinet would then make its own (and in this case binding) recommendation to the Norwegian government."
XBox (Games)

Xbox Spring Update To Offer Codecs, MSN Messenger 207

adachan writes "It seems that Microsoft has decided to add Xvid playback into the upcoming Spring Xbox 360 dashboard update. Xbox.com has a list of all the upcoming enhancements to the dash. The playback of video using H.264 and mpeg4 codecs seems to be the biggest news for those using the system as a media extender. If this is indeed true, my Xbox Media Center will be used less and less." Update: 04/09 17:29 GMT by Z : MSN Messenger is kinda interesting as well. Several sites are reporting that instant messenging is being added to the Xbox Live experience, with a USB keyboard controller attachment to be offered sometime in the near future.

Feed Arsenic In Chicken Feed May Pose Health Risks To Humans (sciencedaily.com)

Pets may not be the only organisms endangered by some food additives. An arsenic-based additive used in chicken feed may pose health risks to humans who eat meat from chickens that are raised on the feed. Arsenic has been linked to cancer and other illnesses.

Feed Male Births: Decline In The US And Japan (sciencedaily.com)

During the past 30 years, the number of male births has decreased each year in the US and Japan. The decline in births is equivalent to 135,000 fewer white males in the US and 127,000 fewer males in Japan over the past three decades and suggest that environmental factors are one explanation for these trends.

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