Comment Nice (Score 1) 2
I try not to miss FOSSDEM.
Always intersting stuff, especially the keynotes.
DIY Texting System For Really Underground Radio 98
Gulthek writes "Sixteen-year-old Alexander Kendrick has created a device that allows texting and other data transfer from almost 1000 feet underground. The tech could allow rapid emergency communication with the surface and opens the potential for scientific measurements without the need to continually visit (and disturb) the cave environment." There's some kvetching in the NPR story's comments that it's not the first use of cave radios, but that seems to miss the point.
Firefox Mobile Reaches 1.0 198
Majix writes "Firefox Mobile, the mobile browser developed by Mozilla based on the same engine as in the recently released Firefox 3.6, has finally hit version 1.0. The first device to be officially supported is the Nokia N900. With a long list of features, Firefox Mobile looks to be the most complete mobile browser to date. Highlights include the familiar Awesome Bar, Weave Sync for sharing your browser state between your PC and mobile, and of course tabbed browsing and Firefox add-ons. With the Nokia 900 and Firefox Mobile 1.0, even Flash content including the normal YouTube site is working, showing that a mobile browser does not have to equal a compromised Internet experience."
Paris Hosts the Second Hacker Space Festival 55
zoobab writes "Hackers from all over Europe will meet at the end of the month (27-30 June) at the second Hacker Space Festival in Paris. The four-day schedule includes conferences and workshops on: Metasploit, HostileWRT, FPGA for beginners, ICT disaster recovery, software patents in Europe, Hadopi, and many other topics. The future of Hacker Spaces will also be debated. The event will be hosted by the first French hackerspace, /tmp/lab, located in an industrial zone on the outskirts of Paris."
Comment Re:Speech recognition IS good enough (Score 1) 313
Coincidently Monday the trail against Lernout & Hauspie begins. I don't know if they are known outside of Belgium, but in the late nineties they gave Flanders (Dutch speaking North of Belgium) the dream it could have a leading role in peach technology. L&H even formed the centre of a "Flanders Language Valley".
Unfortunately L&H made some wrong investments and became the centre of a major financial scandal after Robert Smithson of the Wall Street Journal discovered fictitious transactions in Korea and shady accounting techniques. As a result L&H went bankrupt in 2001. It's around this scandal that a court case starts this Monday. It's big news here in Belgium, as a lot of people invested money in L&H and are hoping to get some of it back.
I was wondering if L&H where actually on the right track, Jo Lernout today still believes in the technology. I was thinking he was wrong, but this news item might prove him right.
It was actually L&H that bought the then faltering in Dragon Systems in 2000. L&H was after their bankruptcy bought by ScanSoft (for very little money). ScanSoft bought Nuance Communications and changed it's name to Nuance. And now they seem to be getting successful with the NaturallySpeaking software, so it probably was a good acquisition by L&H back then. And ScanSoft (now Nuance) was in turn smart in buying them up.
Unfortunately L&H made some wrong investments and became the centre of a major financial scandal after Robert Smithson of the Wall Street Journal discovered fictitious transactions in Korea and shady accounting techniques. As a result L&H went bankrupt in 2001. It's around this scandal that a court case starts this Monday. It's big news here in Belgium, as a lot of people invested money in L&H and are hoping to get some of it back.
I was wondering if L&H where actually on the right track, Jo Lernout today still believes in the technology. I was thinking he was wrong, but this news item might prove him right.
It was actually L&H that bought the then faltering in Dragon Systems in 2000. L&H was after their bankruptcy bought by ScanSoft (for very little money). ScanSoft bought Nuance Communications and changed it's name to Nuance. And now they seem to be getting successful with the NaturallySpeaking software, so it probably was a good acquisition by L&H back then. And ScanSoft (now Nuance) was in turn smart in buying them up.
Submission + - No Wine for Dell Ubuntu Users says Shuttleworth
yuna49 writes: Mark Shuttleworth told eWeek in a May 3rd interview that Dell will not include open-source software such as Wine, which lets users run Windows programs on Linux, with the PCs it plans to bundle with Ubuntu Linux. "I do not want to position Ubuntu and Linux as a cheap alternative to Windows," Shuttleworth said in an interview with eWEEK following the May 1 announcement that Dell plans to preload Ubuntu on some consumer machines. Does that mean Wine won't even be listed in the package manager?
Electronic Frontier Foundation Sues Uri Geller 240
reversible physicist writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sued spoon-bender Uri Geller for using 'baseless copyright claims' to silence critics who question his paranormal powers. Brian Sapient posted on YouTube a 14-minute excerpt from the 1993 PBS NOVA program 'Secrets of the Psychics,' in which skeptic James Randi says Geller's spoon-bending feats were simple tricks. YouTube took down the video after Geller complained — his lawyers claim that 10 seconds of the video are owned by Geller. A shorter excerpt of the video is still up on YouTube."
Submission + - iPod/iPhone Nano with touch panel at the bottom
Staska writes: "New Apple patent filing shows new directions for Apple's touch interface design. For smaller devices like iPod Nano, touchscreen interface may not be feasible — the screen is just too small for touch operation.
According to the patent, Apple can still make full screen iPods and put a touch panel on the backside of the device with transparent controls on the front screen. In addition to iPod, patent filing also describes controls for the phone. ZDNet even thinks that this patent can hint about touch interface for all Apple products."
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