Comment Re:Good. (Score 1) 433
Mod parent up!
Comment Re:Typical Slashdot (Score 1) 662
> One hundred responses and not a single one interested as to whether the suspect is actually guilty of the crime or not.
*sigh*
What was the last "rights" criminal law case you saw where the party actually was innocent? Almost by definition, all criminal rights cases involve a person who committed a crime. The question at issue is whether the government used the proper process to actually convict them.
BTW, "committed a crime" is not always the same as "guilty of committing" the crime.
Submission + - Brown vetos citizen rights (wired.com)
kodiaktau writes: In probably the most important decision Gov. Brown of California will make this year he has vetoed the bill that would require officers to get a search warrant before searching cellular phones of arrested citizens. This is sweeping legislation that further enables the police to carryout warrantless searches of private property extending into contacts, email, photots, banking activity, GPS, and other functions that are controlled by modern phones.
Zynga and Blizzard Sued Over Game Patent 179
eldavojohn writes "Thinking about developing a game involving a 'database driven online distributed tournament system?' Well, you had better talk to Walker Digital or risk a lawsuit, because Walker Digital claims to have patented that 'invention' back in 2002. The patent in question has resulted in some legal matters for the makers of 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 and 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: World at War, Blur, Wolfenstein, DJ Hero 2, Golden Eye 007, World of Warcraft and its expansions, Mafia Wars, and many others.' Walker Digital (parent company of Priceline.com) said it's not sure how much damages are going to be, and requested that through discovery in the court. If you think Walker Digital is not a patent troll, check out their lawsuit from two months ago against Facebook for using privacy controls Walker Digital claims to have patented. It would seem that any online competitive game that uses a database to select and reward contestants in a tournament could potentially fall under this patent — of course, those with the deepest coffers will be cherrypicked first."
Submission + - Photographing Buildings Excluded From Street View (blogoscoped.com)
crf00 writes: Spiegel reports that German photographer and IT consultant Jens Best wants to personally take snapshots of all those (German) buildings which people asked Google Street View to remove. He then wants to add those photos to Picasa, including GPS coordinates, and in turn re-connect them with Google Maps. Jens believes that for the internet “we must apply the same rules as we do in the real world. Our right to take panoramic snapshots, for instance, or to take photographs in public spaces, both base laws which determine that one may photograph those things that are visible from public streets and places.”
Jens says that for his believe in the right of photographing in public places, as last resort he’s even willing to go to jail. Spiegel says Jens already found over 200 people who want to help out in this project and look for removed locations in Google Street View, as there’s no official list of such places published by Google.
Jens says that for his believe in the right of photographing in public places, as last resort he’s even willing to go to jail. Spiegel says Jens already found over 200 people who want to help out in this project and look for removed locations in Google Street View, as there’s no official list of such places published by Google.
Submission + - Sorting algorithms: boring until you add sound (geek.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Anyone who has ever done a programming course or tried to learn to code out of a book will have come across sorting algorithms. Bubble, heap, merge, there’s a long list of these methods of sorting data. The subject matter is fairly dry. Thankfully someone has found a way to not only make sorting more interesting, but easier to remember and understand too.
Submission + - RIAA Wants Net Neutrality to Include Filtering (arstechnica.com) 1
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "The RIAA is now worried about the FCC's rulemaking concerning Net Neutrality. Specifically, they're worried that the rules might make it difficult for ISPs to filter out copyright infringement and child pornography, so they want to make sure that spying on and filtering internet traffic is okay, so long as it's being done for a good reason, even if it doesn't work correctly and blocks non-infringing content. Incidentally, the RIAA has some justification to lump child pornography and copyright infringement: after all, people might infringe upon the original cover art for the album 'Virgin Killer' which featured a naked under-aged girl in a way that some consider pornographic. The copyright on it belongs to RCA Records."
Submission + - Data sorting world record: 1 terabyte, 1 minute (scienceblog.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Computer scientists from the University of California, San Diego have broken “the terabyte barrier” — and a world record — when they sorted more than one terabyte of data (1,000 gigabytes or 1 million megabytes) in 60 seconds. During this 2010 “Sort Benchmark” competition — a sort of “World Cup of data sorting” — the UCSD team also tied a world record for fastest data sorting rate, sifting through one trillion data records in 172 minutes — and did so using just a quarter of the computing resources of the other record holder.
Submission + - Possible room temperature superconductor achieved
TechkNighT_1337 writes: Netx big future blog post an interesting article about the Indian university of Bengal,reporting (pdf) possible superconducting effect in ambient room temperatures. from the article:
We report the observation of an exceptionally large room-temperature electrical conductivity in silver and aluminum layers deposited on a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) substrate. The surface resistance of the silver-coated samples also shows a sharp change near 313 K. The results are strongly suggestive of a superconductive interfacial layer, and have been interpreted in the framework of Bose-Einstein condensation of bipolarons as the suggested mechanism for high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates.
We report the observation of an exceptionally large room-temperature electrical conductivity in silver and aluminum layers deposited on a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) substrate. The surface resistance of the silver-coated samples also shows a sharp change near 313 K. The results are strongly suggestive of a superconductive interfacial layer, and have been interpreted in the framework of Bose-Einstein condensation of bipolarons as the suggested mechanism for high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates.
Submission + - Intel's 50Gbits/sec Light Peak successor (pcpro.co.uk)
Barence writes: Intel has unveiled yet another high-speed optical interface – before its long-awaited Light Peak connector has even reached the market. The Light Peak optical interconnect can transfer data at 10Gbits/sec in both directions, and is touted as an all-in-one replacement for USB, DisplayPort and HDMI. The new interface uses an indium phosphide hybrid laser inside the controller chip – a process which Intel calls silicon photonics – rather than using a separate optical module, as with Light Peak. And by encoding data at 12.5Gbits/sec across four laser beams of differing wavelengths, the connector yields a total bandwidth of 50Gbits/sec, five times that offered by Light Peak. “This is not a technology that’s ten years away, but maybe three to five years," Intel fellow Mario Paniccia announced. "Light Peak, as we’ve stated, will launch next year.”
Submission + - Ultrasound as a male contraceptive? (bbc.co.uk) 1
TeslaBoy writes: The BBC has an article about using ultrasound aimed at the testicles as a reversible male contraceptive. This can last for six months. With a grant of $100,000 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation researches at the University of North Carolina will push ahead with more clinical trials, fine tuning and safety tests. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8674380.stm
PhD Candidate Talks About the Physics of Space Battles 361
darthvader100 writes "Gizmodo has run an article with some predictions on what future space battles will be like. The author brings up several theories on propulsion (and orbits), weapons (explosives, kinetic and laser), and design. Sounds like the ideal shape for spaceships will be spherical, like the one in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie."
Submission + - Wikipedia bans Church of Scientology (theregister.co.uk)
El Reg writes: "Showing a new-found resolve to crack down on self-serving edits, Wikipedia has banned contributions from all IPs addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology. According to Wikipedia administrators, this marks the first time such a high-profile organization has been banished for allegedly pushing its own agenda on the 'free encyclopedia anyone can edit.' The Register has the full story."
Submission + - Accoustic "Superlens" Could Make Subs Invi (technologyreview.com)
Al writes: "Nicholas Fang and colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created the first acoustic superlens, which could be used to create high-resolution ultrasound images, and perhaps ultimately make subs and ships invisible to sonar. Researchers have previously developed materials that bend light in ways that appear to violate the laws of physics, creating so-called optical superlenses. The first acoustic superlens consists of an aluminum array of narrow-necked resonant cavities filed with water--the dimensions of the cavities are tuned to interact with ultrasound waves. When ultrasound waves move through the array, the cavities resonate and the sound is refocused."
Military Enlists Open Source Community 131
jmwci1 writes "The US Defense Department is enlisting an open source approach to software development — an about-face for such a historically top-down organization. In recent weeks, the military has launched a collaborative platform called Forge.mil for its developers to share software, systems components and network services. The agency also signed an agreement with the Open Source Software Institute to allow 50 internally developed workforce management applications to be licensed to other government agencies, universities and companies."
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