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Submission + - Feeling suicidal, so get help on an MMO?

Submitted by An Ominous Cow Erred
An Ominous Cow Erred writes: In an odd approach to reaching out to otherwise shut-in sufferers of mental distress, an organization called Anxiety Gaming is betting that online intervention is the best way to reach people with emotional difficulties. Their argument is that the social nature of modern gaming makes it a valid means of reaching people who might not otherwise seek help through more traditional channels. According to their Facebook page, their future intentions seem to include distributing consoles to homes for foster youth, to encourage them to look to games for positival interpersonal communication.

With much media attention focused on cyberbullying and the negative affects of online social interaction, could gaming turn out to be a path to positive mental health as well?

Submission + - Transgendered Folks Encounter Document/Database ID Hassles

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Most of us hear the equivalent of 'let me bring up your record' several times a week or month when dealing with businesses and government agencies; sometimes there's a problem, but clerks are accustomed to dealing with changes in street address, phone numbers, company affiliation, and even personal names (after marriage). But what about gender? Transgendered folks are encountering embarrassing moments when they have to explain that their gender has changed from 'M' to 'F' or vice versa. While there are many issues involved in discrimination against transgendered individuals, I have to confess that the first thing that came to my mind was the impact on database design and maintenance.
IT

Ask Slashdot: What To Do With New Free Time? 299

Posted by timothy from the when-you're-finished-gloating-at-least dept.
An anonymous reader writes "After 25 years of doing IT (started as a PC technician and stayed on technical of IT work through out my career) I've been moved to a position of doing only on call work (but paid as if it is a normal 9-5 job). This leaves me with a lot of free time... As someone who's used to working 12+ hours a day + the odd night/weekend on call, I'm scared I'll lose my mind with all the new free time I'll have. Any suggestions (beyond develop hobbies, spend time with family) on how to deal with all the new free time?"
Space

Crowd-Funded Radio Beacon Will Message Aliens 196

Posted by samzenpus from the is-there-anybody-out-there? dept.
astroengine writes "In the hope of uniting people around the globe in a long-duration project to send a radio 'message in a bottle' METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) signal, a crowd-funded project utilizing a refurbished radio telescope in California has begun its work. Lone Signal is a project initiated by scientists, businessmen and entrepreneurs to set up a continuous radio beacon from Earth. To support the operations of the Jamesburg Earth Station radio dish in Carmel Valley, Calif. (a dish built to support the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969), a crowd-funding effort has been set up so that for a small fee, users can send images to the stars. If you're content with sending a text message, your first message is free. The radio dish's first target is Gliese 526, a red dwarf star 18 light-years from Earth, but the project will be considering other stellar targets believed to be harboring habitable worlds."

Submission + - Google Glass Teardown

Submitted by saccade.com
saccade.com writes: Ever wonder how Google packed all of the Google Glass functionality into a slender eyeglass frame? Find out by checking out this teardown by Scott Torborg and Star Simpson. Goodies found inside include proximity, light and inertial sensors, sound transducers, a TI OMAP CPU, flash, RAM, camera and tiny projection display.

Submission + - Greek government abruptly shuts down state broadcaster (yanisvaroufakis.eu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Greek government shut down broadcasting of all tv and radio channels operated by the state-owned broadcaster ERT at midnight local time, with police ejecting journalists and other employees occupying the building. Link is a prominent Greek economics professor's (and Valve's in-house economist) analysis of the political motivations for the move.

Submission + - Brain-computer interface makes learning new tasks as simple as waving (washington.edu)

Submitted by vinces99
vinces99 writes: Small electrodes placed on or inside the brain allow patients to interact with computers or control robotic limbs simply by thinking about how to execute those actions. This technology could improve communication and daily life for a person who is paralyzed or has lost the ability to speak from a stroke or neurodegenerative disease. Now researchers have demonstrated that when humans use this brain-computer interface, the brain behaves much like it does when completing simple motor skills such as kicking a ball, typing or waving a hand. That means learning to control a robotic arm or a prosthetic limb could become second nature for people who are paralyzed.

Submission + - Video Gamers See The World Differently (duke.edu)

Submitted by trendspotter
trendspotter writes:

Gamers capture more information faster for visual decision-making. Hours spent at the video gaming console not only train a player's hands to work the buttons on the controller, they probably also train the brain to make better and faster use of visual input, according to Duke University researchers. "Gamers see the world differently," said Greg Appelbaum, an assistant professor of psychiatry in the Duke School of Medicine. "They are able to extract more information from a visual scene." (...) This study, which appears in the June edition of the journal Attention, Perception and Psychophysics, was supported by grants from the Army Research Office (54528LS), the Department of Homeland Security (HSHQDC-08-C-00100), DARPA (D12AP00025-002) and Nike Inc.
Cellphones

Proposed NJ Law Allows Cops To Search Phones At Crash Scenes 397

Posted by Soulskill from the or-they-could-just-ask-the-NSA dept.
New submitter WML MUNSON sends this quote from NJ.com: "License, registration and cell phone, please. Police officers across New Jersey could be saying that to motorists at the scenes of car crashes if new legislation introduced in the state Senate becomes law. The measure would allow cops — without a warrant — to thumb through a cell phone to determine if a driver was talking or texting when an accident occurred. It requires officers to have 'reasonable grounds' to believe the law was broken. There were 1,840 handheld cell phone-related crashes in New Jersey in 2011, resulting in 807 injuries and six deaths, according to the state Division of Highway Traffic Safety. 'Think about it: The chances of the cop witnessing the accident are slim to none,' said the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. James Holzapfel (R-Ocean), who has worked as a county and municipal prosecutor. 'He’s dispatched, and by the time he gets there — unless they’re unconscious and the phone is in their hands, or some passenger says they were on the phone — then he’s got to do what? Subpoena the service to see if the phone was actively used or not?'"

Submission + - Google Asks Government for More Visible National Security Requests (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: In an open letter addressed to U.S. attorney general Eric Holder and FBI director Robert Mueller, Google chief legal officer David Drummond again insisted that reports of his company freely offering user data to the NSA and other agencies were untrue. “However,” he wrote, “government nondisclosure obligations regarding the number of FISA national security requests that Google receives, as well as the number of accounts covered by those requests, fuel that speculation.” In light of that, Drummond had a request of the two men: “We therefore ask you to help make it possible for Google to publish in our Transparency Report aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures—in terms of both the number we receive and their scope.” Apparently Google’s numbers would show “that our compliance with these requests falls far short of the claims being made.” Google, Drummond added, “has nothing to hide.” As part of its regularly updated Transparency Report, Google posts information about the National Security Letters (NSLs) it receives from the federal government; however, the government requires Google to report NSLs as a numerical range rather than an exact number. But even if Google does end up displaying more information about government requests, it doesn’t seem as if many Americans are dismayed about their privacy being invaded: according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center and The Washington Post (conducted after the Snowden story broke), concerns about terrorist threats outweigh the need for privacy. “Currently 62 [percent] say it is more important for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats, even if that intrudes on personal privacy,” read the survey’s summary. “Just 34 [percent] say it is more important for the government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats.”
Biotech

Video Backyard Brains Shows You How to Remote Control a Cockroach (Video) 62

Posted by Roblimo from the we're-happy-scientists-not-mad-scientists dept.
This is our second video starring Backyard Brains (Motto: "Neuroscience for Everyone!"). The first one was pretty lab-oriented, with a twitching roach leg here and there. This one has more roaches, with most of them crawling on command. Will the DoD see this and decide to make cockroach soldiers? Or roboroach bomb detectors and defusers? Or cockroach drone pilots? Anything's possible these days. But meanwhile, relax and enjoy learning about roboroaches and watching how, with little circuit boards on their little backs, they scurry hither and yon under control of their human masters. WARNING: Excessively squeamish people should not watch this video, but should stick to the transcript.

Submission + - Half A Billion PCs To Ship In 2013, As Desktops And Laptops Dip But Tablets Grow

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The PC market (desktops, notebooks, and tablets) is expected to see almost half a billion units ship this year, 493.1 million to be exact, representing 7 percent year-on-year growth. Unsurprisingly, the key driver behind this growth will be tablets, accounting for 37 percent of the overall market and seeing 59 percent growth to 182.5 million units. The latest estimates come from Canalys, an independent analyst firm which says it stakes its reputation "on the quality of our data, our innovative use of technology, and our high level of customer service." Nevertheless, it's worth emphasizing that these are estimates, though they do line up with what the broader industry is seeing: desktops are down, laptops are down, but tablets are up.

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