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Comment Comcast (Score 1) 291

by kushboy (#24616027) Attached to: Time Warner Cable Box Rental Inspired Antitrust Lawsuit

I had a similar disagreement with Comcast. On their website, their terms specifically stated "Many of our customers have purchased cable boxes from retail outlets to use with our service" yet every single Comcast customer service rep I talked to denied their service worked without one of their cable boxes.

I ended by finding a cablebox at a flea market (retail outlet?) and they would not let me use the service with it. I wish I could have found a lawyer to help me with that.

Cell Division Reversed for the First Time 238

Posted by samzenpus from the two-in-one dept.
SubtleGuest writes "Gary J. Gorbsky, Ph.D., a scientist with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, has found a way to reverse the process of cell division. The discovery could have important implications for the treatment of cancer, birth defects and numerous other diseases and disorders. Gorbsky's findings appear in the April 13 issue of the journal Nature. "No one has gotten the cell cycle to go backwards before now," said Gorbsky. "This shows that certain events in the cell cycle that have long been assumed irreversible may, in fact, be reversible." In the lab, Gorbsky and his OMRF colleagues were able to control the protein responsible for the division process, interrupt and reverse the event, sending duplicate chromosomes back to the center of the original cell, an event once thought impossible. Here is a video of it happening."

Download-only Single Becomes UK Number One 192

Posted by CowboyNeal from the bit-by-bit dept.
Stuart Gibson writes "As predicted, the Gnarls Barkely single 'Crazy' has reached the number one spot on the official UK charts, based solely on legal downloads. The CD version of the single will not be released until tomorrow. This is the first single to be eligible for the honour as, until last month, download sales would only be counted if the track was also available to be bought as a physical copy."

The Oblivion of Western RPGs 304

Posted by Zonk from the taking-on-the-big-ones dept.
1up has a piece looking at how Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion may just be what the western RPG genre needs to spring back from the brink of nonexistence. From the article: "Western RPGs focus on the characters, and the world around them is a tool to let the player-as-character do and see more. Eastern RPGs focus on the events unfolding around the characters, and how the characters affect the world around them. Western RPGs are based on the experience of tabletop role-playing games, limited only by the imaginations of the players and the game master, where Eastern RPGs are more re-creations of traditional storytelling. Oblivion has taken huge strides toward meeting fans of MMOs halfway by building A.I. that really lives alongside the player and ensuring that the actual missions are easily pursued."

Unique and Productive or Just More Eye-Candy? 111

Posted by samzenpus from the sort-the-pics dept.
4ndys writes "A guy who goes by the name MacSlow is currently working on a project he calls LowFat. This is a photomanager with a twist. Rather than just viewing you pictures one at a time, you spread the pictures out over your desktop and can manage them in a much more natural way. He is hoping to release this on multiple platforms inc. Linux, Mac and Windows."

An Overview of the IGF Finalists 62

Posted by Zonk from the good-games-small-companies dept.
Gamespy has a great piece looking at this year's finalists for the Independent Games Festival. Awards for the festival will be given out next week at the Game Developer's Conference. From the article: "From the title, you'd guess that Dad 'N Me was a charming interactive tale about a father's love for his child. That's exactly the kind of wholesome headline-grabber that this industry needs. Right? Sure. Except this is not that game. No, Dad 'N Me is all about beating up children on a playground. I'm not kidding you. You're a purple wrecking machine, and your job is to smack the crap out of little weeble-wobble-shaped children using your head, hands, feet ... garbage cans, lawn mowers, propane tanks ... even other children."

Banned From WoW For WINE & Programmable Keyboard 701

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they-hates-them-the-emulation dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Player gets banned for playing World of Warcraft under WINE and using a Logitech Gaming keyboard. "I am an experienced network engineer for an ISP and I am often running World of Warcraft on Linux through the use of WINE..."" Although the e-mails exchanged are unclear my guess is that the programmable keyboard was more the problem then WINE. Not that you'd ever know that given that Blizzard communicates with their users seemingly almost exclusively with form letters.

Mark Shuttleworth Proposes Delaying next Ubuntu 382

Posted by Zonk from the waiting-on-the-duck dept.
Beuno writes "Mark Shuttleworth has proposed on the ubuntu-art mailing list to postpone the 'Dapper Drake' release by 6 weeks. He lays out the reasons pretty clearly: the delay should make the release a more user-friendly distro. He has also called up a community meeting in April 14th on IRC for community input. Is it really worth delaying the release for more then a month just to polish it out a little bit?" Commentary on this also available from the Tectonic site.
Space

Mars Recon Orbiter Nearing Mars Orbit 103

Posted by Zonk from the nanoo-nanoo dept.
DarkNemesis618 writes "The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched 12 August 2005, has nearly completed its 7 month journey to the Red Planet. At 9:24 pm GMT, the MRO is scheduled to fire its thrusters to slow it down enough to enter Mars orbit. NASA scientists are concerned about this final step for the orbiter as Mars has a history of 'swallowing' probes, orbiters, and landers sent to the Red Planet. What makes it more difficult is the delay time between NASA computers on earth and computers on board the orbiter. There is about a 12 minute delay between when data is sent from Earth to the time the orbiter's receivers pick it up, and vice versa. Because of this, onboard computers will handle the burn which adds to the risk."

5% of All Web Traffic Unsafe 204

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the conservative-estimates dept.
OnFour writes "The MIT-backed startup behind SiteAdvisor has slapped a red "X" warning label on approximately 5 percent of all Web traffic and warned that there are roughly one billion monthly visits to Web pages that aren't safe for surfing. About 2 percent of all Web traffic was given the "yellow" caution rating." A more general SiteAdvisor blog entry overview was covered earlier on Slashdot.

Toys 'R' Us Wins Suit Against Amazon 157

Posted by CowboyNeal from the don't-wanna-grow-up dept.
theodp writes "Having prevailed in its bitter lawsuit against Amazon.com, Toys 'R' Us will create a new and independent Web site. A NJ judge found Amazon breached its agreement and ordered the two companies to sever their partnership Thursday. In a 131-page opinion, the judge termed Amazon's attempts to throw out e-mail evidence on the grounds that Internet communications lack reliability 'incomprehensible' and took a dim view of the testimony of some Amazon execs, including CEO Jeff Bezos' candor and 'rather childlike' explanations."

The Financial Future of Space Travel 414

Posted by samzenpus from the no-one-way-tickets dept.
gurps_npc writes " This CNNMoney story discusses the financial future of space travel. In particular it gives some nice names and numbers, such as Bezos, Musk and 3554 Amun. 3554 Amun is an small metalic asteroid that crosses Earth's pass (not on collission course) and contains over 20 trillion US dollars worth of precious metal. It is a great fact to know when trying to explain to flat-earth types that don't understand why we waste money on space travel."

Medical Translator Used Successfully 98

Posted by samzenpus from the but-does-it-know-orcish dept.
saskboy writes "Translations of medical questions posed by doctors to their patients were provided by a new Canadian designed computer called MedBridge. "Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Portuguese, French, and Russian," are some of the languages the MedBridge can work with. CBC reports, "If a patient is deaf, the system can also translate into American Sign Language using video. The MedBridge system is already in use at hospitals in New York, Toronto and Halifax." Pretranslated questions are stored in the computer and the doctor chooses from the list of questions to ask. It's not quite a Universal Translator, but it should improve doctor-patient communication."

Slashback: Enigma, Google, Java Games 120

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the congressional-decisions-are-merely-suggestions dept.
Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including Enigma security concerns, German ISP targets net companies "free lunch", Total Information Awareness program lives on, Higgins takes on Microsoft, Google answers analyst concerns, Patriot Act provision not just for terrorists, and Java 4K game contest submissions available -- Read on for details.

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