loire280 - Slashdot User

Submission + - AMD To Develop "Open-Source Friendly" GPUs (phoronix.com)

Submitted by skaroo on Saturday December 29, 2007 @09:44PM

skaroo writes: Phoronix is reporting that future AMD GPUs will be more open-source friendly. After AMD started releasing their GPG specifications to the open-source community, questions arose whether there would be information covering their Unified Video Decoder (UVD) found on the Radeon HD 2000 graphics cards. The UVD information is needed in order for hardware-accelerated video playback, but it likely cannot be opened as it's ingrained with DRM. However, an AMD representative said that moving to a modular UVD design is a requirement for future GPUs and that they will be more open-source friendly. They will also be opening the video acceleration information for their earlier graphics cards. A win for the open-source community or too little too late?

Creating Prion-Free Cows 340

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @06:25AM from the un-mad-cows dept.

Science Daily is reporting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is reporting positive results from a recent study designed to create genetically engineered prion-free cattle. From the article: "ARS studied eight Holstein males that were developed by Hematech Inc., a pharmaceutical research company based in Sioux Falls, S.D. The evaluation of the prion-free cattle was led by veterinary medical officer Juergen Richt of ARS' National Animal Disease Center (NADC) in Ames, Iowa. The evaluation revealed no apparent developmental abnormalities in the prion-free cattle."

Comment Re:Quality Control (Score 1) 547

by loire280 on Saturday December 17, 2005 @03:29PM (#14280518) Attached to: After Brief Respite Music Industry Slump Deepens

There is a very active music scene that the under-30 crowd participates in (I'm 20 myself), but I've never been to a concert that was attended by more than 100 people. The one exception to that was when I went to the Coachella music festival, and every band I saw there was stunned by the size of the audience (that place gets 50,000+ spread out over 5 stages or so). But there is a big reason why those tours made more money than tours by newer bands: ticket price. U2 can afford to charge $300 for a ticket because their fans can pay that sort of concert. I certainly couldn't. Ticket prices for concerts I attend rarely go over $10. I turn on the radio and don't even recognize anything except for the Green Day (you can't seem to escape American Idiot ANYWHERE). Only about 1-in-10 of the CDs I buy are published by members of the RIAA, so nothing I buy even shows up in their statistics. I attribute a great deal of the fall in CD sales to disinterest in the music major labels are publishing.

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