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Handhelds

Rockbox Developers Talk Open Source Firmware 179

Posted by timothy from the be-thankful-for-their-hobby dept.
angry tapir writes "I recently caught up with some of the key developers of Rockbox: An open source firmware replacement for the stock firmware shipped on MP3 players. The project, which has been active for over a decade, currently supports products from more than half a dozen manufacturers, including Apple, Arhcos, iRiver and Toshiba. It involves extensive reverse engineering to figure out how the devices' stock firmwares operate, as well as the challenge of developing for greatly varied targets. You can read the interview here (or the full Q&As with the project's founder and some of the developers involved in it)."

Comment Re:Interesting, but still probably doomed. (Score 1) 396

by louiswins (#38733540) Attached to: Apple Intends To 'Digitally Destroy' Textbook Publishing

Okay, so we make a book. The physical cost of the book (your college chemistry book) was $3.65. Once you included in the author, the editor, salesperson's salary, MY salary in IT, etc, it was $45. We sold it to the bookstores for that, then they sold it for $65. Which means that we could theoretically sell it for $42. Not a huge saving... except when you include that middleman charging $20 more.

Whoa, a college chemistry book for only $65? Mine are closer to twice that.
Biotech

Scientists Learn To Fabricate DNA Evidence 256

Posted by kdawson from the tossing-a-bag-of-maryjane-in-the-back-seat dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that it is possible to fabricate blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor, and even to construct a sample of DNA to match someone's profile without obtaining any tissue from that person — if you have access to their DNA profile in a database. This undermines the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases. 'You can just engineer a crime scene,' said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper. 'Any biology undergraduate could perform this.' The scientists fabricated DNA samples in two ways. One requires a real, if tiny, DNA sample, perhaps from a strand of hair or a drinking cup. They amplified the tiny sample into a large quantity of DNA using a standard technique called whole genome amplification. The other technique relies on DNA profiles, stored in law enforcement databases as a series of numbers and letters corresponding to variations at 13 spots in a person's genome. The scientists cloned tiny DNA snippets representing the common variants at each spot, creating a library of such snippets. To prepare a phony DNA sample matching any profile, they just mixed the proper snippets together. Tania Simoncelli, science adviser to the American Civil Liberties Union, says the findings were worrisome. 'DNA is a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints,' says Simoncelli. 'We're creating a criminal justice system that is increasingly relying on this technology.'"

Comment Re:Someone is lying here (Score 1) 520

by louiswins (#29072047) Attached to: My sense of direction is ...

Really? I can think of many things that an average slashdotter would be better at than an average member of the public, but I don't see how having a good sense of direction would be related to liking to read technology news. I would guess that slashdot is neither much higher nor much lower on that scale than the average public.

I am saying nothing about the average slashdotter's perception of him- or herself, which is what this poll is actually about. I myself voted for "Poor" - I get disoriented after making about two turns if the roads aren't perfectly straight on a grid (and sometimes even then) and barely know my way around the city I've lived in for 20 years.
Image

Team Aims To Create Pure Evil AI 527

Posted by samzenpus from the playing-with-fire dept.
puroresu writes "Scientific American reports on the efforts of Selmer Bringsjord and his team at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who have been attempting to develop an AI possessed of an interesting character trait: pure evil. From the article, 'He and his research team began developing their computer representation of evil by posing a series of questions beginning with the basics: name, age, sex, etc., and progressing to inquiries about this fictional person's beliefs and motivations. This exercise resulted in "E," a computer character first created in 2005 to meet the criteria of Bringsjord's working definition of evil. Whereas the original E was simply a program designed to respond to questions in a manner consistent with Bringsjord's definition, the researchers have since given E a physical identity: It's a relatively young, white man with short black hair and dark stubble on his face.'"

Genetic Mutation Enables Less Sleep 272

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the i-want-to-be-like-mork dept.
reporter writes to tell us that researchers are claiming to have discovered a genetic mutation that allows people to manage with much less sleep. One of the researchers hopes that this could lead to artificially reducing the amount of sleep required in your average human. "Although the mutation has been identified in only two people, the power of the research stems from the fact that the shortened sleep effect was replicated in mouse and fruit-fly studies. As a result, the research now gives scientists a clearer sense of where to look for genetic traits linked to sleep patterns."
Earth

Earth's Period of Habitability Is Nearly Over 756

Posted by kdawson from the nice-while-it-lasts dept.
xp65 writes "Scientists at this year's XXVIIth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil agree that we do not yet know how ubiquitous or how fragile life is, but that: 'The Earth's period of habitability is nearly over on a cosmological timescale. In a half to one billion years the Sun will start to be too luminous and warm for water to exist in liquid form on Earth, leading to a runaway greenhouse effect in less than 2 billion years.' Other surprising claims from this conference: that the Sun may not be the ideal kind of star to nurture life, and that the Earth may not be the ideal size."
Medicine

First Internet-Connected Pacemaker Goes Live 158

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the jailbreak-your-heart dept.
The Register is reporting that a New York woman has become the first person to have her pacemaker wirelessly connected to the internet for full-time monitoring. "The device contains a radio transmitter which connects to receiving equipment in New Yorker Carol Kasyjanski's home, using a very low-power signal around 400MHz, to report on the condition of her heart. Any problems are instantly reported to the doctor, and regular checkups can be done by remotely interrogating the home-based equipment — the pacemaker itself doesn't have an IP address, fun as that would be."
Graphics

WebGL Standard To Bring 3D Acceleration To Browsers? 239

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the need-faster-delivery-of-js-already dept.
Several sources are reporting that while native audio/video support has been dropped from the HTML 5 spec, the Khronos Group has released a few details about their up and coming WebGL 3D acceleration standard. "The general principle behind WebGL is to offer a JavaScript binding to the group's OpenGL ES 2.0 system, allowing code run within the browser to access the graphics hardware directly in the same way as a standalone application can. As the technology would rely solely on JavaScript to do the heavy lifting, no browser plugin would be required — and it would be compatible with any browser which supports the scripting language alongside the HTML 5 'Canvas' element."
Government

FCC Probing Apple, AT&T Rejection of Google Voice 204

Posted by Soulskill from the now-you've-done-it dept.
suraj.sun writes with an update to the news from a few days ago about Apple pulling Google Voice apps for the iPhone. Their actions have raised the interest of the FCC, which is now beginning an investigation into the matter. "In a letter sent to Apple, the FCC asked the company why it turned down Google Voice for the iPhone and pulled several other Google Voice-related programs from the iPhone's only sanctioned online mart. The FCC also sent similar letters to both AT&T — Apple's exclusive carrier partner in the US — and Google, asking both firms to provide more information on the issue. The FCC's letter asked Apple whether it rejected Google Voice and dumped other applications on its own, or 'in consultation with AT&T,' and if the latter, to describe the conversations the partners had. In other questions, the FCC asked Apple whether AT&T has any role in the approval of iPhone applications, wants the company to explain how Google Voice differs from any other VoIP software that has been approved, and requested a list of all applications that have been rejected and why."
Security

MI5 Website Breached By Hacker 71

Posted by CmdrTaco from the because-they-can dept.
Jack Spine writes "UK intelligence agency MI5 has admitted that its website security was breached by hacker group Team Elite. A member of the hacker forum posted details of the hack last week, which took advantage of a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the site's Google embedded search. MI5 admitted the breach on Wednesday, but said that the flaw had not been exploited maliciously."

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