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Comment Re:For once... (Score 1) 308

by master_twig (#32427986) Attached to: CSIRO Sues US Carriers Over Wi-Fi Patent

true, but at least the money will got for a (relatively) good cause for a change. CSIRO would use the money for further R&D in many many different fields, including sustainable energy and medicine. They've made some not-insignificant advances in those fields, I for one would like to see them kept well funded to continue to do so.

Comment Re:CSIRO are still good guys (Score 1) 308

by master_twig (#32427966) Attached to: CSIRO Sues US Carriers Over Wi-Fi Patent

Not all of their departments do good work however. I happen to have the misfortune of knowing just how well (ie: badly) their mining division works. They cost their clients millions of dollars by presenting the good guy persona that CSIRO has (and deserves) and then not delivering because they get a case of ADD and start working on the wrong thing.

I'm not going to go into details (yeah yeah trolling unless you substantiate claims) because of where I work, but not all CSIRO's were created equal if you take my meaning.
Image

Best Man Rigs Newlyweds' Bed To Tweet During Sex 272

Posted by samzenpus from the nice-feed dept.
When an UK man was asked to be the best man at a friend's wedding he agreed that he would not pull any pranks before or during the ceremony. Now the groom wishes he had extended the agreement to after the blessed occasion as well. The best man snuck into the newlyweds' house while they were away on their honeymoon and placed a pressure-sensitive device under their mattress. The device now automatically tweets when the couple have sex. The updates include the length of activity and how vigorous the act was on a scale of 1-10.
Image

Tactical Camera 137

Posted by samzenpus from the guns-make-everything-better dept.
An anonymous reader writes "What do you get when you mount a Nikon D200 with a standard rifle stock? Why a Tactical Camera of course! One that no reporter would be caught with in a war zone or covering any armed action anywhere. What started out as a tongue in cheek project for April Fools wound up being quite the successful demonstration of concept. It features a fully functional trigger; it has controls for operating the shutter and auto focus; and for the patient shots, it has a mounted bipod. Carry sling optional."

RIAA About to Transform? 217

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the and-i'll-form-the-head dept.
It has been reported for a while that the RIAA was suffering some cutbacks and dwindling support, but techdirt is reporting that the cuts may be even deeper than most originally suspected. Who knew suing potential customers would ruin your business? "I'm sure some will somehow 'blame piracy' for this turn of events, but it's hard to see how that's even remotely the issue. The real issue is that the RIAA has basically managed to run one of the dumbest, most self-defeating strategies over the last decade. Rather than helping major record labels adjust to the changing market, it continually, repeatedly and publicly destroyed its own reputation and the reputation of the labels — each time shrinking their potential market by blaming the very people they should have been working to turn into customers."
Science

Bizarre Properties of Glass Allow Creation of "Metallic Glass" 265

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the wonder-woman-unavailable-for-comment dept.
VindictivePantz writes to mention that scientists have discovered some bizarre properties of glass and are already applying that knowledge to create what is being called "metallic glass." "The breakthrough involved solving the decades-old problem of just what glass is. It has been known that that despite its solid appearance, glass and gels are actually in a 'jammed' state of matter — somewhere between liquid and solid — that moves very slowly. Like cars in a traffic jam, atoms in a glass are in something like suspended animation, unable to reach their destination because the route is blocked by their neighbors. So even though glass is a hard substance, it never quite becomes a proper solid, according to chemists and materials scientists."

Comment Re:What kind of oversight do Loyal Bushies give??? (Score 1) 302

by master_twig (#23031130) Attached to: Experts Hack Power Grid in Less Than a Day
custom OS? Not sure what you got in the US, but down under its just a plain jane windows box (win 98, nt, 2000, xp.. depending on age and enthusiasm of engineer responsible) running a SCADA package such as Citect, interfacing to some PLC's and/or RTU's.

Or if its not a SCADA system, it'll be a DCS of some sort... but nothing custom per se.

High School Robotics Competition Kicks Off 64

Posted by Zonk from the all-fun-till-they-nuke-the-colonies dept.
DeviceGuru writes "Some 35,000 high school students from over 1500 high schools in eight countries today began competing in the annual US FIRST student robotics contest. This year's competition, dubbed FIRST Overdrive, challenges the student teams to build semi-autonomous robots that will move 40-inch diameter inflatable balls around a playing field and score the most points. In this year's game, two alliances of three teams each work collaboratively to win each round. An animated simulation of the game (in several video formats) is available online."
Networking

Gunplay Blamed For Cutting Fiber 276

Posted by kdawson from the worse-than-backhoes dept.
coondoggie writes "Internet service providers in the US experienced a service slowdown Monday after fiber-optic cables near Cleveland were apparently sabotaged by gunfire. TeliaSonera AB, which lost the northern leg of its US network to the cut, said that the outage began around 7 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday night. When technicians pulled up the affected cable, it appeared to have been shot up over a length of a kilometer. 'Somebody had been shooting with a gun or a shotgun into the cable,' said a TeliaSonera spokesman. The company declined to name the service provider whose lines had been cut, but a source familiar with the situation said the lines are owned by Level 3 Communications Inc. Level 3 could not be reached for comment."
Patents

Music From DNA Patented 203

Posted by kdawson from the tinkle-of-little-coins dept.
stm2 writes "Two lawyers have patented generating music from a DNA sequence. According to the patent, it covers 'music generated by decoding and transcribing genetic information within a DNA sequence into a music signal having melody and harmony.' A comment to the blog post mentions DNA-derived music being performed at a conference in 1995."
Privacy

FBI Employees Face Criminal Probe Over Patriot Act 217

Posted by Zonk from the keep-your-fingers-to-yourself dept.
DevanJedi writes "According to an article at Wired.com , several FBI agents are under investigation for illegally acquiring information an American citizens. Overzealous agents used 'misleading emergency letters' obtain phone records of thousands of Americans. This marks the first time government officers have been prosecuted for misuse of the Patriot Act. From the article: 'Unit employees, who are not authorized to request records in investigations, sent form letters to telephone companies to acquire detailed billing information on specific phone numbers by falsely promising that subpoenas were already in the works. According to a third source, FBI officials also said at the meeting that some bureau employees have already been granted immunity from prosecution in the investigation. The third source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, did not recall, however, that FBI officials described the investigation as "criminal."'"

PC World Editor Resigns When Ordered Not to Criticize Advertisers 327

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-can-only-imagine dept.
bricko noted a story of our modern journalism world gone so wrong it makes me sad. "Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken quit abruptly today because the company's new CEO, Colin Crawford, tried to kill a story about Apple and Steve Jobs." The link discusses that the CEO was the former head of MacWorld and would get calls from Jobs. Apparently he also told the staff that product reviews had to be nicer to vendors who advertise in the magazine. The sad thing is that given the economics of publishing in this day and age, I doubt anything even comes of this even tho it essentially confirms that PC World reviews should be thought of as no more than press releases. I know that's how I will consider links from them in the future. But congratulations to anyone willing to stick to their guns on such matters.
Wii

How Wii Is Creaming the Competition 377

Posted by Zonk from the my-favorite-flavour-of-competition dept.
CNN has a report on the Wii's success in the games marketplace right now, referring to their sales dominance as 'creaming the competition'. The article tries to break down exactly why Nintendo's console has sold so successfully, discussing the system's marketing, engineering, and philosophy. "Next, engineers settled on a new approach for the Wii's looks. Just as the DS shunned the Game Boy name to appeal to a broader audience, the Wii would adopt a sleek white exterior instead of the toylike loud colors used on the GameCube. Even CEO Iwata got involved in the design process; at one point he handed engineers a stack of DVD jewel cases and told them the console should not be much bigger. Why so small? To work with the motion-sensitive wireless controller Nintendo planned, Iwata reasoned, the console would have to sit directly beside the TV. Make it any larger and customers would hesitate to leave it there. " Their sales strategy is working in spades. CVG reports that at least one analyst thinks that Wii demand won't be met until 2009. This past weekend Chris Kohler had an interesting comment on the 'ambassador programs' Nintendo ran in advance of the Wii's launch, and how that might tie in to the system's financial success.
The Internet

Norway Liberal Party Wants Legal File Sharing 563

Posted by kdawson from the pirate-party-platform dept.
dot-magnon writes "The Liberal Party of Norway (Venstre) passed a unanimous resolution that advocates legal file sharing. The party wants to legalise sharing of any copyrighted material for non-commercial use. It also proposes a ban on DRM technology, free sampling of other artists' material, and shortening the life span of copyright. The Liberal Party is the first Norwegian political party, and the first European mainstream political party, to advocate file sharing. The Liberal Party's youth wing proposed the resolution."

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