mrcharliebrown - Slashdot User

Comment Kzoo is a good place to grow up in (Score 1) 141

by mrcharliebrown on Thursday May 28, 2009 @11:59AM (#28124739) Attached to: High-Tech Start-Ups Put Down Roots In New Soil

I grew up near Kalamazoo, and can attest that it's a great place to raise a family. I would have considered working there if they only had more tech jobs. I'm pleased to see their name in the running on Slashdot and WSJ. Michigan is much more than Detroit.

Comment Yes! After 6 yrs of working, I am going for one. (Score 1) 834

by mrcharliebrown on Monday May 11, 2009 @05:25PM (#27913463) Attached to: Go For a Masters, Or Not?

Out of college, I worked 6 years at a small business contractor for the DoD. I still like my job and love the interesting work. A Master's degree will help me win more proposals for my company, and give me more opportunities to do more interesting work as a Principal Investigator. My employer is supportive and is letting me take a leave of absence. So it's a win-win from my perspective.

Comment Re:Grammar Junta, attack! (Score 1) 288

by mrcharliebrown on Friday February 06, 2009 @09:59PM (#26760745) Attached to: Intel To Design PlayStation 4 GPU

Wii++

Comment Re:Well, no... (Score 1) 439

by mrcharliebrown on Wednesday January 07, 2009 @09:36PM (#26366879) Attached to: How the City Hurts Your Brain

Take a poll and I think many would agree with the parent comment: New Yorkers are awfully provincial people. I would agree with you though that they are not the only folks like that in the world.

Sony, Microsoft Begin Battle of Virtual Worlds 180

Posted by timothy on Friday October 10, 2008 @05:27AM from the who's-your-hiro dept.

Slatterz writes "Sony and Microsoft are poised to do battle in virtual worlds. The console kids both announced Second Life-style virtual environments at the Tokyo Game Show today. Both games show striking similarities to Linden Lab's creation. Players are represented by avatars which live a virtual life — engaging in relationships, going about day-to-day business."

Robotic Suit For Rent In Japan 202

Posted by timothy on Friday October 10, 2008 @02:40AM from the low-miles-one-owner-died-quick dept.

xTantrum writes with an AP story that begins "A robotic suit that reads brain signals and helps people with mobility problems will be available to rent in Japan for $2,200 a month starting Friday — an invention that may have far-reaching benefits for the disabled and elderly."

Algorithms Can Make You Pretty 288

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 09, 2008 @06:48PM from the too-late-for-me dept.

caffeinemessiah writes "The New York Times has an interesting story on a new algorithm by researchers from Tel Aviv University that modifies a facial picture of a person to conform to standards of attractiveness. Based on a digital library of pictures of people who have been judged 'attractive,' the algorithm finds the nearest match and modifies an input picture so it conforms to the 'attractive' person's proportions. The trick, however, is that the resultant pictures are still recognizable as the original person. Here's a quick link to a representative picture of the process. Note that this is a machine-learning approach to picture modification, not a characterization of beauty, and could just as easily be used to make a person less attractive." Note: As reader Trent Waddington points out, the underlying research was mentioned in an earlier story as well.

Steve Wozniak Predicts Death of the IPod 573

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 09, 2008 @03:54AM from the for-whom-the-bell-tolls dept.

Slatterz writes "Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, better known in the industry as 'Woz,' believes that the iPod is on its way out and has revealed his discomfort with some aspects of the iPhone. Wozniak said that the iPod has had a long time as the world's most popular media player, and that it will fall from grace due to oversupply. Wozniak also commented on the iPhone's proprietary nature and locked service provider, and compared it to Google's open Android platform. 'Consumers are not getting all they want when companies are very proprietary and lock their products down,' he said. 'I would like to write some more powerful apps than what you're allowed.'"

HD DVD Player Sales Grind To a Halt 507

Posted by kdawson on Friday January 25, 2008 @01:07PM from the it-was-that-bunker-video-did-it dept.

Lucas123 writes "While the news may fall under the 'Duh' category, it's still relatively shocking how quickly the death knell for HD DVD player sales came on after Warner Bros. announced they were dropping dual hi-def DVD format support in order to back only Blu-ray. According to a Computerworld story, the week after Warner's announcement, sales of HD DVD players dropped to 1,758, down from 14,558 players the week before. In contrast, consumers bought 21,770 Blu-ray Disc players, up from 15,257 the previous week."

Motley Fool Writes Off Microsoft 404

Posted by kdawson on Friday January 25, 2008 @11:11AM from the limited-vistas dept.

The Vista disaster has caught Wall Street's attention before but I've never seen the popular press understand the issues like this argument in the Motley Fool. The opposing argument is a weak statement of faith, essentially "as it was in the beginning is now and forever shall be." "You don't need to watch the 'I'm a Mac, I'm a PC' commercials to see that Microsoft is taking a beating. You see it in the company's financials where its online unit, incredibly, is operating at a loss; overheating Xbox 360 consoles find the company taking a huge warranty hit for a system losing market share to the Wii; and the upgrade wave of its flagship operating system has been more of a ripple than a tsunami. That last point is important. This was supposed to be Microsoft's final feast, the major last hurrah for its Windows Vista operating entry and its Office 2007 suite of applications before the inevitable embrace of cheaper open source operating systems and Web-based apps... In fact, even Microsoft will tell you that its fortunes peaked several months ago."

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