Comment The n900 cometh... (Score 5, Interesting) 580
For technophiles, the iPhone is dead. The n900, with it's Debian-based-OS and open platform, is our new lord and savior.
http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/
Comment DRM will fail. (Score 4, Insightful) 356
Right now, it's easy to include DRM while only upsetting we, the minority, because the average consumer never tries to use their media in a way that runs afoul of DRM. They buy song off iTunes and just use it there on iTunes, never knowing the limitations of the "product". (I use iTunes merely as an example, I know there's DRM-free music there now)
With every new push, however, the average consumer comes closer to running head-first into these limitations. When you have people's files start disapearing off their hard drive when there is no physical product, they might finally join us in asking: "Why the Hell is a collection of ones and zeroes being treated this way?"
The harder DRM advocates push, the more the consumer becomes less ignorant of their questionable ownership philosophy.
With every new push, however, the average consumer comes closer to running head-first into these limitations. When you have people's files start disapearing off their hard drive when there is no physical product, they might finally join us in asking: "Why the Hell is a collection of ones and zeroes being treated this way?"
The harder DRM advocates push, the more the consumer becomes less ignorant of their questionable ownership philosophy.
Comment Re:Bad user experience, piracy or Linux will win o (Score 1) 695
It will be interesting to see how this is actually implemented. What's to stop me from writing a single app that serves as a launchpad for an arbitrary number of programs as subservient threads.
I have to assume this will be possible since Microsoft will have a hard time selling an OS that, as you say, would be unable to launch Chrome of Firefox with too many tabs open.
Submission + - Quantum Theory May Explain Wishful Thinking (physorg.com)
explosivejared writes: "Humans don't always make the most rational decisions. As studies have shown, even when logic and reasoning point in one direction, sometimes we chose the opposite route, motivated by personal bias or simply "wishful thinking." This paradoxical human behavior has resisted explanation by classical decision theory for over a decade. But now, scientists have shown that a quantum probability model can provide a simple explanation for human decision-making — and may eventually help explain the success of human cognition overall."
Submission + - Microchip to Monitor if You've Taken Your Pills
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Daily Mail reports that testing will soon begin in the UK on microchips in pills that allow doctors to find out whether a patient has taken their medication. The ingestible event markers (IEMs) are tiny, digestible sensors made from food ingredients that work by sending an ultra low-power, private, digital signal through the body when drugs are digested by the stomach. This signal is picked up by a sensing patch on the patients' stomach or back, which records the time and date that the pill is digested and also measures heart rate, motion and breathing patterns. This information is transmitted to a patient's mobile phone and then to the internet so your doctor can get a complete picture of the impact of the drugs he has prescribed for you. The microchips could be used for the chronically ill, such as people with heart disease, to establish whether costly drugs are working or whether they are causing potentially dangerous side effects or could even remind women to take the Pill if they forget. But not everyone is enamored of the concept. Philip Dawby writes that he sees this 'intelligent medicine' technology as a potentially massive intrusion on individual freedom and privacy. While Dawby thinks such monitoring would be acceptable in cases where psych patients have a proven track record of violence if they skip their medication and there's a court order in place to allow such monitoring he worries that "technologies could be used to monitor what people eat and drink and be used to report back to some central authority who could then determine if you've had too much soda (beer, wine, etc.) and send the public health department over to 'counsel' you.""
Submission + - Unzipping Nanotubes Makes Superfast Electronics
Al writes: Two research groups have found a way to unzip carbon nanotubes to create nanoribbons of graphene — a material that has shown great promise for use as nanoscale transistors but which have proven difficult to manufacture previously. A team led by James Tour, a professor of chemistry and computer science at Rice University and another led by Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford University, both figured out ways to slice carbon nanotubes open to create the nanoribbens. The Stanford team was funded by Intel and the Rice group is in talks with several companies about commercializing their approach.
Submission + - New discovery may end transplant rejection (examiner.com) 1
mmmscience writes: http://www.examiner.com/x-1242-Science-News-Examiner~y2009m4d7-New-discovery-may-end-transplant-rejection Big news in the medical world: scientists in Australia have found a way to stop the body from attacking organ transplants, greatly decreasing the possibility of organ rejection. Researchers focused on regulatory T cells which are capable of quieting the immune system, stopping the killer T cells from seeking out and attacking foreign objects such as newly transplanted tissue.
Feed The Register: Intel revolted by its own 'insensitive and insulting' ad (theregister.com)
Racist inside?
Intel apologized this week for a print advertisement circulating around blog-land that some claim is racist.
Bookmark Microsoft BC begins hiring; immigrants excited (blogspot.com)
LAIR Pushed To Next Month 50
LAIR, the much-anticipated title featuring combat from dragon-back, is a very important title for Sony and the PlayStation 3. Its the first of the AAA slated for the end of the year for the trailing platform ... and so far things don't look good for the title. Now, the company has announced that LAIR has been delayed until early in September. "Due to an extra step in QA testing to enhance the community features in the game, the release of LAIR, originally set for August 14th, has changed to September 4, 2007. Natural challenges that arose while finalizing the offline game to include key online features - such as leaderboards and medal systems - have led to the difficult choice of pushing back the release date. We appreciate everyone's excitement and patience for the game and look forward to its release on September 4."
Introducing the Slashdot Firehose 320
Logged in users have noticed for some time the request to drink from the Slashdot Firehose. Well now we're ready to start having everybody test it out. It's partially a collaborative news system, partially a redesigned & dynamic next-generation Slashdot index. It's got a lot of really cool features, and a lot of equally annoying new problems for us to find and fix for the next few weeks. I've attached a rough draft of the FAQ to the end of this article. A quick read of it will probably answer most questions from how it works, what all the color codes mean, to what we intend to do with it.
Feed Techdirt: Homeland Security Tries To Make Dubious Connection Between Mod Chippers And Mone (techdirt.com)
We've written about the mod chip saga for years. Basically, mod chips let you change what a video game console can do. It's often used by people who want to play unauthorized games, but there are legitimate reasons to modify your video game system. Considering that it's a purchased item, you would think that the owner would have every right to tinker with it however they saw fit -- but you would be wrong. Buzz writes in to let us know that mod chips are back in the headlines as again as customs agents raided 32 homes and businesses to look for mod chips. It's not clear why the feds should get involved in what someone does to legally purchased hardware, but that's the world we live in these days. Thanks to the DMCA, having anything that can circumvent copy protection is illegal. The press release quotes from the Department of Homeland Security are really stepping into ridiculous territory, though: "These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering." That's right. First cite bogus claims about imaginary "losses" and then, to make it actually sound like a big deal, try to imply that it's involved in organized crime by saying it's associated with smuggling and money laundering. Of course, there wouldn't be any issue with "smuggling" if the law wasn't criminalizing modifying a product that you legitimately purchased.
Bookmark Slashdot | Music Piracy Documentary Released As Torrent (slashdot.org)
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The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. -- Paul Erlich
