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Comment professionals, professionals everywhere (Score 0) 681

Well looking at all those youtube videos where police comes to some random gamer home:
1) they not always yell 'police' when they enter,
2) they are not always uniformed,
3) sometimes they are breaking into the house - they are answering hostage situation so they are not willing somebody to open the door,

On the other side there is person that does not know this game, is in the sitation that somebody is breaking into his house, is violent and you just involuntarily want to fight.

In my mind somehow I wouldn't blame the killed guy but the police - but I am from Europe, so what can I know.

Comment HTC Desire Z (Score 1) 544

by retsef (#47555601) Attached to: Lots Of People Really Want Slideout-Keyboard Phones: Where Are They?

I am sticked to Android 2.2 because of this! I tried using HTC Desire X however I just cannot live with that and I am using HTC Desire Z which is already old - but has qwerty slide keyboard.

Because of the same reason my wife has Blackberry 9810 and I know many people that do not accept phones without keyboards so they do not use smartphones at all because local sellers do not have smartphones with keyboards in offer.

Comment Ubuntu 12.04 on Asus Laptop (Score 1) 295

by retsef (#46406141) Attached to: Google Won't Enable Chrome Video Acceleration Because of Linux GPU Bugs

I recently installed updates on my Asus Laptop working with Ubuntu 12.04 and it is dead because of drivers update for Radeon graphic card. During booting everything is ok but after logging in display backlight is down.

Unfortunately DVD drive is dead and for strange reason on Asus laptops you cannot boot from USB which brings my laptop dead at the moment. I am setting up PXE server but thinking if I should go back with Linux.

Comment Law in Poland (Score 1) 835

by retsef (#37324692) Attached to: Why the Fax Machine Refuses To Die

In Poland Fax document is threatened the same by law as original document send by post. Therefore You can send someone invoice by fax but You cannot do this by email. It is common situation when someone prints pdfs from email and folds them to look like those would came by fax.
Idle

Hand Written Clock 86

Posted by samzenpus from the up-to-the-minute dept.
a3buster writes "This clock does not actually have a man inside, but a flatscreen that plays a 24-hour loop of this video by the artist watching his own clock somewhere and painstakingly erasing and re-writing each minute. This video was taken at Design Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach 2009."
Image

Teenager Invents Cheap Solar Panel From Human Hair 366

Posted by samzenpus from the 50-watt-shampoo dept.
Milan Karki, 18, who comes from a village in rural Nepal, believes he has found the solution to the developing world's energy needs. A solar panel made from human hair. The hair replaces silicon, a pricey component typically used in solar panels, and means the panels can be produced at a low cost for those with no access to power. The solar panel, which produces 9 volts (18 watts) of energy, costs around $38 US (£23) to make from raw materials. Gentlemen, start your beards. The future of hair farming is here!
NASA

NASA Uses AI Customer Service Robot In Second Life 45

Posted by Soulskill from the get-a-first-artificial-life dept.
Linguo writes "Fusing human psychology with an advanced artificial intelligence engine, MyCyberTwin's virtual humans are being used by organizations like NASA and National Australia Bank to improve their customer support levels. MyCyberTwin technology is designed to allow almost anyone to build a virtual, artificial human — called a CyberTwin — which can handle such tasks as personalized customer support, client sales or even entertainment and companionship. CyberTwins can take the form of a clone of yourself, or a representative of your company, and they can live in almost any digital environment, including Web sites, virtual worlds, blogs, social network pages and mobile phones."
Biotech

Robot Invented To Crawl Through Veins 99

Posted by timothy from the oh-no-not-creepy dept.
Slatterz writes "Scientists from Israel's Technion University have unveiled a tiny robot, made using Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology, purportedly able to crawl through a person's veins in order to diagnose and potentially treat artery blockage and cancer. The little robot — with a diameter of just one millimeter — has neither engine nor onboard controls, instead being propelled forward by a magnetic field wielded on it from outside the patient's body."
Hardware Hacking

Netbook-Run Dice Robot Can Rack Up 1.3 Million Rolls a Day 280

Posted by timothy from the internet-worth-something-after-all dept.
stevel writes "The owner of games site GamesByEmail.com created Dice-O-Matic, 'a machine that can belch a continuous river of dice down a spiraling ramp, then elevate, photograph, process and upload almost a million and a half rolls to the server a day. ... The Dice-O-Matic is 7 feet tall, 18 inches wide and 18 inches deep. It has an aluminum frame covered with Plexiglas panels. A 6x4 inch square Plexiglas tube runs vertically up the middle almost the entire height. Inside this tube a bucket elevator carries dice from a hopper at the bottom, past a camera, and tosses them onto a ramp at the top. The ramp spirals down between the tube and the outer walls. The camera and synchronizing disk are near the top, the computer, relay board, elevator motor and power supplies are at the bottom.' While not called out in the article, the pictures clearly show a Dell Mini 9 running the show (and performing the optical recognition of the dice values.) No, it's not running Linux."
Robotics

Robot Warfare Going Open Source 105

Posted by kdawson from the my-flag-robot-said-to-your-flag-robot dept.
destinyland writes "Peter Singer, author of the new book Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, says 'You can build your own version of the Raven drone, which is a widely used military drone, for about $1,000.' Singer argues that 'just like software, warfare is going open source.' He warns that, ultimately, robot warfare may even expand beyond the military using more DIY and off-the-shelf systems. In addition to 43 countries now working on military robots, there are 'non-state actors ranging from Hezbollah to this militia group in Arizona to a bunch of college kids at Swarthmore... One person's hobby — such as the hobbyist who flew a homemade drone from North America to Great Britain — can be another person's terrorist strike option.'"
Robotics

Terminator Salvation Opens Well, Scientists Not Impressed 344

Posted by Soulskill from the come-with-me-if-you-want-to-groove-baby dept.
destinyland writes "A science magazine asks an MIT professor, roboticists, artificial intelligence workers, and science fiction authors about the possibility of an uprising of machines. Answers range from 'of course it's possible' to 'why would an intelligent network waste resources on personal combat?' An engineering professor points out that bipedal robots 'are largely impractical,' and Vernor Vinge says a greater threat to humanity is good old-fashioned nuclear annihilation. But one roboticist says it's inevitable robots will eventually be used in warfare, while another warns of robots in the hands of criminals, cults, and other 'non-state actors.' 'What we should fear in the foreseeable future is not unethical robots, but unethical roboticists.'" The new movie got off to a good start, drawing $13.4 million in its first day. I found it reasonably entertaining; pretty much what I'd expect from a Terminator movie. If nothing else, I learned that being able to crash helicopters and survive being thrown into the occasional wall are the two most valuable skills to have during a robot uprising. What did you think?

Comment Poland (Score 2, Interesting) 180

by retsef (#27164739) Attached to: VoIP Legal Status Worldwide?

In Poland and EU currently there is no problem with VoIP. There are a lot of companies in EU that support Poland and some Polish companies specialized in Poland. Funny thing is that regular telecommunication companies (like Dialog Telecom -monthly subscription about 10Euro/20USD) sell also their products cheaper via internet wih VOIP (monthly subscription about 2,5Euro/5USD).

In the past polish national telecomunication had monopoly for calls abroad, till 2004 i belive, but nobody respected it.
Government

VoIP Legal Status Worldwide? 180

Posted by samzenpus from the free-for-all dept.
Cigarra writes "There was much public debate going on during the last several months here in Paraguay, regarding the 'liberation of Internet,' that is, the lifting of the restriction on ISPs to connect directly to international carriers. Up until this week, they were forced to hire wholesale service from the State run telco, Copaco. During the last month, when the new regulation was almost ready, the real reason supporting the monopoly made it to the headlines: Copaco would fight for the monopoly, fearing VoIP based telephony. Finally, the regulator Conatel resolved today to end the monopoly, but a ruling on VoIP legal status was postponed for 'further study.' I guess this kind of 'problem' arose almost everywhere else in the world, so I ask the international slashdotters crowd: what is VoIP's legal status in your country / state / region? How well did incumbent telcos adapt to it, and overall, just how disruptive was this technology to established operators?"

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