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Comment silicon still matters (Score 1) 134

Unless the principals have some nice, cheap silicon in their back pockets, AV1 likely won't go anywhere. AVC/H.264 prevailed over VC-1 in part due to reference hardware decoder designs, and HEVC/H.265 already has dedicated decoder chipsets that can fit in the next iteration of smartphones and STBs easily, freeing up GPUs for whiz-bang interface or more critical number-crunching work.

Comment Re:Sensitivity (Score 1) 47

No. You have some facts that are correct, individually, but you are drawing nonsensical conclusions. True, individual muscle fibers are either contracted or relaxed--on or off as you say, but surface electromyography records from far more than a single muscle fiber. So at the population level, measuring a graded response is not only possible, but typical. Furthermore, the signal recorded is roughly linear and proportional to the number of fibers and motor units recruited (let's ignore the differences between type I and type II skeletal muscle fibers for the moment). Your aside about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system appears completely off topic.

Comment Re:Daytime bulgrary? (Score 1) 337

It sounds a bit silly, but it makes sense when you know that burglary, as traditionally defined by common law, occurs at nighttime by definition. So felony daytime burglary was something that the state legislature specifically created, probably to increase the penalties of breaking and entering during the daytime.

Comment Re:"functional programming languages can beat C" (Score 1) 502

(*) Caveat: It must be a small challenge involving a relatively simple task. I don't have a lot of time to waste on this.

Nice caveat. Let me rephrase that another way for you: it is difficult to implement complicated functionality in C. Indeed, this is one reason to use higher level languages. You can achieve more in less time.

Portables

Next Generation T9 Keyboard Technology 150

Iddo Genuth writes "Cliff Kushler, the inventor of the T9 keyboard technology for numeric keypads, has developed a new alphanumeric entry technology for touch-screen laptops and Smartphone devices. This latest technology, named Swype, works with an on-screen QWERTY keyboard similar to ones found on Windows Mobile and the iPhone. The difference from the usual method of typing in the letters is that a finger or stylus is used to slide in the first letter, then without lifting the finger, the user continues writing the entire word. Only once the word is completed can the finger be lifted off. According to the developers, this leads to a much faster way of 'typing,' or as we might call it soon, 'swiping.'"

Comment Re:Please help with the port (Score 1) 239

Well, Chromium doesn't even compile and run on linux yet beyond some unit-tests passing (AFAIK). By the time it's actually a viable browser in linux, these issues will have worked themselves out. My point was not that every single user should be able to fix this for themselves but that this is a very solvable problem, and one that will be receiving a lot of attention in the coming months.

Google has done us all a great service by releasing the code-- many parts of Chromium will soon find use in other projects. Google-url, for example, looks pretty handy. It looks like Chromium uses a modular design with a lot libraries (both from google and third-party), so even if it is, in toto, an enormous codebase, it shouldn't be too hard to isolate any undesirable functionality. In conclusion: the sky is not falling. ;-)

Google

"Google Satellite" To Be Launched This Week 280

Lord Satri writes "Well, almost. Google signed an exclusivity deal with GeoEye regarding GeoEye-1, the most advanced high-resolution, civil, remote-sensing satellite to date. This must be annoying for other high-resolution, remote-sensing data users since Google already has an exclusivity deal in place with DigitalGlobe, the other major civil satellite imagery provider. From the CNet article: 'Under the deal, Google is the exclusive online mapping site that may use the imagery... in its Google Maps and Google Earth product. And as a little icing on the cake, Google's logo is on the side of the rocket set to launch the 4,300-pound satellite in six days from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. GeoEye-1 will orbit 423 miles above Earth, but it will be able to gather imagery with details the size of 41 centimeters... Google, though, is permitted to use data only with a resolution of 50 cm because of the terms of GeoEye's license with the US government.'"
GNU is Not Unix

Ask Harald Welte, "VIA's open source representative" 56

In this recent Slashdot post kernel hacker Harald Welte was characterized as "VIA's open source representative," but that is just one of many irons he has in the fire, as a glance at his Wikipedia bio will show. You can obviously ask Harald about many interesting things besides VIA's open source strategy — and before you ask about VIA, you ought to read the last few entries on his blog, at least one of which mentions VIA questions he can't answer. But VIA aside, there's plenty to ask Harald about. For example, he won an award from the FSF earlier this year for his work on gpl-violations.org. In any case, Harald is a powerful force for GNU/Linux and Free Software, and we appreciate him taking time out of his undoubtedly hectic schedule to answer your questions. (Usual Slashdot interview rules apply.)

What Should I Do With My Tech Junk? 521

Thomas Matysik writes "I'm attempting to de-clutter my house and I've hit a rough patch: the computer room. I've got a bunch of wires, hardware and software that (I think) were useful at one point in time, but these days it doesn't do much more than take up space. Selling it seems like it'd be a huge hassle and it seems really wasteful for me to just pitch all of this stuff in the dumpster. I've considered giving it away to Goodwill, but I'm afraid that's not the right sort of outlet for this stuff. My question: what should I do with all of my tech junk?"

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