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Why Google Isn't Pushing Android For Tablets 224

Posted by timothy from the but-I-want-to-buy-a-nopad dept.
Brad Linder of Liliputing posted an interesting analysis today about Google's reluctance to endorse Android for tablets. Linder argues that while there may be legitimate concern that Android just isn't polished enough for devices without phone access (because some apps need it), it would be smart for Google to segregate the apps themselves, so users can simply know which apps will work on Wi-Fi-only tablets. But from Google's perspective, he observes, "pushing a version of Android that isn't exclusively for phones could be all it takes for Chrome OS to be dead on arrival."
Input Devices

Tap Tech Brings Touch To Dumb Phones 70

Posted by timothy from the now-that's-clever dept.
nk497 writes "A Cambridge-based firm has come up with a way to bring touch interfaces to phones without touchscreens. According to TouchDevice, the system uses the microphone to turn any surface on a handset into a touch-sensitive input panel by analysing sound signatures. 'For example, where icons are displayed on a non-touch screen display, you could tap on there and it would activate the application,' said founder Mike Bradley. TouchDevice believes there are two markets for the technology: firstly to augment input potential in touchcreen smartphones, and secondly as a way of adding touch to 'dumb' displays. The system should be making its way into devices by early next year."
Wikipedia

Wikipedia Entry Turned Into Actual Encyclopedia 96

Posted by timothy from the now-how-much-would-you-pay? dept.
Ponca City, We love you writes "If journalism is the first rough draft of history, what does that make Wikipedia? Time Magazine reports that technology writer James Bridle has created a 12-volume compendium of every edit made to the Wikipedia entry for the Iraq War between December 2004 and November 2009. 'It contains arguments over numbers, differences of opinion on relevance and political standpoints, and frequent moments when someone erases the whole thing and just writes "Saddam Hussein was a dickhead.,"' writes Bridle. 'This is historiography. This is what culture actually looks like: a process of argument, of dissenting and accreting opinion, of gradual and not always correct codification.' The books presumably only exist in one copy, so they are not for sale."
Upgrades

ARM Unveils Next-Gen Processor, Claims 5x Speedup 283

Posted by timothy from the and-hammer dept.
unts writes "UK chip designer ARM [Note: check out this short history of ARM chips in mobile devices contributed by an anonymous reader] today released the first details of its latest project, codenamed 'Eagle.' It has branded the new design Cortex-A15, which ARM reckons demonstrates the jump in performance from its predecessors, the A8 and A9. ARM's new chip design can scale to 16 cores, clock up to 2.5GHz, and, the company claims, deliver a 5x performance increase over the A8: 'It's like taking a desktop and putting it in your pocket,' said [VP of processor marketing — Eric Schorn], and it was clear that he considers this new design to be a pretty major shot across the bows of Intel and AMD. In case we were in any doubt, he turned the knife further: 'The exciting place for software developer graduates to go and hunt for work is no longer the desktop.'"
Media (Apple)

Open Source VLC Media Player Coming To iPad 232

Posted by timothy from the might-make-'em-temptinger dept.
Stoobalou writes "The people behind VLC, quite probably the most useful media player available right now, have submitted an iPod version to the Apple software police. VLC — which is rightfully famous for having a go at playing just about any kind of audio or video file you care to throw at it — should appear some time next week, if it makes it through the often unfathomable approval process implemented by Apple. The Open Source Video Lan Client has been tweaked to run on the iPod by software developer Applidium."
Government

WikiLeaks Calls For Assange To Step Down 565

Posted by Soulskill from the clean-out-your-desk dept.
Stoobalou writes "A member of Iceland's parliament and prominent organizer for whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks has turned on the site's spokesman, Julian Assange, urging him to step down over rape allegations made against him in Sweden. Birgitta Jonsdottir told news site The Daily Beast that she did not believe Assange's repeated assertion that the allegations of rape and molestation made against him were part of a US-backed smear campaign to distract attention from documents posted on the site laying bare US involvement in the war in Afghanistan and further promised revelations."
Cellphones

Submission + - Burning Man goes open source for cell phones (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Today I bring you a story that has it all: a solar-powered, low-cost, open source cellular network that's revolutionizing coverage in underprivileged and off-grid spots. It uses VoIP yet works with existing cell phones. It has pedigreed founders. Best of all, it is part of the sex, drugs and art collectively known as Burning Man.
Google

Google Patches 10 Chrome Bugs, Pays Out $10K 95

Posted by timothy from the splat-splat-splat dept.
CWmike writes "Google patched 10 vulnerabilities in Chrome on Thursday, but it didn't award any of the researchers who reported bugs its new top-dollar reward. Google divulged no details of the vulnerabilities and, as is its custom, it blocked public access to its bug-tracking database — a practice meant to keep attackers from using the information before most users have upgraded. Some rivals, such as Mozilla, do the same; others, like Microsoft, do not. Sergey Glazunov banked $4,674 for reporting four bugs, including the previous maximum $1,337 each for two of the quartet. A researcher known as 'kuzzcc,' who has also reported flaws in Opera to that browser's Norwegian maker, took home $2,000 for uncovering a pair of Chrome vulnerabilities. But no one received Google's new biggest bounty, which the company set at $3,133.70 last month, after Mozilla had increased its maximum vulnerability payment to $3,000."
News

Ray Kurzweil Responds To PZ Myers 238

Posted by Soulskill from the dem's-fightin'-woids dept.
On Tuesday we discussed a scathing critique of Ray Kurzweil's understanding of the brain written by PZ Myers. Reader Amara notes that Kurzweil has now responded on his blog. Quoting: "Myers, who apparently based his second-hand comments on erroneous press reports (he wasn't at my talk), [claims] that my thesis is that we will reverse-engineer the brain from the genome. This is not at all what I said in my presentation to the Singularity Summit. I explicitly said that our quest to understand the principles of operation of the brain is based on many types of studies — from detailed molecular studies of individual neurons, to scans of neural connection patterns, to studies of the function of neural clusters, and many other approaches. I did not present studying the genome as even part of the strategy for reverse-engineering the brain."

Comment It solved many of my problems (Score 1) 350

by rift321 (#33160010) Attached to: Why Wave Failed

Planning trips, wave is invaluable. I'm an avid rock climber, and I used wave to constantly update people on trips, and used interactive maps to plan them (the map feature is arguably Wave's best gadget).

I also use wave to keep action item, backburner, and reference lists for myself and my business partner.

Lastly, I attempted to use wave instead of a forum on my website. It would've been great, but no one fucking knew what it was. In my opinion, wave's failure was a marketing one, not technical.

Lastly, it's more convenient for collaborative creative content generation than any other tool. The slashdot community, believe it or not, is the opposite of Wave's target market.

I hope Google has a replacement brewing for my purposes.
Image

Dog Eats Man's Toe and Saves His Life 207

Posted by samzenpus from the yes-you-read-that-right dept.
Have you ever been so drunk that you passed out and your dog ate your toe? I haven't either, but luckily for Michigander Jerry Douthett, he has. It turns out Jerry has type 2 diabetes and a wound on his toe had becoming dangerously infected. After a night of drinking Jerry passed out in his chair and the family dog Kiko decided to do a little doggy doctoring. From the article: "'The toe was gone,' said Douthett. 'He ate it. I mean, he must have eaten it, because we couldn't find it anywhere else in the house. I look down, there's blood all over, and my toe is gone.' [Douthett's wife] Rosee, 40, rushed her husband to the hospital where she's a gerontology nurse — Spectrum Health's Blodgett Campus. Kiko had gnawed to a point below the nail-line. When tests revealed an infection to the bone, doctors amputated what was left of the toe."

Comment Anyone know how low they got? (Score 1) 154

by rift321 (#33138682) Attached to: Coronal Mass Ejection Hits Earth

I'd like to know how low in latitude the Auroras reached - I'm around 44degrees north, and after seeing them once before, I'd travel quite a distance to view them, as long as I can make it to work tomorrow...

Damned weather systems are making things difficult, though.

Also, I'm interested in how high the Kp index needs to be for Auroras to be highly visible at my latitude. I went to school in Potsdam, NY, and was lucky enough to see a spectacular display right overhead one late fall night during finals week... spectacular enough for me to lose even more sleep while crunching for a final exam.
Hardware

Oscilloscopes For Modern Engineers? 337

Posted by kdawson from the squiggly-lines dept.
Every few years someone asks this community for advice on oscilloscopes. Reader dawning writes "I've just graduated with a degree in Computer Engineering (and did a Comp Sci one while I was at it) and I'm finding myself woefully under-equipped to do some great hardware projects. I'm in major need of a good oscilloscope. I'm willing to put down $2,000 for a decent one, but there are several options and they all seem so archaic and limited. I'm happy to use something that must be controlled through a PC if that gives me more measuring features. What would you, my esteemed Slashdot colleagues, get for yourself?"
Businesses

High-Frequency Programmers Revolt Over Pay 1018

Posted by kdawson from the crying-all-the-way dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Programmers who design and code algorithms for investment banking are unhappy with their salaries. Many of them receive a low 6-figure salary whereas their bosses — who manipulate these algorithms and execute the trades — often earn millions. One such anonymous programmer points out that he was paid $150,000 per year, whereas the software he wrote was generating $100,000 per day."

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