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Australia

Submission + - GAME Australia now also in Administration (kotaku.com.au)

Submitted by
Fluffeh
Fluffeh writes: "This morning the Australian Division of GAME saw an email from their Marketing Manager confirming that the 95 store chain has gone into voluntary administration. PriceWaterhouseCoopers partner Kate Warwick said "Initially we will continue to trade all stores, operating these on as close to a ‘business as usual’ mode as possible whilst we get a clearer understanding of the current state of the business and actively pursue options to secure its future." in a statement today. It also seems that GAME is having a bit of a fire sale, with many titles including quite a few new releases now in a $5-$74 bargain bin. Ms. Warwick also noted that the company’s customers hold various claims against the company under loyalty cards, gift cards and vouchers. Ms. Warwick said “We are working on schemes aimed at giving customers some return on these claims if they are used to make additional purchases.”"

Submission + - Sheffield scientists have revolutionised the electron microscope (shef.ac.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For over 70 years, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), which 'looks through' an object to see atomic features within it, has been constrained by the relatively poor lenses which are used to form the image.

The new method, called electron ptychography, dispenses with the lens and instead forms the image by reconstructing the scattered electron-waves after they have passed through the sample using computers.

Scientists involved in the scheme consider their findings to be a first step in a completely new epoch of electron imaging. The process has no fundamental experimental boundaries and it is thought it will transform sub-atomic scale transmission imaging.
Security

Submission + - Inside Las Vegas' biggest data centre (itpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
twoheadedboy
twoheadedboy writes: "Las Vegas data centres are just as opulent as the casinos which litter the vibrant city. SuperNAP is the biggest in all Las Vegas, with 400,000 square feet of servers using around 100 megawatts of power. There's some serious security too, comprised mostly of ex-US Marines who patrol the perimeter on foot and in Humvees, all armed with assault rifles. Private military contractors are needed in the IT world too, it seems. IT Pro got a look around this impressive DC."
Technology

Submission + - Facial Recognition Tech Failure Implications (boston.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: John H. Gass hadn’t had a traffic ticket in years, so the Natick resident was surprised this spring when he received a letter from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles informing him to cease driving because his license had been revoked.

It turned out Gass was flagged because he looks like another driver, not because his image was being used to create a fake identity. His driving privileges were returned but, he alleges in a lawsuit, only after 10 days of bureaucratic wrangling to prove he is who he says he is.

And apparently, he has company. Last year, the facial recognition system picked out more than 1,000 cases that resulted in State Police investigations, officials say. And some of those people are guilty of nothing more than looking like someone else. Not all go through the long process that Gass says he endured, but each must visit the Registry with proof of their identity.

Massachusetts began using the software after receiving a $1.5 million grant from the US Department of Homeland Security as part of an effort to prevent terrorism, reduce fraud, and improve the reliability and accuracy of personal identification documents that states issue.

At least 34 states are using such systems. They help authorities verify a person’s claimed identity and track down people who have multiple licenses under different aliases, such as underage people wanting to buy alcohol, people with previous license suspensions, and people with criminal records trying to evade the law. Lisa Cradit, a spokeswoman for L-1 Identity Solutions, the largest developer of the software, said it can reduce fraud by 80 percent.
NASA

Submission + - Dawn Sends Signal, Now Orbiting Asteroid Vesta (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "Mission managers of NASA's Dawn asteroid probe had a long Saturday, waiting for news from the asteroid belt. Eventually they got the news they were hoping for: Dawn had entered Vesta orbit. This is the first time in history that an object in the asteroid belt has been orbited by an artificial satellite.

It's taken four years for the ion thruster-propelled spacecraft to reach the asteroid and there was some uncertainty as to whether the probe had been captured by the asteroid's gravity at all. But after a long period of waiting, mission managers received the signal after Dawn was able to orientate its antenna toward Earth."

Submission + - Online collaboration helps Mumbai attack victims (cnn.com)

Submitted by
GillBates0
GillBates0 writes: "CNN has a nice story about how online collaboration swiftly helped form a centrally organized online disaster effort during Wednesday's Mumbai attacks. India accounts for almost one fifth of the world's cell phone subscribers. At a time when chaos reigned, and voice calls were jammed, a loose collaboration of techies, laymen, and good samaritans quickly collaborated online via social media, Wikipedia, Google docs and other online resoureces to coordinate blood donors, assistance, rides, and other services to help the victims of the attack."
Image

Selling Incandescent Light Bulbs As Heating Devices Screenshot-sm 557

Posted by samzenpus from the a-bulb-by-any-othe-name dept.
Csiko writes "The European Union has banned by law trading of incandescent light bulbs due to their bad efficiency/ecology (most of the energy is transformed into heat). A company is now trying to bypass this restriction by offering their incandescent light bulb products as a heating device (article in German) instead of a light device. Still, their 'heat balls' give light as well as heating. So — every law can be bypassed if you have some creativity!"
Education

Hawking Radiation Claimed Created In a Lab 129

Posted by CmdrTaco from the look-what-i-can-do dept.
eldavojohn writes "In 1974, a young newcomer to the Royal Society named Stephen Hawking predicted that black holes emit Hawking Radiation. Researchers have been looking for it in space ever since. A new paper up for publication claims to have beaten searchers by observing it in a lab. Doing it wasn't easy. They say they brought light to a standstill by drastically increasing the refractive index of the material it was being fired at, creating a 'white hole.' This horizon, beyond which light cannot penetrate (event horizon), is the same between white and black holes, which caused the team to suspect they observed Hawking Radiation when light of a different uniform wavelength than the input laser was emitted. But, before you rejoice, the Tech Review article notes, 'Of course, the big question is whether the emitted light is generated by some other mechanism such as Cerenkov radiation, scattering or, in particular, fluorescence which is the hardest to rule out.'"
Government

Obama Wants Broader Internet Wiretap Authority 646

Posted by CmdrTaco from the tap-this-way dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The White House plans to deliver a bill to Congress next year that will require Internet-based communication services that use encryption to be capable of decrypting messages to comply with federal wiretap orders. The bill will go beyond CALEA to apply to services such as Blackberry email. Even though RIM has stated that it does not currently have an ability to decrypt messages via a master key or back door, the bill may require them to. Regarding this development, James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology commented on the proposal, saying, 'They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.'"

Comment Re:Patents aren't the problem (Score 1) 392

by Alsee (#30296866) Attached to: Recipient of First Software Patent Defends Them

>Select an element p from the list L

Where is the mathematics for this part?

Actually that exact statement is completely ordinary and valid mathematics when list L is finite in size, and there specifically is a math theorem dedicated to proving it is valid math when list L is finite. Moreover one of the most famous axioms in math is called the Axiom of Choice, an axiom devoted to that exact statement where L is infinite in size. It is a weird and subtle point, but for certain kinds of sets you know you have infinitely many points but but you're mathematically stuck with no way to actually single out an individual "next point" to pick. But again, that is not even a question for finite lists. That statement is ordinary boring math for finite sets L.

-

Comment Well, I used javascript for a game (Score 1) 531

by roguegramma (#30286354) Attached to: Trying To Bust JavaScript Out of the Browser

Well, I used javascript for a puzzle game when there was no Ajax; I used an iframe for loading data instead of xmlhttprequest, and things were called dhtml for dynamic html. Game is still essentially working without modifications in modern browsers: http://hylzee.sourceforge.net/hylZee/
(Preview; The full version is meant to be downloaded and hacked.)

On the other hand, somehow, in ff+addons the victory advancement to next level doesn't work and the loss message is hidden/misplaced.
Media

Journal Journal: Rat Bastard TV 3

Journal by mcgrew

In Is Free Really the Future of Gaming? an anonymous coward said

Going the way of cable (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12, @01:29PM (#27170609)
What will happen is it will become like cable tv. Where you pay through the nose for the game and STILL have to view advertisement after advertisement
Slashback

Journal Journal: Limited Friends 10

Journal by mcgrew

When I was posting under sm62704, I didn't put anyone in "friends" or "foes", but I had a lot of fans. When I got my older "mcgrew" account back I added all the fans to its "friends" list. I still haven't foed anyone, and I'm not likely to.

When 2008 changed into 2009, I started weeding out my friends list to those who were in the mcgrew fans list. So far I got to about the "L"s.
Star Wars Prequels

Journal Journal: Skywalker charged with murder 3

Journal by mcgrew

This item caught my eye this morning, and there are two things about it that make it "news for nerds".

First, many nerds are high-functioning autistics. Secondly, the guy's name. Third, we've all see Star Wars Episode III, where Aniken beats his twins' mother to death.

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