Comment It's a good thing Solaris can handle... oh, crap (Score 1) 462
Well, Solaris has handled many more than 48 cores for years. Too bad Solaris' future looks grim at the best, following Oracle's acquisition of Sun.
BeOS Successor Haiku Keeps the Faith 448
kokito writes "OSNews managing editor Thom Holwerda reviews Haiku, the open source successor of the Be operating system. According to the review, Haiku faithfully/successfully replicates the BeOS user experience and 'personality,' boasting very short boot times, the same recognizable but modernized GUI using antialiasing for fonts and all vector graphics as well as vector icons, a file system with support for metadata-based queries (OpenBFS) and support for the BeAPI, considered by some the cleanest programming API ever. The project has also recently released a native GCC 4.3.3 tool chain, clearing the way for bringing up-to-date ports of multi-platform apps such as Firefox and VLC, and making it easier to work on Haiku ports in general." (More below.)
New Success For Brain-Controlled Prosthetic Arm 81
An anonymous reader writes "A number of amputees are now using a prosthetic arm that moves intuitively, when they think about moving their missing limb. Todd Kuiken and colleagues at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago surgically rearrange the nerves that normally connect to the lost limb and embed them in muscles in the chest. The muscles are then connected to sensors that translate muscle movements into movement in a robotic arm. The researchers first reported the technique in a single patient in 2007, and have now tested it in several more. The patients could all successfully move the arm in space, mimic hand motions, and pick up a variety of objects, including a water glass, a delicate cracker, and a checker rolling across a table. (Three patients are shown using the arm in the related video.) The findings are reported today in Journal of the American Medical Association."
Comment Re:hallelujah (Score 4, Informative) 180
It's certainly true that proprioception (the ability to sense joint location) and sensation of muscle tension are useful feedback systems in coordinating limb movements. It's well known in the field (I'm a neuroscientist), however, that several neurological conditions rob patients of these sensations and they're still able to move their limbs effectively (though not perfectly). I'd guess that a patient who was paralyzed wouldn't mind being able to move their arms again, even if they couldn't feel where they were without looking.
Whitehouse Emails Were Lost Due to "Upgrade" 482
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "We now know how the Whitehouse managed to lose about five million emails. It seems that they 'upgraded' their Lotus Notes system, which had an automatic retention and backup system, for Microsoft Exchange, which did not support the automatic system. So they changed it to a manual process, where aides would manually sort emails one by one into individual PST files, which they call a 'journaling' archive system. They're still building a replacement for the retention system. Right when they had one finished, the White House CIO complained that it made Microsoft Exchange too slow, so they hired yet another contractor to build another one, causing a senior IT official to quit in protest. So they still haven't completed the project after almost eight years, and rely on humans to sort millions of emails."
Hostile ta Vista, Baby 663
Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton adds his experience to the litany of woes with Microsoft Vista. Unlike most commentators who have a beef with the operating system, Bennett does a bit of surveying to bolster his points. Read his account by clicking on the magic link.
The Psychology of Facebook Examined 189
jg21 writes "In this analysis of the psychology of Facebook, a British FB user makes some telling points about how simple the reasons behind its success are. Among them, fear of 'online social failure' features prominently. From the article: 'Facebook also digs away at the insecurities in people...your peers can see your profile on Facebook, and while they may have 50, 100, 200 friends they will mockingly see that you have a pathetically small number, confirming your worst fears about the low opinion they have probably held of you over all those years etc.'"
Technologies To Improve Group-Written Code? 74
iamdjsamba asks: "I've been working at my company as a programmer for about 4 months now, and it's apparent that the working methods could do with a refresh. Practices that we need to start changing are things like: non source-controlled changes that get uploaded to our website when they aren't ready; poor code commenting; and very little in the way of code reuse (if I write a class that could be useful to others, I have no easy way of telling everyone about it). I'm currently looking into ways to change this, and was wondering if anyone on Slashdot had experience of what's good and what's not?"
New Mac-o-Lantern 76
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that it is that time of year again, time for a new pumpkin computer. This time it can see via webcam eyes (thanks logitech), breathe through its nose using a case fan, and talk out its mouth with a speaker system. The insides are made of a custom power supply and mac-mini Core Duo system. The lighting is made of neon wiring thanks to Startech.com mutant mods. Check out the last page with a video of the pumpkin in action."
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