semifinalist - Slashdot User

Communicator Clothing 134

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 01, 2009 @04:07AM from the can-you-wear-me-now dept.

coondoggie writes "The crew of the classic science-fiction show's Starship Enterprise wore small devices on their chests that they could tap to communicate instantly with their colleagues. Such communications technology is now closer to reality thanks to a Finnish company which this week demonstrated high-tech clothing that can send and receive messages via satellite. The demonstrator antenna, built by the Patria Aviation Oy company, looks like a simple patch of cloth but is capable of operating in the Iridium and GPS frequency band as part of clothing. The Iridium satellites allow two-way voice and data communication, while GPS provides positional data to the user. Iridium could also relay the position of the user."

Intel To Challenge Android With Moblin For Mobile Devices 108

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday September 23, 2009 @08:55AM from the and-in-this-corner dept.

darien writes "Intel has officially entered the smartphone fight, giving a bullish demonstration at IDF of an Atom-based phone running the latest incarnation of its mobile Linux-based OS, dubbed Moblin for MIDs (mobile internet devices) v2.1. The system isn't aimed at current Atom CPUs, though — they're too power-hungry. 'One of the drivers of this initiative, and a key reason for the acquisition of Wind River, will be Intel's own app store, catering to ultra mobile devices based on the Atom chipset. The Intel Atom Developer Program will make use of Wind River's VxWorks product, which the company believes will help it achieve that developer grail of the 'write once and run on all devices' experience."

Microsoft Awarded Patent For Peer-To-Peer DRM 151

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday September 23, 2009 @03:16AM from the in-it-for-the-royalties dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Music DRM might not be as dead as previously thought. InformationWeek reports that Microsoft has been awarded a digital-rights management patent for a distributed DRM system that works over peer-to-peer networks and uses encrypted public and private keys as the licensing mechanism. The author claims that patent number 7,594,275, entitled simply 'Digital rights management system,' is significant because, while centralized music stores like iTunes don't use DRM anymore, the Microsoft patent makes it possible that peer-to-peer networks could reemerge in the future as a viable, albeit protected, source of content."

Amazon Delaying Public Domain Submissions On Kindle 100

Posted by kdawson on Friday September 18, 2009 @10:55AM from the cultural-gatekeepers dept.

John B. Hare writes "Many publishers of public domain content on the Kindle are being turned away for reasons that Amazon declines to clarify. In the past two weeks any publisher posting a public domain book (or a book that appears to be a such) has received the message 'Your book is currently under review by the Kindle Operations team as we are trying to improve the Kindle customer experience. Please check back in 5 business days to see if your book was published to the store.' Amazon claims that this is a quality control issue, apparently believing that readers can't figure out on their own that a five-page Kindle book for $9.99 is a rip-off, or that yet another Kindle edition of 'Pride and Prejudice' is pointless. This was supposed to be the point of user feedback and the Kindle return policy: users can quickly decide what the best choice is, and if they don't like it, back out without any harm done." Read on for details of this reader's interaction with Amazon on the subject of public domain Kindle submissions.

Comment Re:It is usually celebrated by... (Score 1) 306

by semifinalist on Monday September 14, 2009 @07:22AM (#29411827) Attached to: Russia's New Official Holiday — Programmer's Day

Indeed, there are a lot of programmers in Russia. For example, Google has R&D offices both in Moscow and St.Petersburg. It is a popular business model when US or Europe -based companies outsource all the programming work in Russia (JetBrains (IntelliJ IDEA) was already mentioned, they have HQ in Prague and RnD in SPb). Yes, there is also India, but I claim that in average Indian programmers are less professional. The most Russian programmers studied also a lot of math at universities.

Comment Re:Yes. (Score 1) 306

by semifinalist on Monday September 14, 2009 @05:24AM (#29411321) Attached to: Russia's New Official Holiday — Programmer's Day

Actually, there's lot of official professional holidays in Russia: http://www.art-proekt.ru/kalendarj-prazdnikov/professionaljnye-prazdniki.html (Sorry, it's in Russian) Teacher day - Oct 5 Medical worker day - Jun 19 Social worker day - Jun 8 Mathematician day - Apr 1 (I was wondered too, though I am by any means a mathematician) Day of Russian science - Feb 8 Firemen service day - Apr 30 Int. music day - Oct 1 Many of them are really widely celebrated. There are often specialized shows on TV. Also we presented flowers to our teachers at teacher's day when I used to go to school etc.

Russia's New Official Holiday — Programmer's Day 306

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday September 12, 2009 @12:15PM from the feel-free-to-take-sunday-off dept.

Glyn Moody writes "Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, has decreed a new holiday for his country: Programmer's Day. Appropriately enough, it will be celebrated on the 256th day of the year: September 13th (September 12th for a leap year). Do programmers deserve their own holiday ahead of other professions? Should the rest of the world follow suit?"

Comment Re:It's about damn time. (Score 1) 576

by semifinalist on Friday September 11, 2009 @07:25AM (#29387801) Attached to: Alan Turing Gets an Apology From Prime Minister Brown

This is strange: take female hormones to a gay. It should probably take the opposite effect, though I'm not a specialist.

Facebook Releases Open Source Web Server 113

Posted by timothy on Friday September 11, 2009 @05:08AM from the what-is-this-facebook-you-speak-of dept.

Dan Jones writes "Ah the irony. The week Facebook is being asked to cough up source code to satisfy an alleged patent infringement, the company releases an open source Web server. The Web server framework that Facebook will offer as open source is called Tornado, was written in the Python language and is designed for quickly processing thousands of simultaneous connections. Tornado is a core piece of infrastructure that powers FriendFeed's real-time functionality, which Facebook maintains. While Tornado is similar to existing Web-frameworks in Python, it focuses on speed and handling large amounts of simultaneous traffic."

Comment Re:It's about damn time. (Score 1) 576

by semifinalist on Friday September 11, 2009 @04:38AM (#29387097) Attached to: Alan Turing Gets an Apology From Prime Minister Brown

Sure, now we consider Turing father of the great industry. But in 40s nobody knew that electronic machines would gain such a big importance. The state didn't know about "the scientific/technological progress offered by such a man"

Comment Re:It's about damn time. (Score 1) 576

by semifinalist on Friday September 11, 2009 @04:33AM (#29387063) Attached to: Alan Turing Gets an Apology From Prime Minister Brown

Is that law used in practice?

Comment Re:It's about damn time. (Score 1) 576

by semifinalist on Friday September 11, 2009 @04:28AM (#29387047) Attached to: Alan Turing Gets an Apology From Prime Minister Brown

Was Turing really castrated? I didn't know. Do you have any sources of that information?

Spotify Retreats To Invite-Only In UK 130

Posted by timothy on Friday September 11, 2009 @01:55AM from the spot-of-trouble dept.

Barence writes "Music streaming service Spotify has been forced to enact tight restrictions on new members in the UK, and revert back to an invite-only system. The company has decided to take drastic action following the release of its iPhone and Android apps earlier this week, which have created 'huge demand in the UK,' according to Spotify. People who don't want to put their hand in their pocket and don't have any friends can sign up to a waiting list instead."

Australian Researchers Demo Random Access Quantum Optical Memory 74

Posted by timothy on Thursday September 10, 2009 @10:43PM from the blacker-than-a-dingo's-kidneys dept.

nuur writes "Researchers at the Australian National University have developed a new form of optical memory that allows random access to stored optical quantum information. Pulses of light are stored on a kind of 'optical conveyor-belt' that is controlled with a magnetic field. By manipulating the magnetic field, the conveyor-belt can be moved, allowing the recall of any part of the stored optical information. The research is published in Nature." You'll probably know after reading the abstract linked whether you'd be in the market to pay for the whole thing.

Alan Turing Gets an Apology From Prime Minister Brown 576

Posted by timothy on Thursday September 10, 2009 @07:20PM from the mitigation-is-tricky-50-years-later dept.

99luftballon writes "The British government has officially apologized for the treatment of Alan Turing in the post war era. An online petition got more than enough signatures to force an official statement and Prime Minister Gordon Brown has issued a lengthy apology. 'Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better.'"

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