Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
AMD

AMD Demos Llano Fusion APU, Radeon 6800 Series 116

Posted by timothy from the onward-ever-onward dept.
MojoKid writes "At a press event for the impending launch of AMD's new Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850 series graphics cards, the company took the opportunity to provide an early look at the first, fully functional samples of their upcoming 'Llano' processor, or APU (Applications Processer Unit). For those unfamiliar with Llano, it's 32nm 'Fusion' product that integrates CPU, GPU, and Northbridge functions on a single die. The chip is a low-power derivative of the company's current Phenom II architecture fused with a GPU that will target a wide range of operating environments at speeds of 3GHz or higher. Test systems showed the integrated GPU had no trouble running Alien vs. Predator at a moderate resolution with DirectX 11 features enabled. In terms of the Radeon 6800 series, board shots have been unveiled today, as well as scenes from AMD's upcoming tech demo, Mecha Warrior, showcasing the new graphics technology and advanced effects from the open source Bullet Physics library."
Earth

New Batfish Species Found Under Gulf Oil Spill 226

Posted by timothy from the had-to-flush-'em-out-somehow dept.
eDarwin writes "Researchers have discovered two previously unknown species of bottom-dwelling fish in the Gulf of Mexico, living right in the area affected by the BP oil spill. Researchers identified new species of pancake batfishes, a flat fish rarely seen because of the dark depths they favor. They are named for the clumsy way they 'walk' along the sea bottom, like a bat crawling."
Programming

Simpler "Hello World" Demonstrated In C 582

Posted by kdawson from the non-obfuscated dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Wondering where all that bloat comes from, causing even the classic 'Hello world' to weigh in at 11 KB? An MIT programmer decided to make a Linux C program so simple, she could explain every byte of the assembly. She found that gcc was including libc even when you don't ask for it. The blog shows how to compile a much simpler 'Hello world,' using no libraries at all. This takes me back to the days of programming bare-metal on DOS!"
Image

Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child 331

Posted by samzenpus from the snack-is-going-to-be-on-the-floor-today dept.
Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."

Comment Re:Interesting (Score 1) 178

by sgarg (#29116543) Attached to: Advice On Creating an Open Source Textbook?

One buys physical books because they are easy to read - I still find paper much easier to read than on screen, though e-book readers could change that. Today e-book readers are way too expensive. Add to that the fact that I can make notes in the margin (though in some cases it could be too small: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat's_last_theorem) and books make worth buying. But, the digital ones make sense - many are easily available, they are searchable etc. One nice model is bundling the physical and digital version together. The physical book should actually cost less than or equal to what would be spent in printing out the book and binding it - there should eb an advantage to the economies of scale. A book that needs colour should have it in the publisher printed version - that is one advantage - colour laser printers are still probhibitively expensive.

Scribd seems to allow people to make money off digital books. Possibly docstoc too ...

Comment Re:It might die, but not swiftly (Score 1) 843

by sgarg (#28937185) Attached to: 20 Years of MS Word and Why It Should Die a Swift Death

MsWord has too large an installed base and there is too much inertia for people to change.
Somewhere near 600 million to 1 billion people know how to use MsWord. It might not die.
Even if it does it wont die swiftly.

A fraction of the quoted figure - 0.6-1bn actually know how to use MS-Word. The rest just behave like monkeys would if given a typewriter. Frankly, people just do not get it. You send documents in editable formats like that of MS-Word if and when you want the recipient to make changes. Else, you just send out a PDF.

For me - TeX/LaTeX and the userfriendly WYSIWYM GUI LyX on top of it

Comment Re:GPL offered protection from competitors (Score 1) 370

by sgarg (#27760567) Attached to: Is Apache Or GPL Better For Open-Source Business?

The only way a competitor can use your code without letting you use any improvements he makes is to not make any changes to your code at all.

Or, not to distribute the modifications. One important thing to remember is that the GPL's clauses kick-in only on distribution. As long as changes stay within the organisation, there is no legal requirements to give back the changes. In that case, IMHO, all Free and Open Source licenses are equal.

Comment What's the news here? (was Re:65 MPG? ) (Score 1) 1103

by sgarg (#25021259) Attached to: Ford's 65MPG Due In November, But Not In the US

What's the news here? 65 MPG = 27.63 kmpl.
In July 2006, a Ford Fiesta diesel averaged 31.48 kmpl
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/autocar-ford-fiesta-enter-limca-records/19402-7.html . In August 2008, it averaged 33.4 kmpl under real world conditions http://www.indiantelevision.com/release/y2k8/mar/marrel57.php and http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=131281

Now these are Indian conditions - I guess cars should be able to do much better in Europe and US.

This is the Indian Ford Fiesta which sells at almost USD 16K

Slashdot Top Deals

Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really know what we are doing. -- E. Dijkstra

Close