Comment Re:Smeg (Score 1) 153
What about a muffin?
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Comment Re:40 is an artificial boundary (Score 1) 286
My martial arts instructor always said "You don't grow old from the years; you grow old from inactivity".
The sign at the entrance to our city park states, "You don't stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stop playing".
There's a lot of truth to that, I think. I was in fantastic shape until right before I turned 30. I needed a bunch of back surgeries and stopped working out. Then I never felt well enough to start again. Of course the pages kept coming off of the calendar and then I had some other medical issues as time went on. I finally got sick of it back in June of this year and have been pushing hard to get back into shape ever since. I dropped 55 lbs. since June and just did 10K this morning in a little under 50 minutes (best time yet this year), and did another 3.4 miles after that. I'm doubtful I'll ever have the muscle mass I did. Or the speed. But I'm not 30, or even 40 anymore. Regardless, I feel a hell of a lot better than I did a year ago.
There's a skateboarding quote that is probably ripped off from that:
"you didn't stop skateboarding because you got old, you got old because you stopped skateboarding."
I'm 41 and still boarding, admittedly I'm not throwing myself down nine sets like I used to, but I still love it.
Synaptics Buys Key Apple Supplier 38
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes Synaptics Inc., of touchpad fame, is acquiring Renesas SP Drivers Inc, a division of Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp. Renesas SP is the exclusive supplier of Apple's display driver chips for the iPhone. While Synaptics is a major supplier of touchscreen technology to clients such as Samsung, they have not done business with Apple for some eight years. Characterized as 'thrilled' to be back in Apple's supply chain, Synaptics CEO, Rick Bergman, is quoted as saying, '... I don't believe they do any driver chips internally so that would really be an opportunity for us.'
Submission + - Apple's Macintosh Has Turned 30 Years Old (mytechbrief.com)
Rick Otto writes: On Friday Apple's Macintosh computer turned 30 years old. Apple didn't keep the birthday a secret either. Red full story on my tech brief blog.
Submission + - Microsoft Relaxing Xbox One Kinect Requirements, Giving GPU Power A Boost? (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: News from gaming insider Pete Doss is that Microsoft is mulling significant changes to the restrictions it places on developers regarding the Xbox One's GPU. Reportedly, some 10% of total GPU horsepower is reserved for the Kinect — 8% for video and 2% for voice processing. Microsoft is apparently planning changes that would free up that 8% video entirely, leaving just 2% of the system's GPU dedicated to voice input. If Microsoft makes this change, it could have a significant uplift on system frame rates — and it's not clear that developers would necessarily need to patch the architecture to take advantage of the difference.
Comment Audi have been doing this for years (Score 1) 521
and I don't think they made this much of a fuss about it.
Submission + - Google's Open Source Director says open source world can be "brutal"
Lemeowski writes: A crowded Sun workstation lab with poor ventilation and smelly "coder odor" ultimately led Chris DiBona to give Linux a shot, and he says it was his "best decision ever." These days DiBona is the Director of Open Source for Google. In this interview, DiBona talks about his favorite Linux distribution and why he once called open source "brutal," saying that "survival of the fittest as practiced in the open source world is a pretty brutal mechanism, but it works very very well for producing quality software."
Submission + - Disney Develops Way To "Feel" Touchscreen Images (bbc.co.uk)
dryriver writes: Disney researchers have found a way for people to "feel" the texture of objects seen on a flat touchscreen. The technique involves sending tiny vibrations through the display that let people "feel" the shallow bumps, ridges and edges of an object. The vibrations fooled fingers into believing they were touching a textured surface, said the Disney researchers. The vibration-generating algorithm should be easy to add to existing touchscreen systems, they added. Developed by Dr Ali Israr and colleagues at Disney's research lab in Pittsburgh, the vibrational technique re-creates what happens when a finger tip passes over a real bump. "Our brain perceives the 3D bump on a surface mostly from information that it receives via skin stretching," said Ivan Poupyrev, head of the interaction research group in Pittsburgh. To fool the brain into thinking it is touching a real feature, the vibrations imparted via the screen artificially stretch the skin on a fingertip so a bump is felt even though the touchscreen surface is smooth.
Raspberry Pi Production Heats Up In UK Surpassing Chinese Production Soon 108
hypnosec writes "The majority of $35 Raspberry Pi production was shifted to a factory in Wales from China and the Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced this week that the factory in Wales has produced its half millionth unit in just over six months. The weekly production has shot up to 40,000 units in the UK factory and that number is 'set to climb further.' The Foundation is optimistic about the Welsh factory and said there will be 'more Made in the U.K. Pis in the world than their Made in China cousins.' The Foundation didn't reveal anything else apart from this, but we already know it sold the millionth Pi back in January."
4-Billion-Pixel Panorama View From Curiosity Rover 101
SternisheFan points out that there is a great new panorama made from shots from the Curiosity Rover. "Sweep your gaze around Gale Crater on Mars, where NASA's Curiosity rover is currently exploring, with this 4-billion-pixel panorama stitched together from 295 images. ...The entire image stretches 90,000 by 45,000 pixels and uses pictures taken by the rover's two MastCams. The best way to enjoy it is to go into fullscreen mode and slowly soak up the scenery — from the distant high edges of the crater to the enormous and looming Mount Sharp, the rover's eventual destination."
Comment Re:Thanks for all the Fish Wrapper (Score 1) 1521
I remember reading for ages before I found a story that I wanted to post on, so registered quite 'late'
still, I got a decent username
Man Sues Rockstar Saying GTA:SA Is Based On His Life 124
dotarray writes "From the article: 'Rockstar Games are no strangers to legal action, but it doesn't come stranger than this. An American model, Michael Washington (known as "Shagg") is suing the publisher — as well as parent company Take Two Interactive — because they based Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on his life.'" It's a good thing Washington never learned the infinite ammo cheat.
Ontario School Bans Wi-Fi 287
St. Vincent Euphrasia elementary school in Meaford, Ont. is the latest Canadian school to decide to save its students from the harmful effects of Wi-Fi by banning it. Schools from universities on down have a history of banning Wi-Fi in Ontario. As usual, health officials and know-it-all scientists have called the move ridiculous. Health Canada has released a statement saying, "Wi-Fi is the second most prevalent form of wireless technology next to cell phones. It is widely used across Canada in schools, offices, coffee shops, personal dwellings, as well as countless other locations. Health Canada continues to reassure Canadians that the radiofrequency energy emitted from Wi-Fi equipment is extremely low and is not associated with any health problems."
PS3 Hacked? 296
Several readers have sent word that George Hotz (a.k.a. geohot), the hacker best known for unlocking Apple's iPhone, says he has now hacked the PlayStation 3. From his blog post:
"I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I've also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip. 3 years, 2 months, 11 days...that's a pretty secure system. ... As far as the exploit goes, I'm not revealing it yet. The theory isn't really patchable, but they can make implementations much harder. Also, for obvious reasons I can't post dumps. I'm hoping to find the decryption keys and post them, but they may be embedded in hardware. Hopefully keys are setup like the iPhone's KBAG."
App Store Piracy Losses Estimated At $459 Million 202
An anonymous reader passes along this quote from a report at 24/7 Wall St.:
"There have been over 3 billion downloads since the inception of the App Store. Assuming the proportion of those that are paid apps falls in the middle of the Bernstein estimate, 17% or 510 million of these were paid applications. Based on our review of current information, paid applications have a piracy rate of around 75%. That supports the figure that for every paid download, there have been 3 pirated downloads. That puts the number of pirate downloads at 1.53 billion. If the average price of a paid application is $3, that is $4.59 billion dollars in losses split between Apple and the application developers. That is, of course, assuming that all of those pirates would have made purchases had the application not been available to them for free. This is almost certainly not the case. A fair estimate of the proportion of people who would have used the App Store if they did not use pirated applications is about 10%. This estimate yields about $459 million in lost revenue for Apple and application developers."
A response posted at Mashable takes issue with some of the figures, particularly the 75% piracy rate. While such rates have been seen with game apps, it's unclear whether non-game apps suffer the same fate.
