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Comment Re:Shrinks antenna not tower (Score 2) 113

As someone who has extensively built and repaired all manner of cellular(GSM, UMTS, PCN/DCS) base station antennas for a living, let me tell you straight off that this thing is not revolutionary. Perhaps they've figured out a way of doing what is already possible (small antennas everywhere) at a lower cost in terms of manufacturing and energy-consumption. But, if I understand it correctly, the antennas consume far more energy than the electronics used to process the signal. I was also led to believe that grouping dipoles into large, concentrated arrays is a more efficient way of getting a strong signal over a wide area. But don't listen to me; I'm not an RF engineer. I'm just a soldering genius who happened to work with RF engineers for a few years.

Comment Re:My toy, not yours. (Score 1) 266

but you still have to have the disk in the drive while you play. The OP wants to use the disk once and then, presumably, keep it in a locked glass cabinet for the rest of time. If any console manufacturer allowed users to do this, piracy would kill any incentive for developers to make games on that platform.

Comment Re:A scanner darkly (Score 1) 99

"But most of all, I want to see a law being passed against ever adapting VALIS to the big screen. Or, alternatively, the powers need to legalize drugs in the quantity needed to sit through and get an experience out of it."

This. VALIS would never make it to the big screen while retaining the themes and beauty of the book. However, if someone made a film of the film VALIS from the book VALIS, that might be a little bit awesome. I want to see Mother Goose's head explode.
NASA

Submission + - NASA tests hardware/software on Armadillo Rocket (nasa.gov) 1

porcinist writes: On June 23rd NASA successfully tested hardware and software on an Armadillo Rocket. With the end of NASA's Constellation program in sight, NASA is starting to focus on new, innovative exploration programs like Project-M. This project is meant to land a robotic humanoid on the moon in a thousand days. To meet this goal NASA teamed with Armadillo Aerospace and Draper Labs (The lab responsible for creating the original Apollo Guidance Computer) to integrate and flight test a real-time navigation system in only 7 weeks. This might be the fastest thing NASA has done in 30 years. Maybe NASA is taking Obama's new vision to heart.
Medicine

Submission + - Microsoft's Health-y Patent Appetite 1

theodp writes: This week's USPTO patent application disclosures included a trifecta of scary health-related 'inventions' from Microsoft. For starters, Microsoft envisions seeing Kids Personal Health Records Fed Into Video Game, where they can be used to 'regulate and/or prescribe an individual's behavior while playing electronic games.' Next up is Centralized Healthcare Data Management, which describes how employees' health habits can be 'monitored, tracked or otherwise discovered' so employers can 'incentivize a user for an act or penalize for an omission to act.' Finally, there's Wearing Health on Your Sleeve, which describes a sort of high-tech Scarlet Letter designed to tip off 'doctors, potential dates, etc.' about your unhealthy behavior by converting information — 'number of visits to the gym, workout activities, frequency of workouts, heart rate readings, blood pressure statistics, food consumption, vitamin intake, etc.' — into a visual form so that others can see the data 'on mechanisms such as a mood ring, watch, badge, on a website etc.'
Google

Google Remotely Nukes Apps From Android Phones 509

itwbennett writes "Google disclosed in a blog post on Thursday that it remotely removed two applications from Android phones that ran contrary to the terms of the Android Market. From the post: 'Recently, we became aware of two free applications built by a security researcher for research purposes. These applications intentionally misrepresented their purpose in order to encourage user downloads, but they were not designed to be used maliciously, and did not have permission to access private data — or system resources beyond permission.INTERNET. As the applications were practically useless, most users uninstalled the applications shortly after downloading them. After the researcher voluntarily removed these applications from Android Market, we decided, per the Android Market Terms of Service, to exercise our remote application removal feature on the remaining installed copies to complete the cleanup.' The blog post comes a day after security vendor SMobile Systems published a report saying that 20% of Android apps provide access to sensitive information." Update: 06/25 16:44 GMT by S : Clarified last sentence, which incorrectly suggested that 20% of Android apps were malicious. According to the report (PDF, which we discussed recently), "a majority of these applications were developed with the best of intentions and the user data will likely not be compromised.
Yahoo!

Yahoo Pushing IE7 On Firefox Users 300

El Lobo writes "Looks like things are heating up again in the browser wars. Google has been openly supporting Firefox, so now Yahoo is displaying a new feature on search results pages for FireFox users. It appears that Yahoo is pushing downloads of IE7 from Microsoft and including itself as the default search engine installed in the file menu area." I got the invitation to download IE7 when running Firefox on a Mac, and even when running IE5 under CrossOver; but not when running IE7 under Parallels.

Virtual Earth 3D Beta Launched 188

Lord Satri writes "Microsoft has announced the launch of Virtual Earth 3D. There are numerous screenshots to be seen, as well as a Google Earth comparison from Spatially Adjusted. You can read the Google Earth Blog on why he thinks it's not a threat to Google. C|Net's coverage and the official press release provide lots of concrete details of the product. You can also read more from the development side or see the CBS report on Virtual Earth 3D. My main gripe: Windows and Internet Explorer 6/7 only. From the official press release: 'When people visit Live Search, type a query into the search box and click the "Maps" tab, they get their search results in a map context that offers the option to explore the area using two-dimensional views (aerial and bird's-eye) or three dimensional models with Virtual Earth 3D. This new technology compiles photographic images of cities and terrain to generate textured, photorealistic 3-D models with engineering level accuracy.'"

Test Drive Your Dream Job 129

ches_grin writes "'Vocation Vacations' has a simple concept--allow folks to try out a new career before leaving their current job. Participants get paired with mentors in their chosen field and then spend 2-3 days fully immersed in life as a brewer, dog-trainer, sword-maker, or whatever their fantasy gig is. People are willing to pay to do someone else's job." From the article: "The idea is relatively simple. Participants pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand (transportation, lodging, etc., aren't included) to experience life as, say, a chocolatier, a fashion designer, or a race-car driver. The time spent immersed in their fantasy job allows them to get a 360-degree perspective without the risk of quitting their own jobs or investing heavily in a new career. "

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