sweetpea86 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Cisco and iRobot create Sheldonbot-like telepresence system (techworld.com)

Submitted by sweetpea86 on Monday June 10, 2013 @08:20AM

sweetpea86 writes: Cisco has teamed up with robotics firm iRobot to create their own enterprise version of the 'Sheldonbot' from US comedy series The Big Bang Theory. The robot, known as Ava 500, brings together iRobot’s autonomous navigation with Cisco’s TelePresence system to enable a remote worker sitting in front of a video collaboration system to meet with colleagues in an office setting or take part in a facility tour.

Submission + - iPad Mini costs $24 more to make than Kindle Fire HD (techworld.com)

Submitted by sweetpea86 on Tuesday November 06, 2012 @10:19AM

sweetpea86 writes: ... but retails for $130 more. Teardowns of the Apple iPad Mini and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD have revealed that the two devices cost almost the same amount to manufacture, despite the retail prices being significantly different. Andrew Rassweiler, senior principal analyst of teardown services for IHS iSuppli, explains that Apple is sticking to the premium brand strategy it has always used for its media tablet and smartphone products, whereas Amazon is banking on content. Could Amazon's strategy pose a competitive challenge to Apple’s media tablet dominance?

Submission + - Vietnamese bank issues fingerprint enabled debit cards (techworld.com)

Submitted by sweetpea86 on Tuesday August 07, 2012 @11:07AM

sweetpea86 writes: Mekong Development has become the first bank in Vietnam to launch fingerprint authentication enabled debit cards. Fingerprints are captured by Mekong Development at the point of opening an account, and then can be used, instead of a pin, to access funds. Not only has Mekong’s account base tripled through the use of fingerprint technology since its launch in June, but the deposit balance per debit card account is two times higher than a regular account.

Submission + - Mind-Reading Invention Let's You Type With Your Brain (gizmocrazed.com)

Submitted by Diggester on Thursday July 05, 2012 @02:50AM

Diggester writes: A group of Researchers at Universiteit Maastricht's Faculty of Psychology & Neuroscience Department of Neurocognition have had enough because they have invented a system that translates thoughts into letters.
This really is an incredible breakthrough for any type of handicap, from serious motor impairment to debilitating speech. The system has been in real-world testing and is an extraordinary success. The patients are set-up to looks at a screen of the alphabet, thinking about each letter for a period of time, then they should be able to think-type in real time. While it is not near the speed of actual typing, it is the only program of it's kind and can only get better.

Submission + - UK company demos colour video animation on electronic paper (techworld.com)

Submitted by sweetpea86 on Friday June 29, 2012 @02:48AM

sweetpea86 writes: Plastic electronics company Plastic Logic has demonstrated colour video animation on a flexible plastic display, which it claims is the first example of an organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) driving electronic paper at video rate. The demonstration proves that the potential uses of electronic paper extend far beyond monochrome text-based e-readers to more sophisticated tablet-style devices that can run colour video, while still keeping power consumption low.

Submission + - Human Stem Cell Transplants Successfully Reversed Diabetes in Mice

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29, 2012 @12:11AM

An anonymous reader writes: Scientists successfully reversed diabetes in mice by transplanting mice human stem cells into mice in a discovery that may lead to way to finding a cure for a disease that affects 8.3 percent of the U.S. population.

Submission + - Tech experts rubbish UK gov't web snooping tactics (techworld.com)

Submitted by sweetpea86 on Friday April 20, 2012 @04:47AM

sweetpea86 writes: The UK government's proposal to separate communications data from content, as part of new plans to allow intelligence services to monitor all internet activity, is infeasible according to a panel of technology experts.

Speaking at the 'Scrambling for Safety' conference in London, Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, said that the distinction between traffic data as being harmless and content as being sensitive is becoming less and less relevant.

“Now that people are living more and more of their lives online, the pattern of who you communicate with and in what order gives away pretty well everything,” he said. “This means that, in data protection terms, traffic data is now very often going to be specially sensitive data.”

Submission + - Nascent Graphene Institute Makes Steps Towards Transistors (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by

judgecorp

on Monday February 06, 2012 @12:32PM

judgecorp writes: "A research team at Manchester has taken a big step towards building transistors with graphene. So far graphene's marvelous conductiviity has actually proved a drawback, but the team has sandwiched a layer of molybdenum disulfide between layers of graphene to provide a high on/off ratio. Also, the British Government is finding £50 million to fund Manchester as a centre for graphene study and development, led by two professors there, Sir Kostya Novoselov and Sir Andre Geim, who shared the 2010 Nobel prize for Physics for their work on graphene."

Submission + - Credit Suisse traders manipulated IT systems to hide $500m losses (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by Qedward on Friday February 03, 2012 @06:46AM

Qedward writes: Two traders at Credit Suisse have pleaded guilty to wire fraud and falsifying data after authorities said they had manipulated the bank's record systems, as the credit crunch approached, in order to help conceal over half a billion dollars' worth of losses.

The traders admitted to circumventing a mandatory real time reporting system introduced by Credit Suisse, manually entering false profit and loss (P&L) figures as the products they handled collapsed in value. They did so, according to the accusations, under heavy pressure from their manager, who has also been charged.

Submission + - Pirate Bay appeal refused by Swedish Supreme Court (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by concertina226 on Wednesday February 01, 2012 @08:21AM

concertina226 writes: The Swedish Supreme Court will not hear an appeal from the founders of The Pirate Bay against prison sentences and fines imposed by the Swedish Court of Appeals, the court said on Wednesday.

Over a year ago, the Court of Appeals sentenced Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundström to 10 months, eight months and four months of jail time, respectively. The court also said they must collectively pay a 46 million kronor (£4.3 million) fine.

Submission + - Man who downloaded bomb recipes jailed for 2 years 2

Submitted by chrb on Friday January 27, 2012 @12:26PM

chrb writes: Asim Kauser, a 25 year old British man, has been jailed for 2 years and 3 months for downloading recipes on how to make bombs and the toxin ricin. Police discovered the materials on a USB stick that Asim's father gave to them following a burglary at the Kauser family home. Asim pled guilty and claimed that he only downloaded the materials because he was curious. A North West Counter-Terrorism Unit spokesman said "I also want to stress that this case is not about policing people's freedom to browse the Internet. The materials that were downloaded were not stumbled upon by chance — these had to be searched for and contained very dangerous information that could have led to an explosive device being built."

Submission + - New privacy laws could boost EU cloud industry (techworld.com)

Submitted by sweetpea86 on Friday January 27, 2012 @04:30AM

sweetpea86 writes: Cloud providers based in the European market could turn the fear, uncertainty and doubt around data protection and the US Patriot Act to their advantage, according to Andy Burton, chairman of the Cloud Industry Forum. The only way that European companies can absolutely guarantee that their data doesn’t end up in the hands of US authorities is by choosing a provider that not only has a data centre within their jurisdiction, but is also owned by an organisation based in that jurisdiction.

Submission + - UK executive 'forced out of job' for posting CV on (techworld.com)

Submitted by sweetpea86 on Thursday January 05, 2012 @01:58PM

sweetpea86 writes: An executive who uploaded his CV to LinkedIn was forced to quit his job because he ticked a box stating he was interested in 'career opportunities'. John Flexman is demanding hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation from his former employer, gas exploration firm BG Group, where he earned £68,000 pounds a year as a Graduate and Development Manager. He is thought to be the first person in the UK to bring a case for constructive dismissal.

The case highlights a grey area around employees' use of social networks such as LinkedIn. According to Kate Hodgkiss, Partner at law firm DLA Piper, employers have every right to seek to protect confidential company information by restricting LinkedIn and other profiles, but cannot prevent employees from looking for a new job.

The news echoes a report in December that a Californian Twitter user was being sued for $340,000 by his former employer for taking his online followers with him when he switched jobs. PhoneDog launched legal proceedings against Noah Kravitz, seeking damages of $2.50 a month per follower for eight months.

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