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Science

Water Bottle Fills Itself From the Air 173

Posted by samzenpus from the everything-is-wet dept.
mbstone writes "The Namib Desert Beetle generates water from water vapor via its shell, which has alternating hydrophilic and hydrophobic bumps which channel water droplets into its mouth. Scientists at MIT developed a self-filling water bottle using this technology, and have announced a contest for the best design of a countertop water-from-air generator."

Comment Re:Time for some insightful, informative rants (Score 2, Interesting) 286

by sysut1 (#31615834) Attached to: Beware the King of the Patent Trolls

If you let everyone copy, nobody does any R&D

Ah, but this is not even remotely certain. Actually, several economic papers give documented facts about how patents actually discourage innovation. (I remember that one of them was linked to in a recent discussion, but I don't have the time to search now)
The Gimp

Submission + - GIMP dropped from Ubuntu 10.04 (digitizor.com) 2

Submitted by kai_hiwatari
kai_hiwatari writes: It seems like the Ubuntu developers consider GIMP to be too powerful for a normal desktop user. So they are removing it from the upcoming Ubuntu 10.04. This actually feels like a good reason as most people uses GIMP as a "Paint"-like software.
Programming

Submission + - Building a 32-bit One Instruction Computer

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The advantages of RISC are well known — simplifying the CPU core by reducing the complexity of the instruction set allows faster speeds, more registers, and pipelining to provide the appearance of single cycle execution. Al Williams writes in Dr Dobbs about taking RISC to it's logical conclusion by designing a functional computer called One-Der with only a single simple instruction — a 32-bit Transfer Triggered Architecture (TTA) CPU that operates at roughly 10 MIPS. "When I tell this story in person, people are usually squirming with the inevitable question: What's the one instruction?" writes Williams. "It turns out there's several ways to construct a single instruction CPU, but the method I had stumbled on does everything via a move instruction (hence the name, "Transfer Triggered Architecture")." The CPU is implemented on a a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device and the prototype works on a "Spartan 3 Starter Board" with an XS3C1000 device available from Digilent that has the equivalent of about 1,000,000 logic gates costing between $100 and $200. "Applications that can benefit from custom instruction in hardware — things like digital signal processing, for example — are ideal for One-Der since you can implement parts of your algorithm in hardware and then easily integrate those parts with the CPU.""
Programming

Nokia Makes LGPL Version of PyQt 263

Posted by timothy from the if-not-one-way-then-another dept.
EtaCarinae writes "Nokia didn't succeed in convincing Riverbank to change its licensing terms on PyQt, and so decided to create their own LGPL'ed version of it. From the FAQ at the PySide site: 'Nokia's initial research into Python bindings for Qt involved speaking with Riverbank Computing, the makers of PyQt. We had several discussions with them to see if it was possible to use PyQt to achieve our goals. Unfortunately, a common agreement could not be found , so in the end we decided to proceed with PySide.'"
Robotics

High-Speed Robot Hand Shows Dexterity and Speed 133

Posted by kdawson from the think-fast dept.
An anonymous reader tips a blog posting that begins "A few blogs are passing around videos of the Ishikawa Komuro Lab's high-speed robot hand performing impressive acts of dexterity and skillful manipulation. However, the video being passed around is slight on details. Meanwhile, their video presentation at ICRA 2009 (which took place in May in Kobe, Japan) has an informative narration and demonstrates additional capabilities. ... [It] shows the manipulator dribbling a ping-pong ball, spinning a pen, throwing a ball, tying knots, grasping a grain of rice with tweezers, and tossing / re-grasping a cellphone!"

Comment Re:Beyond the Alien (Score 1) 336

by sysut1 (#28907751) Attached to: Ridley Scott Directing Alien Prequel

Now think about the world that could produce such a creature, with all those defenses. The Aliens.... are not even CLOSE to the top of the food chain. Imagine what horrors you would find on the world that produced them....

In a novel adapted from the original scenario, there was significant hints that the aliens were not a species, but a biological weapon that proved to be too dangerous even for their creators.

Now, that could lead to an interesting prequel...
The Internet

French "3 Strikes" Law Returns, In Slightly Altered Form 159

Posted by timothy from the more-where-that-came-from dept.
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "The French Senate has once again approved a reworked version of the country's controversial 'three strikes' bill designed to appease the Constitutional Council. Instead of a state-appointed agency cutting off those accused of being repeat offenders, judges will have the final say over punishment. The approval comes exactly one month after the country's Constitutional Council ripped apart the previous version of the Création et Internet law. ... Not content to let the idea die, President Nicolas Sarkozy's administration reworked the law in hopes of making it amenable to the Council — instead of HADOPI deciding on its own to cut off users on the third strike, it will now report offenders to the courts. A judge can then choose to ban the user from the Internet, fine him or her 300,000 (according to the AFP), or hand over a two-year prison sentence."
The Internet

eBay Fakes Devalue the Craft of Tomb Robbing 153

Posted by kdawson from the disintermediation-of-the-illicit dept.
James McP writes "According to an article on Archaeology, fake artifacts being sold on eBay have caused the bottom to drop out of the low-end artifact market. This outcome is exactly opposite to what archeologists feared would happen when eBay came on the scene. A side effect of more and more forgers getting in on the act has been a dramatic increase in high-quality fakes that can fool experts and illicit collectors alike, lowering the price for high-end artifacts as well. It's a lot less cost-effective to go tomb raiding than to make your own fakes, especially since selling fake artifacts isn't really illegal."
Privacy

UK Government To Monitor All Internet Use 446

Posted by CmdrTaco from the foil-hats-aren't-going-to-cut-it dept.
nk497 writes "The UK government has further detailed plans to track all communications — mobile phone calls, text messages, email and browser sessions — in the fight against terrorism, pedophiles and organized crime. The government said it's not looking to see what you're saying, just to whom and when and how. Contrary to previous plans to keep it all in a massive database, it will now let ISPs and telecoms firms store the data themselves, and access it when it feels it needs it." And to clarify this, Barence writes "The UK Government has dropped plans to create a massive database of all internet communications, following stern criticism from privacy advocates. Instead the Government wants ISPs and mobile phone companies to retain details of mobile phone calls, emails and internet sites visited. As with the original scheme, the actual content of the phone calls and messages won't be recorded, just the dates, duration and location/IP address of messages sent. The security services would then have to apply to the ISP or telecoms company to have the data released. The new proposals would also require ISPs to retain details of communications that originated in other countries but passed over the UK's network, such as instant messages."
Cellphones

Amazon Releases iPhone Kindle Software 232

Posted by CmdrTaco from the eyestrain-is-fun dept.
palmsolo writes "The Amazon Kindle 2 just started shipping last week, but Amazon surprised everyone late on March 3rd by placing the Amazon Kindle software for the iPhone in the Apple App Store. With the Whispersync technology you can now keep your Kindle and iPhone ebooks in sync and read everywhere you go. Readers on the iPhone also now get access to over 200,000 ebook titles on the Amazon Kindle storefront. Check out the hands-on image gallery and video of the Amazon Kindle software on the iPhone and Kindle 2."
Television

CBS Hosts Ad-Funded TV Series, Incl. Original Star Trek 276

Posted by timothy from the whole-new-generation-can-obsess-or-ridicule dept.
eldavojohn writes "On Friday, CBS launched a TV Classics section to their ad based online service. Which means that Trekkies can now watch all three seasons of Star Trek: The Original Series online at the expense of a few commercials. Alongside this CBS is offering all of MacGyver, Twin Peaks and even three seasons of the original Twilight Zone. A side note, they seem to work perfectly fine in Linux. "

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