Comment Like everything else illegal in China... (Score 1) 181
such as Twitter and other forms of social media, they will find a way around to be able to use it...
Paris To Test Banning SUVs In the City 509
thecarchik writes "Paris may be the first city to experiment with such a policy. Next year, it will begin to test restrictions on vehicles that emit more than a certain amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilometer — the measure of a car's contribution to greenhouse gases. An official within the Parisian mayor's office, Denis Baupin, identified older diesel-engined cars and sport-utility vehicles as specific targets of the emissions limit. Residents and travelers have responded by buying thousands of electric cars, including the low-speed fiberglass G-Wiz — despite major safety concerns with the vehicle."
Can Movies Inspire Kids To Be Future Scientists? 298
Hugh Pickens writes "MSNBC reports on a recent panel that discussed studies showing that people, especially children, often model their behavior on what they see on the big (or small) screen and science shows up in many Hollywood films. In fact, 22 of the 60 top-grossing movies of all time are science-fiction or superhero flicks, including history's No. 1 box office hit, Avatar. The movie science doesn't even have to be entirely accurate, some of the panelists added when asked to consider the role and impact of science in cinema. As long as it plants a seed of curiosity in viewers, it may spur them to investigate scientific issues on their own — and perhaps consider a career in science down the road. 'It's not an educational medium, it's an emotional medium,' says Seth Shostak, an astronomer with the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. 'Kids get turned on by the emotion.' Interestingly enough although movies work hard to get the science right, many make errors ranging from the understandable to the egregious, but that's ok, say the panelists. 'Even if a film or media product is not very accurate, that becomes a teaching moment,' says Arvind Singhal. 'So there's room for everything.'"
Submission + - Microsoft Kinect with World of Warcraft (youtube.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies have developed software that enables control of PC video games using the Microsoft Kinect sensor. Their toolkit, known as the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST), emulates custom-configured keyboard controls triggered by body posture and specific gestures. This video shows a user playing the online game World of Warcraft using the Microsoft Kinect. Potential applications of this technology include video games for motor rehabilitation after stroke and reducing childhood obesity through healthy gaming.
Comment 45 years later (Score 4, Insightful) 166
Moore's law is based more on economics than technology. He was just a hands on executive who had a clear vision of what the future would bring. Anybody who actually has read his original paper would realize this. The fact that his theory has held up this long is incredulous.
Comment Genuinely Positive Experience (Score 1) 2
I have been recommending MSE to family and friends for a year.
It found a virus that crippled the university network on windows machines that was not found by Mcafee or Norton.
It is so lightweight, and the updates are wonderfully transparent. It is a joy for the very short amount of time I spend using a windows machine.
The Clock Is Ticking On Encryption 228
CWmike writes "In the indictment that led to the expulsion of ten Russian spies from the US in the summer of 2010, the FBI said that it gained access to their communications after surreptitiously entering one of the spies' homes, during which agents found a piece of paper with a 27-character password. The FBI had found it more productive to burglarize a house than to crack a 216-bit code, despite having the computational resources of the US government behind it, writes Lamont Wood. That's because modern cryptography, when used correctly, is rock solid. Cracking an encrypted message can require time frames that dwarf the age of the universe. That's the case today. 'The entire commercial world runs off the assumption that encryption is rock solid and is not breakable,' says Joe Moorcones, vice president of information security firm SafeNet. But within the foreseeable future, cracking those same codes could become trivial, thanks to quantum computing."
Raising a Botnet In Captivity 60
holy_calamity writes "Technology Review reports that researchers installed 3000 copies of Windows XP on a high performance cluster at a Canadian university and set loose the Waledac botnet on them. It's the first time researchers have built and operated their own botnet as a strategy to better understand those at large on the internet. Doing it inside an experimental computing cluster removes the legal and ethical complications of experimenting with live botnets that control innocent users' machines."
Microsoft Is Releasing an H.264 Plugin For Firefox 245
ndogg writes "Microsoft has announced that it is releasing an H.264 plugin for Firefox. This plugin does not add H.264 capabilities to Firefox, but rather allows it to use the H.264 capabilities built into Windows 7. With that in mind, it sounds like it may not work on anything other than Windows 7."
Calculator Networking With CALCnet and Doors CS 60
KermMartian writes "In an effort to make your trusty graphing calculator more like a computer, a shell called Doors CS has been developed, with an integrated networking stack, CALCnet2.2. The protocol is demonstrated in a nine-calculator pong-type demo, and the many file management, GUI, and other features of Doors CS can be seen at here. All the associated software is available for download."
Debian 6.0 To Feature a Completely Free Kernel 283
dkd903 writes "The Debian Project has announced that the upcoming release — Debian 6.0 'Squeeze' — will have a completely free Linux kernel. This means that the Linux kernel which ships with Debian 6.0 will not have any non-free firmware. The Debian Project has been working on removing the non-free parts since the last two releases. With Squeeze, they are finally realizing that goal."
Should Wikipedia Just Accept Ads Already? 608
Hugh Pickens writes "Large images of Jimmy Wales have for weeks dominated each and every page on Wikipedia, making Wales arguably the single most visible individual on the planet. Now Molly McHugh writes that Wikipedia is once again pleading for user donations with banners across the top of its site with memos from purported authors and this week, Wales stepped up the shrillness of his rallying cry by adding the word 'Urgent' to his appeal. Wales attempted the same request for donations last year, and failed to meet the company's goal until Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar donated $2 million and Google stepped in with another $2 million gift to the foundation. This time around the foundation is approximately $7 million short of its 2010 fundraising goal, and Wikipedia analysts are saying the site would be better off with a marketing scheme as Alex Konanykhin of WikiExperts explains that the donations-only, no-commerce model restricts Wikipedia to relying exclusively on free volunteers, losing opportunities to involve qualified professionals who charge for their time in addition to the thirty staff members already on the Wikimedia payroll. 'Advertising is not cool. You're not as cool if you have advertising. But you know what else is not cool? Begging,' writes Jeff Otte. 'We do not care if there is advertising on Wikipedia, so long as it is not ridiculously invasive. So please, replace your sensitive mug with a Steak 'n' Shake ad or something, and start making advertisers pay for people to have stuff for free and not feel bad about it. It's the Internet's way.'"
Comment Linux opens too many possibilities (Score 1) 481
I would love for Netflix to produce a Linux client (I was outraged to find there wasn't one), even though Netflix Canada still does not have anything to watch on it, so I'm paying $8 for about one movie every month.
Unfortunately, there are simply too many distributions to support. If we pay hard earned money for something, we demand that it works always, regardless of the distribution we may be using or what else we are running.
Saying that, It would be a joke to write a Linux client, especially since they already have some experienced developers as it would seem. I imagine there may be some lobbying that is keeping the service from coming to linux. Imagine the concept of dirt cheap netflix set top boxes using embedded linux. It may even be pretty easy to make with a wireless arduino module. I imagine it would completely destroy cable distribution as we know it (not that it isn't already dying), in America at least. The fact that most people still want to watch their tv on a tv, instead of having to hook up their wireless laptop to a wired tv to stream online media. If viewers could pay 10 dollars once for a set top box and 8 dollars a month for netlix, instead of 50 for cable, and a lot more for a crappy pvr. Imagine a set top box that is just a sheva plug using external flash storage, so you tv could go with you everywhere. I know I am a a dreamer. Linux opens too many possibilities.
Netflix Touts Open Source, Ignores Linux 481
Julie188 writes "If Netflix loves open source, where's the Linux client? Last week's post from Netflix on its use of open source has gotten a lot of coverage from the tech press. Too bad nobody's called the video giant out on its hypocrisy: They benefit greatly from open source, but really don't care to let their customers do the same."
20 Years of Commander Keen 152
angry tapir writes "This week marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the first Commander Keen game. For those too young to remember, Commander Keen was a series of shareware 2D platform games for the PC released by Apogee Software (aka 3D Realms) developed by no less than id Software — the developers of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake."
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