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Technology

Festo's Drone Dragonfly Takes To the Air 45

Posted by samzenpus from the little-flyer dept.
yyzmcleod writes "Building on the work of last year's bionic creation, the Smart Bird, Festo announced that it will literally launch its latest creation, the BionicOpter, at Hannover Messe in April. With a wingspan of 63 cm and weighing in at 175 grams, the robotic dragonfly mimics all forms of flight as its natural counterpart, including hover, glide and maneuvering in all directions. This is made possible, the company says, by the BionicOpter's ability to move each of its four wings independently, as well as control their amplitude, frequency and angle of attack. Including its actuated head and body, the robot exhibits 13 degrees of freedom, which allows it to rapidly accelerate, decelerate, turn and fly backwards."

Comment CAPS LOCK GU BRATH (Score 1) 968

by Foochee (#34490138) Attached to: Google Wants To Take Away Your Capslock Key
I see a whole army of my slashdotters, here in defiance of tyranny. You've come to type as free men... and free men you are. What will you do with that freedom? Will you type?

Type? Against that? No! We will use the Shift Key. And we will live.

Aye, type and you may die. Use the Shift Key, and you'll live... at least a while. And typing away on your Chrome Notebook in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell Google that they may take our CAPS LOCK, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!
CAPS LOCK GU BRATH!!!
Idle

Superman Comic Saves Family Home From Foreclosure 217

Posted by samzenpus from the more-powerful-than-an-angry-banker dept.
A couple's home was saved from foreclosure after they found a copy of Action Comics #1 in a box in the basement. From the article: "In a statement released through ComicConnect, the owner of the prized comic book said the family was still 'a little shell shocked' after the unexpected find. 'I was so nervous when I realized what it was worth,' the owner said. 'I know I am very fortunate but I will be greatly relieved when this book finds a new home.'"
Businesses

Submission + - Barnes and Noble Bookstore Chain Put Up for Sale (guardian.co.uk) 1

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: America's largest chain of high-street bookshops, Barnes & Noble, last night put itself up for sale in the latest sign of distress in the literary retailing world which has already seen the demise of the Borders book chain in Britain.

B&N, which owns 720 high-street shops in all 50 American states, announced it was calling in the investment bank Lazard to advise on strategic alternatives including "a possible sale of the company" after a 45% slump in share price in the last year.

In common with other booksellers, B&N has struggled with changes in customers' habits. Readers are buying more books online, while digital readers such as Amazon's Kindle are rapidly becoming popular alternatives to traditional books.

The chain's founder Leonard Riggio, who started the business with a bookstore in New York's Greenwich Village in 1965, immediately declared that he was a possible buyer, sending Barnes & Noble's share price up by 25% in unofficial after-hours trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/04/barnes-and-noble-for-sale
Games

Submission + - Why NASA's New Video Game Totally Misses the Point (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by longacre
longacre writes: Erik Sofge trudges through NASA’s latest free video game, which he finds tedious, uninspiring and misguiding: "Moonbase Alpha is a demo, of sorts, for NASA's more ambitious upcoming game, Astronaut: Moon, Mars & Beyond, which will feature more destinations, and hopefully less welding. The European Space Agency is developing a similar game, set on the Jovian Moon, Europa. But Moonbase Alpha proves that as a recruiting campaign, or even as an educational tool, the astronaut simulation game is a lost cause. Unless NASA plans to veer into science fiction and populate its virtual moons, asteroids and planets with hostile species, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to suffer through another minute of pretending to weld power cables back into place, while thousands of miles away, the most advanced explorers ever built are hurtling toward asteroids and dwarf planets and into the heart of the sun. Even if it was possible to build an astronaut game that's both exciting and realistic, why bother? It will be more than a decade before humans even attempt another trip outside of Earth's orbit. If NASA wants to inspire the next generation of astronauts and engineers, its games should focus on the real winners of the space race—the robots."
Idle

Submission + - Toy train no longer a toy (nytimes.com)

Submitted by alfredos
alfredos writes: "The modified model of a diesel train engine was carrying a small chunk of californium-252, a radioactive element that spews neutrons as it falls apart"
Media

What Would Have Entered the Public Domain Tomorrow? 331

Posted by timothy from the alas-'twas-not-to-be dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Duke's Center for the Study of the Public Domain about items that would enter the public domain starting on January 1, 2010, if not for copyright extenions: "'Casino Royale, Marilyn Monroe's Playboy cover, The Adventures of Augie March, the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Crick & Watson's Nature article decoding the double helix, Disney's Peter Pan, The Crucible'... 'How ironic that Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, with its book burning firemen, was published in 1953 and would once have been entering the public domain on January 1, 2010. To quote James Boyle, "Bradbury's firemen at least set fire to their own culture out of deep ideological commitment, vile though it may have been. We have set fire to our cultural record for no reason; even if we had wanted retrospectively to enrich the tiny number of beneficiaries whose work keeps commercial value beyond 56 years, we could have done so without these effects. The ironies are almost too painful to contemplate.""
IT

Submission + - Uniforms for the Help Desk 5

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I am an IT worker in a mid sized company with approximately 500 employees. There are 30 people on the IT staff, 6 of which are on the help desk. Our help desk does have significant visibility in the company, and most people know us by face (some by name). Recently the idea has been floated up the management chain to have these help desk workers wear IT department branded shirts. The idea is to promote visibility and unity. Wearing of these shirts would be mandatory Monday through Thursday. The shirts would not be identical (there would be several styles offered). We would be the only department with specific garments outside of the normal business casual dress code.

Is management out of line with the industry in promoting this sort of policy change? Is the singling out of 6 employees as "the IT guys" a step in the right direction, or does it detract from the professionalism that we are trying to display as a department?
Movies

Anti-Technology Themes in James Cameron's Avatar 870

Posted by CmdrTaco from the these-are-a-few-of-my-favorite-things dept.
ThousandStars writes "'The anti-technological aspect [in James Cameron's Avatar] is strange because the movie is among most technically sophisticated ever: it uses a crazy 2D and 3D camera, harnesses the most advanced computer animation techniques imaginable, and has apparently improved the state-of-the-art when it comes to cinema. But Avatar’s story argues that technology is bad. Humans destroyed their home world through environmental disaster and use military might to annihilate the locals and steal their resources.' The question is two-fold: why have a technically sophisticated, anti-technical movie, and why are we drawn to it? Part of the answer lies in Neal Stephenson's Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out."

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