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Comment Re:Uhm, no... (Score 1) 332

Your point doesn't make sense considering that iTunes on Mac is the same mess that it is on Windows. It's iOS sync and buy* central with the added ability of playing music or watching a video from the same app.

After the iOS5 update split the iPod app into the Music and Video apps I kind of assumed Apple planned on doing the same thing on the desktop, but so far they haven't delivered.

*iBooks not included

Comment Re:Why ban it? (Score 1) 248

not sure the US can afford both...

Sure we can, we've just got to cut all of those pesky social programs and eliminate all of the federal agencies (except DOD, of course) and then we'll have plenty of money to defend ourselves from the terrorists that hate us for our freedoms and save the job creators. Then we can all bask in the glorious stream of money that comes trickling down upon us.

Comment Re:In other words (Score 2, Insightful) 450

Not really, although possibly, depending on the recordings. The difference between 24-bit and 16-bit audio is the dynamic range, with 24-bit having a much wider range between the quietest possible sound and the loudest possible sound. This is something that can definitely be heard, even on lower end equipment.

Today's music, however, is so compressed (as in audio-compression, not data-compression) in the quest to "make it louder" that it doesn't even get close to reaching the possible dynamic range of 16-bit, which effectively makes an upgrade to 24-bit completely worthless.

Google "Loudness Wars" if you want more information on that.

Moon

Japan Plans Moon Base Built By Robots For Robots 253

An anonymous reader writes "The Japanese space agency, JAXA, has plans to build a base on the Moon by 2020. Not for humans, but for robots — and built by robots, too. A panel authorized by Japan's prime minister has drawn up preliminary plans for how humanoid and rover robots will begin surveying the moon by 2015, and then begin construction of a base near the south pole of the moon. The robots and the base will run on solar power, with total costs about $2.2 billion USD, according to the panel chaired by Waseda University President Katsuhiko Shirai. 'As currently envisioned, the robots that will land on the lunar surface in 2015 will be 660-pound behemoths equipped with rolling tank-like treads, solar panels, seismographs, high-def cameras, and a smattering of scientific instruments. They'll also have human-like arms for collecting rock samples that will be returned to Earth via rocket.'"
Science

Antarctic's First Plane, Found In Ice 110

Arvisp writes "In 1912 Australian explorer Douglas Mawson planned to fly over the southern pole. His lost plane has now been found. The plane – the first off the Vickers production line in Britain – was built in 1911, only eight years after the Wright brothers executed the first powered flight. For the past three years, a team of Australian explorers has been engaged in a fruitless search for the aircraft, last seen in 1975. Then on Friday, a carpenter with the team, Mark Farrell, struck gold: wandering along the icy shore near the team's camp, he noticed large fragments of metal sitting among the rocks, just a few inches beneath the water."

Comment Re:DVD is poor by comparison, but is "good enough" (Score 1) 895

First of all, it's Blu-ray, not Blue-ray.

Second, it does not offer higher frame rates. In fact, the reason that it offers "better motion depiction" is due to its lower frame rate. Blu-rays can do 24 frames a second which is the same frame rate as film. DVDs do 30 frames a second (after being de-interlaced), so the film's 24 fps needs to be converted to 30 fps (actually, 29.97 fps).

See the wikipedia article on Telecine to learn about the conversion process.
The Internet

To Media Companies, BitTorrent Implies Guilt 381

kripkenstein writes "The big media companies immediately assume you are guilty by your mere presence on a BitTorrent swarm, an investigation by a university security worker reveals. Turns out companies like BayTSP (which the media companies employ) will send shutdown notices to ISPs without any evidence of copyright infringment; all they feel they need is an indication that you are reported by the tracker to be in the swarm." From the post: "For my investigation, I wrote a very simple BitTorrent client. My client sent a request to the tracker, and generally acted like a normal Bittorrent client up to sharing files. The client refused to accept downloads of, or upload copyrighted content. It obeyed the law... With just this, completely legal, BitTorrent client, I was able to get notices from BayTSP. To put this in to perspective, if BayTSP were trying to bust me for doing drugs, it'd be like getting arrested because I was hanging out with some dealers, but they never saw me using, buying, or selling any drugs."

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