Comment Doctor (Score 1) 341
Isn't this technology called a doctor?
Comment Goodbye Palm and Nokia! (Score 0) 479
My first (dumb)phone was a Nokia 6110 in 1997 and my last a Nokia 6820 in 2005. My first PDA was a Palm Pilot 1000 in 1996 and my last, a Palm Tungsten T3 in 2005.
I guess smartphones killed them both. Nokia didn't know how to make a proper PDA and Palm didn't know how to make a proper phone. Too bad they didn't cooperate back then.
Palm and Nokia: you will be remembered.
I guess smartphones killed them both. Nokia didn't know how to make a proper PDA and Palm didn't know how to make a proper phone. Too bad they didn't cooperate back then.
Palm and Nokia: you will be remembered.
Comment Very large? (Score 4, Interesting) 213
Am I the only one to notice that 2.2250738585072011e-308 is not very large?
Apparently, some journalists need a patch too.
My 2.2250738585072011e-308 cents.
Apparently, some journalists need a patch too.
My 2.2250738585072011e-308 cents.
Comment Re:Thanks Google (Score 3, Informative) 72
I have to disagree on that one. The Google Summer of Code is basically run by 5 people from the Open Source Programs Office. There's no one from HR involved.
Google has absolutely no control over who gets selected. The orgs alone choose their students. The only feedback that Google gets from the Summer of Code projects are two routinely hurriedly written reports from the orgs at mid-term and end of project.
Finally, of those that successfully complete the Summer of Code, less than 1% end up as Google interns and even less as full-time engineers.
Comment Debian is participating and welcoming students (Score 5, Interesting) 44
Debian is welcoming students once again this year. I was a 2008 GSoC student at Debian and am returning this year to admin the GSoC program at Debian. I had a very exciting experience, participating in meetups with a lot of Debian developers all over Europe and I recommend you to apply at Debian to share this experience.
We have a huge range of project possibilities, from our famous packaging system (.deb ftw) to debian-specific developer tools and infrastructure (want to work on our multi-arch distributed build farm ?) or hardware support (because Debian runs everywhere, from tiny ARM devices to country-wide computing grids). We have you all covered.
Remember that Debian and its derivatives are the largest group of Linux distributions in the world. That's a huge community you'll be working with, and I should say, an amazing concentration of talent.
If you are interested, visit: http://wiki.debian.org/gsoc, join us on IRC on: #debian-soc on irc.debian.org or follow us on twitter of identi.ca (DebianGSoC).
Also, see our mailing-list announcement for more pratical information.
China Announces Launch-Success Details — Before Launch 307
Ironsides writes "After faking the fireworks at the Olympics this year, one would have thought China had learned their lesson. Now, it appears they announced the success of their manned space mission before liftoff even occured, complete with dialogue."
Comment Re:Poor image quality on more recent images (Score 1) 105
Nasa imagery is public domain, as are all photographic works from the US government. See their statement. Wikipedia is very grateful for this.
A 30-Picowatt Processor For Sensors 93
Roland Piquepaille writes "University of Michigan (U-M) researchers have developed an ultra low power microchip which 'uses 30,000 times less power in sleep mode and 10 times less in active mode than comparable chips now on the market.' It only consumes 30 picowatts in sleep mode, which means that a simple watch battery could power the chip for more than 200 years. Of course, this is not a processor for your next computer. It is designed for sensor-based devices such as medical implants, environment monitors or surveillance equipment. However, the design is very clever." Roland's blog has some more information, including a die picture of the chip, known as the Phoenix.
Ionospheric Interference With GPS Signals 127
Roland Piquepaille writes "In recent years, we have become increasingly dependent on applications using the Global Positioning System, such as railway control, highway traffic management, emergency response, and commercial aviation. But the American Geophysical Union warns us that we can't always trust our GPS gadgets because 'electrical activity in the... ionosphere can tamper with signals from GPS satellites.' However, new research studies are under way and 'may lead to regional predictions of reduced GPS reliability and accuracy.'" Roland's blog has useful links and a summary of a free introduction, up at the AGU site, to a special edition of the journal Space Weather with seven articles (not free) regarding ionospheric effects on GPS.
Soyuz Ballistic Re-entry 300 Miles Off Course 197
call-me-kenneth writes "Soyuz TMA-11, carrying a crew of three returning from the ISS, unexpectedly followed a high-G ballistic re-entry trajectory and ended up landing 300 miles off-course. The crew, including Commander Peggy Whitson and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, are reportedly in good health. Soyuz capsules have previously saved the lives of the crew even after severe malfunctions that might have led to the loss of a less robust vehicle."
Crater From 1908 Tunguska Blast Found 192
MaineCoasts writes "A team of scientists from the Marine Science Institute in Bologna claims to have found the crater left by the aerial blast of a comet or asteroid in 1908 in the Tunguska region of Siberia. The blast flattened 770 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) of forest, but to date no remains or crater have been found. This has left open the question of what kind of object made the impact. The team believes that, contrary to previous studies, nearby Lake Cheko is only one century old and 'If the body was an asteroid, a surviving fragment may be buried beneath the lake. If it was a comet, its chemical signature should be found in the deepest layers of sediments.' The team's findings are based on a 1999 expedition to Tunguska and appeared in the August issue of the journal Terra Nova."
Human-Robot Love and Marriage 358
An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC has an article on the impending robo-human coupling: 'My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots,' artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience."
RIAA Claims Ownership of All Artist Royalties For Internet Radio 458
ISurfTooMuch writes "With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations, wouldn't a good solution be for streaming internet stations to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels' music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA's affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. 'SoundExchange (the RIAA) considers any digital performance of a song as falling under their compulsory license. If any artist records a song, SoundExchange has the right to collect royalties for its performance on Internet radio. Artists can offer to download their music for free, but they cannot offer their songs to Internet radio for free ... So how it works is that SoundExchange collects money through compulsory royalties from Webcasters and holds onto the money. If a label or artist wants their share of the money, they must become a member of SoundExchange and pay a fee to collect their royalties.'"
Google's China Problem 203
Wraithfighter writes "The New York Times has a rather lengthy, but informative, piece on the origins of Google's current Chinese search engine, as well as a very informative look at how censoring is actually done in China. From the article: 'Are there gradations of censorship, better and worse ways to limit information? In America, that seems like an intolerable question -- the end of the conversation. But in China, as Google has discovered, it is just the beginning.'"
Making and Breaking HDCP Handshakes 144
Cadre writes "Ed Felten describes the handshaking routine used by HDCP and how if any 40 devices conspire together, they can break the security of the system."
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