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Submission + - Surface Pro 3 has 12" screen, Intel inside

Submitted by crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: Microsoft unveiled its Surface Pro 3 tablet at a press event in New York this morning. The device has a larger 12" screen with a 2160x1440 display resolution and a novel 3:2 aspect ratio. Intel Core processors provide the horsepower, starting with the Core i3 in the base model and extending all the way up to Core i7 in pricier variants. The tablet is just 9.1 mm thick, which Microsoft claims is the thinnest ever for a Core-based device. Microsoft developed a new radial fan that's suppose to distribute airflow evenly inside the chassis without generating audible noise. The tablet weights 800 g, shaving 100 g off the Surface Pro 2, and it's supposed to have longer battery life, as well. Microsoft has also rolled out new keyboard accessories, a pressure-sensitive stylus, and a docking station that supports 4K video output. The Surface Pro 3 is scheduled to be available tomorrow with prices starting at $799.

Comment Re:FPS TOO LOW!! (Score 1) 111

by JohnnyBigodes (#45600817) Attached to: Retail Radeon R9 290X Graphics Cards Slower Than AMD's Press Samples
I get your point, but nobody's interested in playing Quake 1 any more :). Generally speaking, with the recent/upcoming graphics-intensive games, when you're set to a reasonably high resolution and the pretties up, you'll have a hard time maintaining a steady 50+ FPS in the middle of an intense firefight. Which is exactly the moment when you need it the most, even if anywhere else you get 100 FPS. The lows are what you want to avoid.

Besides, the whole point of burning $550 on a top-of-the-line graphics card is the expectation of a performance level of X, and, well, you're going to feel ripped off when you find out that your store-bought $550 card, unlike the review sample, performs just slightly above the $400-ish one.
Cloud

Submission + - One in six Amazon S3 storage buckets are ripe for data-plundering (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
tsamsoniw
tsamsoniw writes: "Using a combination of relatively low-tech techniques and tools, security researchers have discovered that they can access the contents of one in six Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) buckets whose owners had them set to Public instead of Private. All told, researchers discovered and explored nearly 2,000 public buckets, according to Rapid 7 Senior Security Consultant Will Vandevanter, from which they gathered a list of more than 126 billion files, many of which contained sensitive information such as source code and personal employee information. Researchers noted that S3 URLs are all predictable and public facing, which make it that much easier to find the buckets in the first place with a scripting tool."

Submission + - Library journal board resigns on "conscience crisis" after death of Aaron Swartz (chronicle.com)

Submitted by c0lo
c0lo writes: The editor-in-chief and entire editorial board of the Journal of Library Administration announced their resignation last week, citing "a crisis of conscience about publishing in a journal that was not open access" in the days after the death of Aaron Swartz.

The board had worked with publisher Taylor & Francis on an open-access compromise in the months since, which would allow the journal to release articles without paywall, but Taylor & Francis' final terms asked contributors to pay $2,995 for each open-access article. As more and more contributors began to object, the board ultimately found the terms unworkable

The ultimate future of the journal is still undetermined, but the next issue appears to be dead in the water. In a statement to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the journal's editor-in-chief said:

And I advise everyone to take a closer look at the text when I said: “The sad truth is that we’ll never see this particular issue of the Journal of Library Administration.” I never said the content was dead, I simply stated that it would never be in JLA.

Submission + - Creationist Bets $10k Against Challengers To Literal Interpretation of Genesis (yahoo.com)

Submitted by HungWeiLo
HungWeiLo writes: A California man who believes the literal interpretation of the Bible is real is offering $10,000 to anyone who can successfully debunk claims made in the book of Genesis in front of a judge.

Joseph Mastropaolo, the man behind this challenge, is to put $10,000 of his own money into an escrow account. His debate opponent would be asked to do the same. They would then jointly agree on a judge based on a list of possible candidates. Mastropaolo said that any evidence presented in the trial must be “scientific, objective, valid, reliable and calibrated."

For his part, Mastropaolo has a Ph.D. in kinesiology and writes for the Creation Hall of Fame website, which is helping to organize the minitrial. It’s also not the first such trial he’s tried to arrange. A previous effort, known as the “Life Science Prize,” proposed a similar scenario. Mastropaolo includes a list of possible circuit court judges to oversee the trial and a list of those he challenged to take part on the evolutionary side of the debate.

Anyone up for winning $20,000?
Intel

Submission + - Ivy Bridge running hotter than Intel's last-gen CPU (techreport.com) 1

Submitted by crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: The launch of Intel's Ivy Bridge CPUs made headlines earlier this week, but the next-gen processor's story is still being told. When overclocked, Ivy Bridge runs as much as 20C hotter than its Sandy Bridge predecessor at the same speed, despite the fact that the two chips have comparable power consumption. There are several reasons for these toasty tendencies. The new 22-nm process used to fabricate the CPU produces a smaller die with less surface area to dissipate heat. Intel has changed the thermal interface material between the CPU die and its heat spreader. Ivy also requires a much bigger step up in voltage to hit the same speeds as Sandy Bridge. Looks like serious overclockers are better off sticking with Intel's last-generation chips.

Submission + - DARPA Robotics Challenge: Here Are the Official Details (ieee.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The DARPA Robotics Challenge is offering tens of million of dollars in funding to teams from anywhere in the world to build robots capable of performing complex mobility and manipulation tasks such as walking over rubble and operating power tools. It all will culminate with an audacious competition with robots driving trucks, breaking through walls, and attempting to perform repairs in a simulated industrial-disaster setting. The winner takes all: a $2 million cash prize.

Submission + - At what point has a Kickstarter project failed? 2

Submitted by skywiseguy
skywiseguy writes: I have only used Kickstarter to back a single project so far, but one of the backers of that project pointed us to a project promising video capable glasses which was once one of the top 10 highest funded projects in Kickstarter history. After reading through the comments, it is obvious that the project has not met its expected deadline of "Winter 2011" but the project team rarely gives any updates with concrete information, all emails sent to them by backers get a form letter in reply, they routinely delete negative comments from their Facebook page, and apparently very soon after the project was funded, they posted pictures of themselves on a tropical beach with the tagline "We are not on a beach in Thailand." Their early promotions were featured on Engadget and other tech sites but since the project was funded they've rarely, if ever, communicated in more than a form letter. So at what point can a project like this be considered to have failed? And if you had backed a project with this kind of lack of communication from the project team, what would you consider to be the best course of action? Disclaimer: I have not backed this project, but I am very interested in funding Kickstarter projects and I do not want to get caught sending money to a less than reputable project. According to the above project's backers, Kickstarter claims to have no mechanism for refunding money to backers of failed projects and no way to hold the project team accountable to their backers. This does not seem like a healthy environment for someone who is averse to giving their money to scam artists.

Comment Re:"Great leap forward" (Score 1) 344

by JohnnyBigodes (#33650816) Attached to: PostgreSQL 9.0 Released

No, not really.

MySQL has the concept of storage engines, in which, for every table type you create, you pick which storage engine you want to use: MyISAM, InnoDB, etc. That will determine what features one gets. However, most people don't even bother reading a single bit and get a knee-jerk reaction because the default type is the old MyISAM. Granted, it shouldn't be the default anymore, but still... bliss is only one click away for changing the table type.

InnoDB is the second most-common storage engine (the first being the old/kludgy MyISAM) and is ACID-compliant, supports foreign keys, etc. The only thing it lacks is full-text support which is only available on MyISAM tables, but that can be worked around of relatively easily.

There are also other storage engines available, some free, some commercial, and some that enable some neat tricks (like the Blackhole storage engine for replication purposes).

Comment Re:"Great leap forward" (Score 1) 344

by JohnnyBigodes (#33645910) Attached to: PostgreSQL 9.0 Released

You bring up a good point there, and I won't try to dismiss it as it's certainly valid. Misfired releases, so to speak, have hurt MySQL in recent history and created division even in its own community.

I'm just trying to shake down these age-old misconceptions that no longer have any base in reality :) (no foreign keys! no transaactions! no ACID!).

Comment Re:"Great leap forward" (Score 1) 344

by JohnnyBigodes (#33645894) Attached to: PostgreSQL 9.0 Released

I could see your point if MySQL weren't being used in some high-profile instances. However, even that isn't the case anymore. For instance, Google has submitted quite some patches of its own to MySQL.

See MySQL's case studies here: http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/case-studies/

Disclaimer: I am not in any way related to MySQL as more than a web developer. I'm even contemplating a move to PostgreSQL somewhere down the road due to the recent Oracle shenanigans. But nowadays, it is a pretty good product.

Comment Re:Firebird is better (Score 1) 344

by JohnnyBigodes (#33645290) Attached to: PostgreSQL 9.0 Released
Dude, this is Slashdot. For many of the "old timers" here (and a good portion of the new-timers), PHP is still a toy language, MySQL doesn't even have transactions, and Windows 95 is horrible. For the rest of the world, times have changed.

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