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Comment Humans or no? (Score 5, Interesting) 892

by Kickboy12 (#39102905) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Would Real Space Combat Look Like?
I always thought the idea of having humans on board a "space battle cruiser" were really weak on imagination. It's very likely space battles would take place with autonomous robots, controlled from a distance, so as not to sacrifice human lives. This, in general, is probably the future of military combat. A million little nano bots would also be much more effective in waging a battle than 1 or 2 giant ships with laser beams (also weak on imagination).
Power

A New Class of Nuclear Reactors 560

Posted by Soulskill from the can-we-make-them-levitate dept.
prunedude tips this quote from a post at Freakonomics about Japan's nuclear crisis: "The folks over at IV Insights, the blog associated with Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures, point out that it was the complete loss of power that disabled the cooling systems protecting the plant's reactors. Which raises the question: Is there nuclear technology that could withstand such a catastrophe? Possibly. TerraPower, an Intellectual Ventures spin-off that also boasts Bill Gates as an investor, is working on a new reactor design called a traveling wave reactor that uses fast reactor technology, rather than the light water technology used at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The two biggest advantages of the fast reactor design is that it requires no spent fuel pools and uses cooling systems that require no power to function, meaning the loss of power from the tsunami might not have crippled a fast reactor plant so severely."
Microsoft

MS Gives Free Licenses To Oppressed Nonprofits 151

Posted by samzenpus from the here-you-got-enough-trouble dept.
victorl19 writes "Microsoft is vastly expanding its efforts to prevent governments from using software piracy inquiries as a pretext to suppress dissent. It plans to provide free software licenses to more than 500,000 advocacy groups, independent media outlets and other nonprofit organizations in 12 countries with tightly controlled governments, including Russia and China."

Comment HTML5 (Score 5, Insightful) 102

by Kickboy12 (#33814284) Attached to: Building the Realtime User Experience

I'd rather just wait for HTML5 WebSockets. I've done a few demos on Google Chrome using node.js, and it's very fast, efficient, and simple to use. Much more practical than "long-polling", since it is a truly persistent bi-directional connection with the server.

Any attempt to do this with HTTP is just hacking the protocol to do something it was never intended to do.
Privacy

Motorcyclist Wins Taping Case Against State Police 485

Posted by Soulskill from the development-on-camera-tasers-continues dept.
stevegee58 writes "Slashdot readers may recall the case of a Maryland motorcyclist (Anthony Graber) arrested and charged with wiretapping violations (a felony) when he recorded his interaction with a Maryland State Trooper. Today, Judge Emory A. Pitt threw out the wiretapping charges against Graber, leaving only his traffic violations to be decided on his October 12 trial date. 'The judge ruled that Maryland's wire tap law allows recording of both voice and sound in areas where privacy cannot be expected. He ruled that a police officer on a traffic stop has no expectation of privacy.' A happy day for freedom-loving Marylanders and Americans in general."
Government

UK Goverment IT Chief Backs Open Source Suppliers 72

Posted by samzenpus from the open-up dept.
Blacklaw writes "The UK government's deputy Chief Information Officer has outlined plans to hand public sector IT contracts over to small businesses and suppliers of open-source and cloud-based solutions in an attempt to balance the books. Speaking at the 360IT conference in London on Wednesday, Bill McCluggage also promised greater transparency over IT procurement, with tenders and contracts published online. Outlining a commitment to 'simplify, standardize and automate', McCluggage said the government would make it easier for open-source suppliers to compete for contracts, making the public sector less reliant on individual suppliers, or locked into proprietary systems."

Comment Re:Fail (Score -1, Flamebait) 95

by Kickboy12 (#33616956) Attached to: First Google Voice App Hits the App Store

As someone who has owned both an iPhone and an Android phone, I have to say the iPhone is better (in terms of UI and hardware). In terms of software obviously having an open platform is way better.

Though I'd prefer this thread not turn into a giant iPhone vs. Android flame-war. Maybe we need a Nokia fan-boy somewhere to even the playing field.
Government

Germany To Grant Privacy At the Workplace 450

Posted by samzenpus from the snooping-on-your-lunch-break dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The German government is proposing a bill declaring that employees have an expectation of privacy at the workplace (translated article). Among other provisions, the bill would ban employers from surveilling their employees by cameras or logging and reading their emails. Also, potential employers would not be allowed to view an applicant's profile at Facebook or any other social network that hasn't actually been made for this purpose."
Biotech

The Rise of Nanofoods 369

Posted by kdawson from the just-a-little-tweak dept.
separsons writes "Researchers are altering foods at the nanoscale level, changing their tiny molecular structures to enhance certain properties. (New Scientist has a more detailed look.) For example, one group of scientists found a way to hide water within individual droplets of oil, making low-fat mayonnaise taste like the real thing. The process can make spices spicier, potato chips healthier, and make diet food taste just like full-calorie snacks. Nanotech can even help combat global malnutrition. But the process is certainly controversial, and food manufacturers are being tight-lipped about exactly what nanofoods they're working on. So can nanotech create a healthier world, or is it just frightening Franken-food?"

Comment How long will it last? (Score 1, Redundant) 454

by Kickboy12 (#32359328) Attached to: UK Newspaper Websites To Become Nearly Invisible

I am willing to bet that eventually they'll start loosing more money than they are now. They are probably making a decent amount of money on advertising right now, and they will probably end up making less on paid subscriptions than they currently do on advertising. Will they eventually reverse course in 6months to a year?

I guess we'll see... but for the majority of the internet, this means the death of murdoch's online news dominance. Good Riddance.
United Kingdom

UK Newspaper Websites To Become Nearly Invisible 454

Posted by samzenpus from the no-news-for-you dept.
smooth wombat writes "Various websites have tried to make readers pay for access to select parts of their sites. Now, in a bid to counter what he claims is theft of his material, Rupert Murdoch's Times and Sunday Times sites will become essentially invisible to web users. Except for their home pages, no stories will show up on Google. Starting in late June, Google and other search engines will be prevented from indexing and linking to stories. Registered users will still get free access until the cut off date."
HP

HP Explains Why Printer Ink Is So Expensive 651

Posted by kdawson from the megabucks-per-picoliter dept.
CWmike writes "'There's a perception that [printer] ink is one of the most expensive substances in the world,' says Thom Brown, marketing manager at HP. Well, yeah. One might get that feeling walking out of a store having spent $35 for a single ink cartridge that appears to contain fewer fluid ounces of product than a Heinz ketchup packet. Brown was ready to explain. He presented a series of PowerPoint slides aptly titled 'Why is printer ink so expensive?' I was ready for answers. The key point in a nutshell: Ink technology is expensive, and you pay for reliability and image quality. 'These liquids are completely different from a technology standpoint,' Brown says, adding that users concerned about cost per page can buy 'XL' ink cartridges from HP that last two to three times longer. (Competitors do the same.) The message: You get value for the money. No getting around it though — ink is still expensive, particularly if you have to use that inkjet printer for black-and-white text pages."
Ubuntu

Btrfs Could Be the Default File System In Ubuntu Meerkat 269

Posted by Soulskill from the shake-things-up dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The EXT family of file systems (ext2, ext3, ext4) have ruled many Linux distributions for a long time, and Ubuntu has been no exception. But things may no longer be the same for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. Canonical's Scott James Remnant said in a blog post that plans are on for doing work to have btrfs as an installation option, and that the possibility of making it the default file system in Ubuntu 10.10 has not been ruled out."

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