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Submission + - Japan on Track to Introduce Flying Taxi Services in 2023 (ieee.org)

damitr writes: > Last Friday, start-up company SkyDrive Inc. demonstrated the progress made since then when it held a press conference to spotlight its prototype vehicle and show reporters a video taken three days earlier of the craft undergoing a piloted test flight in front of staff and investors.

> Also in 2018, the Japanese government formed the Public-Private Conference for Air Mobility made up of private companies, universities, and government ministries. The stated aim was to make flying vehicles a reality by 2023. Tomohiko Kojima of Japan’s Civil Aviation Bureau told Spectrum that since the Conference’s formation, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has held a number of meetings with members to discuss matters like airspace for eVTOL use, flight rules, and permitted altitudes. “And last month, the Ministry established a working-level group to discuss certification standards for eVTOLs, a standard for pilots, and operational safety standards,” Kojima added.

> “What SkyDrive is proposing is entirely do-able,” says Wright. “Almost all rotor-only eVTOL projects are limited to sub-30-minute endurance, which, with safety reserves, equate to about 10 to 20 minutes flying.”

This I think is a rather achievable target.

Comment Re:Not using it anymore from now on (Score 2) 87

I agree to this. Slashdot post for Future : More Researchers Moving On To Zotero! It is not just for fun Elsevier have taken up Mendeley, soon your papers will be scrutinized whether they have been downloaded legally or you have an unauthorized copy of the same. And if found using unauthorized copies, you know what they did to Aaron.

Submission + - $ 35 Indian tablet almost gone

damitr writes: "With a lot of fanfare the Indian Government had launched (http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10/05/1711248/india-launches-35-tablet) a $35 tablet labelled as Aakash (The Sky). The project took a lot of scepticism, but the government went ahead with the project. But delays in production and deployment of the tablet means that the project is almost shelved. The manufacturer has been unable to supply the required 100,000 units deadline for which is March 31 2013 http://www.zdnet.com/in/india-sets-march-31-deadline-for-aakash-2-delivery-7000013135/. The new minister Pallam Raju who took over the ministry looking after the project says: "Aakash is only a tablet... there are other such devices as well. While work will continue to develop it and increase its productivity, manufacturing is obviously a problem," The $35 tablet that now stares at an uncertain future. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/hrd-may-dump-aakash-tablet-hints-pallam.../1092213/ And in a few days time we will know what happens to the project."

Comment Re:Antipattern #1 (Score 1) 27

Edward Tufte in Cognitive Style of Powerpoint has a lot to say about slides their format and content and is against their indiscriminate uset. This is from a perspective of an information designer. http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_pp "Alas, slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations?"

Comment Surreal Numbers (Score 1) 278

Surreal Number by Donald Knuth Nearly 30 years ago, John Horton Conway introduced a new way to construct numbers. Donald E. Knuth, in appreciation of this revolutionary system, took a week off from work on The Art of Computer Programming to write an introduction to Conway's method. Never content with the ordinary, Knuth wrote this introduction as a work of fiction--a novelette. If not a steamy romance, the book nonetheless shows how a young couple turned on to pure mathematics and found total happiness. The book's primary aim, Knuth explains in a postscript, is not so much to teach Conway's theory as "to teach how one might go about developing such a theory." He continues: "Therefore, as the two characters in this book gradually explore and build up Conway's number system, I have recorded their false starts and frustrations as well as their good ideas. I wanted to give a reasonably faithful portrayal of the important principles, techniques, joys, passions, and philosophy of mathematics, so I wrote the story as I was actually doing the research myself."...It is an astonishing feat of legerdemain. An empty hat rests on a table made of a few axioms of standard set theory.Conway waves two simple rules in the air, then reaches into almost nothing and pulls out an infinitely rich tapestry of numbers that form a real and closed field. Every real number is surrounded by a host of new numbers that lie closer to it than any other "real" value does. from http://www.amazon.com/Surreal-Numbers-Donald-Knuth/dp/0201038129

Comment Re:Priorities! (Score 1) 212

Oh actually, going to Mars is way of getting rid of the traffic problem. As you must be knowing there is no traffic on Mars. That is the brilliant idea. As for the electricity problem, they are planning to construct nuclear power plants on Mars (of course with help from the West) whose surplus will be beamed back to India to take out the regular blackouts. Who knows what else they are up to?

Submission + - What is the best position to work for long hours?

damitr writes: "What is the most ergonomic position if you are working with a laptop or a desktop (with or without wireless keyboard and mouse) for long hours at stretch. Is bean bag for sitting with a laptop a good option? What is the better way to use a desktop without causing tennis elbow and backache/neck problems?"
Windows

Submission + - You can't bypass the UI formerly known as Metro on Windows 8 (networkworld.com) 1

colinneagle writes: The final build of Windows 8 has already leaked to torrent sites, which is giving the propellerheads a chance to dig through the code. One revelation will probably not sit well with enterprise customers: you can't bypass the don't-call-it-Metro UI.

Normally, you have to boot Windows 8 and when the tiled desktop UI (formerly known as Metro) came up, you had to click on one of the boxes to launch Explorer. Prior builds of Windows 8 allowed the user to create a shortcut so you bypass Metro and go straight to the Explorer desktop.

Rafael Rivera, co-author of the forthcoming Windows 8 Secrets, confirmed to Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet that Microsoft does indeed block the boot bypass routine from prior builds.

He also believes that Microsoft has blocked the ability for administrators to use Group Policy to allow users to bypass the tiled startup screen. There had been hope that Microsoft would at least relent and let corporate users have a bypass, if only for compatibility’s sake.

Android

Submission + - Cyanogenmod 9 achieves stable release (cyanogenmod.com)

jolle writes: Builds for CyanogenMod 9 stable will be rolling out to cyanogenmod servers tonight. Stable builds are available for a wide range of devices.

From their website:
"Tonight’s release is for the majority of our ICS supported devices, the stragglers will catch up, and we will leave the door open for merging in additional devices from maintainers, external and internal. The team itself, will focus solely on Jelly Bean and maintenance of the CM 7 codebase.

Many have wondered why we bothered to finish CM 9 when we are already active in CM 10 development. To that, our answer is: we don’t like to leave things incomplete. There is no profit gained from what we do, so the satisfaction of completing a goal is our only reward. This release also serves as a release suitable for the masses, especially those who won’t have 100% functioning releases of CM 10 immediately or are averse to anything branded as ‘preview’, ‘alpha’, ‘beta’ or ‘nightly’.

On the topic of nightlies, this release also serves as an end to our CM 9 nightlies, to make way for nightlies chock full of Jelly Bean goodness. A follow-up post will be made when we enable those builds.

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