fistfullast33l - Slashdot User

Submission + - Gov't approves parts of Verizon-Cable spectrum sale, co-marketing agreements (buffalonews.com)

Submitted by fistfullast33l on Friday August 17, 2012 @09:37AM

fistfullast33l writes: Buffalo News is reporting that the Justice Department, FCC, and New York State Attorney General approved portions of a deal between Verizon Wireless and Cable companies Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Cox to sell parts of the wireless spectrum to Verizon for $3.9bn. It rejected the agreement between the two groups to allow Verizon to market cable services in its stores in markets where it also offers FIOS service. The spectrum will be used to increase Verizon's 4G LTE network coverage. Verizon will also sell some spectrum to T-Mobile. Consumer groups were very concerned about the cross-marketing by Verizon:
When it comes to home broadband, Verizon Communication Inc.'s FiOS provides the only significant competition to cable in many areas. Yet FiOS is costly to build out, and Verizon's commitment to the technology has faltered. Consumer groups and unions that opposed the deal between the cable companies and Verizon said it showed that Verizon was further giving up on FiOS and yielding the home broadband market to cable.

Submission + - Microsoft Offered $40 a share for Yahoo

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Tuesday June 03, 2008 @09:42AM

fistfullast33l writes: "Bloomberg is reporting that a recently unsealed court case by shareholders against Yahoo reveals that Microsoft offered $40 a share for the internet search company in January 2007 and the company turned it down. Slashdot has had extensive coverage on the bid by Microsoft to buy Yahoo earlier this year for $33 a share, which was rebuffed. Investor Carl Icahn has launched a proxy fight against Yahoo over the spurning of the Microsoft deal."

Submission + - PSP-Slim Hands On

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @11:32AM

fistfullast33l writes: "PSPFanboy, a Joystiq blog, has a great closeup of the new PSP redesign. Photos show the old PSP and the new PSP side by side. Modifications include adding more RAM (up to 64MB), extended battery life, a new UMD loading door, removal of the IR port (Sony really hates infrared), and a redesigned headphone jack to support video output. Sony confirmed that you will be able to play movies and games through the video out, but the games can only be viewable via component, not composite cables. Also, 0okm has some nice pictures of the new PSP internals as well as a manual snapshot showing button layout (the wireless switch was moved) and TV out information."

Submission + - Obama's MySpace Drama

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Wednesday May 02, 2007 @10:11AM

fistfullast33l writes: "TechPresident, which is covering the use of technology by Presidential Campaigns for 2008, has a very interesting article on how Obama's MySpace page is currently the subject of an underground battle for control by the campaign itself and the volunteer who created it in 2004. Joseph Anthony worked with the campaign initially and grew the site to include over 160,000 unsolicited friends that the campaign could use to reach out to. It currently is the main Obama page in the Impact Channel on MySpace. However, as Obama's campaign became more centralized and formal, the decision was made to attempt to acquire control of the site from Anthony. They asked him for a price, which he offered up as $49,000 plus part of the $10,000 fee paid to MySpace for the Impact Channel. Obama balked at the price, and decided to start afresh rather than pay the money. The fight broke out into the open when Anthony posted a response on his blog to rumors that the campaign was spreading regarding him wanting to cash out. MyDD has more."

Submission + - PS3 Linux performs Real Time Ray Tracing

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Thursday April 05, 2007 @01:55PM

fistfullast33l writes: "A video posted on You Tube shows three PS3s networked together to perform Real Time Ray Tracing. Keep in mind that PS3 Linux runs in a hypervisor, so the RSX graphics chip is not being used at all. Even more impressive, PS3 Fanboy is reporting that Linux also limits the number of SPEs to 6 at once, so not all the horsepower on each of the PS3s is being utilized. According to the You Tube Summary, IBM Cell SDK 2.0 is being used for the IBM Interactive Ray-tracer (iRT). This apparently was done by the same team that presented a tech demo at GDC 2007 of a Linux PS3 rendering a 3 million polygon scene in real time at 1080p resolution."

Submission + - Wildlife Deputy Changed Science for Lobbyists

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Friday March 30, 2007 @05:12PM

fistfullast33l writes: "In yet another case of a Bush-appointed official creating their own interpretation of science, TPM Muckraker reports on Julie MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks in the Department of the Interior in Washington. The Department's Inspector General issued a report today documenting evidence that MacDonald not only overrode opinions of department scientists to benefit lobbyists, political interests, and her own insanity, but also that she shared internal documents with said lobbyists and a friend in an unnamed online roleplaying game. My favorite episode:

At one point, according to Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall, MacDonald tangled with field personnel over designating habitat for the endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher, a bird whose range is from Arizona to New Mexico and Southern California. When scientists wrote that the bird had a "nesting range" of 2.1 miles, MacDonald told field personnel to change the number to 1.8 miles. Hall, a wildlife biologist who told the IG he had had a "running battle" with MacDonald, said she did not want the range to extend to California because her husband had a family ranch there.
Apparently, MacDonald is a civil engineer and has no formal natural sciences training."

Submission + - PS3 Owners To Simulate Gene Folding

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Thursday March 15, 2007 @12:06PM

fistfullast33l writes: "According to IGN UK, the next version of Playstation firmware will include a joint venture from Stanford University and Sony called Folding@Home. Similar to the infamous SETI@Home project, Folding@Home will be an idle application that participates in a simulation that "aims to map the way that genes change shape (or 'fold'), so they can be studied by scientists and, potentially, cure illnesses such as Parkinson's or a variety of cancers." The application will download a "work unit" that it will unravel to completion, update Stanford's servers, and then download the next unit and continue. The console will not be able to do any work while Folding@Home is running. Will the heat generated by the PS3 during this process help offset the inevitable increase in my utility bill from running the console all day?"

Submission + - PS3 Oblivion Approaching PC Quality Visuals

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @02:22PM

fistfullast33l writes: "After taking a beating in Gamespot's side by side Comparison of Xbox 360 and PS3 graphics, Playstation 3 owners may finally have something to hold over the 360 fans. Both Gamespot and IGN have previews posted yesterday that talk up the graphics and performance improvements over the 360 version. Load times and texture quality and draw distance have been improved, as well as "new shaders dedicated to rendering the foreground cleanly with sharper details, so rocky landscapes now have craggy appearances instead of smooth, non-distinct surfaces," according to IGN. They end with the ultimate hype, "screens from the PS3 version should approach those from high end PCs running Oblivion, which is an impressive feat." How is this possible? Gamespot reports that "Oblivion will make extensive use of the PS3's hard drive by caching multiple gigabytes of data, which seemed to help with load times from what we saw." While there are no official reports of this making it into the new 360/PC expansion Shivering Isles, a rumor on the Gamespot preview says that 1up might have the scoop."

Submission + - XM+MP3 Going to Trial

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Friday January 19, 2007 @03:26PM

fistfullast33l writes: "A federal judge has ruled that Music Companies can take XM Radio to trial over the XM+MP3 device that allows users to record songs off the Satellite Radio Company's network for playback later. The lawsuit, which was filed last year, asserts that XM is violating the Music publishers' sole distribution rights. From the article: "XM has argued it is protected from infringement lawsuits by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which permits individuals to record music off the radio for private use. The judge said she did not believe the company was protected in this instance by the act." More commentary from last spring here."

Submission + - FCC Opens Market for Cable Boxes

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @03:33PM

fistfullast33l writes: "The FCC rendered a decision today against a Comcast appeal that centers on integrated security features in set-top cable boxes. The decision comes at the end of a long standing feud between the FCC and Cable Companies over the matter. The result is that starting July 1st, cable boxes distributed by Cable Companies must not be tied directly to a cable provider via internal security features. This rule is viewed as the first step in creating a market for set-top cable boxes. Comcast does have the right to appeal and has said they will do so. From the article: "Several major consumer electronics manufacturers have argued that if set-top boxes weren't directly linked to the provision of cable service, they could enter the set-top market. Consumers could get a cable card from their service provider that they could insert into a set-top box purchased at a consumer electronics store. The cards would ensure that consumers could only access channels that they paid for.""

Submission + - Have you been Robbed Recently? Check Ebay!

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Monday January 08, 2007 @05:02PM

fistfullast33l writes: "A man from Great Neck, Long Island has been arrested on charges of stealing electronic equipment and selling it on Ebay. The police were tipped off when one of his alledged victims was searching for a replacement GPS device and found a perfect match — almost too perfect. A quick check of the serial number (note to cybercriminals: don't post that) showed that it was the exact device that had been stolen. What else gave the theif away? From the article: "Police and prosecutors were hesitant to provide details of how they determined all the devices had been stolen, but at least two of the laptops were stamped "Property of St. John's University.'' Detective Ray Cote noted that the GPS devices specifically had the addresses of the legitimate owners programmed in and police were now contacting those victims to eventually return the items.""

Submission + - Movie Studios OK Download-to-Burn DVDs

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Thursday January 04, 2007 @06:24PM

fistfullast33l writes: "The Associated Press is reporting that today movie studios have approved Sonic Solutions's technology Qflix, which allows people to download movies and burn them to DVDs that include CSS, the method of encryption that protects all pre-recorded DVDs sold today. According to a press release issued by Sonic Solutions, they will be demoing the technology by appointment at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 8th. Apparently the DVDs will also be subject to DRM restrictions placed by download services such as limiting the times a movie can be played back and how many times the movie can be burned. Is this the death of NetFlix as we know it? Interestingly enough, the AP article mentions burning kiosks in the future and the Sonic release mentions Walgreen's as a partner, so maybe DVD burning is coming to a drug store near you. Sonic Solutions is the owner of Roxio, which produces a well-known CD and DVD burning software suite."

Submission + - Gran Turismo HD for PS3 Impressions

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Tuesday December 26, 2006 @02:51PM

fistfullast33l writes: "On Christmas Eve, Sony released the Gran Turismo HD demo to the US and Japan Playstation 3s. The downloadable demo is about 650mb in size and I let it download while I was at church for Christmas. The following are my own impressions.

Visually, the game is by far one of the best for the PS3. The graphics really are top notch including some extremely visually impressive effects like the sky reflecting off the roof of your car. The crowds are a little static, but look alive enough to be believable. There are no weather effects, but the shine of the sun off the road is realistic as well. All in all, this is arguably the pinnacle of graphics on the console at this moment, and it sets the standard pretty high.

The game is integrated right into the Playstation network, but sadly does not allow you to race against other drivers. Instead, you are limited to time and draft attack trials. However, the gameplay will keep you busy. You are allowed to save your replays and upload your times to the network, but only the top 10 or so are viewable from the track portion of the game. On the main menu there is an option to view where you rank per car. Not surprisingly, the US version definitely had some large gaps between times as of December 25th so if you're really competitive there are some great opportunities to make a name for yourself. I think I was ranked as low as 4000 on some of the tracks as I was just trying to unlock the cars, so there are a lot of competitors out there.

There are 10 cars in all. The IGN article above links to the list if you're interested. You start with the Suzuki Cappuccino and work your way up by beating goal times for each car on the given track. There is only one track, but it's challenging enough that it might take you a few tries initially to beat the times. IGN says it took them about half an hour to unlock the cars, but I turned off a lot of the driving aids such as stability control and automatic shifting so it took me closer to a few hours. Plus, I'm a horrible driver.

From a control standpoint, the game is pretty standard in that you use the buttons to accelerate and brake and the L1 and R1 buttons to shift. The left analog allows you to steer. Contrast this with the F1 Championship Edition demo which uses the Left analog to steer and the Right analog to accelerate and decelerate. I actually prefer the F1 method better as it gives you a little more control over the pace of acceleration, similar to a gas pedal in a real car.

Overall, the game is a lot of fun when you've played out the launch titles and want something that you can show off to your friends. It might not be the most exciting title but it's definitely a challenge for casual gamers and experts alike, and the ability to record your times online adds a bit of fun to the title. Hopefully it will satiate those who need a GT5 fix and there is a rumor that more content will be released later on.

As a side note, my parents wanted to try out the PS3 so I let them play the F1 Championship Edition, Motorstorm, and GT HD demos, and they preferred F1 because it was easier to drive. GT was second hardest and Motorstorm totally confused them as the tracks aren't well defined."

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