general scruff - Slashdot User

Comment Re:I won't move to VOIP. (Score 1) 288

by general scruff on Tuesday July 08, 2008 @08:35AM (#24098513) Attached to: Telecoms Suing Municipalities That Plan Broadband Access

16.95 is a bargain. After all the fees and with no long distance, I would still be paying twice that in Maine. Its going to get even worse now that Fairpoint bought all of Verizon's lines in Maine, NH, and VT.

Minnesota Pays Video Game Industry $65K In Fees 142

Posted by kdawson on Monday June 30, 2008 @07:27PM from the don't-let-the-door-hit-you dept.

I Said More Ham writes "Minnesota's attorney general will drop the state's efforts to fine underage buyers of violent videogames after a high court struck down a state law as unconstitutional. The Entertainment Software Association, one of the plaintiffs in the case, announced Monday that the state paid $65,000 in attorney's fees and expenses."

North Pole Ice On Track To Melt By September? 978

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday June 27, 2008 @03:12PM from the new-swimming-holes dept.

phobos13013 writes "Recently released evidence is showing the North Pole ice is melting at the highest rate ever recorded. As a result, the Pole may be completely ice-free at the surface and composed of nothing but open water by September. As reported in September of last year, the Northwest Passage was ice-free for the first time known to man. The implications of this, as well as the causes, are still being debated. Are global warming experts just short-sighted alarmists? Are we heading for a global ice age? Or is the increase in global mean temperature having an effect on our planet?"

Lost the Remote? Use Your Face 88

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @12:23PM from the you-look-bored dept.

coondoggie writes "A researcher has discovered a way to use facial expressions to speed and slow video playback. By using a combination of facial expression recognition software and automated tutoring technology Jacob Whitehill, a computer science Ph.D. student from UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering, is leading the project that ultimately is part of a larger venture to use automated facial expression recognition to make robots more effective teachers. The researchers recently conducted a pilot test with 8 people that demonstrated information within the facial expressions people make while watching recorded video lectures can be used to predict a person's preferred viewing speed of the video and how difficult a person perceives the lecture at each moment in time."

MS Clearflow To Help Drivers Avoid Traffic Jams 243

Posted by kdawson on Thursday April 10, 2008 @09:27AM from the get-me-outa-this dept.

Pioneer Woman writes "Microsoft announced plans to introduce a Web-based service for driving directions that incorporates complex software models to help users avoid traffic jams. The system is intended to reflect the complex traffic interactions that occur as traffic backs up on freeways and spills over onto city streets and will be freely available as part of the company's Live.com site for 72 cities in the US. Microsoft researchers designed algorithms that modeled traffic behavior by collecting trip data from Microsoft employees who volunteered to carry GPS units in their cars. In the end they were able to build a model for predicting traffic based on four years of data, effectively creating individual 'personalities' for over 800,000 road segments in the Seattle region. In all the system tracks about 60 million road segments in the US."

Bookmark Nintendo pledges to pour out more Wiis (reghardware.co.uk)

by general scruff on Friday April 27, 2007 @10:20AM

Feed Neural Implants Help Injured Go (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Friday February 16, 2007 @05:12PM

People with spinal-cord injuries can't urinate on command, but implants promise to reconnect their bladders to their brains. In Bodyhack.

Feed Feds Pull Traveler Help Site (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Friday February 16, 2007 @05:12PM

Homeland Security pulls down a website link for travelers with watchlist problems after 27BStroke6 points out security flaws. But TSA won't say whether the site was legal. In 27B Stroke 6.

Server Power Consumption Doubled Over Past 5 years 148

Posted by Zonk on Friday February 16, 2007 @05:05PM from the lets-get-that-fusion-thing-going-huh dept.

Watt's up writes "A new study shows an alarming increase in server power consumption over the past five years. In the US, servers (including cooling equipment) consumes 1.2% of all the electricity in 2005, up from 0.6% in 2000. The trend is similar worldwide. 'If current trends continue, server electricity usage will jump 40 percent by 2010, driven in part by the rise of cheap blade servers, which increase overall power use faster than larger ones. Virtualization and consolidation of servers will work against this trend, though, and it's difficult to predict what will happen as data centers increasingly standardize on power-efficient chips." We also had a recent discussion of power consumption in consumer PCs that you might find interesting.

Verizon Sells Off Rural Lines 192

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 16, 2007 @04:16PM from the no-broadband-for-you dept.

ffejie writes "Verizon has announced that it will be spinning off rural assets to FairPoint Communications. These include all assets in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The deal will close sometime in 2007 and is worth $2.7 billion. 1.6 million phone lines, 234,000 DSL subscribers, and 600,000 long-distance customers will be moved to FairPoint in Verizon's effort to shed its low-margin lines in rural areas. The sale has been rumored since the summer at least. With Verizon aggressively rolling out high-speed FiOS (FTTP) in its service area, what will happen to the consumers stuck with a smaller telco like those moving to FairPoint?"

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