Large, Slow Airships Could Move Buildings 184
Algorithmnast writes "The Economist has a short article on using big, slow-moving airships to move large objects without the need to dismantle them. The company mentioned, Skylifter, refers to the lifting ship as an 'aerial crane,' not a Thor weapon. It could easily help move research labs to new parts of the Antarctic, or allow a Solar Tower to be inserted into an area that's difficult to drive to, such as a mesa in New Mexico."
Study Claims $41.5 Billion In Portable Game Piracy Losses Over Five Years 316
Gamasutra reports that Japan's Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association conducted a study to estimate the total amount of money lost to piracy on portable game consoles. The figure they arrived at? $41.5 billion from 2004 to 2009. Quoting:
"CESA checked the download counts for the top 20 Japanese games at what it considers the top 114 piracy sites, recording those figures from 2004 to 2009. After calculating the total for handheld piracy in Japan with that method, the groups multiplied that number by four to reach the worldwide amount, presuming that Japan makes up 25 percent of the world's software market. CESA and Baba Lab did not take into account other popular distribution methods for pirated games like peer-to-peer sharing, so the groups admit that the actual figures for DS and PSP software piracy could be much higher than the ¥3.816 trillion amount the study found."
Supermassive Black Hole Is Thrown Out of Galaxy 167
DarkKnightRadick writes "An undergrad student at the University of Utrecht, Marianne Heida, has found evidence of a supermassive black hole being tossed out of its galaxy. According to the article, the black hole — which has a mass equivalent to one billion suns — is possibly the culmination of two galaxies merging (or colliding, depending on how you like to look at it) and their black holes merging, creating one supermassive beast. The black hole was found using the Chandra Source Catalog (from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory). The direction of the expulsion is also possibly indicative of the direction of rotation of the two black holes as they circled each other before merging."
Comment online vs real life (Score 1) 446
I have two Twitter accounts and two Facebook ones. One with a fake name that I use for trolling, harassing celebrities, attempting to get laid and using applications that my real-life friends would scoff at me for. And one in my real name with very minimal personal info and nothing that could be damaging should a prospective employer search me out, simply to see what old mates are up to, stay 'in the loop' with my real life friends and receive PMs, (no one I know seems to use email any more. I always reply via gmail though - better the devil you know...) event invitations and stuff.
You deserve everything you get if you are naive enough to think that free social networking sites aren't going to use whatever information you disclose, however transparent their privacy policy is.
You deserve everything you get if you are naive enough to think that free social networking sites aren't going to use whatever information you disclose, however transparent their privacy policy is.
Submission + - Duke Nukem Forever gameplay footage leaked (gossipgamers.com) 2
Submission + - Test Driving the Wolfram Alpha (bytesizebio.net)
SilverMind writes: Byte Size Biology reports: "After playing around with Wolfram Alpha for a few hours, I can safely say the following: it's different, it's incomplete, it's idiosyncratic, and it's funky cool. And no, it will not dethrone Google, nor does it aim to do so". For more see: Test Driving the Wolfram Alpha
Comment Re:Not any tougher on iPhone according TFA (Score 1) 144
I read pretty much this same story on another site (which escapes me at the moment) claiming that Safari-Hack Guy DID have an iPhone exploit but wanted more than $10,000 for it, not because it was ineligible.
Comment Shennanigans (Score 3, Funny) 823
Clearly some oil company executives have been to the Arctic and moved the sensors, just to discredit the campaigners.
Comment Re:I pulled all of my photos off (Score 1) 409
What can Faecesbook do with millions of staged 'look at me I'm in a nightclub standing next to (supposedly) cool people' photos exactly? This is another case of a policy which is never likely to be invoked causing a company terrible PR damage. Has it been used yet?
Comment Re:Duh, of course the earth is flat! (Score 1) 578
Time is DEAD - what we experience is merely the inter-dimensional smell of its rotting corpse. Everyone knows that.
McDonald's UK CEO Blames Video Games for Childhood Obesity 321
BoingBoing is reporting that Steve Eaterbrook, McDonald's UK CEO, says that video games are leading the charge in obesity. He does have the decency to at least admit fatty foods are a part of the problem, but points the finger at interactive games for keeping kids indoors and not out burning off energy. "According to The Times, McDonalds UK is 'on the brink of its best year for two decades'. The firm has enjoyed six per cent like-for-like sales growth in the last year. More than 88 million visits were made to McDonald's restaurants last month, up 10 million on the previous year." Don't forget, we have known for ages that video games make us fat and mean.
Submission + - Researchers Simulate Rat's Brain (guardian.co.uk) 3
slick_shoes writes: Researchers working on the 'Blue Brain' project have developed a computer simulation of the neocortical column — the basic building block of the neocortex, the higher functioning part of our brains — of a two-week-old rat, and it behaves exactly like its biological counterpart. The machine that simulates this column is an IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer. Project director Henry Markram believes that with the state of technology today, it is possible to build an entire rat's neocortex. From there, it's cats, then monkeys and finally, a human brain.
Submission + - Major Breakthrough in Speech Brain Hack
jd writes: "In a major breakthrough, neurologists are reporting that they can decypher neurological impulses into speech with an 80% accuracy. A paralyzed man who is incapable of speech has electrodes implanted in his brain which detect the electrical pulses in the brain relating to speech. These signals are then fed into computers which covert these pulses into signals suitable for speech synthesis. As a biotech marvel, this is astonishing. Depending on the rate of development it is possible to imagine Professor Hawking migrating to this, as it would be immune to any further loss of body movement and would vastly accelerate his ability to talk. On the flip-side, direct brain I/O is also a major step towards William Gibson's Neuromancer and other cyberpunk dark futures."
Submission + - A step nearer to creating artificial life (guardian.co.uk)
slick_shoes writes: "To the untrained eye, the tiny, misshapen, fatty blobs on Giovanni Murtas's microscope slide would not look very impressive. But when the Italian scientist saw their telltale green fluorescent glint he knew he had achieved something remarkable — and taken a vital step towards building a living organism from scratch.
The green glow was proof that his fragile creations were capable of making their own proteins, a crucial ability of all living things and vital for carrying out all other aspects of life."
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