unassimilatible - Slashdot User

Submission + - Adobe adopts HTTP Live Streaming for iOS

Submitted by unassimilatible on Saturday April 16, 2011 @07:32AM

unassimilatible writes: Arstechnica reports that Adobe has capitulated in the iOS-Flash war, and has adopted HTTP live streaming for iOS. HTTP Live Streaming is a protocol that Apple developed to stream live and recorded video using standard HTTP connections instead of the more difficult to optimize RTSP. It uses H.264-encoded video and AAC or MP3 audio packaged into discrete chunks of an MPEG-2 transport stream, along with a .m3u playlist to catalog the files that make up the individual chunks of the stream. QuckTime on both Mac OS X and iOS can play back this format, and it is the only streaming format compatible with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Submission + - Samsung Galaxy Ad Misleads With Fake Interviews (pcworld.com)

Submitted by unassimilatible on Sunday March 27, 2011 @07:15PM

unassimilatible writes: A Samsung ad campaign for the latest Galaxy Tab is misleading, to say the least. Actors pretending to be real people in fake interviews in a fake magazine misquoting a bad first-gen Galaxy tab review, are exposed — by the actual review writer. Netizens "are having fun pointing out other curious things about the interviews, such as the fact that "leading New York real-estate CEO Joseph Kolinski" raves about the 8.9-inch Galaxy Tab even though the only 8.9-inch Tabs that Samsung itself had on hand at CTIA were non-working models." Kolinski is actually an actor, not a CEO, Jim.

Submission + - New Video Game Controlled by Kissing (time.com)

Submitted by unassimilatible on Tuesday February 22, 2011 @06:48PM

unassimilatible writes: Artist Hye Yeon Nam has put her video game where her mouth is -" literally — with the creation of a new bowling game that's controlled only by passionate (and awkward) French kissing. The Kiss Controller, as it's so called, has two components: a headset that functions as a sensor receiver and a magnet that provides the sensor input, Time reports. Could this be the first example of technology that Slashdotters will be unable to use, as they likely won't be able to get a controller?

Submission + - Lawyers Using Facebook Research for Jury Selection (wsj.com) 2

Submitted by unassimilatible on Tuesday February 22, 2011 @02:59AM

unassimilatible writes: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that trial lawyers are increasingly using social networking sites like Facebook to research jurors in real-time during the voir dire process. Armando Villalobos, the district attorney of Cameron County, Brownsville, Texas, last year equipped his prosecutors with iPads to scan the Web during jury selection. But what of the jurors who have their privacy settings restricted to "friends only?" Mr. Villalobos has thought of a potential workaround: granting members of the jury pool free access to the court's wi-fi network in exchange for temporarily "friending" his office. Faustian bargain, or another way to get out of jury duty?

Submission + - Michael Meeks: "OO.o is a profoundly sick proj

Submitted by unassimilatible on Saturday December 27, 2008 @06:41PM

unassimilatible writes: Michael Meeks, who works full time developing OpenOffice, writes in his blog that the project is "profoundly sick."
In a healthy project we would expect to see a large number of volunteer developers involved, in addition — we would expect to see a large number of peer companies contributing to the common code pool; we do not see this in OpenOffice.org. Indeed, quite the opposite we appear to have the lowest number of active developers on OO.o since records began: 24, this contrasts negatively with Linux's recent low of 160+. Even spun in the most positive way, OO.o is at best stagnating from a development perspective.

What does this say about the open source movement if only 24 developers are working on Microsoft Office's free alternative?

Submission + - Majel Roddenberry Dies

Submitted by unassimilatible on Thursday December 18, 2008 @09:59PM

unassimilatible writes: If there was ever a sad day for nerds, it's today, as Majel Barrett-Rodenberry has passed away. The widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry is best remembered as the gorgeous Nurse Christine Chapel from the original series, the pesky and officious Lwaxana Troi from The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and of course the ubiquitous voice of Star Trek computers in movies, TV, and animated films (who hasn't used her voice as a system sound on their PC?). Majel also attended Star Trek conventions yearly and was a producer of Andromeda. Fortunately, Majel just finished her voice over work for the computers in J.J. Abrams' latest Trek movie. I have to admit, this made me sad, just having caught up on the entire TNG and DS9 series on DVD.

Submission + - Pentagon Clears Flying-Car Project for Takeoff (wired.com)

Submitted by unassimilatible on Friday November 14, 2008 @06:57PM

unassimilatible writes: DARPA has announced a "Personal Air Vehicle Technology" project. It "will ultimately lead to a working prototype of a military-suitable flying car — a two- or four-passenger vehicle that can "drive on roads" one minute and take off like a helicopter the next. The hybrid machine would be perfect for "urban scouting," casualty evacuation and commando-delivery missions, the agency believes." Wired has the story and analysis.

Submission + - Windows 7 to be 256-core aware 1

Submitted by unassimilatible on Saturday November 01, 2008 @05:31PM

unassimilatible writes: As new features of Windows 7 continue to trickle out, ZDNet is now reporting that it will scale to 256 processors. While one has to wonder, like with Vista, how many of the teased features will actually make it into the final OS, I think we can all agree, 256 cores is enough for anybody.

Submission + - Sharing 2999 Songs, 199 Movies Legal in Germany

Submitted by unassimilatible on Thursday August 14, 2008 @08:46PM

unassimilatible writes: Torrentfreak is reporting that German prosecutors will now only pursue larger-scale file sharers on the Internet, as they are tired of being the entertainment industry's profit collector.

"Prosecutors in a German state have announced they will refuse to entertain the majority of file-sharing lawsuits in future. It appears that only commercial-scale copyright infringers will be pursued, with those sharing under 3000 music tracks and 200 movies dropping under the prosecution radar."

And the money quote: "It seems that the legal system in German has had enough of this 'abuse' of the criminal law system for 'civil' monetary gain."

If only an American politician would make this point. Why should taxpayers underwrite their government becoming enforcers for the entertainment industry? Then again, when you see how much politicians are being paid, I guess we know the answer.

Submission + - Music Industry Study Says: "Embrace Piracy"

Submitted by unassimilatible on Sunday August 03, 2008 @08:31PM

unassimilatible writes: According to the Financial Times, the music industry should embrace illegal file-sharing websites, according to a study of Radiohead's last album release that found huge numbers of people downloaded it illegally even though the band allowed fans to pay little or nothing for it.

The study by the MCPS-PRS Alliance, which represents music rights holders, and Big Champagne, an online media measurement company, found that legal downloads of In Rainbows were far exceeded by illegal torrent downloads of the album.

"The expectation among rights-holders is that, in order to create a success story, you must reduce the rate of piracy — we've found that is not the case," said Mr Garland, chief executive of Big Champagne, who highlighted the benefits that Radiohead received from the album's popularity, including strong ticket sales for its concerts this year.

Submission + - Liquid Metal CPU Heatsink Outperforms Water 4

Submitted by unassimilatible on Sunday July 20, 2008 @04:17PM

unassimilatible writes: Bios Magazine is reporting that the world's first commercially available liquid metal based CPU cooler is about to ship. Danamics, a Danish company, claims that its LM-10 outperforms standard air-cooled heatsinks and most watercooled systems with a mere 1W power draw.

The liquid metal is a key component in Danamics cooling systems. Liquid metal has two major advantages when cooling high power density heat sources: Firstly it has superior thermo physical properties that decrease temperature — and temperature non-uniformity — on die and across chips. Secondly, the electrical properties of the liquid metal enables efficient, reliable and ultra compact electromagnetic pumping without the use of moving parts, shafts, seals, etc.

Awesome technology, if it actually works and is affordable. The submitter requests that the moderators terminate all T-1000 jokes.

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