Digiciousit
- Rupert Murdoch Publishes North Korean Flash Games Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:43:20
eldavojohn writes “You might recall back in June when it was noted that North Korea was developing and exporting flash games. Now, the isolated nation state is apparently home to some game developers that are being published by a subsidiary of News Corp. (The games include Big Lebowski Bowling and Men In Black). Nosotek Joint Venture Company is treading on thin ice in the eyes of a few academics and specialists that claim the Fox News owner is ‘working against US policy.’ Concerns grow over the potential influx of cash, creating better programmers that are then leveraged into cyberwarfare capabilities. Nosotek said that ‘training them to do games can’t bring any harm.’ The company asserts its innocence, though details on how much of the games were developed in North Korea are sparse. While one of the poorest nations in the world could clearly use the money, it remains to be seen if hardliner opponents like the United States will treat Nosotek (and parent company News Corp.) as if they’re fostering the development of computer programmers inside the DPRK. The United Nations only stipulates that cash exchanged with companies in the DPRK cannot go to companies and businesses associated with military weaponry or the arms trade. Would you feel differently about Big Lebowski Bowling if you knew it was created in North Korea?”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Translating Brain Waves Into Words Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:17:26
cortex writes with an excerpt from the L.A. Times: “In a first step toward helping severely paralyzed people communicate more easily, Utah researchers have shown that it is possible to translate recorded brain waves into words, using a grid of electrodes placed directly on the brain. … The device could benefit people who have been paralyzed by stroke, Lou Gehrig’s disease or trauma and are ‘locked in’ — aware but unable to communicate except, perhaps, by blinking an eyelid or arduously moving a cursor to pick out letters or words from a list. … Some researchers have been attempting to ‘read’ speech centers in the brain using electrodes placed on the scalp. But such electrodes ‘are so far away from the electrical activity that it gets blurred out,’ [University of Utah bioengineer Bradley] Greger said. … He and his colleagues instead use arrays of tiny microelectrodes that are placed in contact with the brain, but not implanted. In the current study, they used two arrays, each with 16 microelectrodes.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Infinite Mario With Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:32:43
bgweber writes “There’s been a lot of discussion about whether games should adapt to the skills of players. However, most current techniques limit adaptation to parameter adjustment. But if the parameter adaptation is applied to procedural content generation, then new levels can be generated on-line in response to a player’s skill. In this adaptation of Infinite Mario (with source [.JAR]), new levels are generated based on the performance of the player. What other gameplay mechanics are open for adaptation when games adapt to the skills of specific players?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Dual-Core CPU Opens Door To 1080p On Smartphones Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:27:13
An anonymous reader writes “Following Qualcomm, Samsung is also close to launching a new smartphone processor with two cores. Based on ARM architecture, the new Orion processor promises five times the graphics performance of current chips and to enable 1080p video recording and playback. Next year, it seems, dual-core smart phones will be all the rage. Apple, which is generally believed to have the most capable processor in the market today, may be under pressure to roll out a dual-core iPhone next year as well.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- The only way you’ll ever tie your shoes again… Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:18:16
submitted by axolotl212 to WTF
[link] [197 comments] - “For them, there is no safe place. They are raped when harvesting crops; when going to market; when fetching water and firewood; when carrying their babies; when in their homes at night, among their loved ones.” Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:07:52
submitted by Nurgle to worldnews
[link] [186 comments] - Mozilla Labs To Promote Open Web Gaming Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:10:20
An anonymous reader writes “Mozilla Labs has started an initiative to promote and develop gaming based on Open Web technologies. They write, ‘We are excited to present to you the latest initiative from Mozilla Labs: Gaming. Mozilla Labs Gaming is all about games built, delivered and played on the Open Web and the browser. We want to explore the wider set of technologies which make immersive gaming on the Open Web possible. We invite the wider community to play with cool, new tech and aim to help establish the Open Web as the platform for gaming across all your Internet connected devices.’ To that end Mozilla Labs will launch Game On 2010, a game development competition, at the end of September.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- “Fun it was not.” -Michael Arrington Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:02:44
submitted by redditisfun to reddit.com
[link] [551 comments] - The movement to re-restore our nation’s honor is picking up steam. Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:32:46
It all started just seven days ago with a self-post on /r/politics, subject line: “I’ve had a vision and I can’t shake it: Stephen Colbert needs to hold a satirical rally in DC.”
This idea struck a chord with the reddit community, and it spread out across the internet. Mainstream media picked up the story. And tonight, on Stephen’s first night back on the air, he spent the entire opening segment discussing the rally. (Though he refrained from making any official announcements at this time.)
If this is really going to turn into one of those Great Moments On the Internet, we need a place to figure out a way to make it happen. There were a few fledgling communities created for this purpose, and as of today, they’ve united under one banner:
If you want to help bring about a Stephen Colbert rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial (a few steps down from where Glenn Beck once famously stood), join /r/colbertrally and make it happen.
submitted by raldi to blog
[link] [864 comments] - sweet 20 minutes to game Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:09:38
submitted by hero0fwar to gaming
[link] [322 comments] - Obama refuses to extend the Bush Tax Cuts for the rich. Oh, hell yes. Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:56:32
submitted by wang-banger to politics
[link] [909 comments] - Wonder how many Americans can I get to upvote this… Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:27:46
submitted by ixisrex to funny
[link] [431 comments] - The State of Mapping APIs, 5 Years On Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:24:10
macslocum writes “Map APIs took off in 2005, and during the ensuing years the whole notion of maps has changed. Where once they were slick add-ons, map functionality is now a necessary — and expected — tool. In this piece, Adam DuVander looks at the current state of mapping and he explains how mobile devices, third-party services and ease of use are shaping the map development world.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Oh god… oh god…. Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:19:27
submitted by evilmushroom to programming
[link] [476 comments] - Smallest Manned Electric Plane Flies Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:27:48
garymortimer writes “EADs have successfully flown an electrified Cri-Cri aircraft. The Cri-cri (short for cricket) is the smallest twin-engined manned aircraft in the world, designed in the early 1970s by French aeronautical engineer Michel Colomban, the Cri-cri aircraft is the world’s smallest twin-engine . At only 4.9 m (16.1 ft) wingspan and 3.9 m (12.8 ft) length, it is a single-seater, making an impression of a dwarf velomobile with wings at close range. After its manned flight trials the airframe will be configured for autonomous flight. Obviously once the pilot is removed payload increases dramatically and the airframe itself has been approved for manned flight so certifying it for UAV flight should be simpler.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- They Finally Found Out We Like Our Computers Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:31:35
I’m Not There (1956) writes “Sociologist Clifford Nass is talking about how people think of their computers as something like human beings. In one of his experiments, Nass found that people are more willing to ‘help’ computers when the computer helped them previously: ‘When people were then asked to help optimize the screen resolution on a computer where the program had been “helpful,” they were much more likely to do so than with the less helpful version.’ He also found that people evaluating software’s performance were more forgiving if the evaluation was done on the same computer the software was tested on. Nass has recently published the book The Man Who Lied to His Laptop, in which he ‘uses our interactions with machines to investigate how human relationships could be improved.’” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Journalist Tricked Captors Into Twitter Access Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:52:04
itwbennett writes “Kosuke Tsuneoka, a Japanese freelance journalist held captive in Afghanistan since April 1, was released over the weekend. His freedom came a day after he sent two Twitter messages from a captor’s phone. ‘i am still allive [sic], but in jail,’ read a message sent at 1:15 p.m. GMT on Friday. It was followed a few minutes later with a second message, also in English, that read, ‘here is archi in kunduz. in the jail of commander lativ.’ The message referred to the Dasht-e-Archi district of Kunduz where he was being held. On Tuesday, speaking in Tokyo, Tsuneoka revealed how he managed to convince his captors to give him access to the Internet. ‘He asked me if I knew how to use it, so I had a look and explained it to him,’ said Tsuneoka. ‘I called the customer care number and activated the phone,’ he said.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Tech Sector Slow To Hire Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:12:25
Iftekhar25 writes “The NY Times is running an article about soaring unemployment rates for IT in the US (6 percent) despite a tech sector that is thirsting for engineering talent. Quoting: ‘The chief hurdles to more robust technology hiring appear to be increasing automation and the addition of highly skilled labor overseas. The result is a mismatch of skill levels here at home: not enough workers with the cutting-edge skills coveted by tech firms, and too many people with abilities that can be duplicated offshore at lower cost. That’s a familiar situation to many out-of-work software engineers, whose skills start depreciating almost as soon as they are laid off, given the dynamism of the industry.’” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Why was ‘Draw Muhammad Day’ a great thing but ‘Burn the Quran Day’ a bad thing? Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:53:49
submitted by SelfHelpForBastards to AskReddit
[link] [1421 comments] - Then and Now (pic) Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:39:37
submitted by EthicalReasoning to pics
[link] [662 comments] - HP Sues Hurd For Joining Oracle Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:22:11
CWmike writes “Hewlett-Packard is reported to be suing former CEO Mark Hurd, who was named co-president of rival Oracle on Monday. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news, and has now posted the full text of the suit on Google Docs. Among other things, it says, ‘In his new positions, Hurd will be in a situation in which he cannot perform his duties for Oracle without necessarily using and disclosing HP’s trade secrets and confidential information to others.’” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Stanford’s Authoritative Alternative To Wikipedia Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:40:57
eldavojohn writes “For decades, Stanford has been working on a different kind of Wikipedia. It might even be considered closer to a peer-reviewed journal, since you have get submissions past a 120 person group of leading philosophers around the world, not to mention Stanford’s administration. It has several layers of approval, but the authoritative model produces high quality content — even if it only amounts to 1,200 articles. Content you can read straight through to find everything pertinent — not hop around following link after link like the regular Wikipedia. You might question the need for this, but one of the originators says, ‘Our model is authoritative. [Wikipedia's] model is one an academic isn’t going to be attracted to. If you are a young academic, who might spend six months preparing a great article on Thomas Aquinas, you’re not going to publish in a place where anyone can come along and change this.’ The site has articles covering topics from Quantum Computing to technical luminaries like Kurt Friedrich Gödel and Alan Turing. The principal editor said, ‘It’s the natural thing to do. I’m surprised no one is doing it for the other disciplines.’” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- White House Correspondent Tweets His Heart Attack Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:23:52
Tommy Christopher, who writes for mediate.com, has reporting in his blood, so much so that he livetweeted every part of his recent heart attack. “I gotta be me. Livetweeting my heart attack. Beat that!” and “This is not like the movies. Most deadpan heart attack evar. Still hurts even after the morphine,” were among his updates as he was rushed to the hospital. Christopher is now in stable condition after recovering from emergency surgery. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Sony Releases PS3 Firmware Update To Fight Jailbreaks Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:07:21
RyuuzakiTetsuya writes “Destructoid is reporting that the 3.42 firmware has been released for the PlayStation 3, and it has fixed the USB vulnerability that allows the PSJailbreak exploit to work.” Sony’s brief announcement of the update refers only to “additional security features,” though the EU blog post acknowledges that a vulnerability was addressed. PS3-Hacks.com confirms that the patch is effective against the various jailbreak tools, and they point out a different tool for bypassing the update. Sony told the BBC, “… as we always have, we will continue to take necessary actions to both hardware and software to protect the intellectual content provided on the PlayStation 3.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Robot Snake Can Climb Trees Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:17:28
kkleiner writes “The latest in a line of ‘modsnakes’ from Carnegie Mellon’s Biorobotics Lab, Uncle Sam can move in a variety of different ways, including rolling, wiggling, and side-winding. It can also wrap itself around a pole and climb vertically, and even scale a tree. You have to watch this thing in action. There is something incredibly life-like and eerie about the way it scales the tree outdoors and then looks around with its camera ‘eye.’ Projects like Uncle Sam show how life-mimicking machines could revolutionize robotics in the near future.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- NSA Director Says the US Must Secure the Internet Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:35:09
Trailrunner7 writes “The United States has a responsibility to take a leadership role in securing the Internet against both internal and external attackers, a duty that the federal government takes very seriously, the country’s top military cybersecurity official said Tuesday. However, Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency and commander of the US Cyber Command, provided virtually nothing in the way of details of how the government intends to accomplish this rather daunting task. ‘We made the Internet and it seems to me that we ought to be the first folks to get out there and protect it,’ Alexander said. ‘The challenge before us is large and daunting. But we have an obligation to meet it head-on.’ It’s unlikely that any of Alexander’s comments Tuesday will do much to quiet the criticisms of the Obama administration’s security efforts thus far. Speaking mostly in generalities, Alexander emphasized the administration’s commitment to the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, a plan developed by the Bush administration and recently partially de-classified by Obama administration officials.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Researchers Say Happiness Costs $75k Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:52:32
SpuriousLogic writes “Does happiness rise with income? In one of the more scientific attempts to answer that question, researchers from Princeton have put a price on happiness. It’s about $75,000 in income a year. They found that not having enough money definitely causes emotional pain and unhappiness. But, after reaching an income of about $75,000 per year, money can’t buy happiness. More money can, however, help people view their lives as successful or better. The study found that people’s evaluations of their lives improved steadily with annual income. But the quality of their everyday experiences — their feelings — did not improve above an income of $75,000 a year. As income decreased from $75,000, people reported decreasing happiness and increasing sadness, as well as stress. The study found that being divorced, being sick and other painful experiences have worse effects on a poor person than on a wealthier one.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- The Gaping Holes In the UAE’s Net Firewall Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:18:38
Barence writes “The United Arab Emirates has its own Chinese-style firewall to weed out pornography and other ‘unsavory’ content. But as PC Pro’s correspondent has found out, the firewall has more than a few holes in it. ISP helplines routinely suggest proxy server software that circumvents the filters. Access to Flickr is blocked, in case citizens’ eyes should fall upon a naked buttock, but The Pirate Bay, which ‘offers a range of bottoms to suit every need, including midget and donkey bottoms for anybody having a really slow afternoon – remains blissfully undisturbed.’ ‘Ultimately, I’m quite glad the UAE’s authorities block websites, and thrilled that they’re so inept at it,’ concludes PC Pro’s writer. ‘Just like everybody in Dubai, all they’ve done is made me a master of internet chicanery.’” Guess that depends how closely they’re watching the evaders. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- NYT Password Security Discussion Overlooks Universal Logins Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:18:38
A recent NYT piece explores the never-ending quest for password-based security, to which reader climenole responds with a snippet from ReadWriteWeb that argues it’s time to think more seriously about life beyond passwords, at least beyond keeping a long list of individual login/password pairs: “These protective measures don’t go very far, according to the New York Times, because hackers can get ahold of passwords with software that remotely tracks keystrokes, or by tricking users into typing them in. The story touches on a range of issues around the problem, but neglects to mention the obvious: the march toward a centralized login for multiple sites.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Separating Hope From Hype In Quantum Computing Tue, 07 Sep 2010 07:34:37
pgptag writes “This talk by Dr. Suzanne Gilbert (video) explains why quantum computers are useful, and also dispels some of the myths about what they can and cannot do. It addresses some of the practical ways in which we can build quantum computers and gives realistic timescales for how far away commercially useful systems might be.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Behind the Scenes and Inside Workings of a CERT Tue, 07 Sep 2010 06:51:44
An anonymous reader writes “Ireland’s Computer Emergency Response Team differs from what you can find in most other countries, since it’s not government-backed and relies mainly on the good will of several security professionals. In this interview, the founder and head of the CERT, Brian Honan, talks about how the CERT was formed, what equipment they use and what challenges they face in their daily work without having a government to back them up.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Pirate Bay Down; Police Raids Across Europe Tue, 07 Sep 2010 06:08:57
Stoobalou contributes a link to this story at Thinq.co.uk, from which he excerpts: “Torrent-tracking site The Pirate Bay is currently unavailable as reports come in of co-ordinated police raids against file sharers across Europe. Police in up to 14 countries carried out raids against suspected file-sharing servers this morning. According to file-sharing news site TorrentFreak, the bulk of police action seems to have taken place in Sweden. Swedish Internet service provider ISP, which hosts both The Pirate Bay and whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks, earlier denied rumours of a police raid, saying that officers had visited them to ask questions over two suspect IP addresses, and that no computers or other goods had been seized.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Former HP CEO Selected As Oracle Co-President Tue, 07 Sep 2010 05:25:18
theodp writes “Late on Monday, Oracle announced that ousted HP CEO Mark Hurd has joined the company as a co-president and a director. Hurd resigned from HP a month ago, after an investigation by the board into a personal relationship with a contractor turned up questionable expenses. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, a personal friend of Hurd, criticized HP’s board at the time, saying it was ‘the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs.’ ‘Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he’ll do even better at Oracle,’ Ellison said in a statement Monday. ‘There is no executive in the IT world with more relevant experience than Mark.’ Stepping down to make room for Hurd was Charles E. Phillips Jr., who had some personal relationship issues of his own.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Self-Assembling Photovoltaic Tech From MIT Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:27:03
telomerewhythere writes “Michael Strano and his team at MIT have made a self-assembling and indefinitely repairable photovoltaic cell based on the principle found in chloroplasts inside plant cells. ‘The system Strano’s team produced is made up of seven different compounds, including the carbon nanotubes, the phospholipids, and the proteins that make up the reaction centers, which under the right conditions spontaneously assemble themselves into a light-harvesting structure that produces an electric current. Strano says he believes this sets a record for the complexity of a self-assembling system. When a surfactant is added to the mix, the seven components all come apart and form a soupy solution. Then, when the researchers removed the surfactant, the compounds spontaneously assembled once again into a perfectly formed, rejuvenated photocell.’” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Breathing New Life Into Old DirectDraw Games Mon, 06 Sep 2010 23:33:22
An anonymous reader writes “I bought a bunch of old Wing Commander games for Windows, but they use DirectDraw, which Microsoft has deprecated. They don’t work too well under Windows 7, so I ended up reimplementing ddraw.dll using OpenGL to output the games’ graphics. I wrote an article describing the process and all the fun workarounds I had to come up with, and released all related source code for others to hack on.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
