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Comments: 16 +-   Tokyo Students Design a New Robotic Muscle Suit on Wednesday November 25, @10:42PM

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 25, @10:42PM
from the we-can-make-it-better dept.
hardware
angry tapir writes "Students at Tokyo's University of Science have developed a new version of their muscle suit, a wearable robotic suit that assists the muscles when carrying out strenuous tasks. The original version of the suit, which has been in production for several years, provides assistance to the arms and back but the new version provides assistance to the back only. That means it is lighter and more compact than the original model."
Read More... 16 comments story

Comments: 41 +-   Facebook Stock Going Public? on Wednesday November 25, @08:33PM

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 25, @08:33PM
from the planting-stock-in-moneyville dept.
business
zmaragdus writes "Facebook Inc. converted its existing stock holdings into different classes of stocks (Class A and Class B) designed to give certain shareholders more power than others. This has been typically done in an IPO of a company's stock to give important people (company founders, for instance) more clout in the actions of the company when stock is first offered to the public. While Facebook maintains that it does not plan to offer stock publicly in the near future, this restructuring is one of the critical steps in doing so."
Read More... 41 comments story

Comments: 346 +-   Obama Wants Computer Privacy Ruling Overturned on Wednesday November 25, @07:08PM

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 25, @07:08PM
from the let-me-see-what-you-got-there dept.
usa
schwit1 writes "The Obama administration is seeking to reverse a federal appeals court decision that dramatically narrows the government’s search-and-seizure powers in the digital age. Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Justice Department officials are asking the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its August ruling that federal prosecutors went too far when seizing 104 professional baseball players’ drug results when they had a warrant for just 10. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Read More... 346 comments story

Comments: 72 +-   Google's Reach Hits Your Tivo on Wednesday November 25, @06:04PM

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 25, @06:04PM
from the no-more-intestinal-products-please dept.
privacy
accido writes "As reported by The LA Times, Google has now decided to expand its marketing and data collection to include what you watch on your Tivo. The data collected would help Google, who sells TV ads, show who watches which commercials and who skips right over them. The article outlines how this could be bad for networks that cash in whether you watch the ad or not. Does this mean fewer commercials for viewers? Not likely, but one can hope."
Read More... 72 comments story

Comments: 191 +-   KDE Rebrands, Introduces KDE Plasma Desktop on Wednesday November 25, @04:59PM

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 25, @04:59PM
from the postitioning-for-clarity dept.
kde
Jiilik Oiolosse writes "The KDE community has killed the term K Desktop Environment (previously the Kool Desktop Environment). 'KDE' had previously ambiguously referred to both the community, and the complete set of programs and tools produced by the KDE community which together formed a desktop user interface. This set of tools, including the window manager, panels and configuration utilities, which KDE terms a 'workspace,' will now be shipped under the term 'KDE Plasma Desktop.' This allows KDE to ship a separate workspace called 'Plasma Netbook,' and independently market the various KDE applications as usable in any workspace, whether it be the Plasma Desktop, Windows, or XFCE."
Read More... 191 comments story

Comments: 45 +-   Astronomers Invent "Galaxy Game" on Wednesday November 25, @03:58PM

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 25, @03:58PM
from the like-a-visit-to-the-optometrist dept.
space
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that astronomers have invented a game to help uncover the basis of galactic collisions, showing players images of colliding galaxies and asking them to match those to simulations. These galactic mergers could be the key to why the Universe contains a mixture of different galaxies — some with trailing spiral arms, others more like compact balls of stars. Astronomers say that humans are 'much better than computers' at spotting the patterns and similarities. 'The strength of the game is that it takes results from many people,' says Dr Chris Lintott from Oxford University, one of the members of the Galaxy Zoo team. The developers describe the game as a 'cosmic fruit machine' (i.e., slot machine). The game shows players one real galaxy image and, on command, eight randomly selected simulations pop into the 'slot'" surrounding that image. The aim is for players to choose the simulations that look most similar to the real galaxy and take those through to the next round to examine them further. The simulated images show the different aspects of galaxy formation, so as people play, they will generate data that will help astronomers understand these collisions. 'These collisions take millions of years to unfold,' says Anthony Holincheck, a graduate student at George Mason University and another member of the team. 'All we get from the Universe is a single snapshot of each one. [With] simulations, we will be able to watch each cosmic car crash unfold in the computer.'"
Read More... 45 comments story

Comments: 262 +-   Man Pleads Guilty To Selling Fake Chips To US Navy on Wednesday November 25, @03:02PM

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 25, @03:02PM
from the vinegar-was-ersatz-too dept.
military
itwbennett writes "Neil Felahy of Newport Coast, California, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and counterfeit-goods trafficking for his role in a chip-counterfeiting scam. Felahy, along with his wife and her brother, operated several microchip brokerage companies under a variety of names, including MVP Micro, Red Hat Distributors, Force-One Electronics and Pentagon Components. 'They would buy counterfeit chips from China or else take legitimate chips, sand off the brand markings and melt the plastic casings with acid to make them appear to be of higher quality or a different brand,' the US Department of Justice said in a press release. The chips were then sold to Naval Sea Systems Command, the Washington, DC, group responsible for maintaining the US Navy's ships and systems, as well as to an unnamed vacuum-cleaner manufacturer in the Midwest."
Read More... 262 comments story

Comments: 95 +-   Magento Beginner's Guide on Wednesday November 25, @02:10PM

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 25, @02:10PM
from the read-all-about-it dept.
books
coder4hire writes "The shopping cart systems that power online stores have evolved from simple homebrew solutions in the CGI era to far more powerful open source packages, such as osCommerce. But even the later systems are frequently criticized as suffering from poorly-written code and inadequate documentation — as well as for being difficult to install and administer, and nearly impossible to enhance with new functionality and improved site styling, at least without hiring outside help. These problems alone would explain the rapidly growing interest in the latest generation of shopping cart systems, such as Magento, purported to be outpacing all others in adoption. In turn, technical publishers are making available books to help developers and site owners get started with this e-commerce alternative, such as Magento: Beginner's Guide, written by William Rice." Read on for the rest of Michael's review.
Read 9909 More Bytes... 95 comments story

Comments: 383 +-   Australian Govt. Proposes Internet "Panic Button" For Kids on Wednesday November 25, @01:22PM

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 25, @01:22PM
from the panic-panic-panic dept.
internet
CuteSteveJobs writes "Children who feel they are being bullied, harassed or groomed online could call for help instantly using a 'panic button' on their PCs under a plan by the Australian Government's cyber-safety working group. The button shall look like a 'friendly dolphin,' who will connect the child victim instantly to police or child protection groups. Australian Internet Censorship Advocate Hetty 'Save the Children' Johnson says the Internet needs something like 000 or 911. Will this be another scheme wasting taxpayer dollars in lieu of parental supervison, or could it actually work? Are 1 in 4 children really sexually abused by the Internet? Can flaming and trolling be classified as bullying?"
Read More... 383 comments story

Comments: 135 +- Screenshot-sm   Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight on Wednesday November 25, @12:32PM

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 25, @12:32PM
from the a-jetwing-and-a-prayer dept.
toy
Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."
Read More... 135 comments story
 
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Conflicts With My Porn Habit
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I Never Use Firefox
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