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  Your Rights Online: Supreme Court Declines Case Over Techs' Right To Search Your PC on Thursday June 11, @07:57AM

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 11, @07:57AM
from the just-not-interested dept.
privacy
An anonymous reader writes "A few years back, a guy was arrested for possessing child pornography after techs at Circuit City found child porn on his computer, while they were installing a DVD player. The guy insisted that the evidence shouldn't be admissible since the techs shouldn't have been snooping through his computer — and a lower court agreed. The appeals court, however, reversed, noting that the guy had given Circuit City the right to do things on his computer — including testing out the newly installed software (which is how the tech claims he found the video). The guy appealed to the Supreme Court, who has declined to hear the case, meaning that the ruling stands for the time being. So, basically, if you hand your computer over to someone else for repairs, at least in some jurisdictions, they may have pretty free rein in terms of what they're allowed to access on your computer."
Read More... 17 comments
court privacy duh yro privacy story
Comments: 17
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  Hardware: Using Mobile Phones To Write Messages In Air on Thursday June 11, @04:54AM

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 11, @04:54AM
from the invisible-ink-2.0 dept.
inputdev
Anonymous writes "Engineering students at Duke University have taken advantage of the accelerometers in emerging cell phones to create an application that permits users to write short notes in the air with their phone, and have that note automatically sent to an e-mail address. The 'PhonePoint Pen' can be held just like a pen, and words can be written on an imaginary whiteboard. With this application a user could take a picture with a phone camera, and annotating it immediately with a short caption. Duke Computer Engineering Professor Romit Roy Choudhury said that his research group is envisioning mobile phones as just not a communication device, but a much broader platform for social sensing and human-computer interaction. Such interactivity has also emerged in the work of other research groups, such as MIT's Sixth Sense project, Dartmouth's MetroSense project, and Microsoft Research's NeriCell project, to name a few."
Read More... 46 comments
cellphones technology !onanairplane hardware inputdev story
Comments: 46
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  Games: Videogame Places You're Not Supposed To Go on Thursday June 11, @03:44AM

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday June 11, @03:44AM
from the is-second-life-one-of-them dept.
games
Ssquared22 writes "The eight far-off realms in this article exist for different reasons. They could be developer test areas, or forgotten pieces of landscape that somehow made their way into the final code. Whatever their reason for being, they all have one thing in common: they weren't meant to be explored by the likes of you and me. But through persistence, hacks or some combination of the two, you can take in these rare delights for yourself. Pack your bags." What odd, interesting, or funny game locations have you wandered into?
Read More... 83 comments
games idle askslashdot minusworld games games story
Comments: 83
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  Technology: DOJ Turns Up the Heat On Google's Book Deal on Thursday June 11, @02:39AM

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 11, @02:39AM
from the let's-take-a-good-look dept.
google
narramissic writes "It appears that after its initial review of a deal that would settle a lawsuit publishers and authors filed against Google over the latter's book search engine, the DOJ is leaning toward challenging the proposed settlement. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported late Tuesday that the DOJ is now sending civil investigative demands (CIDs) to organizations involved in the deals, a more formal approach than its initial information-gathering efforts. But Authors Guild Executive Director Paul Aiken said the fact that the DOJ is reviewing the proposed settlement isn't surprising, considering Google is involved: 'Any big deal that involves Google is going to get a look from the Justice Department.'"
Read More... 35 comments
google usa tech google story
Comments: 35
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  Games: Strat-O-Matic and APBA Keep On Ticking on Thursday June 11, @01:41AM

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday June 11, @01:41AM
from the wait-let-me-look-that-up dept.
classicgames
An anonymous reader writes "USA Today has a great story about the classic baseball games Strat-O-Matic and APBA, enduring in the modern age amid all of the Xbox glitz. Quoting: 'While there are numerous other statistics-based games (such as Diamond Mind, whose creator now works for the Boston Red Sox,) APBA and Strat-O-Matic are by far the oldest and most recognized. And there is something amazing about how these two games have survived for so long. APBA estimates it has sold over 600,000 units of its board game; Strat-O-Matic, over 1 million. Both companies describe their customers as getting older — age 35 and up, a sign of how the electronic era is pushing kids away from board games. In the 1960s and '70s, teenagers were a big part of the customer base. "We have a niche group," says Hal Richman, the 72-year-old founder of Strat-O-Matic, based in Glen Head, NY. "We cannot compete with the Xboxes and the John Maddens and EA Sports and all their graphics. We do it another way. We want the ballplayer to be realistic."'"
Read More... 10 comments
games classicgames games classicgames story
Comments: 10
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  Ask Slashdot: Why Isn't the US Government Funding Research? on Thursday June 11, @12:30AM

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 11, @12:30AM
from the we-got-all-the-science-we-need dept.
money
thesandbender writes "The recent post about GM opening its own battery research facility led me to wonder why the US government is pouring billions into buying companies instead of heavily funding useful research. You can give $10 billion to a company to squander or you can invest $10 billion into a battery research and just give the findings to the whole of the US industry for free. From a historical standpoint, the US government has little experience with commercial enterprise ... but has an amazing record for driving innovation. The Manhattan Project and the Apollo moon missions are two of the pinnacles of 20th century scientific achievement, yet it seems to me that this drive died in the '70s and that's when the US started its slow decline. To be true to the 'Ask Slashdot' theme, what practical research do you think the US government should embark upon to get the most return for its citizens and the world?"
Read More... 327 comments
money science usa falsedichotomy theyare askslashdot money story
Comments: 327
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  Developers: How To Sponsor an Open Source Sprint on Wednesday June 10, @10:36PM

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 10, @10:36PM
from the it's-what-the-cool-kids-are-doing dept.
programming
Esther Schindler writes "Does your favorite open source project need just a little extra functionality? As Esther Schindler explains in this IT World article, your company can encourage the developers to add the features you've been yearning for — for far, far less money than you imagine. She interviews companies who have sponsored 'code-a-thons' for Drupal, Plone, simwiddy, and a set of applications for British Telecom, and provides specific pointers. From the article:'To ensure that the event happens and that it meets its goals, you must connect with the right members of the community and motivate them to work with you. "It's not like these people are paid to work for your interests," points out Brightcove's Whatcott. If your business already has project committers on its staff, then it's just a matter of leveraging existing relationships. But, says Stahl, "Someone less 'core' in the community might well have a harder time.'"'
Read More... 42 comments
cooptingthecathedral youripismyip !running devsploitation hacksploitation developers programming story
Comments: 42
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  Your Rights Online: $33 Million In Poker Winnings Seized By US Govt on Wednesday June 10, @08:02PM

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 10, @08:02PM
from the mine-now-I-take-it dept.
court
An anonymous reader writes "A New York Times story reports that, 'Opening a new front in the government's battle against Internet gambling, federal prosecutors have asked four American banks to freeze tens of millions of dollars in payments owed to people who play poker online. ... "It's very aggressive, and I think it's a gamble on the part of the prosecutors," Mr. Rose said. He added that it was not clear what law would cover the seizure of money belonging to poker players, as opposed to the money of the companies involved.' Many players are reporting that their cashout checks have bounced."
Read More... 320 comments
court internet money politics poker yro court story
Comments: 320
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  Mobile: Nokia Developed Wireless Power-Harvesting Phones on Wednesday June 10, @06:56PM

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 10, @06:56PM
from the tesla-would-like-a-word-with-you dept.
cellphones
Al writes "An engineer from Nokia's UK research labs says that the company is developing technology that can harvest ambient electromagnetic radiation to keep a cellphone going. The researcher says that his group is working towards a prototype that could harvest up to 50 milliwatts of power — enough to slowly recharge a phone that is switched off. He says current prototypes can harvest 3 to 5 milliwatts. It will require a wideband receiver capable of capturing signals from between 500 megahertz and 10 gigahertz — a range that encompasses many different radio communication signals. Other researchers have developed devices that can harvest more modest power from select frequencies. A team from Intel previously developed a compact sensor capable of drawing 6 microwatts from a 1.0-megawatt TV antenna 4.1 kilometers away."
Read More... 207 comments
power cellphones tesla weak lighttrap mobile cellphones story
Comments: 207
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  Developers: Yahoo Releases Open Source Hadoop Distribution on Wednesday June 10, @05:49PM

Posted by timothy on Wednesday June 10, @05:49PM
from the spread-it-out-in-little-chunks dept.
programming
ruphus13 writes "Yahoo has been a vociferous Apache Hadoop user and supporter for several years now, and uses it extensively within its Search technologies. Hadoop has been gaining popularity in the Cloud Computing space, with companies like the NYTimes converting 4TB and 11 million articles to PDFs in under 24 hours using Hadoop and EC2 in late 2007. Hadoop has been made available in Amazon's cloud and Yahoo has now released its own Hadoop version. From the article: 'At today's Hadoop Summit in Silicon Valley, Yahoo! announced the availability of the Yahoo! Distribution of Hadoop, a source-only version of Apache Hadoop that Yahoo! uses within its own search engine. [Hadoop] is an open source software framework that helps process very large data sets, and is widely used in large-scale data mining applications as well as in search tools at sites like Facebook and many others. For developers and users interested in Hadoop, it's worth noting that the Yahoo! Distribution of Hadoop has been widely tested and developed at Yahoo! for years now.'"
Read More... 38 comments
apache yahoo programming java !hadopi developers programming story
Comments: 38
 

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