Slashdot Mirror

Darn, somebody beat me to the submission. Anyways, here's my version, which has some more information:

Robotics physicist Mark Tilden has unveiled his follow-ups to the Robosapien, which was mentioned on slashdot last year and sold rather well during the holidays. The foremost is the $200 Robosapien V2, which will be able to lie down, stand up, speak, use its built-in camera to recognize objects and people, and follow a laser-traced path. The $70 Robopet will be able to perform simple tricks and learn through positive and negative reinforcement. The $100 Roboraptor is covered with sensors and will have three different moods: hunter, cautious, and playful. The Robopet is scheduled to launch in July, with the Robosapien V2 and Roboraptor scheduled for September. I can't wait to see what hacks people come up with for this.

Darn, somebody beat me to the submission. Anyways, here's my version, which has some more information:

Robotics physicist Mark Tilden has unveiled his follow-ups to the Robosapien, which was mentioned on slashdot last year and sold rather well during the holidays. The foremost is the $200 Robosapien V2, which will be able to lie down, stand up, speak, use its built-in camera to recognize objects and people, and follow a laser-traced path. The $70 Robopet will be able to perform simple tricks and learn through positive and negative reinforcement. The $100 Roboraptor is covered with sensors and will have three different moods: hunter, cautious, and playful. The Robopet is scheduled to launch in July, with the Robosapien V2 and Roboraptor scheduled for September. I can't wait to see what hacks people come up with for this.

Darn, somebody beat me to the submission. Anyways, here's my version, which has some more information:

Robotics physicist Mark Tilden has unveiled his follow-ups to the Robosapien, which was mentioned on slashdot last year and sold rather well during the holidays. The foremost is the $200 Robosapien V2, which will be able to lie down, stand up, speak, use its built-in camera to recognize objects and people, and follow a laser-traced path. The $70 Robopet will be able to perform simple tricks and learn through positive and negative reinforcement. The $100 Roboraptor is covered with sensors and will have three different moods: hunter, cautious, and playful. The Robopet is scheduled to launch in July, with the Robosapien V2 and Roboraptor scheduled for September. I can't wait to see what hacks people come up with for this.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1748603,00.as p

Some nice popups of the new trio of bots coming out this year. Tilden isn't at the CES show, and says that these models are early prototypes, but promises that the New York Toy Fair show will show off much better developed versions.

First I want to say that I am not a fan of MS. My main living room devices for the last three years are a hacked Tivo and a PC with various "test" builds of MythTv.

Last month my spouse got tired of me futzing around with the MythTv box and purchased a MCE 2005 PC for the living room. At first I thought I would hate it because of the noted DRM, but after setting it up and using it for a while I have to say that I am impressed. The machine runs smoothly and I now finally have a slick/easy way to browse my MP3 and DVD backups off of my main file server. I am really impressed with how well the box plays DVD backups. After testing about thirty DVD backups I have not found anything that has DVD menus that choke the box (wish I could say the same for my homebrew solutions). The DRM has absolutely no control over my use of the box. I only give the MCE box read only access to the content on my file server, which means that my media library will continue to be safe from being crippled with DRM. I continue to use my favorite apps to rip/move content (audio/video/tivo/dvd) to my collection on my main file server.

The MCR 2005 box is not perfect. I will still continue hack away with Linux and MythTv, but now there is a PC in the living room that my whole family can use to enjoy my media library.

Also, writing add-ins is very easy, there is a good sized developer community and the SDK is a free download.

It is hard to describe this product in a neutral way because it is without a shadow of a doubt the worst netgear product, if not the worst "Network related" product ever produced.

Your analysis is stark and lucid.

Add to that the Dvorak op-ed piece in the issue of PC Mag I got in the mail this week, wherein he points out that the MPAA is going down the same stupid road the RIAA took -- publicising something the mainstream public heretofore knew little-to-nothing of. "Hmm, $38... $27... $12... Hey, you can download movies on the Intarweb? Neato!"

Good going, MPAA.

The only 'legit' links i've found are from cnet, and pc mag, and knowing cnet them they probabbly didn't charge the battery to 'full' before testing, and they may have even had wi-fi turned on for the entire duration (hard to say as they didn't mention any of the testing conditions)
PC mag on the otherhand got 8 1/2 hours in 'informal' testing, and they did charge the battery to full prior to playing.
I've heard of people getting ten or mour hours of gameplay time on a DS, on slashdot, but likely they were playing GBA games on the DS, rather than DS games (while cnet and pc mag were testing DS carts, not GBA cart batt life...)
http://reviews.cnet.com/Nintendo_DS/4505-6464_7-30 895578-2.html?tag=glance
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1730092,00.as p
People are bitching about load times too, but hey the load times are comperable to ps2 titles, so if you can cope with ps2 load times then psp load times shouldn't bug you much.
From what I can tell the PSP's battery is exclusively for keeping your system running while you head to the next power supply, unless you run it as a memory stick based mp3 player, a 2 GB memory stick will run you about $300 and of course every mp3 you want to put on it will only play in sony portable mp3 players, and only on the memory stick you originally copied them onto using sony's DRM software.

This age verification flaw was already in the limelight sometime back.

To me, IBM was the easy choice for Windows notebooks because of their excellent service/support. Instead of outsourcing their phone support overseas, IBM actually centralized their phone/e-mail support in Atlanta. This was a big reason why IBM notebooks ruled in PC Magazine's latest Reader Satisfaction Survey.

That survey showed a disturbing trend of declining service/support from almost every other big-name vendor. Can anyone suggest the next-best notebook vendors that provide decent service/support to home/small business users? I know Dell provides great corporate support, but their home/small business support has hit the skids.

A few early posts have praised Toshiba's support. Are they really any better than Dell, HP/Compaq, or Gateway?

To me, IBM was the easy choice for Windows notebooks because of their excellent service/support. Instead of outsourcing their phone support overseas, IBM actually centralized their phone/e-mail support in Atlanta. This was a big reason why IBM notebooks ruled in PC Magazine's latest Reader Satisfaction Survey.

That survey showed a disturbing trend of declining service/support from almost every other big-name vendor. Can anyone suggest the next-best notebook vendors that provide decent service/support to home/small business users? I know Dell provides great corporate support, but their home/small business support has hit the skids.

A few early posts have praised Toshiba's support. Are they really any better than Dell, HP/Compaq, or Gateway?

does it have DRM?

Google says yes, to the tune of 717 hits. In particular PCMagazine reported it 8 months ago!

It's called LWDRM - Light Weight Digital Rights Management.

On Fraunhofe's MP3 Surround download page we even find their whitepaper for LWDRM. Unfortuantely it only appears to be available in German. If anyone can find an english version please replay with a linky linky.

What is Slashdot coming to? The Slashdot story ABSOLUTLEY should have reported that MP3 Surround was nothing but a gimmik to to get people to move to DRM'd "MP3" files. I can excuse that as the story submitter not knowing about it, but I REALLY can't believe I'm the first person to document this in the message area! The story has been up over 12 hours and I'm the first to point this out? WTF? Has the entire Slashdot community fallen asleep on DRM issues?

-

I agree with Parent. I have Spy Sweeper and it detects and removes some spyware not detected by Spybot. Even PestScan by PestPatrol detects some spyware that Spybot will not, but spy Sweeper seems the best of the bunch. For a better article on Anti-Spyware Products click here or here.

Let me preface this by saying that in my area you can only get 28.8 dialup. There is nothing better available. Not even 56K. (And yes, I know there are some here stuck on 19.2 and 21.6 ... I feel for you all.)

Our gateway box is a Win2k machine. It hasn't been patched in months upon months because it would tie up the connection for a long time. (Downloading patches over 28.8 is slow and we have eight computers in the house sharing that connection.) That gateway machine is totally clean. No spyware, no worms, etc. This is confirmed by proper antivirus and anti spyware software.

Why not either start a download going each night after you go to bed?

If you want a local copy, use wget to retrieve files.

If you don't care, use windows update.

In an 8 hour night, you can pull down about 100mb.

If you want to apply patches to several computers while using windows update, try downloading rather than installing the patches.

I'm just posting this an in interesting observation. This makes sense because a zombie on a dialup line is pretty damn worthles anyway.

Dangerous assumption. The worms don't care what sort of line you are on. In addition, due to asynchronous connections, the upload speed of a dozen or so zombie dialup PC's can match the upload speed of one broadband connection -- rather useful for spamming or DDOSing.

like here

here

and here

No thanks, I'll deal with the memory issue easier than I will a slow-ass pda.

Did any of you guys actually look at Grouper before commenting? FAQ here. I've been using Grouper for 2 weeks now, sharing photos with my family overseas and listening to friends music with no problems for hours and hours. I've tried to use some other private p2p file sharing apps - some are mentioned here - but was never able to get any of them to work with my friends. I'm not a super techie wizard as most of you here but my friends are even less technical than myself. Also, PC Magazine just gave Grouper its editors choice award. Read this for an actual report of someone using it.

Disney has begun the process of setting up a new CGI studio

And they already have the computers to do it.

They don't seem too happy either. "The T-Mobile Sidekick II does everything the Ogo does but much better, and it doubles as your phone." and "The Ogo is fairly unique [...]. But we wish the device's shortcomings weren't so glaring."

The reviewers added the disclaimer that MSN was having "teething problems" (ie. still in progress), so the informed reader needs to keep this in mind as they compare MSN to the other more established competitors.

There are plenty of Gmail reviews out there, even though it is still in beta. I think it's perfectly acceptable to review/test a beta product that has been put online (for the express purpose of testing) if for no other reason than to provide feedback for MSFT to use if they so desire.

I found a screenshot of what you're describing. One thing I like about Firefox is how slim I can make the interface. This is the opposite, "let's make the working area as tiny as possible because big toolbars are user-friendly!"

To me, it looks like Microsoft is trying to "embrace and extend" Apple's iTunes and QuickTime interfaces with that obscenely large button. Too bad Microsoft is so terrible at UI design.

Those other two toolbars below the big one look very out of place as well.

I had the very same problem with XP, and it's supposed to be like that, but you can change the standard behaviour.
This link adresses the issue:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1206399,00.as p

...at PCMag

Perhaps they got confused by the dichotomous nature of binary communication.

yes but what would the Licenceing cost...
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1040410,00.as p

I could not find pricing for datacenter...
enterprise version is $3,999 for 8cpu's.. so if we
do some math from that...
20-512 CPU Server Linceses

512 / 8 = 64
64 * $3,999 = $ 255,936
$255,936 * 20 = $ 5,118,720 (if all my math is good)

I wonder what percentage of total cost that would be....

yes i know datacenter spec's show only up to 64cpu's....

even if you half that amount it's a good chunk-o-change

Good bye Carnivore?
James bond wants one of these. The FBI, when they finally figure out what this is, will want it banned. I have dreamed of doing something like this with an applet but this is much slicker and more powerful.
Next questions, can I tunnel through with VOIP? How "special" does my correspondent/recipient have to be for the trail for eavesdroppers to go cold on both ends of the connection?

Many people seem to think that MP is directly proportional to image quality. Not so. The MP is part of the equation, but mostly tells you how big your pictures can be (print sizewise). The real quality lies in the image processing capability, the size of the CCD, and the kind of lens that the camera uses.

More information here.

Take what Christensen says with a grain of salt. I used to admire Clayton Christensen, but over time found he was more business pop culture than substance. John Dvorak put it better than I could when he wrote a piece ome time back http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1628049,00.as p Christensen's 15 minutes is up. Back to business.

The hardware is coming. The next step is to reprogram it to do more for local microcasters.

Back in the early 90's. It had a rotating helical screen and project a laser from below. Here's a link at PC Mag that talks about it. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,372857,00.asp

This is a few months old, but I think Dvorak is right on this one:

The Looming Legal Threat to Wi-Fi


Usurper_ii

The program most often recommended for preventing modem hijacking appears to be StopItNow. It's shareware.

Both Adware and SpyBot will detect some but not all hijackers.

Here is an article from PC Magazine back in 2003 on this subject. I think this is a great idea, and I believe this is where the future of automobiles is going. "Pedestrian recognition systems" and "Adaptive Cruise Control" are just first steps in that direction. Besides if you really want a flying car, you better expect it to fly itself. Look at the idiots on the road these days. Would you trust them in the air?

Dvorak also thinks Firefox is showing a good increase in usage. His numbers show that Microsoft only has a 50 percent of the market from visits to his sites. He then goes on to explain how it's almost certainly much lower. Check it out.

"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it."

That is not always the case, why would anybody want to mirror stuff like the source code of Microsoft Windows if they upload it to a public ftp?

Oh wait..

People will all download it but nobody will dare to mirror it!

Anyway I think the safest place to store backups would be on the moon

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1200789,00.as p

This article Says otherwise.

Surely there's a limit as to how small you want everything? WIth mobile phones now being credit card sized, isn't there a limit when it's too expensive and time-consuming to make already-small things even smaller for the expected returns? Or is it just a case of "mine is smaller than yours!"?

PC Mag and Forbes have reviews and InfoSync has a detailed news article. Forbes provides some perspective to the objective of integrating personal organizer with phone. PC Mag reads a bit like a spec list. I found the MSNBC review provided already more interesting, but you can look for yourself.

Tada..

Simple Google Search for "bill gates 95 internet strategy".

Not authoritative of what I said, but certainly alludes to it.

From the screenshots, I don't know but to me it looks like nothing special. The interface still is pretty ugly specially with that overdone brushed steel/plastic thing. Can't even read the options properly. I'll stick with Media Player Classic.

Everyone on here seems to be thinking inside the box. Let's leap outside, and see what we can do. Bluetooth headsets for audio are available now (monaural, at least). I wear glasses anyway, so I'd like a Bluetooth video monitor with eye tracking. With fast eye tracking, a small monitor resolution can provide a large visual space.

Then, add a Bluetooth inertial sensor on a finger or several to replace keyboard and mouse, especially if the sensor system provides tactile feedback.

Now the processing system can remain "comfortably" and safely in a pocket, bag, or briefcase, or even strapped on the arm like the "Predator". Shape and other parameters can be freed from the handheld form factor constraints. (It might even include a flexible heatpipe to an external radiator, for hi-pro versions, though that does seem excessive for most users.)

Gratuitous geekjokes:
"Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just surfing Slashdot?"
"Geeks are like bikers - they both have hot metal between their legs."

[Old SF story, from the 40's or 50's concerned how the very first portable wire-recorder, called Poo-Bah (Gilbert and Sullivan) start out as the first audio note-taker and gradually expanded in capability and power, providing expert advice and eventually getting wired right into the user's brain - and then, via radio links, sharing data and becoming the "Evil Computer Network That Takes Over The World - BWAHAHAHAHA!!" Interesting, this story included all the major concepts of modern mobile tech, some 50 years ago - before magnetic tape. Talk about prior art!!]

The processor and other components could even scream bloody murder if anything is separated too far from its partner components. The screamer's a good idea, which I should patent - every bluetooth component should include the ability to complain audibly, e.g. a piezoelectric tweeter, to help prevent misplacement or theft. Of course headwear will also have to not be too loud when it's attached to the head... This could also be triggered by a bluetooth signal, so when you do misplace it, you can have it squeal [and/or light up, why not?] so you can find it. If someone else patents this, consider this as prior art. Actual implementation, via vibrator, piezo transducer, trad. speaker, etc. is straightforward. Does Bluetooth include a standard command for this, like "alarm" or "findme"?

I think the older iMac is far cooler, in terms of design. It was also very unique. The new G5 iMac is a been-there, done-that design that PC manufacturers have been making for a while now. Like Pelham Sloane started shipping back in January.

I think part of the appeal of the older iMac was that it was so well-designed and had such a completely unique look. This new one's only real unique look is that it's white with a brushed metal stand. Oooooo.

It sucks that it isn't height-adjustable anymore, too. That was one thing I really liked about the old one.

...The success of Bose is not due to superior products, but superior marketing. This article, this one, and this one all point to Bose offering low quality products with some heavy duty marketing to back them up. I'm really not impressed by this latest invention, it just sounds to me like the "Just add magical magnets" effect. Put on some magnets, call it magic, make some money.

I hope Apple can get all those G5 chips it's going to need....

Seriously, though - as a journalist, I find it disingenuous that USA Today doesn't include Apple on its little table of tech-support satisfaction, especially since PC Mag

• did

Thats exactilly it.
Check out microsoft's response to the PC World article.
IMHO the treat is exagerated. The malicious program would already have to have bypassed the security features to interfere with the security panel.

... double the FLOPS of an Opteron ...

A couple months after AMD said they had taped out their dual core Opteron, Cray and others said they would be upgrading to that in 2005. Putting two Opterons next to each other with their hypertransports talking to each other is so easy that I suspect AMD's first silicon worked. I suspect dual-core Opterons will be in production way ahead of dual-core Itanics, since they are so much smaller. And we will see 8-core Opterons before we see 4-core Itanics. A number of people have working 8-way Opteron motherboards and I have not heard of anyone getting more than 2 Itanics on a motherboard. All the while AMD production volumes will be far higher than Itanic volumes.

If SGI wants to stop loosing money, they should come out with an Opteron CPU-brick fast.

"Won't be safe for long" means Itanic is sinking. Really.

Remember, this is the same John that predicted Apple would switch to the Itanium.

PCTel's Segue Soft Access Point Module (SAM) is a clever piece of software that turns any LAN-connected PC into a Wi-Fi wireless access point. Given the low price of Wi-Fi APs (typically $60 or less), SAM might not appear to make economic sense. But SAM's price is even lower: Several motherboard and wireless chipset makers have purchased licenses to include SAM with their products, making SAM effectively free to end users. And for setting up a temporary AP in a hotel room, meeting room, or the like, it's a darn clever solution.

Point 1: Apple's support lists the highest in the Consumer Report Index. Below are more example from PC Magazine survey

Desktop survey

Laptop survey

Please note PC Magazine Reader's choice

Point 2: Many companies are looking to Apple Xserve as a competive equivalent. Just as other goverments are looking at Linux as an alternative to Windows.

Apple sells supercomputer sequel
Scientists: The Latest Mac Converts
The "Big Mac" Supercomputer Biz

Your evaluation of Apple is clearly uninformed.

Point 1: Apple's support lists the highest in the Consumer Report Index. Below are more example from PC Magazine survey

Desktop survey

Laptop survey

Please note PC Magazine Reader's choice

Point 2: Many companies are looking to Apple Xserve as a competive equivalent. Just as other goverments are looking at Linux as an alternative to Windows.

Apple sells supercomputer sequel
Scientists: The Latest Mac Converts
The "Big Mac" Supercomputer Biz

Your evaluation of Apple is clearly uninformed.

Point 1: Apple's support lists the highest in the Consumer Report Index. Below are more example from PC Magazine survey

Desktop survey

Laptop survey

Please note PC Magazine Reader's choice

Point 2: Many companies are looking to Apple Xserve as a competive equivalent. Just as other goverments are looking at Linux as an alternative to Windows.

Apple sells supercomputer sequel
Scientists: The Latest Mac Converts
The "Big Mac" Supercomputer Biz

Your evaluation of Apple is clearly uninformed.