Interesting concept
on
3D Mouse
·
· Score: 4, Informative
And in answer to the people asking what's the point...
a) Because it's a neat hack b) It could be used for simple 3D point scanning to measure points on a 3D model c) Could be used to manipulate information in a 3D CAD/drawing progeam, or to navigate or move objects in a solar representation or similar spatially oriented program d) Because it's a neat hack. Sheesh what more reason do you need?
What does this ruling mean? If it stands up on appeal, it means StorageTek has a monopoly on service for all of its machines. No independent vendor will be able to compete with them for service contracts because no independent vendor will be authorized to "access" the maintenance code necessary to debug the machine.
Reading between the lines, it also seems to imply that vendors would in the future have a free card to hold their customers hostage. Imagine if a company built in code to cause a range of various complaints. It would be breaking the DMCA to reverse engineer their code and pinpoint that the problems were built in. At the same time, the company would be able to turn a nice profit on charging for "maintenance" contracts to "fix" the "bugs".
Of course, if there were too many such problems it would damage the reputation of their products. But if there were few enough, it could provide just enough extra "free revenue" to provide a useful extra profit source.
I don't see how this solves a problem. A businessman of ethnic background working in the Middle East and flying regularly will not be possible to distinguish from a terrorist posing as a businessman.
Or perhaps the hidden subtext is "The biometrics signatures will enable white non-suspicious regular travelers to whizz through customs while suspiscious non-whites are filtered for more efective controls by customs".
Other than that possibility, I have nothin per-se against biometric controls - it's how they are used and who by that's the problem.
How long then before racecars come with a "pedigree" like a champion racehorse or a Crufts prizewinning pooch?
"And Schumacher rides to victory again in his car 'Victorious Monarch' which of course comes from the Ferrari stable and is the offspring of 'Burning Rubber' and 'Teutonic Speed Demon'"
By adding support for NFC, Innovision says it's getting ready for when mobile users will be able to download music tracks by just tapping their device against a poster."
Amazing - that would be a great transfer rate if we're talking about full songs. Or when they say "tap" do they perhaps mean "holding their devices against a poster for a few minutes."??
Next they erected the pillars and lintels, hollow structures constructed using wood and cement board (hewn stone would have been too expensive and time-consuming to erect). But in a nod to the old, the finished henge will be coated with cement and covered in plaster sculpted to look like stone. Inside the "stones" will be some modern accoutrements: wires to allow a sound system to be installed. "We've already got two couples who want to get married out here," says Hall.
I thought it was a pretty neat idea until I read that. It sounds more like something that you might find in Vegas than New Zealand if you ask me! Seems a bit cheesy when you think that it's basically going to be a glorified stage set!
Lockheed Martin has completed factory testing of the optical benches for the Airborne Laser's Beam Control/Fire Control (BC/FC) system.
and in other news..
Reuters reports that the gyroscope that keeps the international space station stable and in the right position stopped working, just hours after a new two-man crew moved in for a half-year stay.
Someone in Lockheed Martin's Black Ops department is rubbing their hands together gleefully right now!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hours after a new two-man crew arrived at the International Space Station, one of the gyroscopes that keeps the orbiting outpost steady failed, and NASA said on Thursday a spacewalk would be needed to fix it.
In the meantime, the astronauts have been instructed to take it in turns to spin as fast as possible while strapped into an office chair. It is hoped that this will help stabilise the Space Station until repairs can be carried out.
The astronauts are said to be giddy with anticipation.
especially from reading The Rapidly Changing Face of Computing newsletter (now known as - The Harrow Report, it's that whatever barriers to computer speed increases are set up by theoreticists are quickly knocked down by other theoreticists who find ways around them.'
Of course, this doesn't mean that finding the barriers is a bad thing - it gives the next set of scientists something to aim for and pushes the boundaries of research.
Is this a standard term to describe the process of increasing processor speed in a line of computers? If so it's very poorly thought out. A speedbump is normally something that is used to slow down motorists on a tretch of road. So I instinctively interpreted that as meaning that Apple had released a line with capped processor speeds!
I suspect that this is just the poster's own term to describe this. Oh well!
People used to say that when the Internet becomes as invisible as the electricity grid we'll know it has succeeded in becoming an invaluable part of our lives.
Now people are wanting to turn the electricity grid into an "internet". Does this mean that it will suffer from the same problems in reliability, be difficult to install and that early adopters will bost about "having electricity use at home"??;-)
If I were a criminal, I would steal the robot in a flash. I've seen quite a few designs for robot guard dogs / sentries / police etc and the main problem imho is that the value of them tends to make them more valuable than what they are guarding!
I mean my blog is more like an online journal of what I've been up to and been thinking about. It's very rare that I post memes or links to "popular" sites (though it does happen occassionally).
I guess in this case they're referring to bloggers as people who blog lots of links. Maybe they're the majority of bloggers, but they're not the majority of *interesting* bloggers (imho!)
The main character in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon uses his keyboards LEDs to read a set of documents about cryptography. He uses the LEDs to spell out the documents in Morse code and writes some code using his space key as a morse tapper.
However, looking at the Morse chart he would have a problem writing code and reading mathematical notations with the limitations of the Morse alphabet.
I'd never thought about that before! You're owned Stephenson;-)
Slashdot Mirror
And in answer to the people asking what's the point...
a) Because it's a neat hack
b) It could be used for simple 3D point scanning to measure points on a 3D model
c) Could be used to manipulate information in a 3D CAD/drawing progeam, or to navigate or move objects in a solar representation or similar spatially oriented program
d) Because it's a neat hack. Sheesh what more reason do you need?
What does this ruling mean? If it stands up on appeal, it means StorageTek has a monopoly on service for all of its machines. No independent vendor will be able to compete with them for service contracts because no independent vendor will be authorized to "access" the maintenance code necessary to debug the machine.
Reading between the lines, it also seems to imply that vendors would in the future have a free card to hold their customers hostage. Imagine if a company built in code to cause a range of various complaints. It would be breaking the DMCA to reverse engineer their code and pinpoint that the problems were built in. At the same time, the company would be able to turn a nice profit on charging for "maintenance" contracts to "fix" the "bugs".
Of course, if there were too many such problems it would damage the reputation of their products. But if there were few enough, it could provide just enough extra "free revenue" to provide a useful extra profit source.
Fun stuff huh?
I don't see how this solves a problem. A businessman of ethnic background working in the Middle East and flying regularly will not be possible to distinguish from a terrorist posing as a businessman.
Or perhaps the hidden subtext is "The biometrics signatures will enable white non-suspicious regular travelers to whizz through customs while suspiscious non-whites are filtered for more efective controls by customs".
Other than that possibility, I have nothin per-se against biometric controls - it's how they are used and who by that's the problem.
How long then before racecars come with a "pedigree" like a champion racehorse or a Crufts prizewinning pooch?
"And Schumacher rides to victory again in his car 'Victorious Monarch' which of course comes from the Ferrari stable and is the offspring of 'Burning Rubber' and 'Teutonic Speed Demon'"
Commonly shortened to "Feebs" ;-)
It's a politician - a big dummy filled with hot air!
*boom-boom*
By adding support for NFC, Innovision says it's getting ready for when mobile users will be able to download music tracks by just tapping their device against a poster."
Amazing - that would be a great transfer rate if we're talking about full songs. Or when they say "tap" do they perhaps mean "holding their devices against a poster for a few minutes."??
over the frivolous use of the name Monopoly :-D
Next they erected the pillars and lintels, hollow structures constructed using wood and cement board (hewn stone would have been too expensive and time-consuming to erect). But in a nod to the old, the finished henge will be coated with cement and covered in plaster sculpted to look like stone. Inside the "stones" will be some modern accoutrements: wires to allow a sound system to be installed. "We've already got two couples who want to get married out here," says Hall.
I thought it was a pretty neat idea until I read that. It sounds more like something that you might find in Vegas than New Zealand if you ask me! Seems a bit cheesy when you think that it's basically going to be a glorified stage set!
Lockheed Martin has completed factory testing of the optical benches for the Airborne Laser's Beam Control/Fire Control (BC/FC) system.
and in other news..
Reuters reports that the gyroscope that keeps the international space station stable and in the right position stopped working, just hours after a new two-man crew moved in for a half-year stay.
Someone in Lockheed Martin's Black Ops department is rubbing their hands together gleefully right now!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hours after a new two-man crew arrived at the International Space Station, one of the gyroscopes that keeps the orbiting outpost steady failed, and NASA said on Thursday a spacewalk would be needed to fix it.
In the meantime, the astronauts have been instructed to take it in turns to spin as fast as possible while strapped into an office chair. It is hoped that this will help stabilise the Space Station until repairs can be carried out.
The astronauts are said to be giddy with anticipation.
*groan*
especially from reading The Rapidly Changing Face of Computing newsletter (now known as - The Harrow Report, it's that whatever barriers to computer speed increases are set up by theoreticists are quickly knocked down by other theoreticists who find ways around them.'
Of course, this doesn't mean that finding the barriers is a bad thing - it gives the next set of scientists something to aim for and pushes the boundaries of research.
Is this a standard term to describe the process of increasing processor speed in a line of computers? If so it's very poorly thought out. A speedbump is normally something that is used to slow down motorists on a tretch of road. So I instinctively interpreted that as meaning that Apple had released a line with capped processor speeds!
I suspect that this is just the poster's own term to describe this. Oh well!
"Is that a fuel-cell PDA in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me??"
People used to say that when the Internet becomes as invisible as the electricity grid we'll know it has succeeded in becoming an invaluable part of our lives.
;-)
Now people are wanting to turn the electricity grid into an "internet". Does this mean that it will suffer from the same problems in reliability, be difficult to install and that early adopters will bost about "having electricity use at home"??
Sorry - someone had to say it!
If I were a criminal, I would steal the robot in a flash. I've seen quite a few designs for robot guard dogs / sentries / police etc and the main problem imho is that the value of them tends to make them more valuable than what they are guarding!
It's sites like this, blogs from warzones and similar personal accounts that make you realise the potential power of the web.
This made my Saturday morning!
I mean my blog is more like an online journal of what I've been up to and been thinking about. It's very rare that I post memes or links to "popular" sites (though it does happen occassionally).
I guess in this case they're referring to bloggers as people who blog lots of links. Maybe they're the majority of bloggers, but they're not the majority of *interesting* bloggers (imho!)
I'm appalled he'd recommend someone to go and work at McDonalds! That's worse than working for SCO for chrissakes!!! ;-)
I thought *I* was having a terrible day! The SCO shill who wrote this must be crapping his pants!
:-(
Damn - I just remembered - I *AM* having a bad day. Back to being corporate whipping boy again
*sighs contentedly*
Takes me back to the days when internet connections were text-based and being a hacker meant being a proud explorer of a new frontier.
Where has all the magic gone eh? Thank goodness there are people out there who are keeping the magic alive!
If the FBI shoed up at my door... there would be a hell of an international incident as I live in Sweden (you insensitive clod!)
The main character in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon uses his keyboards LEDs to read a set of documents about cryptography. He uses the LEDs to spell out the documents in Morse code and writes some code using his space key as a morse tapper.
;-)
However, looking at the Morse chart he would have a problem writing code and reading mathematical notations with the limitations of the Morse alphabet.
I'd never thought about that before! You're owned Stephenson
Damn - you've described my situation so perfectly I had to check to make sure I hadn't posted this myself in my sleep!