If this works out like it seems, the sensation of touch will be a big boon to robotics for hobbyists as well as for NASA and other space going enterprises. Touch is one of those things that makes a REALLY big difference in how robots do things. Simple things like flipping a light switch or tightening a bolt use touch, and make them easily done.
I think that this is necessary in taking the next steps. We've shown that its possible to send rovers to Mars and land on comets etc. The next step is to explore the various orbs in our solar system to identify which are going to be worth sending people to. If you waste billions on a manned mission to planetary body with no worth or return, its just a waste. If you spends millions finding a planetary body that has minerals or water or whatever will give ROI, before sending a manned mission, it is worth it. These robotic contests are hopefully going to spur the development of technologies that will allow that exploration. Funny enough, militaristic requirements are not dissimilar to those of planetary exploration. If the current Mars rovers were more capable (with AI etc.) then we would have much more information about Mars. Launching a UAV to go 'hit' that water/ice location would tell us if it was water/ice... just like smashing an asteroid tells us things about it.
Yes, there is probably reason to be cynical, but looking at realistic requirements shows that such military type tasks are also quite useful for standard exploration.
In light of the comments about my comments on the.xxx TLD, I now agree that.asia would be stupid, as would.xxx for all the good reasons stated. ICANN will no more be able to pigeon hole web content by TLD than the USPTO will be able to issue intelligent decisions on software patents. It will work a little, but the consequences are more likely to be bad. Even if these special TLDs allow site owners to pigeon-hole their content by identifying with the.xxx or.asia domains, it does not mean that these would be useful for more than that.
The issue of different languages is tricky too. If different languages are supported in DNS, wouldn't that require OS/Browser to inherently support multiple languages? I also hate to think what Korean would look like on a URL. (no offense is meant) It would be very different from the current 'norm' and would cause some issues I think. If you go to a PC manufacturer's site, and it redirects you to one with Korean or Mandarin characters and your browser rejects it, you will end up with errors. Of course, the PC maker should build the site(s) so they work with all countries, but still it would cause issues.
I think all of this needs some more thought before implementation. The gov. works pretty well, as do other combinations, so perhaps a combination like that would work better????.asia.xxx for pornographic anime????
well, maybe ever... if all sex sites had to have a.xxx tld, it would be *SO* easy to block it.... How can even the religious zealots be against that? If you have pr0n on something other than a.xxx site, you get a big big fine... this sounds too easy to ever be workable...
Okay, the original post is a troll, but seriously, so many big names in the computer industry have been spouting paperless office drivel for so long that I can't really believe that people want to print stuff?
Yeah, ok, there are some things, maybe a buss card printer or photo printer, but really, printing is the LAST thing I'm worried about. I believe in the paperless office, and I take that practice home with me too.
He might have a point about coordinated application integration, but if printing is all he is worried about, I say we pitch in and buy him a 128 box of crayons and some paper!
This, at least in the US, is a serious question... not because one of them might be right, but because one of them might be wrong. Science is well equipped to handle it when science is not right, but religion on the other hand *IS* not able to handle that. They only have one book, one set of rules (per sect) and one g*d so if any of those singularities are wrong, then everything about their religion is wrong...
Christians in general will agree that Christ and Christianity does not need defending, so it must be the 'church' that needs defending, and thus the motivation for the church to modify science, or at least how it is taught.
This is more important than it seems on face value because if the 'church' can weasle its way into what is taught in this country, then it won't be long before the Christian terrorists^H^H^H^H^H^Hextremists have control of the government in the US, and THAT, my friends, is actually just as bad as any other bad government in the world that has recently been deposed or needs to be. Image what extremist Christians will do to your rights, lefts, and otherwise none-of-their-businesses????
The religions that are not in favor are right out the door, science pfffttt gone, but on the other hand, gone also would be the JW's, and that's not so bad.... or is it? It is bad, because when religion begins making law, history has shown us over and over again, the excrement hits the fan! and people start getting killed. Whether its a holy crusade, or just hunting witches... people start to die.
In the interest of all that is humane, please GOD, don't let them fsck up science!
The Holy Roman Church's Head Astronomer stated that ID is not science and should not be taught in science classes... so maybe things aren't as one sided as it seems?
Hey, not sure why you got 'Funny'... this weekend I found a truly cool thing to do with an old machine with a 425MB (yes, that's right, 1GB) hard drive.... Chubby Puppy installed slicker than excriment! Now I have the puppy machine (PII-300 256MB Ram, 425MB HD) up and running quite happily *AND* usefully!
Well, I'm boycotting Sony, and now xbox is crashing like a windows95 machine or worse. I guess that means I'll be playing Zelda on my old super nintendo machine for a while.
Seriously, on face value, it doesn't look much like anyone is doing well lately in the tech sector, or at least in that sector that uses copy protection. While that is a broad statement, wouldn't it be odd to find out that DRM is causing the xbox to crash?
It doesn't look like there are many RT programmers on/.? RT applications are said to be so because of the requirement for them to react in *real time* even though that is not the actual case. It just needs to seem that they do.
Microprocessors and full fledged desktops or servers have different tasks, different design criteria. You may want to know as soon as an email arrives, but you damn sure want to know when your cars brakes are about to fail. There are differences in the meaning of 'real time' in these two (off the top of my head) examples. ABS systems are not allowed to have delay, mail servers are.
RT Linux does exist (QNX as example), but its not free. People who do the work to tweak the code to be able to react in real time want money for their work, and good for them. I don't think (I could be wrong) that you will find the military or NASA etc. using Windows for RT applications. Many RT systems are OS with tweaks for particular hardware that give 'good enough' RT results.
For microcontrollers, there are several options, and all of these make compromises here and there to fit the code in a very small space. The need for embedded real time OS's is totally dependent on the application. A mail server is not so picky, a space shuttle controller has a bit more requirement, and a washing machine yet a third set of requirements.
Embedded processing is very dependent on the requirements of the hardware and the system, as well as the hardware available. The funny part is that Linux is not targeted at hardware that is typically used in RT systems, no matter what that hardware is, so I agree, it is not the target market for Linux even though Linux has the ability to be a RTOS, and in fact, has been shown to work well in RT environments.
The casual relationship between multitasking and higher grades is no big news. People with ADD get bad grades... duh. Seriously, this is only one incidental aspect of a well known relationship. The real news will be when browsing/surfing is supporting or augmenting students in ways that were not predictable.
The really good part of information tools is that they allow us to multitask on our own time, not the time schedule of others. The article hardly lends any time to whether or not the students who are surfing in class know the material well already or not. The wide variety of subject matter knowledge held by the students determines their own personal need to listen intently or not. If they don't require it, multitasking is a good use of time, and students who can multitask well will make good grades whether there is Internet access or not, likewise, students who cannot multitask will not make as good of grades.
Multitasking in a school environment means that you don't have to shut off the parts of your thinking that are not fully focused on the matter at hand.... you may be in a poli-sci class, but your thinking is on a project that you are working on for another.
There are three kinds of lies... lies, damned lies, and statistics!
My boycott of Sony will include BlueRay and anything else that has Sony branded on it... In my opinion, Sony's DRM techniques have settled the battle between BlueRay and HD-DVD... Just say no to Bluer-ay
that is all that I can think they hope to achieve by creating an OS with advertisements in it... at the point that they launch ad supported Windows, who in their right mind will not think it much better to just try Linux?
When Windows 2003 server can fit on a bootable CD, taking up less than 100MB of that CD, then I will begin to believe the claims that MS can build an OS that is capable of 'super computing'.... The Puppy Linux distro makes an absolute joke of Windows XP....
I feel the same way about MS as I now feel about Sony... let them both rot in the pit of public disdain
And I don't mean the tennis courts either. All products that are not OS related, where the OS doesn't rely on them, should be add-on software. I don't know that MS should be broken up like AT&T was, but allowing them to 'push' their add-on software out with the OS is an unfair practice as regards the rest of the software industry that is trying to make a living with that OS.
Its a bit tricky, because, hell, its MS's OS, why can't they give extra value software? Well, maybe so, but they are so large that such a move is completely bullish on the rest of the industry. This is/was common practice before antitrust laws were enacted, and stopping this is what they are for. The antispyware vendors have to compete with a product that user's don't even have to lift a finger to install... that's not easy.
If all antispyware software (as an example) had to be purchased, then it would still not be fair as the user's get a demo copy of MS software with the OS. I truly wish there were an easy answer to this bullish practice that MS is using... there of course is no easy answer, other than using Linux or Mac (I use *nix) so this is not so bad for me, but MS can then use this same practice to try to bludgeon other businesses into bankruptcy... Even though Google and others are making a very good play against MS, I think they need some help in the form of more court time for MS.
In the world of politics, the assumption that there is nothing stopping the world from having two sets of root DNS servers is DEAD WRONG. There *IS* something that stops that. If there were two sets, then the politicians who are struggling to get more power would have achieved nothing. The mere fact that they argue they want more security or control of the destiny of their Internet based economies is not supportive of their actions. What they desire is control, and the power that it brings. If they wanted to secure the operation of 'their' Internets, they could have done so long ago. The fact that they want a single set of root servers *AND* want control of them is nothing less than proof that they are greedy power-mongering asshats!
Its not about the USA or ICAAN, its about power and money, nothing more, nothing less. For that reason alone, I say that they shall not have the control. It shouldn't be given to them, the UN, the EU or anyone else... its doing just fine with ICAAN. Let them argue... pfft! They won't set up extra root servers because it would defeat their purpose....
What happens if IBM does actually have contributory work for a Linux 2.7 kernel? I'm kind of lost here. What does that prove/show? The code can be downloaded when its released anyway? No need for courts.
Something just doesn't seem right about this to me. I'm having a little difficulty believing that lawyers are THAT stupid? If they haven't proven that the code for the 2.6 kernel is infringing, how in the hell can the code in 2.7 be infringing, if there is code for 2.7?
that I made the right choice to create my own religion, and follow it where it leads me... I no longer have to justify anything I believe against anything anyone else believes...
Only criminals will go to the trouble to avoid being caught in such a web of information collection, leaving innocent private citizens as the only victims in this process.
Like is said for gun control laws, if you outlaw it, only the criminals will have it. This sort of crap will ensure that only criminals are outside of the jurisdiction of legal daily surveilance, thus achieving nothing but ill will and a semi-police state.
If you think this is a troll, try again... When the government invents a reason to spy on you without your permission or that of the courts, they have found a way to be the big brother that we all despise and fear. Never mind tin-foil hats, when they know what you had for breakfast without having to lift a finger, the tin-foil hat does no good.
How long will it be before it is made illegal to thwart such efforts by use of misleading electronic activities, and botnets that spoil the information gathered with false information and misleading information. How long before identity theft is not the real problem, but being accused of anti-american activities is the problem because of clever botnets that have seeded the government databases with information about you and your activities?
Where is the oversight to stop the government from doing that, then arresting you on trumped up charges based on bad information... damn, the US started an entire war on bad information...
There is a conspiracy theory concerning WalMart: First, Clinton opened trade with China... where is he from? Arkansas. Where is Walmart headquartered? Arkansas. Where is most of the stuff you buy from Walmart made? This is the biggest outsourcing project of all time, and government funded no less. Now, add to that that both Walmart and China are restrictive of information and its time to put the tin-foil hats on!
I have never been a fan of Walmart, and I don't think that Google is the altruistic god of geekdom, but I do wonder about such links as described above. Besides that, its time for someone to have a site that tells you where the best deals in town really are. I'm talking about a voice link service, maybe you tap in the store name and bar code and the service tells you where the best deal is, so that while you are in the store shopping you can decide if that is where you want to spend your money. Of course, I'd also like the service to tell you where the best deal on US made parts/items are too, so you get the choice of supporting your home country or having your dollars shipped overseas, but that is another matter.
Slashdot Mirror
If this works out like it seems, the sensation of touch will be a big boon to robotics for hobbyists as well as for NASA and other space going enterprises. Touch is one of those things that makes a REALLY big difference in how robots do things. Simple things like flipping a light switch or tightening a bolt use touch, and make them easily done.
I think that this is necessary in taking the next steps. We've shown that its possible to send rovers to Mars and land on comets etc. The next step is to explore the various orbs in our solar system to identify which are going to be worth sending people to. If you waste billions on a manned mission to planetary body with no worth or return, its just a waste. If you spends millions finding a planetary body that has minerals or water or whatever will give ROI, before sending a manned mission, it is worth it. These robotic contests are hopefully going to spur the development of technologies that will allow that exploration. Funny enough, militaristic requirements are not dissimilar to those of planetary exploration. If the current Mars rovers were more capable (with AI etc.) then we would have much more information about Mars. Launching a UAV to go 'hit' that water/ice location would tell us if it was water/ice... just like smashing an asteroid tells us things about it.
Yes, there is probably reason to be cynical, but looking at realistic requirements shows that such military type tasks are also quite useful for standard exploration.
two cents worth
In light of the comments about my comments on the .xxx TLD, I now agree that .asia would be stupid, as would .xxx for all the good reasons stated. ICANN will no more be able to pigeon hole web content by TLD than the USPTO will be able to issue intelligent decisions on software patents. It will work a little, but the consequences are more likely to be bad. Even if these special TLDs allow site owners to pigeon-hole their content by identifying with the .xxx or .asia domains, it does not mean that these would be useful for more than that.
.asia.xxx for pornographic anime????
The issue of different languages is tricky too. If different languages are supported in DNS, wouldn't that require OS/Browser to inherently support multiple languages? I also hate to think what Korean would look like on a URL. (no offense is meant) It would be very different from the current 'norm' and would cause some issues I think. If you go to a PC manufacturer's site, and it redirects you to one with Korean or Mandarin characters and your browser rejects it, you will end up with errors. Of course, the PC maker should build the site(s) so they work with all countries, but still it would cause issues.
I think all of this needs some more thought before implementation. The gov. works pretty well, as do other combinations, so perhaps a combination like that would work better????
well, maybe ever... if all sex sites had to have a .xxx tld, it would be *SO* easy to block it.... How can even the religious zealots be against that? If you have pr0n on something other than a .xxx site, you get a big big fine... this sounds too easy to ever be workable...
this public beta will be as successful as the public beta of the Sony DRM software?
Okay, the original post is a troll, but seriously, so many big names in the computer industry have been spouting paperless office drivel for so long that I can't really believe that people want to print stuff?
Yeah, ok, there are some things, maybe a buss card printer or photo printer, but really, printing is the LAST thing I'm worried about. I believe in the paperless office, and I take that practice home with me too.
He might have a point about coordinated application integration, but if printing is all he is worried about, I say we pitch in and buy him a 128 box of crayons and some paper!
This, at least in the US, is a serious question... not because one of them might be right, but because one of them might be wrong. Science is well equipped to handle it when science is not right, but religion on the other hand *IS* not able to handle that. They only have one book, one set of rules (per sect) and one g*d so if any of those singularities are wrong, then everything about their religion is wrong...
Christians in general will agree that Christ and Christianity does not need defending, so it must be the 'church' that needs defending, and thus the motivation for the church to modify science, or at least how it is taught.
This is more important than it seems on face value because if the 'church' can weasle its way into what is taught in this country, then it won't be long before the Christian terrorists^H^H^H^H^H^Hextremists have control of the government in the US, and THAT, my friends, is actually just as bad as any other bad government in the world that has recently been deposed or needs to be. Image what extremist Christians will do to your rights, lefts, and otherwise none-of-their-businesses????
The religions that are not in favor are right out the door, science pfffttt gone, but on the other hand, gone also would be the JW's, and that's not so bad.... or is it? It is bad, because when religion begins making law, history has shown us over and over again, the excrement hits the fan! and people start getting killed. Whether its a holy crusade, or just hunting witches... people start to die.
In the interest of all that is humane, please GOD, don't let them fsck up science!
The Holy Roman Church's Head Astronomer stated that ID is not science and should not be taught in science classes... so maybe things aren't as one sided as it seems?
nuff said
it was supposed to say less than, but the angle bracket didn't show??? oops
Hey, not sure why you got 'Funny' ... this weekend I found a truly cool thing to do with an old machine with a 425MB (yes, that's right, 1GB) hard drive.... Chubby Puppy installed slicker than excriment! Now I have the puppy machine (PII-300 256MB Ram, 425MB HD) up and running quite happily *AND* usefully!
If it keeps crashing like a windows95 box, MS will lose much more than $126 per unit... pfft
Well, I'm boycotting Sony, and now xbox is crashing like a windows95 machine or worse. I guess that means I'll be playing Zelda on my old super nintendo machine for a while.
Seriously, on face value, it doesn't look much like anyone is doing well lately in the tech sector, or at least in that sector that uses copy protection. While that is a broad statement, wouldn't it be odd to find out that DRM is causing the xbox to crash?
mEss=MC Hammer
It doesn't look like there are many RT programmers on /.?
RT applications are said to be so because of the requirement for them to react in *real time* even though that is not the actual case. It just needs to seem that they do.
Microprocessors and full fledged desktops or servers have different tasks, different design criteria. You may want to know as soon as an email arrives, but you damn sure want to know when your cars brakes are about to fail. There are differences in the meaning of 'real time' in these two (off the top of my head) examples. ABS systems are not allowed to have delay, mail servers are.
RT Linux does exist (QNX as example), but its not free. People who do the work to tweak the code to be able to react in real time want money for their work, and good for them. I don't think (I could be wrong) that you will find the military or NASA etc. using Windows for RT applications. Many RT systems are OS with tweaks for particular hardware that give 'good enough' RT results.
For microcontrollers, there are several options, and all of these make compromises here and there to fit the code in a very small space. The need for embedded real time OS's is totally dependent on the application. A mail server is not so picky, a space shuttle controller has a bit more requirement, and a washing machine yet a third set of requirements.
Embedded processing is very dependent on the requirements of the hardware and the system, as well as the hardware available. The funny part is that Linux is not targeted at hardware that is typically used in RT systems, no matter what that hardware is, so I agree, it is not the target market for Linux even though Linux has the ability to be a RTOS, and in fact, has been shown to work well in RT environments.
The casual relationship between multitasking and higher grades is no big news. People with ADD get bad grades... duh. Seriously, this is only one incidental aspect of a well known relationship. The real news will be when browsing/surfing is supporting or augmenting students in ways that were not predictable.
The really good part of information tools is that they allow us to multitask on our own time, not the time schedule of others. The article hardly lends any time to whether or not the students who are surfing in class know the material well already or not. The wide variety of subject matter knowledge held by the students determines their own personal need to listen intently or not. If they don't require it, multitasking is a good use of time, and students who can multitask well will make good grades whether there is Internet access or not, likewise, students who cannot multitask will not make as good of grades.
Multitasking in a school environment means that you don't have to shut off the parts of your thinking that are not fully focused on the matter at hand.... you may be in a poli-sci class, but your thinking is on a project that you are working on for another.
There are three kinds of lies... lies, damned lies, and statistics!
My boycott of Sony will include BlueRay and anything else that has Sony branded on it... In my opinion, Sony's DRM techniques have settled the battle between BlueRay and HD-DVD... Just say no to Bluer-ay
that is all that I can think they hope to achieve by creating an OS with advertisements in it... at the point that they launch ad supported Windows, who in their right mind will not think it much better to just try Linux?
Not trolling, but...
When Windows 2003 server can fit on a bootable CD, taking up less than 100MB of that CD, then I will begin to believe the claims that MS can build an OS that is capable of 'super computing'.... The Puppy Linux distro makes an absolute joke of Windows XP....
I feel the same way about MS as I now feel about Sony... let them both rot in the pit of public disdain
or does that PHASr look like it came directly from the set of Farscape?
So this is why Homeland Security is so worried about people blinding pilots?
And I don't mean the tennis courts either. All products that are not OS related, where the OS doesn't rely on them, should be add-on software. I don't know that MS should be broken up like AT&T was, but allowing them to 'push' their add-on software out with the OS is an unfair practice as regards the rest of the software industry that is trying to make a living with that OS.
Its a bit tricky, because, hell, its MS's OS, why can't they give extra value software? Well, maybe so, but they are so large that such a move is completely bullish on the rest of the industry. This is/was common practice before antitrust laws were enacted, and stopping this is what they are for. The antispyware vendors have to compete with a product that user's don't even have to lift a finger to install... that's not easy.
If all antispyware software (as an example) had to be purchased, then it would still not be fair as the user's get a demo copy of MS software with the OS. I truly wish there were an easy answer to this bullish practice that MS is using... there of course is no easy answer, other than using Linux or Mac (I use *nix) so this is not so bad for me, but MS can then use this same practice to try to bludgeon other businesses into bankruptcy... Even though Google and others are making a very good play against MS, I think they need some help in the form of more court time for MS.
In the world of politics, the assumption that there is nothing stopping the world from having two sets of root DNS servers is DEAD WRONG. There *IS* something that stops that. If there were two sets, then the politicians who are struggling to get more power would have achieved nothing. The mere fact that they argue they want more security or control of the destiny of their Internet based economies is not supportive of their actions. What they desire is control, and the power that it brings. If they wanted to secure the operation of 'their' Internets, they could have done so long ago. The fact that they want a single set of root servers *AND* want control of them is nothing less than proof that they are greedy power-mongering asshats!
Its not about the USA or ICAAN, its about power and money, nothing more, nothing less. For that reason alone, I say that they shall not have the control. It shouldn't be given to them, the UN, the EU or anyone else... its doing just fine with ICAAN. Let them argue... pfft! They won't set up extra root servers because it would defeat their purpose....
What happens if IBM does actually have contributory work for a Linux 2.7 kernel? I'm kind of lost here. What does that prove/show? The code can be downloaded when its released anyway? No need for courts.
Something just doesn't seem right about this to me. I'm having a little difficulty believing that lawyers are THAT stupid? If they haven't proven that the code for the 2.6 kernel is infringing, how in the hell can the code in 2.7 be infringing, if there is code for 2.7?
that I made the right choice to create my own religion, and follow it where it leads me... I no longer have to justify anything I believe against anything anyone else believes...
I feel good about myself today now
Only criminals will go to the trouble to avoid being caught in such a web of information collection, leaving innocent private citizens as the only victims in this process.
Like is said for gun control laws, if you outlaw it, only the criminals will have it. This sort of crap will ensure that only criminals are outside of the jurisdiction of legal daily surveilance, thus achieving nothing but ill will and a semi-police state.
If you think this is a troll, try again... When the government invents a reason to spy on you without your permission or that of the courts, they have found a way to be the big brother that we all despise and fear. Never mind tin-foil hats, when they know what you had for breakfast without having to lift a finger, the tin-foil hat does no good.
How long will it be before it is made illegal to thwart such efforts by use of misleading electronic activities, and botnets that spoil the information gathered with false information and misleading information. How long before identity theft is not the real problem, but being accused of anti-american activities is the problem because of clever botnets that have seeded the government databases with information about you and your activities?
Where is the oversight to stop the government from doing that, then arresting you on trumped up charges based on bad information... damn, the US started an entire war on bad information...
FSCK, this is bad!
There is a conspiracy theory concerning WalMart: First, Clinton opened trade with China... where is he from? Arkansas. Where is Walmart headquartered? Arkansas. Where is most of the stuff you buy from Walmart made? This is the biggest outsourcing project of all time, and government funded no less. Now, add to that that both Walmart and China are restrictive of information and its time to put the tin-foil hats on!
I have never been a fan of Walmart, and I don't think that Google is the altruistic god of geekdom, but I do wonder about such links as described above. Besides that, its time for someone to have a site that tells you where the best deals in town really are. I'm talking about a voice link service, maybe you tap in the store name and bar code and the service tells you where the best deal is, so that while you are in the store shopping you can decide if that is where you want to spend your money. Of course, I'd also like the service to tell you where the best deal on US made parts/items are too, so you get the choice of supporting your home country or having your dollars shipped overseas, but that is another matter.
No, its not old HerbaLife, and not snake oil either...