ShellAck

maclizard writes "The town's name is real. But when Josh Moore tried to tell Seattle-based Microsoft and the enforcement team at Xbox Live that Fort gay was a real place, they wouldn't take his word for it. Or Google it. Or check the U.S. Postal Service website for a ZIP code. I personally feel for those of you from Big Bone Lick, KY"

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bossanovalithium writes "Back in 1936 — 74 years ago — boffins accepted that about 3.3Khz was the accepted frequency that telephone calls are going to run on and it's been like that, generally, ever since. Call quality is reasonable but leaves a lot to be desired. Think calls from Skype to Skype where quality is often crystal clear." It's crazy to me that (for people with decent mics at least) Ventrillo sounds better than corporate conference calls.

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jsuda writes "You've got to have a lot of confidence and nerve to write and try to sell a nearly 400 page book on cooking to the take-out pizza and cola set. No cookbook is likely to turn many geeks into chefs or take them away from their computer screens. However, even though Cooking for Geeks contains a large number of recipes, it is not a conventional cookbook but a scientific explanation of the how and why of cooking which will certainly appeal to that group, as well as to cooking professionals and intellectually curious others." Read on for the rest of jsuda's review.

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GCPSoft writes with this quote from a Google announcement: "Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type."

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Meshach writes "A study out of Canada claims that Facebook is a magnet for narcissists and people with low self-esteem. The theory is that these people use the site as a means of self promotion or to feel important."

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eldavojohn writes "News is out of BP's report on the gulf spill that shifts some of the blame on to other companies like Transocean that worked with BP in erecting the Deepwater Horizon rig. If you were affected by the spill, you might find the video, executive summary and 193 page report an interesting read. The summary outlines six or seven major failures in safety and engineering that all built up to the deaths of eleven workers and widespread contamination of the gulf. From incorrectly using seawater instead of drilling fluid to misinterpreting pressure test results, this report is just BP's side of the story as the blowout preventer has been pulled up and is still on its way to NASA where it will be analyzed by government investigators who will be able to compile their own report."

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Young people at The University of Baltimore will be able to study the zombie condition thanks to the newly available English 333. Students in the class will watch 16 classic zombie films and read zombie comics. Instead of writing a final research paper they may write a script or draw storyboards for their own zombie movie. Unfortunately the class doesn't seems to cover brain appreciation.

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Jamie is helping bring our childhood fantasies/nightmares to life with a link that says "Andrei Rhode, a researcher involved with the project, said that existing optical tweezers are able to move particles the size of a bacterium a few millimeters in a liquid. Their new technique can move objects one hundred times that size over a distance of a meter or more."

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An anonymous reader writes "European Parliament today adopted Written Declaration 12/2010 which basically tells the Commission to all but drop the negotiations. From the article: 'Citizens from all around Europe helped to raise awareness about ACTA among Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) by collecting, one by one, more than 369 [of the MEPs'] signatures. With Written Declaration 12/20103, the European Parliament as a whole takes a firm position to oppose the un-democratic process of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and its content harmful to fundamental freedoms and the Internet ecosystem.'"

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Tootech writes "Julian Assange has requested a new lawyer to represent him during a rape investigation in Sweden because his previous brief, Leif Silbersky, was not engaged enough with the case. Assange wants Bjorn Hurtig to represent him as authorities continue to investigate the allegations, according to AP. Assange told Sweden's TV4 that he had never blamed the CIA for the "smears""

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sciencehabit writes "To find out if certain dance moves are more attractive to women than others, researchers recruited a bunch of college guys and used motion-capture to create avatars of them dancing. When women watched the avatars (2 videos included in story), the men they found most attractive were those who kept their heads and torsos moving without flailing their arms and legs. The researchers say dancing is thus an honest signal to women of the man's strength and health, just as it is in crabs and hummingbirds, who also move in special ways to attract mates."

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bsk_cw writes "According to Computerworld's Serdar Yegulalp, there has been a lot of talk about whether the iPad will take the place of the netbook — or, in fact, whether it will eat into the market share for more mainstream desktop and laptop computers. But, he continues, the iPad has a long way to go before it becomes a netbook killer — if only because it has created a space all its own."

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Ernesto Guido writes "Two small asteroids (2010 RF12 & 2010 RX30) will pass within the Moon's distance of Earth today, September 08, 2010." One is 6-14 meters and the other is 10-20, so even if they change course, don't expect Bruce Willis to be called in.

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siliconbits writes "The Google homepage is sporting a new logo that changes color as you type, and it is likely a big hint as to what the company will announce at its search event on Wednesday. When you arrive on the search giant homepage today, you will be greeted with a gray Google doodle."

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Trailrunner7 writes "Threatpost has a guest column by Robert Hansen (aka Rsnake) about the long-term effects of snake-oil security products. 'I've talked about this a few times over the years during various presentations but I wanted to document it here as well. It's a concept that I've been wrestling with for 7+ years and I don't think I've made any headway in convincing anyone, beyond a few head nods. Bad security isn't just bad because it allows you to be exploited. It's also a long term cost center. But more interestingly, even the most worthless security tools can be proven to "work" if you look at the numbers.'"

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eldavojohn writes "You might recall back in June when it was noted that North Korea was developing and exporting flash games. Now, the isolated nation state is apparently home to some game developers that are being published by a subsidiary of News Corp. (The games include Big Lebowski Bowling and Men In Black). Nosotek Joint Venture Company is treading on thin ice in the eyes of a few academics and specialists that claim the Fox News owner is 'working against US policy.' Concerns grow over the potential influx of cash, creating better programmers that are then leveraged into cyberwarfare capabilities. Nosotek said that 'training them to do games can't bring any harm.' The company asserts its innocence, though details on how much of the games were developed in North Korea are sparse. While one of the poorest nations in the world could clearly use the money, it remains to be seen if hardliner opponents like the United States will treat Nosotek (and parent company News Corp.) as if they're fostering the development of computer programmers inside the DPRK. The United Nations only stipulates that cash exchanged with companies in the DPRK cannot go to companies and businesses associated with military weaponry or the arms trade. Would you feel differently about Big Lebowski Bowling if you knew it was created in North Korea?"

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cortex writes with an excerpt from the L.A. Times: "In a first step toward helping severely paralyzed people communicate more easily, Utah researchers have shown that it is possible to translate recorded brain waves into words, using a grid of electrodes placed directly on the brain. ... The device could benefit people who have been paralyzed by stroke, Lou Gehrig's disease or trauma and are 'locked in' — aware but unable to communicate except, perhaps, by blinking an eyelid or arduously moving a cursor to pick out letters or words from a list. ... Some researchers have been attempting to 'read' speech centers in the brain using electrodes placed on the scalp. But such electrodes 'are so far away from the electrical activity that it gets blurred out,' [University of Utah bioengineer Bradley] Greger said. ... He and his colleagues instead use arrays of tiny microelectrodes that are placed in contact with the brain, but not implanted. In the current study, they used two arrays, each with 16 microelectrodes."

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bgweber writes "There's been a lot of discussion about whether games should adapt to the skills of players. However, most current techniques limit adaptation to parameter adjustment. But if the parameter adaptation is applied to procedural content generation, then new levels can be generated on-line in response to a player's skill. In this adaptation of Infinite Mario (with source [.JAR]), new levels are generated based on the performance of the player. What other gameplay mechanics are open for adaptation when games adapt to the skills of specific players?"

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An anonymous reader writes "Following Qualcomm, Samsung is also close to launching a new smartphone processor with two cores. Based on ARM architecture, the new Orion processor promises five times the graphics performance of current chips and to enable 1080p video recording and playback. Next year, it seems, dual-core smart phones will be all the rage. Apple, which is generally believed to have the most capable processor in the market today, may be under pressure to roll out a dual-core iPhone next year as well."

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An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla Labs has started an initiative to promote and develop gaming based on Open Web technologies. They write, 'We are excited to present to you the latest initiative from Mozilla Labs: Gaming. Mozilla Labs Gaming is all about games built, delivered and played on the Open Web and the browser. We want to explore the wider set of technologies which make immersive gaming on the Open Web possible. We invite the wider community to play with cool, new tech and aim to help establish the Open Web as the platform for gaming across all your Internet connected devices.' To that end Mozilla Labs will launch Game On 2010, a game development competition, at the end of September."

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