Gadget News
Google: IE Privacy Policy Is Impractical
Feb 22nd
itwbennett writes “In response to Microsoft’s claim that Google circumvented Internet Explorer privacy protections (following the discovery that Google also worked around Safari’s privacy settings), Google on Monday said that IE’s privacy protection, called P3P, is impractical to comply with.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
See the article here: Google: IE Privacy Policy Is Impractical
Moon May Not Be As Dead As We Thought
Feb 22nd
rivin2e writes “It would seem our neighbor, the moon, has something hidden below the surface. ‘Images collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter hints the moon has probably seen tectonic activity within the last 50 million years.’ It would appear from the article that the moon is changing a lot more than we think, even if it doesn’t seem like it. I, for one, am still waiting for that big black obelisk to be dug up.” From NASA’s press release: “A team of researchers analyzing high-resolution images obtained by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) show small, narrow trenches typically much longer than they are wide. This indicates the lunar crust is being pulled apart at these locations. These linear valleys, known as graben, form when the moon’s crust stretches, breaks and drops down along two bounding faults. A handful of these graben systems have been found across the lunar surface.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Olympus PEN E-PL1 12.3MP Micro Four Thirds Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera Gets Liquidated
Feb 22nd
The Olympus PEN E-PL1 “is truly greater than the sum of its parts, with a surprisingly small camera body packed with technology normally found in bigger, bulkier and heavier professional Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras and High-Definition (HD) camcorders.” Product page. Continue reading for a video review.
This third-generation PEN is built for shutterbugs who always wanted better pictures and considered a DSLR, but were intimidated by the bulky size and complex interface. The new camera’s simple design and easy interface enable photographers to easily create amazing images never dreamt possible.
[via Amazon]
See the rest here: Olympus PEN E-PL1 12.3MP Micro Four Thirds Interchangeable Lens Digital Camera Gets Liquidated
Real Soldiers Recreate the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Box Art
Feb 22nd
Photo credit: Reddit
That’s right, a group of real soldiers decided to recreate the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 box art, and did so quite nicely we must say (left image). Click here to see more of today’s most popular images, courtesy of Imgur.com (and Reddit above). Continue reading to see the world’s most luxurious presidential suites.
Here is the original post: Real Soldiers Recreate the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Box Art
Apache 2.4 Takes Direct Aim At Nginx
Feb 22nd
darthcamaro writes “The world’s most popular web server is out with a major new release today that has one key goal — deliver more performance than ever before. Improved caching, proxy modules as well as new session control are also key highlights of the release. ‘We also show that as far as true performance is based — real-world performance as seen by the end-user- 2.4 is as fast, and even faster than some of the servers who may be “better” known as being “fast”, like nginx,’ Jim Jagielski, ASF President and Apache HTTP Server Project Management Committee, told InternetNews.com.” Here’s list of new features in 2.4.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more from the original source: Apache 2.4 Takes Direct Aim At Nginx
Aging Eyes Blamed For Seniors’ Health Woes
Feb 22nd
Hugh Pickens writes “Scientists have looked for explanations as to why certain conditions occur with age, among them memory loss, slower reaction time, insomnia and even depression looking at such suspects as high cholesterol, obesity, heart disease and an inactive lifestyle. Now Laurie Tarkan writes that as eyes age, less and less sunlight gets through the lens to reach key cells in the retina that regulate the body’s circadian rhythm, its internal clock that rallies the body to tackle the day’s demands in the morning and slows it down at night, allowing the body to rest and repair. ‘Evolution has built this beautiful timekeeping mechanism, but the clock is not absolutely perfect and needs to be nudged every day,’ says Dr. David Berson, whose lab at Brown University studies how the eye communicates with the brain. Dr. Patricia Turner, an ophthalmologist who with her husband, Dr. Martin Mainster has written extensively about the effects of the aging eye on health, estimate that by age 45, the photoreceptors of the average adult receive just 50 percent of the light needed to fully stimulate the circadian system, by age 55, it dips to 37 percent, and by age 75, to a mere 17 percent and recommend that people should make an effort to expose themselves to bright sunlight or bright indoor lighting when they cannot get outdoors and have installed skylights and extra fluorescent lights in their own offices to help offset the aging of their own eyes. ‘In modern society, most of the time we live in a controlled environment under artificial lights, which are 1,000 to 10,000 times dimmer than sunlight and the wrong part of the spectrum,’ says Turner. ‘We believe the effect is huge and that it’s just beginning to be recognized as a problem.’”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Excerpt from: Aging Eyes Blamed For Seniors’ Health Woes
World’s Tallest Hotels
Feb 22nd
When people think of tall hotels, Las Vegas usually comes to mind. However, these architectural masterpieces can be found all over the world, ranging from hotels in Dubai to Macau. Continue reading to see them all.
Read this article: World’s Tallest Hotels
ProtoHaus: The Amazing Luxury House on Wheels
Feb 22nd
Named the ProtoHaus, this luxury house on wheels “was made out of wood and recycled materials; it has modern kitchen, tiny bathroom, and small bedroom with comfortable bed.” Click here for more pictures. Continue reading for a video.
[via Toxel]
Originally posted here: ProtoHaus: The Amazing Luxury House on Wheels
Canonical Puts Ubuntu On Android Smartphones
Feb 22nd
nk497 writes “Canonical has revealed Ubuntu running on a smartphone — but the open source developer hasn’t squashed the full desktop onto a tiny screen. Instead, the Ubuntu for Android system runs both OSes side by side, picking which to surface depending on the form factor. When a device — in the demo, it was a Motorola Atrix — is being used as a smartphone, it uses Android. When it’s docked into a laptop or desktop setup, the full version of Ubuntu is used. Files, apps and other functionality such as voice calls and texting are shared between the two — for example, if a text message is sent to the phone when it’s docked, the SMS pops up in Ubuntu, while calls can be received or made from the desktop.” ZDnet has pictures; ExtremeTech has a story, too, including some words from Canonical CEO Jane Silber.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Visit link: Canonical Puts Ubuntu On Android Smartphones
iPhone 5 Launch Set for This Fall
Feb 22nd
Sources claim that Apple will release the all-new iPhone 5 this fall, or approximately a year after the launch of their iPhone 4S handset. From this year forward, this will be the standard release slot for new iPhone models. Click here to see more iPhone 5 concepts. Continue reading for a video.
This would make sense for several reasons. For starters, if Apple were to return to the old summer schedule, this would give iPhone 4S buyers less than a year before a new model arrives. Many would buy it anyway, but it could lead to some frustration with Apple. Additionally, the Fall slot was, for years, devoted to the iPod.
[via Geek]
Read the rest here: iPhone 5 Launch Set for This Fall
Slashdot Visits Metrix Create:Space in Seattle (Video)
Feb 22nd
Metrix Create:Space is full of people busily making electronic gadgets. And shot glasses. And everything in between. Some of them saw the street-level sign and stopped in out of curiosity, while others are long-time createspace scenesters. It doesn’t matter which you are, says Metrix founder Matt Westervelt. Come in and make something. Need new skills? They have workshops. And lots of great tools.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Visit link: Slashdot Visits Metrix Create:Space in Seattle (Video)
Heartland Institute Document Leaker Comes Forward, Maintains Documents Are Real
Feb 22nd
The Bad Astronomer writes “Last week, an anonymous source leaked several internal documents from the Heartland Institute, a non-profit think tank known for anti-global-warming rhetoric. The leaker has come forward: Peter Gleick, scientist and journalist. In his admission, he cites his own breach of ethics, but also maintains that all the documents are real. This includes the potentially embarrassing ’2012 Climate Strategy’ document stating that Heartland wants to ‘dissuade teachers from teaching science.’ Heartland still claims this document is a forgery, but there is no solid evidence either way.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read the rest here: Heartland Institute Document Leaker Comes Forward, Maintains Documents Are Real
Meizu MX iPhone 4S Clone Gets Reviewed
Feb 22nd
Measuring a svelte 10.3mm thick, the Meizu MX packs a 4.3in touchscreen, a dual-core 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos 4210 processor, 8.0-megapixel camera, 16GB of internal memory, 1GB of RAM, and 3G w/HSPA+ connectivity. Click here for more pictures. Continue reading for a couple videos. Here’s the bottom line:
Everything on Meizu MX is looking great! The display is beautiful, the color is sharp, comes in a good size. In comparison to its predecessor M9, MX is bigger and slimmer. The back cover is glossy but without cheap plastic feel. As a smartphone, the video and photos that produced by it are quite good.
[via MIC Gadget]
Read more: Meizu MX iPhone 4S Clone Gets Reviewed
Damaged US Passport Chip Strands Travelers
Feb 22nd
caseih writes “Damaging the embedded chip in your passport is now grounds for denying you the ability to travel in at least one airport in the U.S. Though the airport can slide the passport through the little number reader as easily as they can wave it in front of an RFID reader, they chose to deny a young child access to the flight, in essence denying the whole family. The child had accidentally sat on his passport, creasing the cover, and the passport appeared worn. The claim has been made that breaking the chip in the passport shows that you disrespect the privilege of owning a passport, and that the airport was justified in denying this child from using the passport.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more: Damaged US Passport Chip Strands Travelers
Top 10 Weirdest Video Game Controllers
Feb 21st
Photo credit: Demotivers
If you thought the Xbox 360 / PS3 / Wii controllers were weird, think again. Machinima’s Steve and Larson count down the ten weirdest video game controllers ever — includes a chainsaw. Continue reading to see them all.
Read more: Top 10 Weirdest Video Game Controllers
Transparency Grenade Collects and Leaks Sensitive Data
Feb 21st
Zothecula writes “If you thought WikiLeaks was a disruptive idea, the transparency grenade is going to blow you away. This tiny bit of hardware hidden under the shell shaped like a classic Soviet F1 hand grenade allows you to leak information from anywhere just by pulling a pin. The device is essentially a small computer with a powerful wireless antenna and a microphone. Following ‘detonation,’ the grenade intercepts local network traffic and captures audio data, then makes the information immediately available online.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Go here to see the original: Transparency Grenade Collects and Leaks Sensitive Data
What Really Happens When Siri Gets Angry
Feb 21st
Have you been giving Siri one too many tasks lately? If so, expect responses like the one above. Let’s just say that you’re better off manually taking care of some things, or else you’ll get trolled. Click here to see more demotivational posters, courtesy of VeryDemotivational.com. Continue reading for a video of Batman’s night out.
Follow this link: What Really Happens When Siri Gets Angry
Aston Martin DBS Black Edition Unveiled
Feb 21st
Unlike its base model counterpart, the Aston Martin DBS Black Edition boasts a matte paint job, 21-inch wheels, and a powerful engine that produces 560hp (43hp increase). Expect to shell out over $275,000USD should there be any unsold vehicles. Click here for more pictures. Continue reading for a video review of the Carbon Black Edition.
[via BCC News]
See the original post here: Aston Martin DBS Black Edition Unveiled
New Opa S4 Release Puts Forward New ‘ORM’ For MongoDB
Feb 21st
phy_si_kal writes “The new, open source, Opa web programming language just hit version 0.9.0 ‘S4,’ six months after its last major release. Apart from a new syntax more similar to JavaScript, the new release focuses on mongoDB integration. Opa now features something similar to object-relational mapping (ORM) except that mongoDB is a non-relational, document-oriented database and Opa a functional, non-object-oriented language. The new functionality makes the NoSQL database even easier to use, as all language-database calls are automated. The mapping of functional datastructures to documents could even be much better than current ORM approaches and solve the object-relational impedance mismatch.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Things You’re Not Supposed to See On Google Street View
Feb 21st
Another day, another batch of things you’re not supposed to see on Google Street View, starting with this person who just happened to have a rough night and ended up at the right place, time to be captured for the internet to see. Click here for more. Continue reading to see the real Street View guys.
Read this article: Things You’re Not Supposed to See On Google Street View
How Mailinator Compresses Its Email Stream By 90%
Feb 21st
An anonymous reader writes “Paul Tyma, creator of Mailinator, writes about a greedy algorithm to analyze the huge amount of email Mailinator receives and finds ways to reduce its memory footprint by 90%. Quoting: ‘I grabbed a few hundred megs of the Mailinator stream and ran it through several compressors. Mostly just stuff I had on hand 7z, bzip, gzip, etc. Venerable zip reduced the file by 63%. Not bad. Then I tried the LZMA/2 algorithm (7z) which got it down by 85%! Well. OK! Article is over! Everyone out! 85% is good enough. Actually — there were two problems with that result. One was that, LZMA, like many compression algorithms build their dictionary based on a fixed dataset. As it compresses it builds a dictionary of common sequences and improves and uses that dictionary to compress everything thereafter. That works great on static files — but Mailinator is not a static file. Its a big, honking, several gigabyte cache of ever changing email. If I compressed a million emails, and then some user wanted to read email #502,922 — I’d have to “seek” through the preceding half-million or so to build the dictionary in order to decompress it. That’s probably not feasible.’”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Continued here: How Mailinator Compresses Its Email Stream By 90%
Picture Blocking Beer Cooler Keeps Your Face Out of Embarrassing Photos
Dec 16th
cylonlover writes “It may sound like something dreamed up by a cheesy men’s magazine as a joke, but apparently this is a real thing that actually exists. Ostensibly, the Norte Photoblocker is a functional beer cooler surrounded by four sensors that can detect the flashes from cameras or cell phones. If a flash goes off in the direction of the Photoblocker, it fires its own flash to flood the resulting photos with bright white and obscure anyone nearby. Now you can go about your usual business of cheating on your spouse, being an idiot around your boss, or drunkenly harassing fellow party-goers without worrying that some wildly irresponsible person will tag you in a photo and posts it online.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
View original post here: Picture Blocking Beer Cooler Keeps Your Face Out of Embarrassing Photos
Feds Arrest GeneSimmons.Com Attacker
Dec 16th
gManZboy writes “Federal authorities have arrested an alleged member of Anonymous in connection with an “Operation Payback” attack against the website of Kiss bassist Gene Simmons. The charges stem from a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against Simmons’ website over a five-day period in 2010. Simmons apparently drew the ire of the Anonymous set after he lambasted their peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading proclivities during a 2010 MIPCOM entertainment content media conference panel discussion, where he lamented the failure of the music industry ‘to sue every fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid who downloaded material.’”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
See original here: Feds Arrest GeneSimmons.Com Attacker
Nokia Lumia 710 official on T-Mobile: HSPA+ 14.4, 3.7-inch ClearBlack display, available January 11th for $49 on contract
Dec 16th
Go ahead and take that holiday and even some time to celebrate because Espoo’s ushering in the new year with the stateside bow of its Lumia 710. This lower-hanging Mango phone, which we first met at Nokia World, has already begun rolling out to markets worldwide in recent weeks and, now, is poised to enter the U.S. brandishing a Magenta banner and $49 on two-year contract price. That’s right, T-Mobile has snatched up exclusive rights to the 3.7-incher, which is mostly unchanged from its initial unbranded incarnation, with the same 800 x 480 ClearBlack LCD display, 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 512MB RAM, 8GB of storage, 5 megapixel rear camera with single LED flash, WiFi and Bluetooth on board. Naturally, both parties have loaded the device up with a fair share of pre-installed apps like Drive, MS Office, ESPN, T-Mobile TV and Netflix, but you don’t have to let that clutter up your clean live-tiled look — it’s all uninstallable. The mid-range handset also runs along the operator’s HSPA+ 14.4Mbps network, so you’re in store for some heady “4G” speeds should you decide to take the plunge this January 11th when it hits stores. Head on past the break for the official presser.
Gallery: Nokia Lumia 710
Nokia Lumia 710 official on T-Mobile: HSPA+ 14.4, 3.7-inch ClearBlack display, available January 11th for $49 on contract originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
TeleNav launches browser-based turn-by-turn GPS navigation using HTML 5
Dec 16th
TeleNav’s been bringing the turn-by-turn goods to both Android and iOS for quite a while now, and has added plenty of nifty features to its GPS platform along the way — from personalized routes to offline access. Now, the company has unveiled plans to put its navigation in every HTML5-capable browser on the planet, and the best part is, it’s free. The new service is available now for a select group of developers, who can add TeleNav’s voice-guided GPS by plugging in a single line of code into their websites or apps. The service will eventually be released for consumers and all developers, but for those devs who’d like to dip their toe into TeleNav’s web-based waters early, the company’s accepting applications now. The GPS bar has officially been raised… the question is, how will the team in Mountain View respond?
Continue reading TeleNav launches browser-based turn-by-turn GPS navigation using HTML 5
TeleNav launches browser-based turn-by-turn GPS navigation using HTML 5 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.