Mar 16 2009

Bigg Digg Shindigg: SXSW Party Advice from Kevin Rose

When asked for his expert tips on surviving the party whirlwind that is SXSW, Rose thoughtfully gave the following sage advice, “Commit yourself to a given party for an hour, then hop to the next one.” These were wise words from the king of viral get-togethers and very aptly explained why every star in the tech constellation found itself…

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Mar 16 2009

Apple holding back on web-based 3D graphics for the desktop

Apple has added 3D position and transform capabilities to WebKit, along with the 2D CSS-based transform abilities added some time ago. However, Apple allows access to these advanced 3D abilities only via Mobile Safari. If Apple enables the features on the desktop, they could kickstart the development of a whole new class of visually rich web applic

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Mar 16 2009

Japan’s $3 Million ‘HRP-4C Fashion Model Robot’ Unveiled

While that perv in the back is busy shooting HRP-4C’s firm buttocks shaped from a glossy Stormtrooper alloy, the rest of us can marvel at the fact that Japan has produced a walking, talking fashion robot.

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Mar 16 2009

Linux : Fedora 11 Accepted Features List.

Make Fedora boot and shut down faster. The goal is to be at the login screen in 20 seconds and then to be as fast as possible after the login (gnome-session). New storage code to use udev for detection of block devices and rewritten modules for management of partitions (pyparted), LVM, Software RAID, and block device encryption (pycryptsetup).

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Mar 16 2009

Surprise! Google Earth used for robbery

He sat at his computer, googled away, selected his targets (mercifully, the roofs were unblurred), got into his car and climbed, less than socially, towards his riches. He managed to collect around 0,000 worth of lead, which he sold to unsuspecting merchants.

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Mar 16 2009

New Laser System Targets Mosquitoes

An anonymous reader writes “In the Cold War the so-called ‘Star Wars defense system’ proposed using lasers to destroy incoming Soviet missiles. In a 2007 brainstorming session aimed at combating malaria, Dr. Lowell Wood, the architect of that system, proposed modifying his original idea to kill mosquitoes. The cover of today’s Wall Street Journal contains an article that highlights this initiative as well as a few others, like using a giant flashlight to disrupt mosquitoes’ vision and using the insects to vaccinate, in the war against malaria. The system is intelligent enough to avoid noncombatants like humans and butterflies and can even tell the difference between females, the blood-drinkers, and males. My favorite quote: ‘We’d be delighted if we destabilize the human-mosquito balance of power.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Mar 16 2009

Assemble the Social Web with Zembly

stoolpigeon writes “Web applications are all the rage. Web applications that function within the context of social networking sites doubly so. I think it is safe to say that pretty much anyone looking to garner a large audience on the web, for financial or any other reasons, has to be considering how they can reach people on sites like Facebook, or all those users out there accessing the web via their iPhones. Sun Microsystems has entered this arena by providing a set of web based development tools and a platform on which to host the resulting products that is now in beta and named Zembly. And while Zembly has not been open to the public for all that long, two of Zemblys architects with the help of two writers have published a new cookbook for the aspiring Zembly developer, Assemble the Social Web with Zembly.” Read below for the rest of JR’s review.

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Mar 16 2009

What to Fight Over After Megapixels?

NewScientist has a quick look at where the digital image crowd is headed now that the megapixel wars are drawing to a close. Looks like an emphasis on low-light performance and color accuracy in addition to fun software tools are the new hotness. “For years, consumers have been sold digital cameras largely on the basis of one number – the megapixels crammed onto its image sensor. But recently an industry bigwig admitted that squeezing in ever more resolution has become meaningless. Akira Watanabe, head of Olympus’ SLR planning department, said that 12 megapixels is plenty for most photography purposes and that his company will henceforth be focusing on improving color accuracy and low-light performance.”

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Mar 16 2009

What Features Should Be Included With iPhone 3.0?

With the announcement coming tomorrow, Macworld has posted their top list of 15 features they would like to see in an iPhone 3.0 update. The list includes some things that people have been asking for since launch (like cut and paste) and things that were once there but have since been silently removed (like push notifications/background apps). With almost 2 years of time to grow and learn, what other things are woefully inadequate on Apple’s popular handheld?

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Mar 16 2009

Conficker Worm Asks For Instructions, Gets Update

KingofGnG writes “Conficker/Downup/Downadup/Kido malware, that according to Symantec ‘is, to date, one of the most complex worms in the history of malicious code,’ has been updated and this time for real. The new variant, dubbed W32.Downadup.C, adds new features to malware code and makes the threat even more dangerous and worrisome than before.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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