Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters

+ - 227 Will Google's Valentine Doodle Win Over Santorum? 0

Submitted by theodp on Tuesday February 14, @05:25AM

theodp writes "'It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be,' was the 2003 marriage quote that launched presidential candidate Rick Santorum's 'Google Problem'. So, whether intentional or not, it's kind of funny that this year's Google Valentine Day's Doodle concludes with a happy ending that is, you know, man on alien, cat on dog, man on man, princess on frog, black on white, and milk on cookie. Hey, you can't fight love. BTW, today is also special in that it marks Google's first patent-protected Valentine's Day Doodle!"

+ - 202 CmdrTaco, wife revisit famous Slashdot marriage proposal-> 0

Submitted by

netbuzz

on Tuesday February 14, @04:42AM

netbuzz writes "Ten years ago today, at 9:25 a.m., Slashdot founder Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda, used his insider access to the homepage of this forum to send a very public Valentine’s Day marriage proposal to Kathleen Fent. Fifteen minutes later she said yes — and then called him a dork — an exchange that would generate more than 2,000 comments here and make news on other tech sites. As the 10th anniversary of the proposal approached, Network World asked the couple to share their memories of that day and thoughts about it since, as a kind of case study on how this type of public proposal – be it on Slashdot or the stadium Jumbotron – holds up over the years. Would they recommend it? Seems there is disagreement on that score."
Link to Original Source

+ - 157 NASA's Spinoff Showcases Decades of Trickle-Down Space Tech -> 0

Submitted by

pigrabbitbear

on Monday February 13, @03:00PM

+ - 212 Blurry vision may stop us living in space-> 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13, @12:04PM

An anonymous reader writes "There's a number of challenges we need to overcome before years long space travel, or even living in space become a reality. One I didn't expect was dealing with increasingly poor vision, but it may turn out to be a major obstacle.

Observing astronauts that spend weeks and months aboard ISS has found their vision becomes increasingly blurred. This is due to the optic nerve swelling, folds appearing in the choroid, and the globe of the eye flattening. The effects after 6 months are blurred vision for near sight, to the point where some astronauts need glasses to aid reading and writing.

It seems silly that even if we get the tech right to allow us to live in space, we might not be able to do so for fear of losing our eyesight."
Link to Original Source

+ - 145 'Do Not Track' Won't Kill The 'Free' Internet-> 0

Submitted by

jfruh

on Monday February 13, @11:26AM

+ - 272 A Tech-Happy Professor Reboots After Hearing His Teaching Advice Isn't Working-> 0

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12, @01:40PM

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Wesch has been on the lecture circuit for years touting new models of active teaching with technology. The associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University has given TED talks. Wired magazine gave him a Rave Award. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching once named him a national professor of the year. But now Mr. Wesch finds himself rethinking the fundamentals of teaching after hearing that other professors can't get his experiments with Twitter and YouTube to work in their classes. Is the lecture best after all?"
Link to Original Source

+ - 278 African used computer exports reused 85%-> 0

Submitted by

retroworks

on Sunday February 12, @05:39AM

retroworks writes "Today's Science Daily reports on 5 new UN studies of used computer and electronics management in Africa. The studies find that about 85% of surplus electronics imports are reused, not discarded. Most of the goods pictured in "primitive e-waste" articles were domestically generated and have been in use, or reused, for years. Africa's technology lifecycle for displays is 2-3 times the productive use cycle in OECD nations. Still, EU bans the trade of used technology to Africa, Interpol has describes "most" African computer importers as "criminals", and USA bill HR2284 would do the same. Can Africa "leapfrog" to newer and better tech? Or are geeks and fixers the appropriate technology for 83% of the world (non-OECD's population)? Was Revolution 2.0 sent by IPhone or Pentium 3?"
Link to Original Source

+ - 229 Is Santorum's 'Google Problem' a Google Problem? 0

Submitted by theodp on Sunday February 12, @03:55AM

theodp writes "Fortune contributor Dan Mitchell argues that GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum's 'Google problem' isn't Google's problem at all. 'The fact that searching for 'santorum' puts the profane, anti-Rick Santorum site SpreadingSantorum.com (NSFW) at the top of Google's search results,' insists Mitchell, 'is not an example of a 'Google bomb,' despite the widespread use of that term to describe the result.' In the same camp is Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan, who also says that Santorum has a search engine problem, not a Google problem. 'It’s just that everyone fixates on Google,' Sullivan adds. Which is perhaps to be expected, since Google is the King of Search and also has ties to SpreadingSantorum creator Dan Savage, having featured the sex-advice columnist in Google's the-web-is-what-you-make-of-it Chrome ad campaign (for Savage's admirable It Gets Better Project, not SpreadingSantorum). So, considering Google's vaunted search quality guidelines, is some kind of change in order? Sullivan, while making it clear he opposes Santorum's views, nonetheless suggests Google is long overdue to implement a disclaimer for the 'Santorum' search results. 'They are going to confuse some people,' he explains, 'who will assume Google’s trying to advance a political agenda with its search results.'"

+ - 213 Sergey: In Soviet Russia, Rocket Detonates You! 0

Submitted by theodp on Saturday February 11, @01:20AM

theodp writes "'We were all foolish enough to go on this adventure,' Google co-founder Sergey Brin told the assembled Brainiacs at Google's Solve for X event last week, recalling the time he and Google co-founder Larry Page took their Gulfstream on a $100K journey to watch a 2008 Soyuz launch in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. 'If the rocket blows up, we're all dead,' Sergey overheard a Russian guard say. 'It was incredibly close,' Sergey continued. 'We drove in toward this rocket and there were hundreds of people all going the other way. It was really an astonishing sight. If you ever have the opportunity, I highly recommend it. It's really not at all comparable to the American launches that I've seen...because those are like five miles away behind a mountain, and the Russians are not as concerned with safety.' Sergey received film credit for the recently-opened Man on a Mission, a documentary on the Russian Soyuz mission that wound up putting Ultima creator Richard Garriott into orbit (for $30 million) instead of changing the course of Google history. BTW, with that new beard he's sporting, could a remake of 'Lenny' be Sergey's next film role?"

+ - 259 Global Christianity and the Rise of the Cellphone 0

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Friday February 10, @12:25PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Alan Jacobs writes in the Atlantic about "Every Tribe Every Nation" (ETEN) an organization whose mission is to produce and disseminate Bibles in readable mobile-ready texts for hundreds of languages including Norsk, Potawatomie, Bahasa Indonesia, and Hawai'i Pidgin as the old missionary impulse is being turned towards some extremely difficult technical challenges. The Bible is a large, complicated text containing three quarters of a million words and the typesetting is quite complex because of the wide range of literature types found in scripture and the need for several types of note. "For all the issues that are still to be solved, ETEN is trying to do things that the world's biggest tech companies haven't cracked yet, such as rendering minority languages correctly on mobile devices," says Mark Howe. "There's a unity among Bible translators and publishers that stands in stark contrast to the fractured, fratricidal smartphone industry." But once these technical challenges are met, it won't be only Bibles only that people can get on their mobile devices: but whole textual worlds will open up for them. "So whatever your views about the Christian missionary enterprise, it's safe to say that insofar as people like Howe succeed in solving these problems, some of the world's smaller "heart languages" will stand a better chance of surviving, and maybe even thriving, in an increasingly digitized world," writes Jacobs. "And that's pretty cool.""

+ - 173 TomTom satnavs to set insurance prices-> 1

Submitted by

nk497

on Wednesday February 08, @10:00AM