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Comment: DSP (Score 2) 291



Comment: Nice answer but the problem is: (Score 1) 425

by IdeaMan (#25476953) Attached to: Magnetic Levitating Trains Get Go-Ahead In Japan

Liability. It is the problem that will kill any idea that moves liability from the driver to anything else. A fully automated machine? It's the company that makes the machine. In the train scenario, it's the lead driver.

I'd prefer that the vehicles automatically follow, and closely, however I want better roads. We need to add track-like features to our roads for two reasons:
1: Gives automated vehicles a chance and being able to stay in the lane.
2: Gives better stopping performance.
A regular asphalt/concrete road greatly limits how fast a car can stop. We need some kind of a track that will allow us to lower our stopping distance. So many accidents would be avoidable with a decent way to stop quickly (3g-4g deceleration. Previously I'd thought that sucker cars might be the way to go, however those tend to throw rocks around and would have difficulties with our pothole filled roads.


+ - Office Open XML out of Microsoft's hands--official->

Submitted by
bibekpaudel writes "A couple of weeks ago, ISO members voted, not without its share of controversy, to make Microsoft's Office Open XML format an official standard. While the EU investigation [0] into Open XML vote is still ongoing, ISO has now taken official control [1] of the format and has put it under the aegis of the same Joint Technical Committee responsible for the OpenDocument Format. Over the next six months, an ad hoc working group will draw up a plan on how to best maintain the OOXML format. A second working group will continue to stay on top of the OpenDocument Format used by OpenOffice.org and a number of other applications, while a third will begin work on OOXML-ODF interoperability.

One of the first tasks of the working group will be to catalog OOXML's current shortcomings. Microsoft is no longer the sole arbiter of how OOXML develops, and the company may well find itself in the position of making ISO-mandated changes to Microsoft Office as a result of the ISO's deliberations. ISO governance of the OOXML format may also serve as something of a litmus test for Microsoft's newfound explicit commitment to interoperability and open standards.

[0] http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9909499-7.html?tag=newsmap
[1] http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080414-office-open-xml-out-of-microsofts-handsofficially.html"

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+ - Listening to hurricanes with underwater mics->

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Rather than fly an aircraft into the eye of a storm to learn about the destructive power of an oncoming hurricane, Science is reporting that simply throwing a few microphones into the water does the same trick. Sensitive hydrophones left over from the Cold War record the tempest and can provide accurate info about its wind speeds, etc. There's a link to a cool sound file of an underwater recording of Hurricane Gert."
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+ - 13 year old corrects NASA's asteroid figures.->

Submitted by Doug52392
Doug52392 (1094585) writes "A physics website is running this story that reports that a 13 year old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimate on when an asteroid could hit Earth.


NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organization, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right.

The 13-year old made his discovery as part of a regional science competition for which he submitted a project entitled: "Apophis — The Killer Astroid.""

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Desktops (Apple)

+ - Psystar back selling Leopard computers->

Submitted by




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+ - EvE Online responds to source leak.

Submitted by Nobo
Nobo (606465) writes "As seen in the CCP Announcements RDF feed, CCP has formally responded to the (alleged) source leak. In summary: The code is not a leak, but rather is decompiled python client code. The server is designed to distrust clients and sanity-check data to and from the client with the intent of ensuring no exploitability, even in light of known client source. The official client is digitally signed. And finally, despite widespread rumors, no mass banning has occurred as punishment for possession or downloading of the 'leaked' source."
Classic Games (Games)

+ - Meet our new robotic server underlings.->

Submitted by IdeaMan
IdeaMan (216340) writes "What has Nolan Bushnell, creator of Pong, been doing recently? Well, he's still in games, but he deplores the direction they have taken and has created a new type of restaurant. At Uwink, ordering food is accomplished at your table by touchscreen. Each table is capable of seating 6, and provides multi-player games such as Foosball, Pong (of course), and various card games."
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Social Networks

+ - MySpace Friend Request Violates Protection Order-> 3

Submitted by
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+ - Finnish police censors blacklist critisism

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes "The recently deployed domain blacklists in Finland meant for censoring child porn are already being abused by the police. a Finnish website spreading information and heavily criticising the blacklist was recently added to the list of blacklisted websites. While no official reason has been given, this has been most likely due to the website releasing list of known blacklisted websites. The police has warned that distributing a list of blocked domains may lead to juridical action."
