SlashdotNews for nerds, stuff that mattersDebian's Testing Branch Nears Completion- August 15, 2008 DeviceGuru writes "With Debian Lenny (aka 'testing') poised to displace Etch as the popular Linux distribution's 'stable' branch possibly as soon as next month, blogger Rick Lehrbaum loaded the latest preview (beta 2) of Lenny's KDE CD image onto an available Thinkpad, and took it for a spin. How's it coming along After detailing a handful of issues — and offering solutions for each (except Bluetooth support) — he concludes: 'Other than the need for a few hacks and fixes, my main...http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/365343331/article.pl reCAPTCHA Hard At Work, Rescuing Fading Texts- August 15, 2008 sciencehabit writes "Computer scientists have developed a program, called reCAPTCHA, which is being used in lieu of CAPTCHA by several sites, to help digitize old books and newspapers. The reCAPTCHA takes entries from old and faded texts that optical scanners and digital-text readers have trouble with. So every time you solve that string of crooked letters, you may actually be helping historians digitally reconstruct a page from the 1908 New York Times." The Science Now story links to the...http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/365260934/article.pl Netflix Woes Mean a Gap In Shipments- August 14, 2008 Loopback writes "According to this article on ZDNet, it appears that I'm not the only one waiting for my NetFlix movies. It seems they are being bitten in the rear by their home-grown proprietary inventory management system. 'Netflix has been facing shipping delays and outages in its distribution centers for the last two days and is fumbling to find a fix. The tab is roughly $1.8 million to $3.6 million in revenue a day.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/365224827/article.pl Using Photographs To Enhance Videos- August 14, 2008 seussman71 writes with a link to some very interesting research out of the University of Washington that employs "a method of using high quality photographs to enhance a video taken of the same subject. The project page gives a good overview of what they are doing and the video on the page gives some really nice examples of how their technology works. Hopefully someone can take the technology and run with it, but one thing's for sure: this could make amateur video-making look even better than...http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/365167830/article.pl What Will Linux Be Capable Of, 3 Years Down the Road- August 14, 2008 An anonymous reader writes "In a prediction of the open-source future, InfoWeek speculates on What Linux Will Look Like In 2012. The most outlandish scenario foresees Linux forsaking its free usage model to embrace more paid distros where you get free Linux along with (much-needed) licenses to use patent-restricted codecs. Also predicted is an advance for the desktop based on — surprise — good acceptance for KDE 4. Finally, Linux is seen as making its biggest imprint not on the PC,..http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/365140450/article.pl 30% of Americans Want "Balanced" Blogging- August 14, 2008 Cutie Pi writes "In a recent Rasmussen poll looking at the public's attitudes toward a possible revival of the fairness doctrine by the Democrats, a surprisingly large percentage of those polled seek fairness doctrine mandates (originally intended for public airwaves) to cover the Internet as well. It is encouraging that a minority of people feel that way, but Democrats say 'hands-off the Internet ... by a far smaller margin than Republicans and unaffiliated voters. Democrats oppose...http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/365109737/article.pl Slashdot's Disagree Mail- August 14, 2008 I am responsible for reading most of the help requests sent to Slashdot. Most of the mail I get in a day is what you would expect, comments and concerns about postings, user accounts and Slashdot itself. There are a very special group however that get passed around the office due to the inordinate level of anger, lack of understanding and just plain weirdness they possess. Through the years I've collected many and still get such gems on a regular basis. We thought it would be fun to share some..http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/365087447/article.pl Violent Video Gaming Comes To the Wii- August 14, 2008 TuringTest writes "In an attempt to bring the Wii closer to the hardcore gamer's taste, Sega is preparing to release MadWorld, a violent 'hack and slash' game. This has brought attention from family-conscious lobbies: 'The decision to release a violent game on a console which has based its reputation on family fun has shocked anti-violence pressure groups. Mediawatch-UK, Britain's longest-running pressure group campaigning for decency in TV, films and games, said MadWorld will "spoil" the Wii.'.http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/365046846/article.pl Slashdot Announces Idle Section- August 14, 2008 For the last few months we've been beta testing Idle.slashdot.org, our offtopic humormemeviral videopictures section. Like many of you, we spend most of our waking hours on-line seeking stuff to entertain our brains, but most replicators out there pick so much content that it's incredibly boring filtering through the mediocrity to find the funny. We intend to fill our idle section with a very small collection of the very best the net has to offer, making it the most efficient way to waste your..http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/365021522/article.pl Americans Refusing To Wait For Mainstream EVs- August 14, 2008 hazehead writes "The growing trend of folks refusing to wait for big-car manufacturers to deliver mainstream electric vehicles is starting to get some press. From DIY tinkerers in Atlanta trying to keep money from going overseas (or simply from leaving their wallets) to a guy in Oregon building an open source Civic conversion kit, Americans are taking energy policy in their own grease-stained hands."Read more of this story at Slashdot.http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/364994018/article.pl |