The Kinect for Windows SDK beta is a starter kit for applications developers that includes APIs, sample code, and drivers. This SDK enables the academic research and enthusiast communities to create rich experiences by using Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect sensor technology on computers running Windows 7.
via Kinect for Windows SDK Download – Microsoft Research.
Which goes to show why the current patent system is stupid. The Japanese have had this system in gadgets for years now – you fill in your interestes in the gadget and when you come close to someone with similar interests, the thing rings. You look around and – hey, there’s someone else ringing!
Unbelievably crass that Apple is now patenting this in the US. Can’t they think up their own products?
United States Patent Application: 0110142016.
“The following new elements [should include] penalisation of the production and making available of tools eg, malicious software designed to create ‘botnets’ or unrightfully obtained computer passwords for committing the offences [of attacks against computer systems],” the Council of Ministers said in a statement pages 18-19 of 38-page/176KB PDF.
The real problem with this, is that it also makes penetration testing tools illegal. Which means we won’t be able to know if code others write in closed source is secure at all.
via European Council: Creating hacking tools should be criminal across EU • The Register.
GE has announced the first power plant to integrate wind and solar power with natural gas—a 530-megawatt plant that will start operating in Turkey in 2015. The power plant is made practical by a flexible, high-efficiency natural-gas system the company announced two weeks ago and a solar thermal power system created by eSolar, a Burbank, California-based startup that GE recently invested in
via GE Combines Natural Gas, Wind, and Solar – Technology Review.
1234, 0000, 2580, 1111, 5555, 5683 (spells LOVE), 0852, 2222, 1212, 1998
via These Are the Most Common Lockscreen PINs – Lifehacker.
How do you steal 15 tonnes of aircraft engines from an Israeli military base?!
‘Stolen’ F100 engine caper at Israeli base – The DEW Line.
Humans react in a seemingly irrational manner during emergency evacuations; sometimes, people even get trampled in the process. But what if architects and developers could predict how large crowds might move through their buildings in the event of an emergency–and then tweak the designs to ensure that everything runs smoothly?That’s the premise of MassMotion, a crowd simulator that allows users to view hundreds of thousands of simulated 3-D people moving through urban environments i.e. train stations and airports, all by programming each individual with a distinct personality and agenda.MassMotion isn’t the first crowd simulator, but it is the only one that can predict movements of unique 3-D individuals in a fully 3-D environment. It’s the most realistic crowd simulator out there–and it can run on any up-to-date computer.
via World’s Most Advanced Crowd Simulator Predicts How People React In Emergencies | Fast Company.
Well, this is getting interesting. Last week, we noted that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, alone among the other G8 leaders, questioned today’s copyright laws, suggesting that they did not fit with the times, and pointed out that these century-old laws don’t seem to fit with today’s internet.
What the ‘free’ west can learn from ‘oppressive’ Russia!
via Russian President Proposes Creative Commons-Style Rules Baked Directly Into Copyright | Techdirt.
The collections contained within the Combined Arms Research Library Digital Library are largely composed of digital versions of paper documents from the Combined Arms Research Library collections and student papers produced at the US Army Command and General Staff College. We have recently partnered with several Army educational and historical organizations whose collections appear here also. The collections of digitized materials are uploaded in the CONTENTdm® Digital Collection Management System which allows for greater search and retrieval of the individual documents.
Combined Arms Research Library CARL Digital Library.
They keep discovering more and more water everywhere!
Scientists detect Earth-equivalent amount of water within the moon.
In an announcement on the HTC Facebook page, the CEO has stated that after looking at user feedback, they’re no longer going to be locking up the bootrom. This should create an explosion of creativity for Android phones – iphone will one day sooner be left in the dust!
Today, astronomers unveiled the most complete 3-D map of the local universe (out to a distance of 380 million light-years) ever created. Taking more than 10 years to complete, the 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS) also is notable for extending closer to the Galactic plane than previous surveys – a region that’s generally obscured by dust.
via CfA Press Room.
The robotic precision of cron ensures that each subsequent job runs, on time, every time.
But cron doesn’t check that the previous execution of that same job completed first — and that can cause big trouble.
This often happens to me when I’m traveling and my backup cronjob fires while I’m on a slow up-link. It’s bad news when an hourly rsync takes longer than an hour to run, and my system heads down a nasty spiral, soon seeing 2 or 3 or 10 rsync‘s all running simultaneously. Dang.
For this reason, I found myself putting almost all of my cronjobs in a wrapper script, managing and respecting a pid file lock according to the typical UNIX sysvinit daemon method. Unfortunately, this led to extensively duplicated lock handling code spread across my multiple workstations and servers.
From the Canyon Edge – :-Dustin Kirkland: Introducing: run-one and run-this-one.
gpedit.msc isn’t available for windows home versions. Because it’s basically just a frontend for the registry, you can download an excel spreadsheet with the gpedit settings next to the correct registry entry from Microsoft.
Download details: Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows and Windows Server.
This page shows each ministry’s ICT projects, descriptions and budgets and how far they’re over or under budget.
ICT-dashboard | ICT-dashboard.
After KPN’s Deep Packet Inspection and plans to ban services such as Skype and Whatsapp, there’s a motion to stop ISPs from discriminating on the type of traffic being sent – internet is internet.
Tweede Kamer eist keiharde netneutraliteit | Webwereld.
Rain-X is a bottled polymer glass treatment that dramatically increases a car’s windshield visibility while driving through rain, snow, or sleet. It works by filling the tiny pores that are naturally present in any piece of glass. By doing so, the precipitation simply beads right off of the windshield instead of penetrating it fully. It’s really effective on cars, but it is also a good solution for preventing fingerprints on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. After applying Rain-X, your screen will feel extremely smooth and will be much more resistant against fingerprints and smudges. It’s not a permant solution, so you’ll need to reapply it once every few weeks or so.
via DIY: Make your iDevice Fingerprint-Resistant with Rain-X – iFans – iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch Fans.
The manufacturer, based in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, has now made a cooker which looks exactly like a traditional Aga, in cast iron, but which can be fired up with a flick of a switch. Rather than the usual six hour delay before the machine is ready to cook, the new Aga Total Control, will be ready within 8 minutes if you want to fry an egg, or 35 minutes if you want to use the roasting oven. It goes on sale this week.
via New generation Aga: turns on in 8 minutes, by iPhone – Telegraph.
The Dutch government has decided that their data should be open and available for everyone, unless there’s a good reason for it not to be. So they’ve opened a website portal to that data. It’s a bit empty at the moment, but it should fill up with time.
at the Vienna University of Technology, a printing device has now been developed, which is much smaller, lighter and cheaper than ordinary 3D-printers. With this kind of printer, everyone could produce small, taylor-made 3D-objects at home, using building plans from the internet – and this could save money for expensive custom-built spare parts.
It’s also cheap to make the printer, making it a viable home unit.
via Technische Universität Wien : The World’s Smallest 3D Printer.
The Christian Democratic Party is the only party in the coalition government who actively wants to spy on you and block your internets. How Christian of them!
Omstreden kinderpornofilter van de baan – Emerce.