Tag: win

Los Angeles Is Considering Make Uber and Lyft Go All-Electric

“The Financial Times is reporting that Los Angeles may now force Uber and Lyft to use electric cars,” reports Electrek: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said, “We have the power to regulate car share. We can mandate and are looking closely at mandating that any of those vehicles in the future be electric….” Mayor Garcetti’s concept to require rideshare services to…

Ask Slashdot: What Will the 2020s Bring Us?

dryriver writes: The 2010s were not necessarily the greatest decade to live through. AAA computer games were not only DRM’d and internet tethered to death but became increasingly formulaic and pay-to-win driven, and poor quality console ports pissed off PC gamers. Forced software subscriptions for major software products you could previously buy became a thing. Personal privacy went out the window…

Researchers Want To Use Mega Man 2 To Evaluate AI

Games have long served as a training ground for AI algorithms, and not without good reason. From a report: Games — particularly video games — provide challenging environments against which to benchmark autonomous systems. In 2013, a team of researchers introduced the Arcade Learning Environment, a collection of over 55 Atari 2600 games designed to test a broad range of AI…

Retired US General Claims Revolutionary Transport Technology, Warns China Could Dominate Space

“Retired Lt. Gen. Steven L. Kwast says fantastic technology exists that could transport a human anywhere on earth within an hour,” reports The Drive, in an article shared by schwit1: As has been common as of late, Lt. Gen Kwast cites rapidly growing Chinese military and technological advances as the reason why the United States must invest heavily in new space-based…

Kramnik and AlphaZero: How To Rethink Chess

Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik, a Russian chess grandmaster, writing at Chess.com: The increasing strength of chess engines, the millions of computer games and the volumes of opening theory available to every player are making top-level chess less imaginative. Decisive games in super-tournaments have declined, while the number of games with what I’d call “creative” content is also on the slide. […] From…

Arizona Man Sues State Agency Over Right To Call Himself an Engineer

McGruber quotes IEEE Spectrum: Greg Mills, co-owner of Southwest Engineering Concepts, is suing the state of Arizona’s technical registration board to protest being fined for working without an engineering license, which Mills maintains he doesn’t need because it doesn’t pertain to the type of work he performs. It’s the latest case pitting engineers against state licensing agencies that by some accounts…

How Chinese Sci-Fi Conquered America

From a report: When the English translation of “The Three-Body Problem” was published in 2014, it was hailed as a groundbreaking work of speculative fiction. President Barack Obama praised the novel, calling it “just wildly imaginative.” Mark Zuckerberg recommended it to his tens of millions of Facebook followers; George R.R. Martin blogged about it. Publishers around the world chased after translation…

Cord-Cutting Pushed To ‘Tipping Point’ as Video Streaming Grows

The media ecosystem is undergoing a massive change as streaming video looks to extend its recent dominance over traditional distribution, according to research firm MoffettNathanson, which wrote that a large minority of cable consumers could cut their subscriptions in coming years. From a report: “The video market is in full disruption and this year could be the cord cutting tipping point,”…

Remembering The Home Computer Christmas Wars of 1983

“1983 had seen an explosion of home computer models of varying capabilities and at various price-points,” remembers the vintage computing site Paleotronic, looking back at the historic tech battle between Commodore, Texas Instruments, and eventually Coleco. Slashdot reader beaverdownunder shares the site’s fond remembrance of the days when “The question on everyone’s minds was not who was going to win, but…