An anonymous reader writes:Hurricanes Irma and Maria wiped out more than 90 percent of the cellphone coverage on Puerto Rico. Now the FCC has given "Project Loon" permission to fly 30 balloons more than 12 miles above the island for the next six months, Wired reports, to temporarily replace the thousands of cellphone towers knocked down by the two hurricanes. Each balloon can service an area of 1,930 miles, so the hope is to restore service to the entire island of Puerto Rico and parts of the U.S. Virgin Islands. In May Project Loon, part of Google's parent company Alphabet, deployed its technology in Peru and later provided emergency internet access there during serious flooding. (Those balloons were acually launched from Puerto Rico.) These new Project Loon balloons will be "relaying communications between Alphabet's own ground stations connected to the surviving wireless networks, and users' handsets," according to the article, which reports that eight wireless carriers in Puerto Rico have already consented to the arrangement.

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Riyadh and Moscow have been rivals, but the Saudi king’s historic visit suggests a new relationship.

Eloking quotes Windows Central: At an event in San Francisco, HoloLens inventor Alex Kipman outlined the future of Windows Mixed Reality, which Redmond seems to believe is the future of computing. Whether or not it is remains to be seen, but either way, there will be no shortage of Windows Mixed Reality headsets this holiday season, with perhaps the most compelling option coming from Samsung. The $500 Samsung HMD Odyssey sports dual AMOLED eye displays, complete with a 110-degree field of view. This could potentially make a huge difference in the quality of the Windows Mixed Reality experience for two reasons. First, AMOLED displays can generate deeper blacks and more vibrant colors than your average OLED or LCD screen. Second, all other Windows Mixed Reality headsets we've seen have a 95-degree FoV. The Samsung headset will be more immersive because there will be less dead space in your peripheral vision. The headset -- which comes with motion controllers -- is expected to launch in one month.

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Alien distribution for Raylib

A Perl debugger implemented as a REST service and accompanying browser program

Perl distribution for XInputSimulator

API client for 4chan and vichan-based imageboards

Iranian president defends 2015 pact as US leader faces October 15 deadline for certifying if Tehran complies with terms.

It's now possible to buy a 7-inch Android tablet for under $50 -- for example, the Nook Tablet 7 or Amazon's cheapest Fire tablet. "Since the Fire can now easily install regular Android apps, it has become useful out of all proportion to its price," writes long-time Slashdot reader Robotech_Master, noting that for many applications tablets can replace a desktop or laptop computer. TeleRead.org is even arguing this could be what bridges the digital divide: [N]ot just for reading ebooks and assisting in education, but for more basic tasks. People with low or no incomes could search and apply for better jobs. Students could do homework and term papers on their tablet if their siblings or parents are using the desktop. Besides the obvious applications like email and web browsing, $50 Android tablets also offer cheap phone calls via Google Hangouts. (You can even get your own phone number through Google Voice.) Calling the tablets "a full-fledged internet terminal... easily within reach of even the lowest-income families," the article concludes "I can hardly wait to see where these tablets go from here."

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Tim O'Reilly, publisher of geeky books, "seizes on this singular moment in history" for a futuristic new book of his own, according to this interview with Steven Levy. An anonymous reader writes: When it comes to artificial intelligence, O'Reilly sees a reason for optimism in the fact that we're already discussing biased algorithms. ("We had plenty of bias before but we couldn't see it.") O'Reilly ultimately believes AI won't take away our jobs, and even argues that we're defining it all wrong. "What we now call AI is just the next stage of us weaving our intelligence together into a greater whole. If you think about the internet as weaving all of us together, transmitting ideas, in some sense an AI might be the equivalent of a multi-cellular being and we're its microbiome, as opposed to the idea that an AI will be like the golem or the Frankenstein. If that's the case, the systems we are building today, like Google and Facebook and financial markets, are really more important than the fake ethics of worrying about some far future AI. "We tend to be afraid of new technology and we tend to demonize it, but to me, you have to use it as an opportunity for introspection. Our fears ultimately should be of ourselves and other people." O'Reilly calls financial markets "the first rogue AI," while also priasing innovators like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for moving humankind in new and positive directions. And he also calls Uber "a good metaphor for what's right and wrong in tech" because of its clashes with both its drivers and city governments. "It's interesting that Lyft, which has been both more cooperative in general and better to drivers, is gaining share. That indicates there's a competitive advantage in doing it right, and you can only go so far being an ass."

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absolutely easy yet fast and powerful sql access.

Mass rallies held with slogan 'Shall We Talk?' in a bid to push politicians on either side to start discussion.

Slashdot reader mmiscool shares some videos about "the next step in 3D printing": Autodrop3d is an open source system that solves the problem of needing a human to remove a 3D print from its print bed. Implemented as an open source hardware and software system, it allows for web based, multi-user print queue, automatic notifications, and web-based CAD design tools to all be integrated in one open source system. There's a video that shows the hardware in operation and a link to the web site with a Git repository for the software and hardware components. Autodrop3D is now raising money on Kickstarter, promising to show their support for open source innovation by "releasing all of our documentation, design files, and software prior to the end of this Kickstarter campaign." And for $75 pledges, "we will 3D print an object of your choice and mail it to you.... You will also receive our heartfelt thanks."

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23 years ago today this blog was born.

Events supporting opposition leader Alexei Navalny drew thousands of protesters in cities across the country.