39959709
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
Pundits continue to weigh in on Steve Sinofsky's sudden exit from Microsoft (as executive head of Windows Division, he oversaw the development and release of Windows 7 and 8). SemiAccurate's Charlie Demerjian sees Microsoft headed for a steep decline, with their habit of creating walled gardens deliberately incompatible with competitors' platforms finally catching up to them. Few PC users are upgrading to Windows 8 with its unwanted Touch UI, sales of the Surface tablet are disappointing, and few are buying Windows Phones. On the Sinofsky front, Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley is willing to take the Redmond insiders' word that the departure was more about Sinofsky's communication style and deficiencies as a team player than on unfavorable market prospects for Windows 8 and Surface. Meanwhile, anonymous blogger Mini-Microsoft had suspiciously little to say.
39958833
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
Today the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority awarded VYCON Energy with a $3.6 million contract to install a flywheel energy recovery system at the Red Line Westlake/MacArthur Park subway station. The system will harness kinetic energy from braking trains then use the stored energy to help trains accelerate.
39956703
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
The massively parallel Xeon Phi is now shipping, but only on a PCIe board! GoParallel says that Intel's lead in supercomputing will get a boost, but why isn't Intel making the chip available. The 60-core Xeon Phi chip is light years ahead in x86 program execution, but you need a Xeon-based server or workstation to use it. Why doesn't Intel sell the chip alone, so that all types of supercomputer class devices can be built by we geeks?
39956063
submission
Velcroman1 writes:
Every second in your body, thousands of tiny isotopes are bursting with radioactive decay. And, all around you, imperceptible gamma rays explode in a brilliant but invisible lightshow. And they've just formed a live band. Yes, you read that correctly. But it's all for science: The Radioactive Orchestra 2.0 is part of a Swedish project to help us understand how low-energy radiation works, by showing the energy patterns of nuclear isotopes. Swedish musician Kristofer Hagbard conceived of the orchestra about a year ago and released an album last spring, but the new 2.0 version of "the band" allows him to perform live in front of an audience. “This can be looked at as a piano for high energy photons, so every detection gives us a note,” Hagbard said. “The musical instrument is as good as the gamma spectrometer we are using.”
39955105
submission
Lasrick writes:
Nate Silver is at it again. Here's a quote: "It might seem as if these statistics make Cabrera, the first triple crown winner in either league since 1967, a shoo-in for the M.V.P. But most statistically minded fans would prefer that it go to another player, Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels."
39954071
submission
Maow writes:
"This object was discovered during a scan that covered the equivalent of 1,000 times the [area] of the full moon," said study co-author Etienne Artigau of the University of Montreal.
"We observed hundreds of millions of stars and planets, but we only found one homeless planet in our neighbourhood."
This planet appears to be an astonishingly young 50-120 million years old.
The paper is published at arxiv.org.
Here's hoping the Mayan End-of-World-2012 people don't seize upon this as some kind of impending rogue planet on a collision course with Earth, but one can expect it'll be bantered about on such forums.
39952007
submission
Mephistophocles writes:
If you work for NASA, you saw this memo sent to all agency employees yesterday afternoon:
"On October 31, 2012, a NASA laptop and official NASA documents issued to a Headquarters employee were stolen from the employee's locked vehicle. The laptop contained records of sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) for a large number of NASA employees, contractors, and others. Although the laptop was password protected, it did not have whole disk encryption software, which means the information on the laptop could be accessible to unauthorized individuals. We are thoroughly assessing and investigating the incident, and taking every possible action to mitigate the risk of harm or inconvenience to affected employees."
39950415
submission
sfcrazy writes:
Mozilla has announced the Shunway project that aims to provide a free and open-source alternative to the Flash player. This project will enable Firefox users to view SWF files and other rich content in their browsers, even if Flash plugin isn't installed. The Shunway plugin is actually an HTML5 standalone module that renders flash.
39950401
submission
ancientribe writes:
Many large companies under regulatory pressures have been working on writing more secure code for their internal applications, but not all software vendors are doing the same. New data from Veracode and BSIMM shows that buyers are putting the squeeze on their software vendors to produce more secure applications. And guess what: the vendors are going along with it and having their apps vetted.
39950129
submission
Zothecula writes:
Further evidence of the coming fragmentation of personal transportation came today when Honda released details of the next iteration of its electric "Micro Commuter" prototype which we first saw at the Tokyo Motor Show last year. The new version is close to production-ready, and concentrates the battery and functionality of the micro EV below the floor, enabling the vehicle's body to be easily changed to accommodate different functionality.
39948263
submission
Igarden2 writes:
The lame duck session of the US senate is being urged to reconsider this vague and potentially costly bill. Why?
39947823
submission
another random user writes:
Nokia has unveiled plans to offer a free maps app on rivals' devices.
Here Maps will initially be released on Apple iOS devices offering downloadable street plans for offline use, and audio-based directions for pedestrians.
Nokia is also developing a version for Mozilla's forthcoming Firefox operating system, and will release software tools to allow third parties to make use of its data on Android devices.
The move is designed to help the firm compete against Google's rival product.