43594641
submission
Billy the Mountain writes:
A small UK company is bringing new technology online that could reduce the prices of tantalum and titanium ten-fold. According to this piece in The Economist: A tantalising prospect, the key is a technique similar to smelting aluminum with a new twist: The metallic oxides are not melted as with aluminum but blended in powder form with a molten salt that serves as a medium and electrolyte. This technology is known as the FFC Cambridge Process. Other metals include Neodymium, Tungsten and Vanadium
43594431
submission
kdryer39 writes:
LG has snatched up full rights to HP's webOS (which was last used in now-defunct Palm and TouchPad devices) and will integrate it into their line of "smart" TV's. WebOS was viewed as having a strong software foundation, but HP could not create a viable application ecosystem to keep up with Apple, Google, and Amazon. This poison arrow led to the dismal launch and failure of the TouchPad in 2010 and the resulting opening up of webOS last year.
While set-top implementations are a natural progression, I can only imagine where LG could take the failed OS with a little work and a face lift. Perhaps it can move us one step closer to the "Internet of Things," and have all LG-branded devices in the home sync with each other (and as a result, secretly plot the creation of SKYNET).
43590519
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
Firefox 19 was released released less than a week ago, but already Mozilla has made a new Firefox for Android beta available. This new release adds per-tab private browsing, customizable home screen shortcuts, and support for 25 million more phones. Per-tab private browsing is of course the biggest new feature. It allows you to switch between private and standard tabs within the same browsing session, meaning you don’t have to relaunch the Firefox app every time.
43589257
submission
jollyrgr3 writes:
If William Shatner gets his wish one of Pluto's two new moons will be named Vulcan. News.com.au reports that James T. Kirk (aka) William Shatner picked the names Vulcan and Cerberus. The names still have to be approved by the International Astronomical Union as they have the final say. Full link here:
http://www.news.com.au/world/capt-kirk-aka-william-shatner-names-plutos-two-new-moons/story-fndir2ev-1226585541984
43589135
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
Starting this week, Internet Service Providers will throttle connection speeds for customers suspected to be pirating copyright-protected materials. Previously, Time Warner, Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision Systems and other ISPs had signed onto the program, which was supposed to start in July 2012, but major protests against other restrictive Web policies left them to wait until the dust settled.
43588645
submission
CWmike writes:
Analysts are skeptical that Mozilla's push into mobile with Firefox OS would be a game-changer, as Mozilla suggests it will be. 'The chances of Mozilla Firefox OS making good in mobile phones are about as good as WebOS making a comeback in smartphones,' said analyst Jack Gold, referring to the mobile operating system abandoned two years ago by Hewlett-Packard, sold on Monday to Korea's LG Electronics for use in smart TVs. 'They're just plain too late,' Gold added. 'If they had done this two, three years ago...maybe.' On Sunday, Mozilla — best known for its Firefox browser — previewed the first commercial build of Firefox OS and announced commitments from four handset makers and backing from 18 mobile carriers. Mozilla makes it clear it views Firefox OS as a kind of mobile 'Reset' button: On its Firefox OS website, Mozilla touts 'Greater participation in the value chain' and 'Ownership and control over relationships with customers' as two of the four benefits to carriers and other partners. At Mobile World Congress on Monday, carrier officials complained that mobile OS vendors — meaning Google and Apple — made fortunes on their backs, and that Firefox OS may inject enough competition to shake up the current business models. 'We need a more balanced relationship with the OS owners,' Vodafone Group chief executive Vittorio Colao said at the conference. 'With more competition, the relationship will be more balanced, and eventually, the winners will be the ones who have the best products, the lowest prices, and the highest willingness to invest, with us, in the channels.'
43586579
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
Google is working on identifying Chrome tabs that are currently playing audio (or recording it). The feature is expected to show an audio animation if a tab is broadcasting or recording sound. François Beaufort first spotted the new feature, a part of which is already available in the latest Chromium build. For those who don't know, Chromium is the open source web browser project that shares much of the same code and features as Google Chrome, and new features are often added there first.
43585249
submission
skade88 writes:
As I get older, I find the little details of my life slip away from my memory after years and decades pass. I find myself wishing I had a way to record at least sound and video of my entire life. It would be nice to be able to go back and see what I was like when I was younger without the fog of memory clouding my view of the past. It would be cool to share with my boy friend and future kids how I was when I was younger by just showing them video from my life. Do y'all know of any good way to do this? I would settle for recording what I see from a first person point of view. There is also concerns that range beyond the technical. If I were to record my entire life, that would mean also recording other people, when they are interacting with me on a daily basis. What sort of privacy laws pertain to this? Even without laws, would others act differently around me because they were being recorded with my life record? How would it make you feel if your friend or family member did this?
43584023
submission
hypnosec writes:
Apple recently seeded iOS 6.1.3 beta 2 to developers and it seems the beta version patches at least one of the vulnerabilities used by evasi0n thereby rendering the jailbreak tool useless — the time zone settings vulnerability. Released on February 21, the iOS 6.1.3 beta 2 brings with it enhancements to Japan Maps as well as fixes the much hyped Lock Screen bug. It was speculated that Apple would also patch exploits that would break evasi0n as it has been over three weeks since the jailbreak tool has been launched and Apple has had enough time to study it. David Wang aka @planetbeing, has confirmed that iOS 6.1.3 beta 2 does patch one of the vulnerabilities that they exploited in their evasi0n tool.
43583847
submission
TrueSatan writes:
According to Huffington Post. "Some congressional staffers left the briefing with the impression that prosecutors believed they needed to convict Swartz of a felony that would put him in jail for a short sentence in order to justify bringing the charges in the first place, according to two aides with knowledge of the briefing."
It was also conceeded that the prosecution was fuelled by Swartz Open Access Manifesto http://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt in which he stated, "We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access."
43581311
submission
AchilleTalon writes:
Research by Harvard professor David Keith suggests that the global capacity for energy generation from wind power has been overestimated, and that geophysical / climate effects of turbines will reduce the benefits of large-scale power installations.
"People have often thought there's no upper bound for wind power—that it's one of the most scalable power sources," says Harvard applied physicist David Keith. After all, gusts and breezes don't seem likely to "run out" on a global scale in the way oil wells might run dry.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-02-real-world-capacity-farms-large-scales.html#jCp
43581147
submission
OverTheGeicoE writes:
TSA recently announced that it would remove all of Rapiscan's X-ray body scanners from airports by June. As part of this effort, it is trying to move a millimeter-wave body scanner from the Helena, Montana airport to replace an X-ray unit at a busier airport. Strangely enough, they have encountered resistance from the Helena's Airport Manager, Ron Mercer. Last Thursday, workers came to remove the machine, but were prevented from doing so by airport officials. Why? Perhaps Mercer agrees with Cindi Martin, airport director at Montana's Glacier Park International Airport airport, who called the scheduled removal of her airport's scanner 'a great disservice to the flying public' in part because it 'removed the need for the enhanced pat-down.'
