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Submission + - Netflix Video Speed on FiOS Doubles After Netflix-Verizon Deal 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Verizon now joins AT&T and Time Warner Cable in the list of ISPs on which Netflix streaming has significantly improved after Netflix paid for access to their networks. Ars Technica notes that "[t]he interconnection deals give Netflix a direct connection to the edge of the Internet providers' networks, bypassing congested links, but without receiving priority treatment after entering the networks." The success of these deals, however, gives the ISPs no incentive whatsoever to fix their congested links. Toll roads have, in essence, been created for the internet.

Comment Re:The point? (Score 2) 57

by NitsujTPU (#48108535) Attached to: Simple Hack Enables VR Mode For Oculus Rift In Alien: Isolation

I could offer a handful of reasons, but the top one would be that they don't want to maintain it. Probably, the developers had Rifts, they wanted to play around with the tech, and they were gambling a bit on the development of the Rift during the development of the game engine (the right time to get involved, if you want to be first-to-market, so a smart move).

However, very few people own Rifts, and so if they left this in, Rift users finding bugs and incompletely-tested code would need to be supported (otherwise, PR nightmare).

When people use the "hack," they have the company has the option of saying, "That's not officially supported, you had to change things in order to do it." So, when there are bugs and things that don't work very well, the company has its hands clean, the enthusiasts still get to fool around with their early-adopter toy, and the company looks better in the long run.

Submission + - NASA found a Delaware-sized methane 'hot spot' in the Southwest

Submitted by merbs
merbs writes: According to new satellite research from scientists at NASA and the University of Michiganthis "hot spot" is "responsible for producing the largest concentration of the greenhouse gas methane seen over the United States—more than triple the standard ground-based estimate." It is 2,500 square miles wide, about the size of Delaware.

Submission + - Air Force to take over two ex-shuttle hangers in Florida for its X-37B program

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In an effort to find tenants for its facilities, the Kennedy Space Center is going to rent two former shuttle processing hangers to Boeing for the Air Force’s X-37B program.

NASA built three Orbiter Processing Facilities, or OPFs, to service its space shuttle fleet between missions. All three are located next to the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building at the Florida spaceport where Apollo Saturn 5 moon rockets and space shuttles were “stacked” for launch. Under an agreement with NASA, Boeing will modify OPF bays 1 and 2 for the X-37B program, completing upgrades by the end of the year.

The company already has an agreement with NASA to use OPF-3 and the shuttle engine shop in the VAB to assemble its CST-100 commercial crew craft being built to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The company says up to six capsules can be processed in the facility at the same time.

The most important take-away from this news is that it strongly suggests the Air Force now intends to expand the X-37B program. They will not only be flying both X37B’s again, they might even planning to increase the fleet’s size from two ships.

Submission + - Migrating animals' pee affects ocean chemistry (washington.edu)

Submitted by vinces99
vinces99 writes: The largest migration on the planet is the movement of small animals from the surface of the open ocean, where they feed on plants under cover of darkness, to the sunless depths where they hide from predators during the day. University of Washington researchers have found that this regular migration helps shape our oceans. During the daylight hours below the surface the animals release ammonia, the equivalent of our urine, that turns out to play a significant role in marine chemistry, particularly in low-oxygen zones. Results are published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“I’m very fascinated by these massive migrations,” said lead author Daniele Bianchi, a postdoctoral researcher in the UW School of Oceanography. “To me, it’s exciting to think about the effects of animal behavior on a large scale in the ocean.”

One might not think that peeing into the vastness of the oceans could have an effect. But the animals – which include tiny zooplankton, crustaceans such as krill, and fish such as lanternfish up to a few inches long – compensate for their small size with huge abundance throughout the world’s oceans. After a nighttime feast near the surface, these small creatures take a couple of hours to swim about 650 to 2,000 feet (200 to 600 meters) deep. Solid waste falls as pellets. The liquid waste is emitted more gradually.

Submission + - Yahoo mail turns 17 today (latesttoptechnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For our birthday wish, we'd like to hear from you — what's your favorite email moment of the past 17 years? Tell us about your long distance love, the video attachment of your grandchild's first steps, your mom's comforting advice. The endless email chain between you and your friends. The job offer of your dreams, or when you accidentally clicked reply-all, but it worked out beautifully.

Submission + - BitHammer. The BItTorrent BanHammer. (github.com) 2

Submitted by michaelcole
michaelcole writes: It's name is BitHammer. It searches out, and bans BitTorrent users your local sub-net. Enjoy.

I'm a digital nomad. That means I travel and work, often using a shared WIFI. Over the last year, I've been plagued by rogue BitTorrent users who've crept onto these public WIFI's either with a stolen/cracked password, or who lie right to my face (and the WIFI owners) about it.

These users clog up the residential routers connection tables, and make it impossible to use tools like SSH, or sometimes even web browsing. Stuck for a day, bullied from the WIFI, I wrote BitHammer as a research project. It worked rather well. It's my first Python program. I hope you find it useful.

Submission + - DNA sample proves man lived a minimum of 3,40,000 years past (drugtodayonline.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: civilization is far older than we tend to had thought. The roots of the human tree initiate abundant additional than antecedently thought. This was proved definitely when DNA of an unnamed African-American from South Carolina was found so distinctive that it led scientists to the current unique conclusion.

Submission + - Domesticated Robots And The Art Of Being Human (npr.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Social robots are upon us, but what will that mean?
With a new generation of technology comes a new generation of scientists, scholars, engineers and artists exploring the relationship between people and machines. At the heart of this nexus is Alexander Reben, an MIT-trained roboticist and artist whose work forces us to confront and question our expectations when it comes to ourselves and our creations.

Submission + - Open Invention Network Grows Despite Patent Troll Death Knell

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: Membership in the Open Invention Network, a software community set up to protect Linux against patent aggressors, has grown dramatically in the past year just as the tide seems to be turning on patent trolls. 'Why all this interest in OIN? It offers little protection against nonpracticing entities — patent trolls who are organizationally small companies, even if the threat they pose is expensive and large. But it does offer protection against an equally insidious threat: big trolls,' writes Simon Phipps. 'The big corporations show up with their giant patent portfolios, threatening legal doom if royalties aren't paid. Attaching royalties to product or service delivery is a serious issue for companies, reducing margins long-term — especially in business models where the monetization is separated from the product. But OIN neutralizes that strategy for those building with open source, as the big corporations in the network both license their patent portfolios in and commit not to litigate against the open source software in the Linux System Definition. The bigger it gets, the better it protects.'

Submission + - Optimal strategy for using a rope swing (using calculus)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A very geeky (but well written) article that uses calculus to determine the best location to release from a rope swing to maximize the horizontal distance travelled (and how this changes with the geometry of the swing).

It's not as simple as you might think: Release too late, and whilst you have the height, you'll have very little horizontal speed. Release too early, and you'll have the horizontal speed, but not enough height to take advantage of it.

Comment Re:Always been a challenge (Score 2) 283

by NitsujTPU (#48088417) Attached to: Glut of Postdoc Researchers Stirs Quiet Crisis In Science

That's not to mention the somewhat unfavorable funding climate at the moment. We're coming off of years of departments being hit with hiring freezes.

This means that there is a big glut of really talented researchers who have been in postdoctoral positions for years. If you can't compete with one of these candidates, you don't have a shot until you can.

Comment Re:What has happened to Slashdot? (Score 1) 425

by NitsujTPU (#48079865) Attached to: Former Department of Defense Chief Expects "30 Year War"

Top story on /r/technology right now: "Unhappy Customer: Comcast told my employer about my complaint, got me fired"

The next 2 have the "politics" tag.

The fourth is about a home CNC mill that can finish (or entirely mill out, who cares?) the lower receiver for an AR-15.

Worth noting is that the last isn't exactly high-tech, because you could have done this with a standard desktop milling machine years ago. (In fact, I'd call this particular mill an extremely poor purchase decision, because you can only make one part on it, and that part costs less to simply purchase). The last one is simply a political move showing that modern technology can make it so easy to produce a "ghost gun" that it's pointless to pass laws banning them.

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