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Earth

New Record High Temperature At South Pole 387

Posted by timothy from the happy-christmas dept.
New submitter Titus Andronicus writes "The South Pole experienced its highest-ever recorded temperature of -12.3C (+9.9F) on December 25, 2011, according to preliminary reporting from the Antarctic Meteorological Research Center at the University of Wisconsin."

Comment Cost analysis... (Score 1) 214

by bodland (#38516140) Attached to: Justifications For Creating an IT Department?
Figure out:

how much downtime costs the company

how many of those incidents are due to engineers screwing up servers or databases

which engineers are avoiding engineering work doing IT work

compare labor costs of a IT pro and Engineer

If you can cost justify having six IT pros, couple of OS admins, couple of DBAs and a few tech support persons then it should be a no brainer...companies would rather pay engineers to do engineering work...not setting up PC's or installing and managing databases or patching windows servers....
Transportation

In-Car Video Chat and 4G Streaming From OnStar 72

Posted by Soulskill from the what-could-possibly-go-right dept.
thecarchik writes "At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, OnStar will reveal the latest on their system. This time, the system will be equipped in a Chevy Volt research vehicle, which seems to be a more appropriate vessel than a Buick for previewing your latest technology. In a press release teasing the appearance, OnStar said the system will offer such features as cloud-based streaming of information and entertainment, rear-seat infotainment management and video chat. Video chat may sound like a terrifying feature for any car, but OnStar said in last year's CES press materials that the feature would only be enabled when the car is in park. Other features like video streaming would also be limited to the rear seat or to a parked vehicle."
Oracle

Oracle Sued For 'Extortion, Lies' By Montclair State University 359

Posted by timothy from the their-reputation-precedes-them dept.
angry tapir writes "Montclair State University is suing Oracle in connection with a troubled ERP (enterprise resource planning) project. Montclair's complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, states that Oracle made an array of 'intentionally false statements' regarding the functionality of its base ERP system, the amount of customization that would be required, and the amount of 'time, resources, and personnel that the University would have to devote.' 'Ultimately, after missing a critical go-live deadline for the University's finance system, Oracle sought to extort millions of dollars from the University by advising the University that it would not complete the implementation of the ... project unless the University agreed to pay millions of dollars more than the fixed fee the University and Oracle had previously agreed to,' it adds."
Power

Russia Set To Extend Life of Nuclear Reactors Past Engineered Life Span 215

Posted by Soulskill from the tempting-fate dept.
Harperdog writes "Yikes! Russia is extending the lifetime of nuclear power reactors beyond their engineered life span of 30 years, including the nation's oldest reactors: first-generation VVERs and RBMKs, the Chernobyl-type reactors. This goes against existing Russian law, because the projects have not undergone environmental assessments. 'Many of the country's experts and non-governmental organizations maintain that this decision is economically unjustifiable and environmentally dangerous — to say nothing of illegal. The Russian nuclear industry, however, argues that lifetime extensions are justified because the original estimate of a 30-year life span was conservative; the plants have been significantly upgraded; and extensions cost significantly less than constructing new reactors.'"

Comment Re:It depends... (Score 1) 265

by bodland (#38358126) Attached to: In Favor of Homegrown IT Solutions
That is because our industry has lost the discipline and skill to design, lead and implement custom software projects. I used to "clean up" those failed projects...I would come in and do damage control after people failed and got fired or quit and the entire IT department was pissed off. It takes people trained in software development management and the development lifestyle running the show with a organization that gives the professionals the ability to run the project...not the VP of sales....or marketing. Many industries can benefit from having a quality, professional highly skilled and well paid development staff...

problem is it is too late. That dog ran away in 2001...blame it on consulting. I guess...I blame it on greed.
Businesses

Clothier Slammed For Using 'Perfect' Virtual Model 471

Posted by Soulskill from the it-was-only-a-matter-of-time dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Swedish Clothing Giant H&M recently disclosed that the images from the company's website, showing models wearing the latest swimsuit and lingerie in generic, stock-form, are not just photoshopped but entirely computer-generated. 'We take pictures of the clothes on a doll that stands in the shop, and then create the human appearance with a program on [a] computer,' H&M press officer Hacan Andersson said when questioned about the company's picture-perfect online models. Advertising watchdogs elevated the controversy by criticizing the chain of lower-cost clothing stores for their generic approach to models, accusing the chain of creating unrealistic physical ideals. 'This illustrates very well the sky-high aesthetic demands placed on the female body,' says a spokesman for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, one of the groups most critical of H&M. 'The demands are so great that H&M, among the poor photo models, cannot find someone with both body and face that can sell their bikinis.'"
Television

TV Isn't Broken, So Why Fix It? 839

Posted by Soulskill from the no-i-do-not-want-to-wear-3d-glasses-to-watch-tv dept.
PolygamousRanchKid sends this quote from a contentious article at CNN that questions the need for further development of TVs and the entire TV-viewing experience. "The technology industry is absolutely bent on reinventing television. ... But nobody seems to be able to answer the big question: what exactly is so broken about TV anyway? The tech industry is filled with engineers and geeks. They naturally want to optimize the TV experience, to make it as efficient and elegant as possible, requiring the fewest number of steps to complete a particular task while offering the greatest number of amazing new features. But normal people don't think about TV that way. TV is passive. The last thing we want to do is work at it. ... As long as there's something on — anything — that is reasonably engaging, we're cool. Most of us are even OK spending a few minutes just shuffling through channels at random." So, what do you think is broken about TV right now? Is there a point at which it'd be better for us to stand back and say "We've done what we can with this. Let's work on something else"?
Robotics

New 'Rubber Robot' Crawls Through Small Spaces With Inflatable Limbs 56

Posted by timothy from the new-nightmare dept.
JoeRobe writes "Researchers at Harvard have developed a pneumatically-controlled rubber robot that combines undulation and quadrupedal 'crawling,' allowing it to maintain a low profile while moving. In a paper published in PNAS (abstract), they describe it as a 'soft robot, composed exclusively of soft materials (elastomeric polymers), which is inspired by animals (e.g., squid, starfish, worms) that do not have hard internal skeletons.' The robot is solely powered by relatively low pressure (10 psi), and controlled by 5 pneumatic actuators. The research was funded by DARPA." The paper is also available (not paywalled) from the researchers' project site (PDF), complete with more creepy images of the squidbot.
Television

Sony Racing Apple To Develop 'a New Kind of TV' 273

Posted by Soulskill from the how-about-one-that-doesn't-support-reality-shows dept.
PolygamousRanchKid writes with an excerpt from SlashGear about Sony's efforts to reinvent the television set — a task many suspect Apple is focused on as well. Quoting: "'There's a tremendous amount of R&D going into a different kind of TV set,' CEO Howard Stringer told the WSJ (in a paywalled article). ... [W]hat Apple and Sony agree on is that the traditional TV paradigm must evolve if the segment is to become profitable again. A new model is 'what we’re all looking for,' Stringer confirmed, suggesting that 'we can’t continue selling TV sets [the way we have been]. Every TV set we all make loses money.'"
Crime

Ballistic Clipboard Holds Papers, Stops Bullets 161

Posted by samzenpus from the extreme-office-products dept.
Zothecula writes "Although police officers in most countries are issued bulletproof vests, they don't necessarily wear them at all times — would you want to heave one of those things around for an entire shift? What they do often carry, however, are clipboards. Taking the "every little bit helps" approach, Ohio's IMPACT Armor Technologies has put two and two together, and come up with something that should actually offer some protection — a Ballistic Clipboard."

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I'd rather just believe that it's done by little elves running around.

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