Comment Dune (Score 5, Funny) 79
I wonder what the CHOAM will think about this?
White Knight Two Unveiled 144
xanthos writes "Sir Richard Branson was at the annual Experimental Aircraft Assoc Fly-in to show off EVE (previously known as White Knight Two), the launch vehicle for Virgin Galactic's commercial space operation. Test flights for the vehicle are slated for next year with the first paying passengers going up in 2011. What surprised me was the following from the article: 'So many people have signed up already, Whitehorn said, that the company has collected $40 million in deposits with orders to build five spaceships to meet the demand.' Will this mean that the $200k price tag may be dropping?"
OpenBSD 4.5 Released 118
portscan writes "OpenBSD 4.5 has been released. New and extended platforms include sparc64, and added device drivers. OpenSSH 5.2 is included, plus a number of tweaks, bugfixes, and enhancements. See the announcement page for a full list. OpenBSD is a security-oriented UNIX/BSD operating system." As per OpenBSD tradition, of course there's a song.
The Truth About New Jet Pack Hype 205
An anonymous reader writes "This week a sub-$100,000 rocket belt was unveiled and will be on sale this summer, but that's the sad thing: it's still not a real jet pack. Here's a fascinating inside look at the human-flight industry, full of law-suit scandals, technical difficulties, fuel-economy woes and endless delays. The good news? It all points to the next generation of rocketeer research, with real applications for medical rescue and military technology actually coming on the horizon. From the article: 'With a little patience, and a little funding, we could actually have the pleasure of grumbling over regulatory issues we never dreamed possible. Like being limited to specific kinds of air strips, because the jet strapped to your back is classified by the FAA as an ultralight. Or being required to wear a ballistic parachute, because Amarena's Thunderjet design could reach altitudes as high as 10,000 feet (and, for the record, speeds of up to 160 mph, provided someone can solve wind-resistance issues).'"
Caltech Creates Electronic Nose 154
eldavojohn writes "Researchers have created an electronic nose that can detect odor and identify which odors are a concern to it. From the article, 'The Lewis Group a division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Caltech have a working model of an electronic nose. The efforts of Caltech scientists has led to an array of simple, readily fabricated chemically sensitive conducted polymer film. An array of broadly-cross reactive sensors respond to a variety of odors. However, the pattern of differential responses across the array produces a unique pattern for each odorant. The electronic nose can identify, classify and quantify when necessary the vapor or odor that poses a concern or threat.'"
Feed The Register: Yahoo! tops! Google! on! customer! satisfaction! survey! (theregister.com)
'You like me! You really like me!'
A rare bit of good news for Yahoo!: "For the first time ever" - i.e. for the first time in five years - the beleaguered web portal has topped arch-rival Google on a much-discussed customer satisfaction survey sponsored by the University of Michigan.
Submission + - Microsoft on Linux and Windows Interoperability (technet.com)
markstinson writes: I thought many would find it entertaining. Time to spread some more jam on that Microsoft & Novell sandwich. It's the latest from Microsoft's Port 25 on "Linux and Windows Interoperability: On the Metal and On the Wire" giving at both OSCON in Portland and at LinuxWorld in San Francisco. It even comes with slides.
http://port25.technet.com/archive/2007/08/13/Inter operab-on-the-metal-and-on-the-wire.aspx
http://port25.technet.com/archive/2007/08/13/Inte
Feed Macworld: News: Report: Google shows phone prototype to manufacturers (macworld.com)
Feed Microsoft starts testing Office 2008 for Mac (com.com)
The new version, due out later this year, is the first to run natively on Intel-based Macs and also supports new XML-based file formats.
Submission + - Is Clean Air causing Global Warming?
LightSail writes: In a startling study, NASA adds another possible cause for global warming: Clean Air.
Read at http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0703/26sunscre en/
Aerosol dust has dropped 20% since 1991, leading to a significant increase of in sunlight reaching the ground. Even more interesting is that the sunlight decreased steadily from 1960 to 1990. This Global Dimming would have helped temperatures to stay stable despite increased green house gas levels. Then the increased sunlight would add to the slight increase due to green house gases and elevate the global tempters.
The failure to account for the increased sunlight in global warming computer models has lead to the hysterical over-reaction by environmentalists. They over-state the effects of green house gases: they missed what may the most important climate changing factor- clean air and sunshine
Submission + - Council of the EU now supports Linux
Daveski_2 writes: An update to the previous story http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/31/ 1950225 titled ' Council of the EU Says "We Cannot Support Linux"'
Previously the Council stated on its FAQ that
'The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union can be viewed on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. We cannot support Linux in a legal way. So the answer is: No support for Linux.'
Which has now been changed to
'The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union can be viewed on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. The open source community can follow the public events in the Council, broadcasted through video streaming on the Internet, via means of an open source player like VLC which is available at no cost on the Internet and which is running on several platforms as e.g. MS WINDOWS as well as several LINUX distributions.'
Previously the Council stated on its FAQ that
'The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union can be viewed on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. We cannot support Linux in a legal way. So the answer is: No support for Linux.'
Which has now been changed to
'The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union can be viewed on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. The open source community can follow the public events in the Council, broadcasted through video streaming on the Internet, via means of an open source player like VLC which is available at no cost on the Internet and which is running on several platforms as e.g. MS WINDOWS as well as several LINUX distributions.'
Bookmark Are Linux Users Just Cheap? (wasatchsoftware.com)
Submission + - Google Mail can be down up to a whole working day!
VincenzoRomano writes: "While browsing one of the Google Apps pages I have found that they guarantee
Unless maths is an opinion, this yelds to a yearly downtime for about 8 hours and 45 minutes a year. Which in turn becomes 1 working day from the end user perspective. With no service and possible lost emails.
While this could make sense for a small ISP, it doesn't for such a giant, even if they (almost) clearly and unanbiguously state it.
So either this is a typo or an outdated piece of information, or they seriously think that GMail can stay down that long and still be an acceptable service level agreement.
For the sake of completeness, 99.99% uptime equals to little more than 52 minutes a year with no service and 99.999% uptime gives you a maximum of 5 minutes and 15 seconds of unavailability in a year."
99.9% uptime for email
Unless maths is an opinion, this yelds to a yearly downtime for about 8 hours and 45 minutes a year. Which in turn becomes 1 working day from the end user perspective. With no service and possible lost emails.
While this could make sense for a small ISP, it doesn't for such a giant, even if they (almost) clearly and unanbiguously state it.
So either this is a typo or an outdated piece of information, or they seriously think that GMail can stay down that long and still be an acceptable service level agreement.
For the sake of completeness, 99.99% uptime equals to little more than 52 minutes a year with no service and 99.999% uptime gives you a maximum of 5 minutes and 15 seconds of unavailability in a year."
Submission + - Desktop Linux Gotchas
stinkymountain writes: "Desktop Linux isn't exactly a no-brainer for corporate users, as least not yet. An article in Network World http://www.networkworld.com/techinsider/2007/03260 7-guide-linux-migration-tips.html.
lists six different issues that need to be addressed before desktop Linux can be successfully deployed. That includes everything from addressing end users fears about their pet macros not working to making sure basic corporate apps are supported to ironing out links between the desktop OS and backend directories."
Google Antiphishing Site Exposed Private User Data 69
Juha-Matti Laurio writes "Google has removed a few user names and passwords posted inadvertently to a phishing blacklist it compiles and makes publicly available on the Web. This information was submitted to Google by Firefox users with the browser's internal antiphishing toolbar. This feature, developed in cooperation with Google, enables users to report potential phishing sites to Google's blacklist database. Google has reportedly implemented a new mechanism detecting login data in submitted URLs to prevent sensitive information from getting posted to the list." The article notes that news of this minor lapse may obscure the ongoing problem of sensitive data exposed on the Web and findable via Google and other search services.
