Comment Galactica 1980 (Score 1) 922
Galactica 1980 would have been an awesome series, if it had been well funded.
Massive Solar Updraft Towers Planned For Arizona 572
MikeChino writes "Australia-based EnviroMission Ltd recently announced plans to build two solar updraft towers that span hundreds of acres in La Paz County, Arizona. Solar updraft technology sounds promising enough: generate hot air with a giant greenhouse, channel the air into a chimney-like device, and let the warm wind turn a wind turbine to produce energy. The scale of the devices would be staggering — each plant would consist of a 2,400 foot chimney over a greenhouse measuring four square miles. The Southern California Public Power Authority has approved EnviroMission as a provider, although there’s still plenty of work to be done before the $750 million, 200 megawatt project can begin."
Living In Tokyo's Capsule Hotels 269
afabbro writes "Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 once offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home. Now with Japan enduring its worst recession since World War II, it is becoming an affordable option for people with nowhere else to go. The Hotel 510’s capsules are only 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide. Guests must keep possessions, like shirts and shaving cream, in lockers outside of the capsules. Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas says, 'It’s just a place to crawl into and sleep. You get used to it.'”
EA Flip-Flops On Battlefield: Heroes Pricing, Fans Angry 221
An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."
Synthetic Stone DVD Claimed To Last 1,000 Years 416
Lucas123 writes "A start-up launched a new DVD archive product this week: a disc that it says will hold its data for 1,000 years. The company, Cranberry, says its DiamonDisc product, which can be used in any standard DVD player, is not subject to deterioration from heat, UV rays or material rot due to humidity or other elements because it has no dyes, adhesives or reflective materials like standard DVD discs, and its discs are made from a vastly more durable synthetic stone. Data is laid down on the platter much in the same way as a standard DVD disc, but with DiamonDisc the burner etches much deeper pits. Cranberry said it is also working on producing a Blu-ray version of its 1,000-year disc."
Submission + - Synthetic stone DVD lasts 1,000 years (computerworld.com)
Lucas123 writes: A start-up launched a new DVD archive product this week: a disc that it says will hold its data for 1,000 years. The company, Cranberry, says its DiamondDisc product, which can be used in any standard DVD player, is not subject to deterioration from heat, UV rays or material rot due to humidity or other elements because it has no dyes, adhesives or reflective materials like standard DVD discs, and its discs are made from a vastly more durable synthetic stone. Data is laid down on the platter much in the same way as a standard DVD disc, but with DiamondDisc the burner etches much deeper pits. Cranberry said it is also working on producing a Blu-ray version of its 1,000-year disc.
Submission + - Flash flaw puts most sites, users at risk (computerworld.com)
Lucas123 writes: An unpatchable flaw in Adobe's Flash leaves Web sites that allow users to upload content, including Google's Gmail, open to attacks from hackers, security researchers said today. Adobe said it is trying to educate site administrators to close the hole on their end, an effort that has met with little success. 'The problem lies in the Flash ActionScript same-origin policy, which is designed to limit a Flash object's access to other content only from the domain it originated from,' said Mike Bailey, a senior security researcher at Foreground Security. 'This is a frighteningly bad thing.'
Submission + - SPAM: NASA to power Mars rover out of sand trap
coondoggie writes: NASA's long running Mars rover Spirit is stuck in a sand trap — a situation the space agency would like to fix. Today NASA said it will begin what it called the long process of extricating Spirit by sending commands that could free the rover.
Spirit has been stuck in a place NASA calls "Troy" since April 23 when the rover's wheels broke through a crust on the surface that was covering a bright-toned, slippery sand underneath. After a few drive attempts to get Spirit out in the subsequent days, it began sinking deeper in the sand trap. Driving was suspended to allow time for tests and reviews of possible escape strategies, NASA stated.
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Link to Original Source
Spirit has been stuck in a place NASA calls "Troy" since April 23 when the rover's wheels broke through a crust on the surface that was covering a bright-toned, slippery sand underneath. After a few drive attempts to get Spirit out in the subsequent days, it began sinking deeper in the sand trap. Driving was suspended to allow time for tests and reviews of possible escape strategies, NASA stated.
[spam URL stripped]
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Serious Adobe Flash Vulnerability (net-security.org)
An anonymous reader writes: Foreground Security discovered a critical vulnerability in Adobe Flash. This vulnerability allows the same-origin policy of Adobe Flash to be exploited to allow nearly any site that allows user generated content to be attacked. No fix for this vulnerability currently exists. Whether you use Flash or not, you may still be vulnerable because this issue affects users directly and not the servers themselves. Websites that are at risk of being vulnerable include social media sites, major career portals, and Fortune 1000 and government agencies websites. Basically, if you have a website, you could be vulnerable.
Submission + - Slashdot (and the rest of the web) 2X faster?! 1
grmoc writes: As part of the "Let's make the web faster" initiative, we (a few engineers (including me!) at Google, and hopefully people all across the community soon!) are experimenting with alternative protocols to help reduce the latency of web pages. One of these experiments is SPDY (pronounced "SPeeDY"), an application-layer protocol (essentially a shim between HTTP and the bits on the wire) for transporting content over the web, designed specifically for minimal latency. In addition to a rough specification for the protocol, we have hacked SPDY into the Google Chrome browser (because its what we're familiar with) and a simple server testbed. Using these hacked up bits, we compared the performance of many of the top 25 and top 300 websites over both HTTP and SPDY, and have observed those pages load, on average, about twice as fast using SPDY.. Thats not bad!
We hope to engage the open source community to contribute ideas, feedback, code (we've open sourced the protocol, etc!), and test results!
We hope to engage the open source community to contribute ideas, feedback, code (we've open sourced the protocol, etc!), and test results!
Comment Pandora FTW (Score 1) 370
Submission + - iPhone 100% hacked! (blogspot.com)
rodrigoandrade writes: "These guys claim to have unlocked the iPhone for use with any active SIM card from any GSM carrier worldwide."
Most Laws Attempting Limits of Violent Videogames Fail 365
circletimessquare writes "Good news for common sense: the New York Times examines the track record of state laws attempting to put additional limits on violent videogames, and finds that the courts have struck almost all of them down as unconstitutional. Especially notable is this gem of a quote, from Judge Richard A. Posner: 'Violence has always been and remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even obsessive theme of culture both high and low ... It engages the interest of children from an early age, as anyone familiar with the classic fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault are aware. To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.'"
Submission + - Artificial life likely in 3 to 10 years (cnn.com) 1
Rude Awakening writes: Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer.
Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life."
Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life."
