Comment Now we can have viruses... (Score 1) 103
Now we can have viruses that not only steal your data but steal your car as well.
NASA Wants To Zap Space Junk With Lasers 148
Hugh Pickens writes "MIT Technology Review reports that various ideas have been floated for removing space junk, most of them hugely expensive, but now James Mason at NASA Ames Research Center has come up with the much cheaper option of zapping individual pieces of junk with a ground-based laser, to slow them down so that they eventually de-orbit. Mason estimates that a device to test the reversal of the Kessler syndrome could be put together for a million dollars, which would have to be shared by many space-faring nations, to avoid the inevitable legal issues that using such a device would raise. 'The scheme requires launching nothing into space — except photons (PDF) — and requires no on-orbit interaction — except photon pressure. It is thus less likely to create additional debris risk in comparison to most debris removal schemes,' writes Mason. 'Eventually the concept may lead to an operational international system for shielding satellites and large debris objects from a majority of collisions as well as providing high accuracy debris tracking data and propellant-less station keeping for smallsats.'"
Submission + - Some perpective on the Japanese Earthquake (kalzumeus.com)
mtaht writes: "How well did the engineering and disaster planning work in japan? It worked great.
Too bad the newsgathering has been so poor, when compared to wikipedia's coverage, also."
Submission + - Indie Freeware Game Release: Sqrxz 2 (pixelprospector.com)
Anonymous Coward writes: "Insane difficult games are usually challenging and frustrating at the same time. With "Sqrxz 2" comes another crazy Jump'n'Run game which requires mind, reflexes and timing. Enemies may be not only eliminated, but be misused to solve tricky puzzles. Optically the game resembles a 16-bit style and features marvelous ingame chiptunes. The game is available for Windows, Ubuntu, Amiga OS4, Dreamcast and a couple of other systems."
Submission + - Investigating the Performance of Firefox 4 and IE9 (mozillazine.org)
theweatherelectric writes: Mozilla's Robert O'Callahan has posted an article on his blog in which he investigates the performance differences between Firefox 4 and IE9. He writes, 'As I explained in my last post, Microsoft's PR about "full hardware acceleration" is a myth. But it's true that some graphics benchmarks consistently report better scores for IE9 than for Firefox, so over the last few days I've been looking into that. Below I'll explain the details [of] what I've found about various commonly-cited benchmarks, but the summary is that the performance differences are explained by relatively small bugs in Firefox, bugs in IE9, and bugs in the benchmarks, not due to any major architectural issues in Firefox (as Microsoft would have you believe).'
Submission + - CNN showing doctored Japan earthquake videos (cnn.com)
ctdownunder writes: CNN is showing purposely "enhanced" videos of shaking structures. The digital doctoring is obvious even to the untrained eye; the image is expanded and contracted quickly to simulate earthquake shaking.
Comment Re:Just use real live brains! (Score 1) 143
This would work except for the fact that most people don't want to wait 25 years to get a computer that can just do basic math.
Submission + - Falling Demand for Brains?
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Paul Krugman writes in the NY Times that information technology seems to be reducing, not increasing, the demand for highly educated workers (reg. may be required), because a lot of what highly educated workers do could actually be replaced by sophisticated information processing. One good recent example is how software is replacing the teams of lawyers who used to do document research. “From a legal staffing viewpoint, it means that a lot of people who used to be allocated to conduct document review are no longer able to be billed out,” says Bill Herr, a lawyer at a major chemical company who used to muster auditoriums of lawyers to read documents for weeks on end. “People get bored, people get headaches. Computers don’t.” If true this raises a number of interesting questions. "One is whether emphasizing education — even aside from the fact that the big rise in inequality has taken place among the highly educated — is, in effect, fighting the last war," writes Krugman. "Another is how we [can] have a decent society if and when even highly educated workers can’t command a middle-class income." Remember the Luddites weren’t the poorest of the poor, they were skilled artisans whose skills had suddenly been devalued by new technology."
Submission + - Star Trek-like communicator to connect hospital (timescolonist.com)
intellitech writes: Staff at the new patient tower at Royal Jubilee Hospital will be using small devices to remotely communicate with each other -just like characters on the futuristic Star Trek. The devices, part of a $500,000 communication system, will allow real-time conversation between virtually everyone receiving care or involved with its delivery.
Submission + - If iPads are post-pc devices why must I use iTunes (thestartupfoundry.com) 1
g0atbutt writes: As I listened to Steve speak, one phrase kept gnawing at me. Steve said that the iPad was “a post-pc device”. As an iOS developer who makes his living building apps for iPads and iPhones, I disagree. You see iOS has this ball and chain attached to it called “iTunes” that runs on a typical PC. The first time you turn your iPad on you’re greeted with this screen on the right prompting you to plug your iPad into a computer so it can be setup. You can’t even turn your iPad on the first time without being tethered to iTunes.
Submission + - Wikileaks Cables Say Saudi Oil Supplies Overstated (nytimes.com)
spicate writes: Recently revealed cables released by Wikileaks suggest that Saudi Arabia may reach peak oil output much sooner than initially thought, possibly within 17 years. The U.S. diplomat who wrote them called his source, Sadad al-Husseini, "no doomsday theorist." The diplomat continues, "his pedigree, experience and outlook demand that his predictions be thoughtfully considered." With most of the rest of the world experiencing declining conventional crude oil production already, new discoveries and improved extraction techniques may not be sufficient to cover the deficits. Is there still time to move away from oil?
Submission + - Possible new planet "about to be discovered" (dailymail.co.uk) 1
nekad writes: From the article "Scientists believe they may have found a new planet in the far reaches of the solar system, up to four times the mass of Jupiter". They've already named the planet "Tyche" despite not having been discovered yet (if it even exists).
Submission + - Microsoft Has Change Of Heart On Internet Security (computerworld.com)
CWmike writes: Should ISPs be the ones who keep hacked PCs off the Internet? Microsoft's chief security executive used to think so, but now he's had a change of heart. 'Last year at RSA I said, 'You know we need to think about ISPs being the CIO for the public sector, and we need to think about them scanning consumer machines and making sure they're clean and maybe quarantining them from the Internet,' Microsoft's Corporate Vice President for Trustworthy Computing, Scott Charney, told the RSA Conference Tuesday. 'But in the course of the last year as I thought a lot more about this I realized that there are many flaws with that model.' Maybe the solution is for consumers to share trusted certificates about the health of their personal computer — including data on whether it's running antivirus or is completely patched — Charney suggested. He called this 'collective defense.' That might end up to be a more workable model for the Internet. 'The user remains in control. The user can say I don't want to pass a health certificate,' he said 'There may be consequences for that decision, but you can do it.' Will a free market/personal responsibility-model work for Internet security?
Submission + - Taxes on Cell Phones Hit All-Time High
adeelarshad82 writes: As the breakdown of top ten states with the higest and lowest taxes shows, the wireless consumers in Nebraska, Washington, and New York pay more than 20 percent of their wireless bills in taxes and fees, mostly due to the proliferation of archaic or duplicated surcharges.Experts from KSE Partners spent five years monitoring the federal, state, and local taxes imposed on wireless consumers. According to their analysis wireless taxes grew three times faster than the retail sales rate between 2007 and 2010. The reason behind this is that legislators and Congressmen are targeting the wireless industry for tax money to relieve the burden from more recession-starved industries. Infact a few states even tax wireless consumers for non wireless-related projects, for instance Utah funds its poison-control centers with a poison-control surcharge found on wireless bills, and in 2009 Wisconsin imposed a police and fire protection fee to subsidize local departments.
Submission + - Search begins for giant new planet (independent.co.uk) 1
suraj.sun writes: The hunt is on for a gas giant up to four times the mass of Jupiter thought to be lurking in the outer Oort Cloud, the most remote region of the solar system. The orbit of Tyche (pronounced ty-kee), would be 15,000 times farther from the Sun than the Earth's, and 375 times farther than Pluto's, which is why it hasn't been seen so far.
But scientists now believe the proof of its existence has already been gathered by a Nasa space telescope, Wise, and is just waiting to be analysed.
Whether it would become the new ninth planet would be decided by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The main argument against is that Tyche probably formed around another star and was later captured by the Sun's gravitational field.
The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/up-telescope-search-begins-for-giant-new-planet-2213119.html
But scientists now believe the proof of its existence has already been gathered by a Nasa space telescope, Wise, and is just waiting to be analysed.
Whether it would become the new ninth planet would be decided by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The main argument against is that Tyche probably formed around another star and was later captured by the Sun's gravitational field.
The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/up-telescope-search-begins-for-giant-new-planet-2213119.html
