Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Military

United States Begins Flying Stealth Bombers Over South Korea 567

Posted by samzenpus from the nice-day-for-a-flight dept.
skade88 writes "The New York Times is reporting that the United States has started flying B-2 stealth bomber runs over South Korea as a show of force to North Korea. The bombers flew 6,500 miles to bomb a South Korean island with mock explosives. Earlier this month the U.S. Military ran mock B-52 bombing runs over the same South Korean island. The U.S. military says it shows that it can execute precision bombing runs at will with little notice needed. The U.S. also reaffirmed their commitment to protecting its allies in the region. The North Koreans have been making threats to turn South Korea into a sea of fire. North Korea has also made threats claiming they will nuke the United States' mainland."
Mars

4-Billion-Pixel Panorama View From Curiosity Rover 101

Posted by samzenpus from the take-a-look dept.
A reader points out that there is a great new panorama made from shots from the Curiosity Rover. "Sweep your gaze around Gale Crater on Mars, where NASA's Curiosity rover is currently exploring, with this 4-billion-pixel panorama stitched together from 295 images. ...The entire image stretches 90,000 by 45,000 pixels and uses pictures taken by the rover's two MastCams. The best way to enjoy it is to go into fullscreen mode and slowly soak up the scenery — from the distant high edges of the crater to the enormous and looming Mount Sharp, the rover's eventual destination."
Technology

Festo's Drone Dragonfly Takes To the Air 45

Posted by samzenpus from the little-flyer dept.
yyzmcleod writes "Building on the work of last year's bionic creation, the Smart Bird, Festo announced that it will literally launch its latest creation, the BionicOpter, at Hannover Messe in April. With a wingspan of 63 cm and weighing in at 175 grams, the robotic dragonfly mimics all forms of flight as its natural counterpart, including hover, glide and maneuvering in all directions. This is made possible, the company says, by the BionicOpter's ability to move each of its four wings independently, as well as control their amplitude, frequency and angle of attack. Including its actuated head and body, the robot exhibits 13 degrees of freedom, which allows it to rapidly accelerate, decelerate, turn and fly backwards."
GNOME

GNOME 3.8 Released Featuring New "Classic" Mode 267

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the extend-freely dept.
Hot on the heels of the Gtk+ 3.8 release comes GNOME 3.8. There are a few general UI improvements, but the highlight for many is the new Classic mode that replaces fallback. Instead of using code based on the old GNOME panel, Classic emulates the feel of GNOME 2 through Shell extensions (just like Linux Mint's Cinnamon interface). From the release notes: "Classic mode is a new feature for those people who prefer a more traditional desktop experience. Built entirely from GNOME 3 technologies, it adds a number of features such as an application menu, a places menu and a window switcher along the bottom of the screen. Each of these features can be used individually or in combination with other GNOME extensions."

Comment Don't sell project itself but its future (Score 3, Insightful) 167

by cronostitan (#41679255) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How To Get Paid For Open-Sourcing Your Work?

I have been in the Open Source business for almost 10 years now and I am leading a big open source software project which is completely self-sufficient.

From my experience what you need to sell is not a 'Please open source this software because other will benefit from it' but a 'Please open source this software because YOU will profit from it - in the future'. Open sourcing a software is usually a bet on future option, like a stock option you are creating which needs constant nurturing.

Tell the customer that with a regular maintenance fee he might be able not only to help you support him (in case of problems/bugs/general support), but also will be able to extend it with possible new features with no additional costs (beyond that maintenance fee).

The 'do it for the public common good' is certainly weighing in on your suggestion but certainly a future investment and return is the key point. At least this worked for me/us. Usually if additional features happen they will be so happy and donate on top, too.

Submission + - Patent troll sues X-Plane (x-plane.com)

Submitted by symbolset
symbolset writes: X-Plane is an awesome flight simulator that has survived the onslaught of Microsoft Flight Simulator, been the first to include NASA data in their terrain modelling, and remained Linux compatible through their whole history. They have a long and grand history.

They are now under attack from a patent troll, Uniloc, and will needs must shut down unless we help them out. If we fail to help, we lose X-plane — and we deserve to.
Security

Submission + - Why WikiLeaks' Spinoff OpenLeaks Failed (wired.com) 1

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: Wired has published an excerpt of the new WikiLeaks-related book "This Machine Kills Secrets," which delves into the launch of the WikiLeaks spinoff OpenLeaks at the Chaos Communication Camp in Berlin last year. The detailed account of the site's debut, with German ex-WikiLeaker Daniel Domscheit-Berg at the helm, reveals that even before the dispute between WikiLeaks and OpenLeaks led to the controversial destruction of the decryption keys for 3,000 of WikiLeaks encrypted leaks taken by Domscheit-Berg, OpenLeaks was already facing significant problems: Rumors that the group had been infiltrated by the German government, a lack of code open for public auditing and even a failure to get the site online in time for the penetration test it had invited the CCC hackers to perform. The book passage gives a peek into the infighting, bad luck, disorganization and personality problems that has left the world without a real sequel to WikiLeaks despite the dozens of leak-focused sites that have launched in the last two years.
Science

Submission + - Study Boils Water Without Bubbles (sciencecodex.com)

Submitted by
SchrodingerZ
SchrodingerZ writes: "Scientists at Northwestern University have successfully found a way to boil water with the absence of bubbles. How they did it was use a 'specially engineered coated surface can create a stable vapor cushion between the surface and a hot liquid and eliminate the bubbles that are created during boiling'. The study was founded on the Leidenfrost effect ; which explains that when droplets of water are put onto a hot skillet, they will bounce and float on top of a slim vapor film layer. In the new experiment the researchers made the 'surface of tiny steel spheres very water-repellant. The spheres were sprayed with a commercially available hydrophobic coating. When the steel spheres were heated to 400 degrees Celsius and dropped into room temperature water, water vapors formed in the valleys of the textured surface, creating a stable Leidenfrost vapor film that did not collapse once the spheres cooled to the temperature of boiling water. In the experiments, researchers completely avoided the bubbly phase of boiling.' It is hoped that this new method of water heating will make industrial work safer and more efficient in the future. The study was publish in the journal Nature (linked here)."
Medicine

Bad Science Writer Talks About the Placebo Effect *NSFW* 131

Posted by samzenpus from the I-want-to-believe dept.
The Guardian newspaper's Bad Science columnist Dr. Ben Goldacre does a stand-up routine about medicine, the placebo effect, and the mysteries of the human body at Nerdstock. From a scientific standpoint, I can't accurately say how funny it is because I was told it was great before I saw it.
Privacy

Submission + - ThePirateBay Hackers Website Vanishes (zeropaid.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday, news was circulating that ThePirateBay was hacked, exposing 4 million users identities. Drew Wilson from ZeroPaid is reporting today that the website that made all of these claims has now vanished and merely redirects users to Google. ThePirateBay did make upgrades, but whether or not that was in direct relationship to the story that hackers broke in to their site isn't clear.

Submission + - Setting Up Linux Public Machines?

Submitted by JJMacey
JJMacey writes: I've been in closed Linux Loop. I've run it forever, made a bunch of converts, and now want to throw a Linux Box into the business center of a hotel. It will be a stand alone Linux machine (running Ubuntu), no server, no MAC, no VMWare, and want to lock this box down to very limited menu, icon options. It will help in dealing with the difficulties of maintaining the Microsoft versions, AdWare, SpyWare, Up-Dates, Virii, etc.

We are dealing w/ the general public, much like a library, I have Googled for the simple, elegant solution, but to no avail.

Has anybody have any ideas?

Thanks in advance for productive replies.
Google

Submission + - Fragmentation Lessons From Sega (rizergames.com)

Submitted by rizer
rizer writes: The fragmentation of Google's Android operating system is a hotly debated topic. But haven't we seen this all before? Mobile games developer, Luke Rogers, takes a look at the reasons behind the Dreamcast's failure and points to the history lessons Google should be paying attention to.

Submission + - USB cupwarmer might steal your data (tarpit.rmc.ca)

Submitted by adaviel
adaviel writes: New Scientist recently reported work by researchers at the Royal Military College of Canada on hardware-based USB trojans. While the concept is not new (I saw a cool demo of an iPod pwning a Mac over Firewire at CanSecWest a few years ago), USB is interesting because of all the goofy "harmless" devices like personal fans, cellphone chargers etc. — an attacker might ask a victim "can I charge my phone on your laptop?", but the "charger" actually emulates a keyboard and headphone, able to execute commands and download data.

Slashdot Top Deals

If you want to put yourself on the map, publish your own map.

Close