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Power

Submission + - Scientists Discover Solar Powered Hornets (goodcleantech.com) 2

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: The oriental hornet is more active during the day, and tends to become even more active as the temperature rises. And now scientists have discovered the reason: the hornets are solar powered. It turns out that the distinctive yellow stripe on the hornet's abdomen is actually full of tiny protrusions that gather sunlight and harness it for energy. The insect also features a special pigment, called xanthopterin, that helps with the process.
Cellphones

John Carmack Not Enthused About Android Marketplace 163

Posted by Soulskill from the hit-with-a-fragmentation-grenade dept.
An anonymous reader writes "During an in-depth and informative interview, Doom creator and id Software co-founder John Carmack opines on iOS game development, the economics of mobile development vs. console development, why mobile games lend themselves to more risk-taking and greater creativity, and finally, why he's not too keen on the Android Marketplace as a money-making machine. '...I'm honestly still a little scared of the support burden and the effort that it's going to take for our products, which are very graphics-intensive.'"
Robotics

Submission + - Japan’s Robot Picks Only the Ripest Strawber (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by kkleiner
kkleiner writes: The Institute of Agricultural Machinery at Japan’s National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, along with SI Seiko, has developed a robot that can select and harvest strawberries based on their color. Ripened berries are detected using the robot’s stereoscopic cameras, and analyzed to measure how red they appear. When the fruit is ready to come off the vine, the robot quickly locates it in 3D space and cuts it free. From observation to collection, the harvesting process takes about 9 seconds per berry. Creators estimate that it will be able to cut down harvesting time by 40%.

Submission + - Building a JavaScript Framework eBook (dailyjs.com)

Submitted by jedigeek
jedigeek writes: The Let's Make a Framework tutorial series has recently been edited into an eBook (PDF, ePub, mobi) for comfortable offline reading. The series has been running consistently for 40 weeks, and includes details on how to write code for DOM events, selectors, animations, and modern jQuery-like chained APIs.
Image

Aquarium Uses Eel Powered Christmas Lights 96

Posted by samzenpus from the slippery-tinsel dept.
A Japanese aquarium is using the greenest energy possible to power the lights on its Christmas tree, an electric eel. From the article: "Each time the eel moves, two aluminum panels gather enough electricity to light up the 2-meter (6 ft 6 in) tall tree, decked out in white, in glowing intermittent flashes."
Earth

Sahara Solar To Power Half the World By 2050 363

Posted by CmdrTaco from the gonna-need-a-longer-cable dept.
eldavojohn writes "A Japanese/Algerian effort called The Sahara Solar Breeder Project employs a simple concept revolving around the pure silica in the sand of the Sahara Desert. The silica can be used to build vast solar arrays which will then provide the power and means to build more solar arrays in a classic breeder model. They would then use DC powerlines utilizing high temperature superconductors. The lead of the project points out that silica is the second most abundant resource in the Earth's crust. The project's lofty goals to harness the Sahara's energy has a few requirements — including 100 million yen annually — but also the worldwide cooperation of many nations and the training of the scientists and engineers to create and man these desert plants. The once deadly wasteland of the Sahara now looks like a land rich in an important resource: sunlight."

Comment Re:proprietary and apple (Score 1) 944

by oscartheduck (#32038672) Attached to: Steve Jobs Publishes Some "Thoughts On Flash"
"mm, you can fork and license under additional licenses that do not require or allow source code to be available."

Sure, but you still have to redistribute the BSD code *with the BSD license attached*. Nothing you do to BSD code removes your legal requirement to attach the required copyright notice. Ignoring that legal requirement is just as illegal as redistributing GPL'd code without adhering to the license. Just read the license, it's pretty clear on this.

Comment Re:Free economy, regulate fraud (Score 1) 256

by thetartanavenger (#32004764) Attached to: Senators Tell Facebook To Quit Sharing Users' Info

It's not just social networking sites though. Virtually ANY site you use has one of these clauses, collects personal information about you that you expect to remain private. It's getting to the stage where if you want to use the internet (a large portion of it), you have to agree that the website can do whatever the hell they want with your data, even though they said they wouldn't.

Take slashdot for instance:

From http://geek.net/index.php/terms-of-use/

Geeknet reserves the right, at Geeknet's sole discretion, to change, modify, add or remove portions of these Terms periodically. Such modifications shall be effective immediately upon posting of the modified agreement to the website unless provided otherwise (e.g., when implementing major, substantive changes, Geeknet intends to provide users with up to fourteen days of advance notice). Your continued use of the Geeknet Sites following the posting of changes to these Terms will mean that you accept those changes.

From http://geek.net/privacy-statement

Geeknet reserves the right to update and change this Privacy Statement from time to time. If Geeknet makes material changes to its privacy practices, a prominent notice will be posted on this web page. Each time a user uses the Sites, the current version of the Privacy Statement applies. Accordingly, a user should check the date of this Privacy Statement (which appears at the top) and review for any changes since the last version. If a user does not agree to the Privacy Statement, the user should not use the Sites.
United Kingdom

Submission + - UK election captures the Geek Vote (votegeek.org.uk)

Submitted by dominux
dominux writes: With the UK getting ready for a General Election the political parties are figuring out the importance of the geek vote. As a result of the protests and general backlash against the Digital Economies bill (our DMCA equivalent) that was being shoved through at the last minute the Liberal Democrat party has dropped it's support for the bill and it will now probably fail. Voter initiatives such as Democracy Club and Vote Geek are making this the an election where technology policy makes a difference.

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