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PC Games (Games)

Windows 7 Gaming Performance Tested 179

Posted by Soulskill from the take-with-a-beta-grain-of-salt dept.
Timmus writes "Gamers holding onto Windows XP may not have to fear sluggish performance when Windows 7 debuts. While Windows Vista's gaming performance was pretty spotty at launch, the Windows 7 beta build seems to handle most games well. Firingsquad has tested the Windows 7 beta against Windows XP SP3 and Vista SP1 on midrange and high-end gaming PCs across 7 different games. While the beta stumbles in a couple of cases, overall it performs within a few percentage points of Windows XP, actually outrunning XP in multiple benchmarks."
Intel

Intel Develops Micro-Refrigerator To Cool Chips 94

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the cool-devices dept.
Spacedonkey writes "Researchers at Intel, RTI International of North Carolina, and Arizona State University have made ultra-thin 'micro-refrigerators' for computer chips. The device uses a thermoelectric cooler made from nanostructured thin-film superlattice that can reduce the temperature by 55C when a current passes through it. In testing, it reduced the temperature on part of a chip by 15C without impairing its performance. The researchers say the component could be particularly useful for cooling hot spots that frequently occur on multi-core chips."
Space

Soyuz 4/5 Made History 40 Years Ago Today 166

Posted by kdawson from the probably-wearing-dockers dept.
dj writes in with a reminder that forty years ago, on January 16, 1969, the two Russian spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 carried out the first docking between two manned spacecraft and transfer of crew between the craft. Wired's piece gives a gripping account of "one of the roughest re-entries in the history of space flight": "Soyuz 5's service module failed to detach at retrofire, causing the vehicle to assume an aerodynamic position that left the heat shield pointed the wrong way as it re-entered the atmosphere. The only thing standing between Volynov and a fiery death was the command module's thin hatch cover. The interior of Volynov's capsule filled with noxious fumes as the gaskets sealing the hatch started to burn, and it got very hot in there (which, a short time later was something he probably missed). ... But wait. There's more."
Wireless Networking

Wireless Internet Access Uses Visible Light, Not Radio Waves 264

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the no-tin-foil-hats-required dept.
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that a company has demonstrated a new form of wireless communication that uses light instead of radio waves. "Its inventor, St. Cloud resident John Pederson, says visible-light embedded wireless data communication is the next step in the evolution of wireless communications, one that will expand the possibilities in phone and computer use. The connection provides Web access with almost no wiring, better security and with speeds more than eight times faster than cable."

Comment Re:Complete-the-line with a pen (Score 5, Interesting) 709

by garbletext (#25662341) Attached to: In the U.S. election just ended, I voted ...
In Chicago for early voting, we used a system exactly as you describe by Sequoia, which made me feel pretty confident would be difficult to game. It was a pretty clear and easy to use touchscreen, and after you voted, a receipt describing each measure printed out and displayed through a window (you couldn't actually handle the receipt). You're then asked to confirm that everything is as you voted to finalize your vote; if not poll workers assured me the receipt is destroyed and you start over. This is exactly how it should be, an apparently custom OS on simple LCD screens (though I'd prefer buttons that have no possibility of miscalibration) with a voter verifiable paper trail. Receipt paper can't be that expensive, can it?
Security

Damning Report On Sequoia E-Voting Machine Security 200

Posted by kdawson from the worse-than-you-thought dept.
TechDirt notes the publication of the New Jersey voting machine study, the attempted suppression of which we have been discussing for a while now. The paper that the Princeton and Lehigh University researchers are releasing, as permitted by the Court, is "the same as the Court's redacted version, but with a few introductory paragraphs about the court case, Gusciora v. Corzine." What's new is the release of a 90-minute evidentiary video — the researchers have asked the court for permission to release a shorter version that hits the high points, as the high-res video is about 1 GB in size. See TechDirt's article for the report's executive summary listing eight ways the AVC Advantage 9.00 voting machine can be subverted.
Music

Details for Guitar Hero 4 Released 200

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the nothing-like-wailing-on-a-plastic-ukulele dept.
GameSpot is reporting that details for Guitar Hero 4 have been released. The biggest news seems to be that the new release will be adding drums and vocals a la Rock Band. The new drums are to offer three pressure-sensitive pads (which can tell if you are just tapping or really wailing), two elevated cymbals, and a pedal. "The details in Game Informer also clear up the mystery surrounding the 'innovation' which Activision promised was coming to the Guitar Hero series in a recent earnings report conference call. The article outlines the game's studio mode, which will give users a variety of ways to create their own songs. Players will be able to jam along with one of the game's existing tracks, record songs as they're played, or meticulously detail note charts."
Security

How the NSA Took Linux To the Next Level 172

Posted by Soulskill from the not-by-beating-the-end-boss-of-the-previous-level dept.
An anonymous reader brings us IBM Developerworks' recent analysis of how the NSA built SELinux to withstand attacks. The article shows us some of the relevant kernel architecture and compares SELinux to a few other approaches. We've discussed SELinux in the past. Quoting: "If you have a program that responds to socket requests but doesn't need to access the file system, then that program should be able to listen on a given socket but not have access to the file system. That way, if the program is exploited in some way, its access is explicitly minimized. This type of control is called mandatory access control (MAC). Another approach to controlling access is role-based access control (RBAC). In RBAC, permissions are provided based on roles that are granted by the security system. The concept of a role differs from that of a traditional group in that a group represents one or more users. A role can represent multiple users, but it also represents the permissions that a set of users can perform. SELinux adds both MAC and RBAC to the GNU/Linux operating system."
Patents

Submission + - Thousands of Patent Decisions May Be Undone (nytimes.com)

Submitted by prunedude
prunedude writes: According to the NY Times, John F. Duffy, who teaches at the George Washington University Law School, has discovered a constitutional flaw in the appointment process over the last eight years for judges who decide patent appeals and disputes, and his short paper documenting the problem seems poised to undo thousands of patent decisions concerning claims worth billions of dollars. His basic point does not appear to be in dispute. Since 2000, patent judges have been appointed by a government official without the constitutional power to do so. The Justice Department did warn that the impact of Professor Duffy's discovery could be cataclysmic for the patent world, casting "a cloud over many thousands of board decisions" and "unsettling the expectations of patent holders and licensees across the nation." But they did not say Professor Duffy was wrong.

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