Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Military

Submission + - Highly capable military robots in development

Submitted by
Toe, The
Toe, The writes: "Discovery News reports on what it aptly calls Terror Bots. These include DARPA's Atlas and Cheetah, one which walks like a human over rough terrain, and another which is super fast like, well, a cheetah. Then there is the Army's mini-bot Cougar which can detect activity 65-feet away... through walls. But don't worry. The article points they are being developed 'not with directly malicious intentions.' What do you think are the chances these bots obey Asimov's laws?"

Submission + - 5 Exabytes of HDD Storage Shipped in 2010 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Sales of disk storage systems were up 55% last year compared with 2009, with more than 5,000 petabytes of hard disk drive capacity sold, according to a new report from market research firm IDC. Factory revenues for disk storage subsystems totaled $28.7 billion in 2010, an 18% year-over-year improvement. One stand-out market was IP-based network storage, such as iSCSI and NAS, which saw a 21% increase in sales for a total of more than $5 billion in revenue.
Security

Submission + - Oxygen masks removed from airplane toilets (uol.com.br)

Submitted by
funny_smell
funny_smell writes: "The FAA has quietly ordered the removal of oxygen masks and oxygen supply to the lavatories of commercial airliners in the USA. The agency and American government intelligence have identified the threat of the devices being used by terrorists as explosives. The FAA refrained from giving further details."
Apple

Submission + - Conan O'Brien Pokes Fun at iPad 2 (ispyce.com)

Submitted by
autospa
autospa writes: "Conan O'Brien takes on the iPad 2 with an amusing parody that pokes fun at the slick video presentations that peppered Apple's iPad 2 announcement and its reality distortion field. The video is located after the break for your viewing pleasure. Just a note for iOS users, the clip is hosted on Conan's website so it may not be streamed in an iPad-friendly format."
Image

Jordanian Mayor Angry Over "Alien Invasion" Prank 217

Posted by samzenpus from the war-of-the-worlds dept.
krou writes "Jordanian mayor Mohammed Mleihan has taken a dim view of local newspaper Al-Ghad's April Fools prank, which saw a front page story claiming that 'flying saucers flown by 3m (10ft) creatures had landed in the desert town of Jafr.' The paper claimed that communication networks had gone down, and people were fleeing the area. The mayor called the local security authorities, who combed the area, but they were unable to find any evidence of the aliens. Mr Mleihan is now considering suing because of the distress it caused to residents: 'Students didn't go to school, their parents were frightened and I almost evacuated the town's 13,000 residents. People were scared that aliens would attack them.'" I guess they've never heard of Orson Welles in Jordan.
United States

Submission + - The Chemistry of Firework Displays

Submitted by
Ponca City, We love you
Ponca City, We love you writes: "David Ropeik writes at MSNBC that there's a lot more to making a basic firework display than putting a fuel source and an oxidizer together. Pyrotechnic chemists, who are trying to create bedazzle instead of bang, don't want their work to explode but to burn for a bit so it gives a good visual show. To achieve the desired effect, the size of the particles of each ingredient have to be just right, and the ingredients have to be blended together just right. To slow down the burning, chemists use big grains of chemicals, in the range of 250 to 300 microns and they don't blend the ingredients together very well making it harder for the fuel and oxidizer to combine and burn, and producing a longer and brighter effect. Surprisingly few emitters are used in pyrotechnics and there are no commercially useful emitters in blue-green to emerald green in the 490-520 nm region. Energy from the fire in the basic fuel is transferred to the atoms of the colorant chemicals exciting the electrons in those chemicals into a higher energy state. As they cool down, they move back to a lower state of energy emitting light so you actually see the colors in fireworks as they're cooling down. To get the really tricky shapes, like stars or hearts, the colorant pellets are pasted on a piece of paper in the desired pattern. That paper is put in the middle of the shell with explosive charges above it, and below. When those charges go off, they burn up the paper, and send the ignited colorant pellets out in the same pattern they were in on the sheet of paper, spreading wider apart as they fly. Finally remember that in 2003, six deaths were linked to fireworks and hospital emergency departments treated 9,300 fireworks injuries so read these safety tips and enjoy the 4th."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft gets queasy over IE8 vomit advert (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "Microsoft has pulled an advert for Internet Explorer 8 which showed a woman borrowing her husband's laptop and being shocked at what she finds on screen, prompting her to repeatedly projectile vomit. "We created the OMGIGP video as a tongue-in-cheek look at the InPrivate Browsing feature of Internet Explorer 8, using the same irreverent humour that our customers told us they liked about other components of the Internet Explorer 8 marketing campaign," said a Microsoft statement. "While much of the feedback to this particular piece of creative was positive, some of our customers found it offensive, so we have removed it." The ad was one of a new series of off-the-wall adverts for the browser, which are being shown online."
The Internet

Submission + - Emoticons in the Workplace

Submitted by Platonic
Platonic writes: According to the New York Times, the Emoticon has become much more than something the kids do after school. The little guys seem to have found their way into the workforce: being used by stock brokers and even the U.S. Military.
From TFA: "I mean, it's ludicrous," said Ms. Feldman, 25. "I'm not going to feel better about losing hundreds of thousands of dollars because someone puts a frown face to regretfully inform me."
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Author: How cheaters are winning at online games

Submitted by BobB
BobB writes: An interview with security expert Gary McGraw, co-author of the new book "Exploiting Online Games," which explains how cheaters are winning at online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft where millions of players compete in the virtual world to win battles or treasure that is sometimes later sold to avid game players for real money. McGraw says cheaters use specialized "bots" that manipulate online gaming activity to their advantage. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/072707-onlin e-games-dirty-secrets.html

Comment Re:Why are people allowed to possess guns in the U (Score 1) 2661

by gdavidp (#18778523) Attached to: Many Dead In Virginia Tech Shooting
Please, please, please, get your facts straight: The first case of SARS appeared in November 2002. It killed 800 people around the world, including 44 in Toronto. The disease killed 350 in China. That country later ordered the killing of some 10,000 civet cats, suspected to be carriers of SARS. The weasel-like mammals are considered a delicacy in Guangdong and are served in wild-game restaurants.
Biotech

Submission + - Shimmering holograms to check anticancer drugs

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "Physicists at Purdue University have developed a new digital holographic imaging system. This device permits to watch in 3-D how anticancer drugs fight tumors. It uses a laser which does not harm living tissues and a common microchip used in your digital cameras to see inside tumor cells. The real innovation of this system is that the holograms generated are not permanently recorded. These shimmering holograms recorded on holographic film "change in time, tracking and adjusting to changes in the image intensity and phase," according to one of the researchers. Of course, this device can have other applications in drug development and medical imaging. Read more for additional details showing how the researchers are working on their digital holographic imaging system."
Operating Systems

Submission + - New DST to cost $350 million?

Submitted by
ktappe
ktappe writes: "An analyst at Forrester Research estimates the daylight saving time (DST) switch coming this Sunday will cost the average company $50,000 in time and labor expenses — a conservative figure that doesn't take into account missed airline flights or forgotten appointments. That's a total of $350 million for the 7,000 publicly traded companies in the U.S. Is this another case of an analyst pulling numbers out of the air, or will we really be paying a high price for earlier DST?"

Slashdot Top Deals

I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

Close