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Comment Don't forget to clean your room... (Score 1) 362

by __aaasvk1266 (#33245358) Attached to: How Much Smaller Can Chips Go?

Hopefully, I'm not duplicating someone's post... Being able to cut a tighter line is one thing. Being able to do it on a "making license plates" scale is something else. As you move increase the density of what is being packed on the chip, you have to be able to increasingly control for smaller and smaller particles. Each jump in Clean Room Technology is neither easy, nor inexpensive. For details, and a whole lot more related material:

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/06/embodied-energy-of-digital-technology.html
Earth

Submission + - Largest tidal power device unveiled (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A device thought to be the largest tidal turbine of its type to be built in the world has been described by its developer as "simple and robust".
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Working On Maximus Keyboard Rival? (microsofthardwareblog.com)

Submitted by siliconbits
siliconbits writes: Snip from Microsoft's hardware blog "The Adaptive Keyboard concept is now part of the Student Innovation Contest at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. We hope the participating students will come up with truly unique and valuable uses for this particular evolutionary input device concept." Though it doesn't feature Maximus's Ubercool OLED keys, the prototype shows that the company may well be looking at innovating in the field of input peripherals.
Power

Submission + - World’s First Flywheel Energy Plant Set to O (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Elliot Chang
Elliot Chang writes: While it doesn’t get nearly as much attention as alternative energy sources like solar or wind power, flywheel storage technology is definitely worth looking into. A kinetic energy-based technology that stems from the same elementary movement that potters and spinners have been using for centuries, the power storage tech will soon be harnessed at the world’s first grid-scale flywheel-based energy storage plant in New York. The flywheel system will use fast-rotating rims to store excess energy from the grid as kinetic energy that can be tapped into when demand rises or power from other sources is unavailable. Composed of a carbon-fiber composite material, the rims spin on magnetic bearings in a vacuum in order to minimize energy loss due to friction. Flywheel-based energy regulation is both cleaner and faster than traditional methods – it can fluctuate 10 times more quickly to match increasing or decreasing energy demands.
Robotics

Submission + - Smart Japanese vending machines read age, sex (examiner.com)

Submitted by JoshuaInNippon
JoshuaInNippon writes: Not sure what you're thirty for? New vending machines in Shinagawa Station in Tokyo, Japan will tell you based on your age and gender. The machines, controlled by a centralized server, come equipped with sensors that recognize basic costumer information, and then provide recommendations along side the list of available drinks. A massive 47-inch touch panel display is used in place of the typical button system, allowing for an automatic digital advertising mode when no people are directly in front of the machine. (Hey look, the vending machine has eyes and is saying it is thirsty, I'm thirsty now too!) Customers can pay with either cash, or via a number of automatic credit systems used in Japan, such as JR East's SUICA. The company that produced the machines, JR East Water Business Co., has put two into use as of August 10th, and hopes to have 500 deployed within the next two years.
Data Storage

Submission + - New Toshiba Drives Wipe Data When Turned Off (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Toshiba on Tuesday introduced a new hard drive feature that can wipe out data after the storage devices are powered down. The Wipe feature in Toshiba's SED (Self-Encrypting Drives) will allow for deletion of secure data prior to disposing or repurposing hard drives, Toshiba said. The technology invalidates a hard-drive security key when a system's power supply is turned off. The new Wipe capability will go into future versions of the SED drives, for which no timeframe was given. Beyond use in PCs, Toshiba wants to put this feature on storage devices in copiers and printers.
Math

Submission + - 5 Trillion Digits of Pi - New World Record (numberworld.org)

Submitted by KPexEA
KPexEA writes: Alexander J. Yee & Shigeru Kondo claim to have calculated the number pi to 5 trillion places, on a single desktop and in record time.
The main computation took 90 days on Shigeru Kondo's desktop. Verification was done using two separate computers.
The program that was used for the main computation is y-cruncher v0.5.4.9138 Alpha.
Power

Submission + - Worlds Largest Wave Farm

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6377423.stm is reporting that the Scottish Executive has announced funding for a project to create what will be the worlds largest wave farm.
The location off Orkney has been used to test the Pelamis device in the past and is now to be the location for commercial testing. It is estimated that waters off Scotland could provide 25% of the wave power available to Europe
Microsoft

Submission + - Standards Bodies being lobied regarding OpenXML

Submitted by EreIamJH
EreIamJH writes: The Standards Blog reports on a complaint from the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) included in its response to the MS-OpenXML draft. SABS complains that it is sick and tired of being pressured by special interest groups trying to get approval / stop approval for proposed phony standards:

The fact that some consortium has published a document that they refer to as a standard does not automatically imply that it has any sort of widespread industry acceptance. The fact that the publisher might claim international usage or acceptance is not longer a valid reason in these days of large multinationals, and the SABS has previously been approached by local branches of multinationals to vote in support of such PAS submissions, even if we have no local industry involvement or membership in the appropriate JTC
As a result SABS has dug its heels in, and will be automatically voting against all such future submissions.
Linux Business

Submission + - Dell users demand more Linux options

Submitted by daria42
daria42 writes: Nearly 40,000 users have used the Dell Ideastorm Web site to promote the suggestion that Dell should: "Offer the three top free Linux versions [Fedora, OpenSuse and Ubuntu] for free pre-installation on all Dell PCs". It is now the most popular suggestion on the site.
Power

Submission + - Programming the SPE's of Sony PLAYSTATION 3

Submitted by IdaAshley
IdaAshley writes: Take even greater advantage of the synergistic processing elements (SPEs) of the Sony PS3 in this installment of Programming high-performance applications on the Cell BE processor. Part 2 looks in depth at the Cell Broadband Engine processor's SPEs and how they work at the lowest level, while Part 1 showed how to install Linux on the PS3 and explored a short example program.
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - PS3 Firmware Version Check Circumvented

Submitted by
Chouonsoku
Chouonsoku writes: "Before yesterday, PlayStation 3 owners had to be running the latest system firmware in order to access the PlayStation Network. The PlayStation Network allows users to play their games online, download demos, trailers and add-ons for their games. However, with a simple DNS request redirection, the firmware check becomes null and void, allowing users to access the PlayStation Network from any firmware, up-to-date or not."
Enlightenment

Submission + - Livestock's Contribution to Global Warming

Submitted by Aqua_boy17
Aqua_boy17 writes: The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that people who eat meat are responsible for about 1.5 tons more of carbon dioxide being put in to the atmosphere each year than their vegan counterparts. The article cites a recently released report from the UN's Food and Agriculture Orginization stating that livestock raised for human consumption is now responsible for as much as 18% of total greenhouse gases emitted annually. While livestock animals are responsible for about 9% of total Carbon Dioxide release, they're also blamed for nearly 40% of the total methane and 65% of the total amount of Nitrous Oxide released into the environment. When added together the amount of total greenhouse gas emissions produced as a byproduct of raising livestock is already greater than all current modes of transportation combined, and is expected to rise in the future.

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