Submission + - Computer Casings Made from Cashews (discovery.com)
disco_tracy writes: A unique plastic made from cashew nut shells could be used in consumer electronics by 2013.
Submission + - Hacker creates 1/10th scale Cray-1 supercomputer (geek.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Chris Fenton, an electrical engineer living in New York, always wanted his very own supercomputer, but did not have the space or money to acquire one. So he took a different approach and decided to build his own supercomputer from the 70s in scaled-down form based on the Cray-1.
The end result of his hacking produced a homebrew Cray-1A, which is 1/10th the size of the original. Unfortunately, getting software for the machine proved almost impossible. Fenton searched everywhere and eventually found out that SGI destroyed all the old software archives. Not even former Cray employees could help him.
The end result of his hacking produced a homebrew Cray-1A, which is 1/10th the size of the original. Unfortunately, getting software for the machine proved almost impossible. Fenton searched everywhere and eventually found out that SGI destroyed all the old software archives. Not even former Cray employees could help him.
Submission + - Telcos ordered to share speedy Internet (theglobeandmail.com)
Meshach writes: In Canada there has been court decision rendered as the CRTC has ordered ISPs to provide the same speed to resellers as they do for their own customers. This is a crucial regulatory decision as large companies roll out next-generation network infrastructure.
Submission + - Wikileaks to Move to Nuclear-Proof Facilities (www.idg.se)
Buzzy_Bot writes: Wikileaks to Move to Nuclear-Proof Facilities
30 meters below ground, in a facility built to withstand anything but a direct hit from a nuclear warhead, that is where the servers of Wikileaks will be hosted from now on. Bahnhof, the Swedish ISP, has kept security in mind when choosing the new location of their server park. ”This rock shelter was supposed to be the heart of the defense against the Soviet Union” says Jon Karlung, CEO of Bahnhof. ”However, the most important aspects [for the clients] are the legal matters as well as the integrity”.
30 meters below ground, in a facility built to withstand anything but a direct hit from a nuclear warhead, that is where the servers of Wikileaks will be hosted from now on. Bahnhof, the Swedish ISP, has kept security in mind when choosing the new location of their server park. ”This rock shelter was supposed to be the heart of the defense against the Soviet Union” says Jon Karlung, CEO of Bahnhof. ”However, the most important aspects [for the clients] are the legal matters as well as the integrity”.
Submission + - IE worldwide marketshare drops below 50% (statcounter.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: For the second weekend in a row the combined marketshare of all Internet Explorer versions around the world dropped below 50%
Submission + - Jet Packs Finally On Sale: Buy Your Rocket Belt (popularmechanics.com)
Bad_CRC1945 writes: The good news: Not one, but two companies are selling jet packs. The bad news: The tech has a long way to go. In the past, potential buyers have been stymied by two problems: Rocket belts aren't for sale, and even prototypes run on modern-day fuel (as opposed to whatever the Jetsons use) which means rocket belts can weigh upwards of 100 pounds, with only enough fuel to stay aloft for under a minute. Now, a pair of companies have solved one of these problems: rocket belts are for sale.
Submission + - Tech's Dark Secret: It’s All About Age 2
theodp writes: Universities really should tell engineering students what to expect in the long term and how to manage their technical careers. But since they're not, Vivek Wadwha uses his TechCrunch bully pulpit to give students a heads-up about the road ahead. Citing ex-Microsoft CTO David Vaskevitch's belief that younger workers have more energy and are sometimes more creative, Wadwha warns that reports of ageism's death have been greatly exaggerated. While encouraging managers to consider the value of the experience older techies bring, Wadwha also offers some get-real advice to those whose hair is beginning to grey: 1) Move up the ladder into management, architecture, or design; switch to sales or product management; jump ship and become an entrepreneur. 2) If you're going to stay in programming, realize that the deck is stacked against you, so be prepared to earn less as you gain experience. 3) Keep your skills current — to be coding for a living when you're 50, you'll need to be able to out-code the new kids on the block. Wadwha's piece strikes a chord with 50-something Dave Winer, who calls the rampant ageism 'really f***ed up,' adding that, 'It's probably the reason why we keep going around in the same loops over and over, because we chuck our experience, wholesale, every ten years or so.' Well, Microsoft did struggle with problems that IBM solved in the '60s.
Submission + - Prosecutor Loses Case for Citing Wikipedia (inquirer.net) 1
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Phillipine Daily Inquirer reports on a recent case where the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) lost an appeal after seeking to impeach the testimony of a defendant's expert witness by citing an article from Wikipedia. In her brief, the defendant said "the authority, alluded to by oppositor-appellant, the 'Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders DSM-IV-TR,' was taken from an Internet website commonly known as Wikipedia" and argued that Wikipedia itself contains a disclaimer saying that it "makes no guarantee of validity." The court in finding for the defendant said in its decision that it found "incredible ... if not a haphazard attempt, on the part of the (OSG) to impeach an expert witness, with, as pointed out by (the defendant) unreliable information. This is certainly unacceptable evidence, nothing short of a mere allegation totally unsupported by authority.""
Submission + - Bill Gates Enrolls His Kids in Khan Academy 1
theodp writes: At some schools, a teaching load of five courses every academic year is considered excessive. But Sal Khan, as an earlier Slashdot post noted, manages to deliver his mini-lectures an average of 70,000 times a day. BusinessWeek reports that Khan Academy has a new fan in Bill Gates, who's been singing and tweeting the praises of the free-as-in-beer website. 'This guy is amazing,' Gates wrote. 'It is awesome how much he has done with very little in the way of resources.' Gates and his 11-year-old son have been soaking up videos, from algebra to biology. And at the Aspen Ideas Festival in front of 2,000 people, Gates gave Khan a shout-out, touting the 'unbelievable' Khan Academy tutorials that 'I've been using with my kids.' Gates, whose foundation spends $700MM a year on U.S. education, plans to talk to Khan soon.
Submission + - I need a webcam optimized for the living room.
An anonymous reader writes: So — I have a windows machine hooked up to my 46" samsung LCD in the living room. Makes for a good social browsing experience. I started using it for video chat, and found it to be great except for the lack of optical zoom on my webcam (which is a pretty good one — the logitech quickcam pro 9000. When I sit on the couch about 9 feet away, I appear too small, the microphone has more trouble picking me up, and the digital zoom is of course useless at improving things. So I sit on my coffee table about 4 feet away from this huge LCD so the other person can actually see the expression on my face, defeating that 10-foot experience.
I thought to myself — "self, this should be pretty easy. Go grab a webcam with a bit of optical zoom, and maybe get a wireless headset to improve the sound quality on the mic." The wireless headset was pretty easy to find — lots of bluetooth solutions out there. as well as a stereo wireless headset by logitech called the clearchat, which I just got. But nowhere is there a tv-top-mount web cam with optical zoom with windows drivers. I'm a bit astounded... I tried just moving my wired webcam closer to me, setting it down on the coffee table and pointing it up at me, but then the experience is quite odd — I'm looking at the tv screen to see my skype-buddy, but it looks to them that I'm looking far into the distance, because the angles are all wrong, which is disconcerting for them, because that's the same way I like when I'm ignoring someone :)
Anyway — here's what I did find — the sony eye USB device (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Eye), which has a manual optical zoom, but that's optimized for PS3 only, and has no windows drivers — in other words, no skype or other windows video chat. I also found some webcams seemingly optimized for the 10-foot experience (http://shop.skype.com/intl/en-ca/skype-for-tv/), and they're USB devices as well (sounds good) , but.... you need a skype-enabled TV for these. WHAAAA?? Again no windows drivers. Also found this guy: (http://www.everythingusb.com/net_cowboy_dc-ncp130.html) with a mondo 7x optical zoom , but... it isn't really tv-mountable, and thus would suffer from the "faraway stare" problem if place, say, on the shelf next to the tv. People might also think I'm the creepy neighbor next door with a 7x optical zoom webcam.
So. I'm looking for better options. Anyone?
I thought to myself — "self, this should be pretty easy. Go grab a webcam with a bit of optical zoom, and maybe get a wireless headset to improve the sound quality on the mic." The wireless headset was pretty easy to find — lots of bluetooth solutions out there. as well as a stereo wireless headset by logitech called the clearchat, which I just got. But nowhere is there a tv-top-mount web cam with optical zoom with windows drivers. I'm a bit astounded... I tried just moving my wired webcam closer to me, setting it down on the coffee table and pointing it up at me, but then the experience is quite odd — I'm looking at the tv screen to see my skype-buddy, but it looks to them that I'm looking far into the distance, because the angles are all wrong, which is disconcerting for them, because that's the same way I like when I'm ignoring someone
Anyway — here's what I did find — the sony eye USB device (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Eye), which has a manual optical zoom, but that's optimized for PS3 only, and has no windows drivers — in other words, no skype or other windows video chat. I also found some webcams seemingly optimized for the 10-foot experience (http://shop.skype.com/intl/en-ca/skype-for-tv/), and they're USB devices as well (sounds good) , but.... you need a skype-enabled TV for these. WHAAAA?? Again no windows drivers. Also found this guy: (http://www.everythingusb.com/net_cowboy_dc-ncp130.html) with a mondo 7x optical zoom , but... it isn't really tv-mountable, and thus would suffer from the "faraway stare" problem if place, say, on the shelf next to the tv. People might also think I'm the creepy neighbor next door with a 7x optical zoom webcam.
So. I'm looking for better options. Anyone?
Submission + - First Intel Sandy Bridge CPU Benchmarks Out!! (anandtech.com)
siliconbits writes: Anand from Anandtech has managed to get his hands on an early Sandy Bridge processor and has tested it extensively. Benchmark figures are excellent and may well give AMD (and Fusion) some food for thoughts (and some nightmares).
Submission + - A Threat to Google's Future from Intent Generation (techcrunch.com)
Hugh Pickens writes: "Alex Rampell, the CEO of TrialPay, has an interesting article in TechCrunch analyzing the future of the money-making parts of Google and how Google will be threatened by "Intent Generation" and "Vertical Search." Everyone knows that Google makes almost all it's money from contextual ads that appear with Google's search results, but while the battle for search is over for now — Google won — Rampell writes that the battle for the underlying revenue is just heating up. "The holy grail is the ability to show the perfect advertisement at the perfect time (precognition, like in Minority Report), something Facebook has a better chance of doing than anyone," writes Rampell. "Intent Generation catches people further up the funnel, before they search, and delivers them what they want, and gets them to purchase, before they start searching." Payment companies are another threat because by knowing how much you spend and where, they have a tremendous opportunity to change future behavior, generating and catalyzing intent. "For Google's enemies, the best way of hurting the search goliath is not to build a better search engine, but rather to give people a reason to stop searching for a wide class of goods and services by preempting search on Google.""
Submission + - Life span of copper vs optical fibre?
john.lyle writes: The proposed government-built fibre-to-the-home National Broadband Network in Australia has generated a lot of debate, most of it centred around the $40 billion plus price tag. One argument against it that I heard recently is that optical fibre only has a physical life span of 15-20 years, after which the entire network would have to be replaced. I've searched the web and not found any reliable sources indicating the life span of either copper or optical fibre, but if this claim is valid, then it does seem like an important factor that has largely been overlooked in the debate. What does the slashdot community think?
Comment Sosigenes would be ashamed. (Score 1) 470
It is the duty of those of us who have brains in our skulls to ensure that everyone else has a vernal equinox tropical year calendar that is as accurate as possible.
This has to be one of the most obscene examples of attempting to alter reality to fit bad programming.
Submission + - Argentine ISP to close in 90 days by Govt decision
Doctor Jonas writes: Argentine ISP Fibertel has been barred to follow up their operations because of the dissolution of their status as a company, previously being absorbed by Cablevisión of Argentina, now part of media conglomerate Grupo Clarín. The Minister of Planning Julio de Vido announced the measure, and said it was Grupo Clarín's own doing by having shut down the Fibertel company and turning it into merely a commercial brand, and that ISP licenses are not transferable after acquisitions from one company to the other. The Argentine opposition said the move was another attack into Grupo Clarín's standing and another part of the feud between them and President Cristina Fernández and her husband, former president Nestor Kirchner. Cablevisión has promised to go to the courts to overturn the decision, even with TV ads, and the opposition seeks to protect Fibertel's continuing operations through a bill in Congress. More than a million households and businesses would need to change ISPs in merely 90 days, possibly strengthening the internet provisioning dominance of both Telefónica (subsidiary of the Spanish Telefonica) and Telecom.
