161193
submission
William Robinson writes:
The popular web site Orkut is planning to apply censorship on its contents. From this news from CNN "And if you have been concerned of web pages with obscenities scrawled over the national flag, or even others criticising the Father of the Nation or the ones negating political leaders — then sit back as these are going to be out of the website soon. Just report these to the Mumbai Police and chances are that not only will the pages be erased, but the creators brought to book for there has been an informal tie-up between the Mumbai Police and the Orkut management." What will be the level of censorship?
34989
submission
William Robinson writes:
A rare planet event is going to occur on Nov 8th, when mercury will transit the Sun during day time, and observers on earth will be able to see this even for almost 5 hours. Mercury's orbit is tipped 7 degrees relative to Earth's. So when Mercury passes between Earth and the Sun (during what astronomers call inferior conjunction), it usually passes a bit above or below the Sun from our viewpoint. But twice each year, around May 9th and November 10th, the imaginary ellipse of Mercury's orbit is projected directly against the Sun. Be careful while watching this event. Observers can burn a permanent blind spot in their eye's retina without proper protection.
33573
submission
William Robinson writes:
Microsoft has launched to Virtual Earth 3D, a new version of the company's mapping application that enables users to "fly" through three-dimensional models of cities from directly within their Web browser. Though, this step seems to be takes to compete with Google Earth, Microsoft says its offering takes the concept to another level, by bringing the virtual world closer to the physical world. Instead of grey scale boxes of buildings like in Google Earth, Virtual Earth 3D uses photographs to create realistic, textured buildings. Microsoft says it developed the cameras it uses to capture the images in house, as well as creating an algorithmic program to build the textured 3D models.
29845
submission
William Robinson writes:
tgdaily is reporting that security researchers have discovered a new flaw in Windows XP that could allow hackers to crash the built-in firewall. By sending malformed DNS packets to vulnerable machines, hackers could disable and eventually bypass the operating system firewall. So far only Windows XP computers with the Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service turned on are affected by the attack. The new exploit shouldn't be a major problem unless the vulnerable ICS service has been explicitly turned on.
29197
submission
William Robinson writes:
Researchers at IBM working in its Zurich, Switzerland, laboratories have developed a new technique for managing the temperature of computer chips, which can double cooling efficiency. This method entails a new way of spreading thermal paste between hot chips and their heat sinks, making the paste as thin as possible to transport heat from the chip to the cooling components more efficiently. Another technology, called direct jet impingement, sprays water on the chips surface through 50,000 tiny nano-nozzles to squirt water, and sucks the water back within a very short period of time. This technique can pull up to 370 watts per square cm compared to conventional methods that can pull upto 75 watts for same area. The story is covered here too.
