und0 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Knocking out noise with microwaves

Submitted by

Reverberant

on Monday April 16, 2007 @03:00AM

Reverberant writes: "A resident of Houston, Delaware has resorted to several unusual methods for combating loud music from car and home stereos, including shooting one neighbor's dog, blasting air horns at another neighbor, and using 'his genius-level IQ and parts of household microwave ovens to develop a makeshift device that uses electromagnetic waves to temporarily jam the circuitry of his neighbors' stereos.'"

Submission + - How single-pixel camera work

Submitted by S3D on Monday April 16, 2007 @02:52AM

S3D writes: Terence Tao explain in his blog how single-pixel camera work. The explanation is long and detailed. The central idea is to use analog of hash function to distinguish dominantwavelets of the image.

Submission + - Biotech Industry tries to ease reliance on corn

Submitted by

Kensai7

on Sunday April 15, 2007 @06:30AM

Kensai7 writes: "The ethanol craze is putting the squeeze on corn supplies and causing food prices to rise. Mexicans took to the streets last year to protest increased tortilla prices. The cost of chicken and beef in the United States ticked up because feed is more expensive.

That's where biotechnology comes in. Scientists are engineering microscopic bugs to extract fuel from a variety of non-corn sources, including the human urinary tract, a Russian fungus and the plant responsible for tequila. More in this article on BusinessWeek."

Submission + - Microsoft admitted Xbox 360 flaw

Submitted by j_sp_r on Sunday April 15, 2007 @06:03AM

j_sp_r writes: Microsoft has admitted, after thousands of complaints from users, that there is a flaw in the Xbox 360.
Using the flawed series of the Xbox 360 can cause scratches on disks, so has the Dutch consumer program "Kassa" found out.
First Microsoft stated it's the fault of the users who failed to handle the disks with care.
It affects a set of 1 a 2 million Xbox 360's. The problem is caused by an absent of protective pads around the machines lens.
Original article is here in Dutch and the babelfish translation is here

Submission + - Wi-Fi highly critical flaw found in Linux

Submitted by thisispurefud on Sunday April 15, 2007 @04:23AM

thisispurefud writes: A flaw has been found in a major Linux Wi-Fi driver that can allow an attacker to run malicious code and take control of a laptop, even when it is not on a Wi-Fi network. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130717-pg,1/arti cle.html

Submission + - IBM Heralds 3-D Chip Breakthrough

Submitted by

David Kesmodel from WSJ

on Thursday April 12, 2007 @12:36AM

David Kesmodel from WSJ writes: "IBM said it achieved a breakthrough in developing a three-dimensional semiconductor chip that can be stacked on top of another electronic device in a vertical configuration, the Wall Street Journal reports. Chip makers have worked for years to develop ways to connect one type of chip to another vertically to reduce size and power use. The new chips may appear in cellphones and other communication devices as soon as next year, the WSJ reports."

Feed Liver Regeneration May Be Simpler Than Previously Thought (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed on Thursday April 12, 2007 @12:13AM

The way the liver renews itself may be simpler than what scientists had been assuming. A new study provides information on the inner workings of cells from regenerating livers that could significantly affect the way physicians make livers regrow in patients with liver diseases such as cirrhosis, hepatitis or cancer.

Submission + - New solar cells that don't need direct sunlight

Submitted by ultracool on Thursday April 05, 2007 @12:16AM

ultracool writes: New solar cells developed by researchers at the Nanomaterials Research Centre at Massey University in New Zealand don't need direct sunlight to operate and use a patented range of dyes that can be impregnated in roofs, window glass and eventually even clothing to produce power. Researchers at the centre have developed the dyes from simple organic compounds closely related to those found in nature, where light-harvesting pigments are used by plants for photosynthesis.

Feed Discovery Of 'Master Switch' For Communication Between Chloroplast And Nuclei Of (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed on Wednesday April 04, 2007 @01:12AM

In a study published in Science this week, Nevada scientists explain the process behind a revolutionary discovery in how signals are exchanged between the chloroplast and nucleus of plants.

Submission + - Release of two quake3 engine spin-offs

Submitted by

Thilo2

on Monday April 02, 2007 @04:43AM

Thilo2 writes: "With id software releasing Quake3 under a GPL license, finally two stand-alone games have popped up that make use of that very source code. Funny enough, both the World of Padman and Urban Terror projects have released their files at the same time on first april that can be downloaded at no cost and no, this is no delayed april fool's joke. Both games are based on the ioquake3 project, which is dedicated to cleaning up and improving the quake3 engine. World of Padman has installers for Windows, Linux and MacOSX and can be played natively on these platforms. Urban Terror's engine has not been released yet, at the time of this writing. By compiling your own engine though, you can get support for many additional platforms, like *BSD or even Solaris!"

Submission + - Scientist sues employer for extra compensation

Submitted by TokyoCrusaders92 on Monday April 02, 2007 @04:14AM

TokyoCrusaders92 writes: Sharp Corp. and a former researcher at the major electronics maker has reached a settlement at the Osaka District Court that will pay settlement money to the researcher, who had demanded patent compensation for inventing various liquid crystal display technologies, it has been learned. The former researcher had demanded 500 million yen as payment for his inventions. Both the plaintiff and defendant said they could not disclose the amount of compensation, but added they were satisfied with the court's mediation. Read on here.

Submission + - Europeans taller than Americans

Submitted by

theolein

on Monday April 02, 2007 @02:46AM

theolein writes: "The BBC has an article up on a recent study that concludes that Europeans are now on average taller than Americans from being shorter some 200 years ago. It seems that Americans have grown about 1 inch in that time, whereas Europeans are between 3 and 6 inches taller than they were 200 years ago. The study does not include Asian or Hispanic immigrants to the USA and makes no conclusions about why this is, but states that factors, such as dietry, social and economic factors may play a role in the results."

Submission + - No Foolin': Morfik Patents AJAX Compiler

Submitted by MikeyTheK on Monday April 02, 2007 @01:52AM

MikeyTheK writes: Sorry for the title, the subject can only take so many characters. No April Fools joke here. It appears that under the radar, the USPTO granted Morfik a patent for the "System and method for synthesizing object-oriented high-level code into browser-side javascript". Reading further, it appears that they have patented the compiling of high-level languages into AJAX apps. The high-level languages include "Ada, C, C++, C#, COBOL, ColdFusion, Common Lisp, Delphi, Fortran, Java, Object Pascal, SmallTalk, Visual Basic, and Visual Basic.NET".

It would appear that the application date is September, 2005.

Feed A Misfired Memo Shows Close Tabs on Reporter (nytimes.com)

From feed by nytfeed on Monday April 02, 2007 @01:13AM

A Wired magazine reporter was accidentally sent a memorandum written by the company’s public relations firm to coach Microsoft executives on how to handle his questions.

Submission + - Technique to turn all blood into type 0

Submitted by davidwr on Sunday April 01, 2007 @11:54PM

davidwr writes: Is this the end of type-O blood shortages? In an article published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, researchers figured out how to make bacterial enzymes turn type-A, -B, and -AB blood into type O blood, or "universal red blood cells." From the abstract:

The enzymatic conversion processes we describe hold promise for achieving the goal of producing universal RBCs, which would improve the blood supply while enhancing the safety of clinical transfusions.
Related story.

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