Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Power

Submission + - Wind-powered data center for Google 3

Submitted by TT
TT writes: Google is considering building a wind-powered data center in Greensburg, Kan. In addition to the huge solar-panel project it's building in Mountain View, this 20-megawatt data center in Greensburg would go a long way toward helping Google get carbon neutral, as is its goal. The company, like the entire universe today, is on the green kick. It announced last month that it wants to make renewable energy cheaper than coal.
Security

Submission + - Domains May Disappear After Search 1

Submitted by
Ponca City, We Love You
Ponca City, We Love You writes: "A perfect domain name pops into your mind, a quick check at your registrar reveals that the domain is available, you put off the registration a few minutes and when you come back to register the domain, it's taken by someone else. How much time has elapsed between the search and the attempted registration — in one case, less than 90 seconds. Daily Domainer has an interesting story alleging that there may be a leak that allows domain tasters to intercept, analyze and register your domain ideas in minutes. "Every time you do a whois search with any service, you run a risk of losing your domain," says one industry insider. ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC ) has not been able to find hard evidence of Domain Name Front Running but they have issued an advisory (pdf) for people to come forward with hard evidence it is happening. Here is how domain name research theft crimes can occur and some tips to avoiding being a victim."
Media

Submission + - Annals of Improbable Research goes free online (news.com)

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Annals of Improbable Research, scientific publication that hosts annual Ig Noble awards, has decided to offer its issue free online, News.com reports. According to the journal Web site, for free visitors can view HTML articles with low-res images or download low-res PDFs. High-resolution PDFs and "traditional on-the-toilet-readable paper-and-ink" issues are still available for a subscription fee."
Space

Submission + - First reflected light from an exoplanet

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "European astronomers have for the first time ever been able to detect and monitor the visible light that is scattered in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, HD 189733b, which is also known as a 'hot Jupiter,' and orbits a star slightly cooler and less massive than the Sun located about 60 light-years from Earth. According to this ETH Zurich news release, 'Polarization technique focuses limelight,' the researchers used 'techniques similar to how Polaroid sunglasses filter away reflected sunlight to reduce glare. They also directly traced the orbit of the planet, a feat of visualization not possible using indirect methods.' The team thinks that their findings are opening new opportunities for exploring physical conditions on exoplanets. But read more for additional references and a great picture of this exoplanet."
Government

Submission + - 2008 DOE science funding bill wrought with cuts

Submitted by
DoubleBeta
DoubleBeta writes: "With the release of the FY 2008 omnibus energy funding bill, basic U.S. science is taking a huge hit. The office of science overall received $503.7M less than the administration requested. The U.S. contribution to ITER has been zeroed. High energy physics took a hit of $63.5M, killing both the NOvA project and U.S. R&D efforts on the International Linear Collider (ILC) project. The budget put forth for ILC merely covers what has already been spent for FY 2008. In response, layoffs at major national labs such as SLAC and Fermilab are inevitable. In response, senators Durbin, Obama, and representative Biggert are calling on the administration for a response. The APS has a response, and the AIP has a good analysis of the numbers."
NASA

Submission + - NASA awards government tech invention of the year (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Sounds like something straight out of a Terminator movie: A device that can act like muscle and nerves to expand and contract surfaces is the NASA Government Invention of the Year. The Macro-Fiber Composite, or MFC, is made up of ceramic fibers and can be attached to a structure to bend it, reduce vibrations and monitor force. By applying voltage to the MFC, the ceramic fibers change shape to expand or contract and turn the resulting force into a bending or twisting action on the material. MFC technology could also find its way into inflatable space structures can be used for antennas, communication satellites, space station trusses, and solar sail support structures, NASA said."
The Courts

Submission + - FBI Forensic Evidence Discredited

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Washington Post reports that the FBI has abandoned comparative bullet-lead analysis, the technique using chemistry to link crime-scene bullets to ones possessed by suspects on the theory that each batch of lead had a unique elemental makeup, after the National Academy of Sciences said that decades of FBI statements to jurors linking a particular bullet to those found in a suspect's gun or cartridge box were so overstated that such testimony should be considered "misleading under federal rules of evidence." The report added that it found that bullets packaged 15 months apart — a span that assumed separate batches of lead — had the exact composition, potentially undercutting the theory that each batch was unique and that it found that bullets in a single box often had several different lead compositions. NAS says that the flaw is in using a statistical method called chaining (pdf) in which the analyst sequentially compares crime scene bullets to a set of reference bullets assembling them into groups of compositionally indistinguishable bullets which can lead to the formation of artificially large sets of matching bullets. The government has fought releasing the list of the estimated 2,500 cases over three decades in which the FBI performed the flawed analysis."
Toys

Submission + - 300-MPG Jetsons Car for $30K by End of '08 (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: You may have heard some of the hype last month when California-based Aptera let out first word of its allegedly super fuel-efficient (and cheap) Typ-1 electric vehicle. Well this video test drive and gee-whiz specs breakdown proves that this thing is for real: 120 miles on a single lithium-phosphate pack charge for 2008, with a 300-mpg model to follow by 2009. Aptera is also mentioned in Wired's new cover story as one of several early front-runners for the Automotive X Prize.
Operating Systems

Submission + - Vulnerability Numerology: Defective by Design?

Submitted by rdmreader
rdmreader writes: RDM has a point by point disassembly of why the security vulnerability story George Ou of ZDnet regularly rehashes is wrong. Ou condemns Linux and Mac OS X by tallying up reported flaws and comparing them against Microsoft's. What he doesn't note is that his source, Secunia, only lists what vendors and researchers report, selectively includes or excludes component software seemingly at random, and backhandedly claimed its data is evidence of what it now tells journalists they shouldn't report. Is Secunia presenting slanted information with the expectation it will be misused, or is it just bad journalism at ZDnet?
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Deckard is a Replicant

Submitted by
MufasaZX
MufasaZX writes: "While endless debate over weather Rick Deckard in Blade Runner is himself a replicant may be entertaining, on today's Fresh Air on NPR a new interview with Ridley Scott was aired, and the second question out of Terry Gross's mouth was 'is Deckard a replicant?' which RS replied with an absolute affirmative. There, done, end of debate. The audio stream of the interview is already online here."
The Courts

Submission + - No Right to Privacy When Your Computer Is Repaired (zdnet.com) 3

Submitted by
Billosaur
Billosaur writes: "ZDNet's Police Blotter bring us the interesting story of a Pennsylvania man who brought his computer into Circuit City to have a DVD burner installed on his computer and wound up being arrested for having child pornography on his hard drive. Circuit City employees discovered the child pornography while perusing Kenneth Sodomsky's hard drive for files to test the burner, then proceeded to call the police, who arrested Sodomsky and confiscated the computer. Sodomsky's lawyer argued in court that the Circuit City techs had no right to go rifling through the hard drive, and the trial court agreed, but prosecutors appealed and the appeals court overturned the lower court's decision, based on the fact that Sodomsky had consented to the installation of the DVD drive and the techs "weren't randomly perusing the drive for contraband, but instead were testing its functioning in a 'commercially accepted manner.'""
The Military

Submission + - Tiny morphing spy planes steal electricity 1

Submitted by tkohler
tkohler writes: The Air Force Research Lab is developing an Electric Motor-powered Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) that can "harvest" energy when needed by attaching itself to a power line. Not only is it stealing power from the people it is spying upon, it can morph shape, temporarily changing its shape to look more like innocuous piece of trash hanging from the cable. For domestic spying, maybe it will morph in to a pair of sneakers?
Math

Submission + - Mathematicians solve the mystery of traffic jams (physorg.com)

Submitted by mlimber
mlimber writes: Do you ever find yourself in a traffic jam, thinking, "Man, there must be a bad accident up ahead," but as you plod along, you see no evidence of any crash? Some mathematicians have solved the mystery by developing a mathematical model that shows how one driver hitting the brakes a little too hard can cascade into a backup miles behind. The mathematicians' future research will investigate how automatic braking systems may alleviate the problem.
Television

Submission + - Tiger Team: Penetration Testing TV Series Dec 25 (courttv.com)

Submitted by ChazeFroy
ChazeFroy writes: CourtTV (TruTV) has a new series starting Dec 25 at 11 pm called Tiger Team. It follows a group of elite penetration testers hired to test organizations' security using social engineering, wired/wireless penetration testing, and physically defeating security mechanisms (lock picking, dumpster diving, going through air vents/windows). They do all of this while avoiding the organizations' various security defenses as well as law enforcement. The stars of the show also did a radio spot this morning in Denver, and its MP3 is here.

Slashdot Top Deals

We are experiencing system trouble -- do not adjust your terminal.

Close