Billy the Mountain - Slashdot User

Submission + - Private pain: Dell layoff bloodbath to hit over 15,000 staffers (channelregister.co.uk)

Submitted by schwit1 on Monday February 03, 2014 @02:26PM

schwit1 writes: Curious why Michael Dell was so eager to take the company he founded private? So he could do stuff like this without attracting too much attention. According to the Channel Register, the recently LBOed company is "starting the expected huge layoff program this week, claiming numbers will be north of 15,000." Of course, with a private sponsor in charge of the recently public company, the only thing that matters now is maximizing cash flows in an environment of falling PC sales, a commoditisation of the server market and a perceived need to better serve enterprises with their ever-increasing mobile and cloud-focused IT requirements — things that do not bode well for Dell's EBITDA — and the result is perhaps the largest axing round in the company's history. But at least the shareholders cashed out while they could.

Submission + - First Evidence That Google's Quantum Computer May Not Be Quantum After All (medium.com)

Submitted by KentuckyFC on Monday February 03, 2014 @08:51AM

KentuckyFC writes: In May last year, Google and NASA paid a reported $15 million for a quantum computer from the controversial Canadian start up D-Wave Systems. One question mark over the device is whether it really is quantum or just a conventional computer in disguise. That's harder to answer than it sounds, not least because any direct measurement of a quantum state destroys it. So physicists have to take an indirect approach. They assume the computer is a black box in which they can input data and receive an output. Given this input and output, the question is whether this computing behaviour can be best reproduced by a classical or a quantum algorithm. Last summer, an international team of scientists compared a number of classical algorithms against an algorithm that relies on a process called quantum annealing. Their conclusion was that quantum annealing best reproduces the D-Wave computer's behaviour, a result that was a huge boon for the company. Now a group from UC Berkeley and IBM's Watson Research Lab says it has a found a classical algorithm that explains the results just as well, or even better, than quantum annealing. In other words, the results from the D-Wave machine could just as easily be explained if it was entirely classical. That comes on the back of mounting evidence that the D-Wave computer may not cut the quantum mustard in other ways too. Could it be that Google and NASA have forked out millions for a classical calculator? Just possibly, yes.

Comment Thanks Dr. Obvious (Score 1) 114

by Billy the Mountain on Friday January 31, 2014 @11:39PM (#46126011) Attached to: Engineers Invent Acoustic Equivalent of One-Way Glass

Of course you can eliminate all sounds, duh. You just have to make sure the fans are blowing supersonic air. Sound can't travel upstream supersonically.

Submission + - Magnetic monopole created (phys.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30, 2014 @02:12AM

An anonymous reader writes: Nearly 85 years after pioneering theoretical physicist Paul Dirac predicted the possibility of their existence, an international collaboration led by Amherst College Physics Professor David S. Hall '91 and Aalto University (Finland) Academy Research Fellow Mikko Möttönen has created, identified and photographed synthetic magnetic monopoles in Hall's laboratory on the Amherst campus. The groundbreaking accomplishment paves the way for the detection of the particles in nature, which would be a revolutionary development comparable to the discovery of the electron.

Submission + - Are Small Nuclear Reactors the Answer? (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by Lasrick on Wednesday January 29, 2014 @07:29PM

Lasrick writes: Kennette Benedict explores the notion that small nuclear reactors are the answer to what's plaguing the nuclear industry: concerns over the high cost of construction, the risk of accidents, and the potential for the proliferation of weapon-making material.

Submission + - Madoff IT Guys Wrote Code to Trick Auditors, Jury Told (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by CapeDoryBob on Wednesday January 29, 2014 @05:46PM

CapeDoryBob writes: Are programmers now the accessories to every financial fraud? In the Madoff case, it looks like the answer is yes.

Shouldn't these programmers be prosecuted?

Submission + - Europe might change it's Global Warming Policy

Submitted by turkeydance on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @02:44PM

turkeydance writes: quote:"The EU's reputation as a model of environmental responsibility may soon be history. The European Commission wants to forgo ambitious climate protection goals and pave the way for fracking — jeopardizing Germany's touted energy revolution in the process."
Would You Like To Know More (thanks, StarShip Troopers)? http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

Submission + - Not a good day for unmanned aircraft: US Customs grounds fleet (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @02:23PM

coondoggie writes: The U.S. Customs and Border Protection service said today it had grounded its nine remaining unmanned aircraft after one of them was forced to ditch in the Pacific Ocean. The unmanned aircraft had an unknown mechanical failure while on patrol off the southern California coast. The crew determined that it wouldn't make it back to Sierra Vista, Arizona, "and put the aircraft down in the water,"

Submission + - Megatons to Megawatts Program Comes to a Close

Submitted by necro81 on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @02:08PM

necro81 writes: In the aftermath of the Cold War, the disintegrating Soviet Union had tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and tons of weapons-grade fissile material. In the economic and political turmoil, many feared that it would fall into unfriendly hands. However, thanks to the doggedness of an MIT professor, Dr. Thomas Neff, 500 metric tons of weapons grade material made its way into nuclear reactors in the United States through the Megatons to Megawatts program. During the program, about 10% of all electricity generated in the U.S came weapons once aimed at the country. Now, after nearly 20 years, the program is coming to an end as the final shipment of Soviet-era uranium, now nuclear fuel, arrived in Baltimore.

Submission + - How to stop the next Snowden

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @01:57PM

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from Websense Labs have posted a write-up with example source code and queries that show organizations how they can leverage application telemetry reports to detect USB-based data theft attacks such as the recent Korean Credit Bureau breach, who had over 105.8 Million customers social security numbers, credit cards and billing info stolen by an IT consultant who used a USB drive to siphon off data over an 11-month period. Other examples included the LA Times reporting that Edward Snowden used a USB drive to steal classified documents from the NSA. Best part? You can implement this detection on your network for free.

Submission + - Device Mines Precious Phosphorus From Sewage (acs.org)

Submitted by ckwu on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @01:16PM

ckwu writes: Scientists predict that the scarcity of phosphorus will increase over the next few decades as the growing demand for agricultural fertilizer depletes geologic reserves of the element. Meanwhile, phosphates released from wastewater into natural waterways can cause harmful algal blooms and low-oxygen conditions that can threaten to kill fish. Now a team of researchers has designed a system that could help solve both of these problems. It captures phosphorus from sewage waste and delivers clean water using a combined osmosis-distillation process. The system improves upon current methods by reducing the amounts of chemicals needed to precipitate a phosphorus mineral from the wastewater, thus bringing down the cost of the recovery process.

Submission + - Anti-Polygraph Instructor Targeted by Feds Goes Public 1

Submitted by George Maschke on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @12:27PM

George Maschke writes: Last year, the McClatchy newspaper group reported on a federal criminal investigation into individuals offering instruction on how to pass polygraph tests. The ongoing investigation, dubbed "Operation Lie Busters," has serious free speech implications, and one of the two men known to have been targeted is presently serving an 8-month prison term. The other, Doug Williams, himself a former police polygrapher, has this week for the first time gone public with the story of federal agents' February 2013 raid on his office and home. Williams, who has not been charged with a crime but remains in legal jeopardy, is selling his story in an e-book. Public interest website AntiPolygraph.org (which I co-founded) has published a synopsis.

Submission + - General Atomic's awesome electromagnetic railgun programme

Submitted by stephendavion on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @01:24AM

stephendavion writes: Imagine a weapon that can deliver muzzle velocities twice that of conventional guns, this means shorter time to target and higher lethality at greater range, all with no propellant, uses the enormous speed to destroy the target by causing as much damage as a Tomahawk missile. Meet the General Atomic's Blitzer Railgun programme.

Submission + - Bitcoin is 'Massively Overhyped Noise': Gartner (eweek.com)

Submitted by darthcamaro on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @12:35AM

darthcamaro writes: Research firm Gartner has literally made a business out of determining the hype cycle of technology trends. As it stands, a leading Gartner analyst has pegged Bitcoin as being at the pinnacle of hype.
"Bitcoin is a massively overhyped piece of noise in the marketplace in and of itself, " David Furlonger, vice president and Fellow at research firm Gartner said.
That said, Gartner is recommending that retailers pay attention to Bitcoin, because if a consumer want to use Bitcoin for payment and can't, they'll just go somewhere else, and the retailer will lose the business.

Submission + - Keyless Remote Jamming 1

Submitted by Chicago Bill on Sunday January 26, 2014 @05:28PM

Chicago Bill writes: Some time ago I was having a problem with my keyless transmitter at a particular location. I just had it installed a week prior. I locked my vehicle with my manual key and went into a local music store. I contacted a friend and told him that there would be a slight delay in meeting him because I needed to stop by the place where I had the wireless lock/alarm installed because it wasn't working. Low and behold, the store manager overheard my conversation and told me that everyone has the same problem when they are parked in the vicinity of the music store. After leaving the store, I stopped at another location and my wireless controller began to work. Later that week I went back to the music store with my portable scanner and checked the operational frequency of my unit at 434 mhz. There I found a very strong signal. The manager allowed me to check inside the store, and as he was turning off breakers, the signal stopped. It was discovered that a remote wireless light controller module in the store was sending out the signal. I was told that the particular unit that was causing the problem was discontinued. The manager gave me a brochure on this particular unit and I discovered otherwise. Most vehicle key controllers operate ate 434 and 315 mhz. The case in Hollywood, Florida a few years ago was caused by a pirate radio station nearby operating at 104.7mhz. The 3rd harmonic of 104.7 is 314.1 mhz, and if close enough, would have been received on a cheap scanner.

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