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Comment Re:Hard To Aim (Score 1) 40

... that x,y info in the grid is used to encode additional information, which allows you more info not *despite* but *because* only one photon hits the detector at a time. In other words this detector only works when only one photon can reach the detector at the same time, and the beam output will have to be weakened if the spacecraft is too close perhaps. So if the photon rate is 1 photon per millisecond the bit rate can be multiples of 1000 bps due to also having an extra couple of bits per photon saying which grid cell (pixel) the photon hit.

Comment Re:Hard To Aim (Score 1) 40

Key points
- They use superconducting nanowires to make a grid. I doubt anybody not in space is doing that
- Though I didn't catch it from the pdf, the article has a quote from NIST saying that x,y information inside this grid
- This allows an n x n pixel grid sensor to be built out of only 2n nanowires. A photon heats up a nanowire intersection to register a hit, then wait for it to cool down. p.s. cooling something down isn't that easy in space.
- Presumably you would have to beam a repeating pattern (or hologram?) covering a broad area, and the pattern resolution would be adjusted as distance to target spacecraft changes over time.
   

Submission + - Boycott of Slashdot underway. Comment quality immediately improves. 1

An anonymous reader writes: With the boycott of Slashdot underway, there has been a sudden and observable decline in the number of 'Beta Sucks!' and related comments. As a result, Slashdot has seen the greatest fastest increase in comment quality since its inception.
Meanwhile, users unmoved by calls for the boycott are hoping that those engaged in the boycott will manage to forget about the existence of Slashdot over the course of a week and never return.

Submission + - DARPA seeks the Holy Grail of search engines (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: The scientists at DARPA say the current methods of searching the Internet for all manner of information just won't cut it in the future. Today the agency announced a program that would aim to totally revamp Internet search and "revolutionize the discovery, organization and presentation of search results."Specifically, the goal of DARPA's Memex program is to develop software that will enable domain-specific indexing of public web content and domain-specific search capabilities. According to the agency the technologies developed in the program will also provide the mechanisms for content discovery, information extraction, information retrieval, user collaboration, and other areas needed to address distributed aggregation, analysis, and presentation of web content.

Submission + - Comparing Cloud-Based Image Services for Developers (slashdot.org)

Nerval's Lobster writes: As Web applications grow in number and capability, storing large amounts of images can quickly become a problem. If you’re a Web developer and need to store your client images, do you just keep them on the same server hosting your Website? What if you have several gigabytes worth of images that need to be processed in some way? Today, many developers are looking for an easy but cost-effective solution whereby images can be stored in the cloud and even processed automatically, thus taking a huge load off one’s own servers, freeing up resources to focus on building applications. With that in mind, developer and editor Jeff Cogswell looks at a couple different cloud-based services for image storage and processing. At first glance, these services seem similar—but they’re actually very different. He examines Cloudinary and Blitline, and encourages developers to take a look at ImageResizer, an open-source package that does a lot of what proprietary services do (you just need to install the software on your own servers). "If you’re not a programmer but a web designer or blogger, Blitline won’t be of much use for you,"he writes. "If you are a developer, both Cloudinary and Blitline work well." What do you think?

Comment Re:bad engineering? (Score 1) 526

It might happen though not as likely. I saw a tv news show a couple weeks ago showing phone chargers being sold on the street in China that were filled with packets of sand. The more expensive ones had a little less sand. The Chinese shopkeeper (if you call squatting on a bridge a shop) had no qualms. "Your phone charged some amount so you should be happy." Dell apparently shares some heredity with these shop owners on the bridge.

Submission + - MIT Scientists Report Cold Fusion Success with "NANOR" Device (e-catworld.com) 2

Paul Fernhout writes: E-Cat World reports: "[A video] has been posted on Youtube by someone called ‘AlienScientist’ who attended (and filmed) the recent MIT Cold Fusion seminar and reports about what he has learned. He does a very nice job of summarizing the key points from the seminar, pointing out that Peter Hagelstein and Mitchell Swartz mention such things as how the cold fusion reactions can be enhanced by subjecting the cold fusion cell to an external magnetic heat and shining a laser on the cathodes. He also mentions that they say cracking in the metal and rapid gas loading can cause the deuterium to leak out, thus negatively affecting the amount of excess heat produced. The video also includes pointed criticism of the way the scientific community dealt with Pons and Fleischmann 25 years ago, and laments the lost opportunities that could have been realized if more care had been taken in trying to replicate the effect back then. The takeaway quote from the video (I think) is: “This is quite possibly the beginning of the largest technological breakthrough that our generation will witness.” "

Submission + - Who ate the Pear? 1

PuceBaboon writes: Speculation is rife in the Linux community concerning the fate of Pear OS, the popular OS X lookalike distribution. The distribution disappeared a couple of weeks back, with a message implying that the project had been bought "by a very large company" appearing briefly on the web site (which is no longer available... archived courtesy of the WayBackMachine).
LinuxInsider is carrying an article with a nice round-up of the various theories and opinions as to its fate.

Comment Data surface not application surface (Score 1) 195

A buffer overflow should not provide the keys to the city.
We need security orthogonal to the executing application surface.
Here's an idea, don't know if it will catch on but how about
encrypting the data in it, whitelisting the users / apps that can use it, thereby
reducing the
surface vulnerable to attack. It would require a sophisticated public key
infrastructure integrated
with all processes. Data objects could organize their fields into multiple segments that can be origressively unlocked.

Submission + - The Individual Midnight Thread 40

unitron writes: Trying to figure out time zones is starting to make my brain hurt, but apparently in a bit over 6 hours somewhere on the other side of globe from Greenwich the Week of Slashcott will begin, as Midnight arrives for anyone in that zone, and then it travels west, where I will encounter it in about 23 hours.

So if we can get this thread out of the Firehose, I was thinking that, as the 10th arrives for us in our respective locations, we could leave here what may be our final farewells to Slashdot.

Until Midnight, this is our meeting place, our City Hall, our town square.

(and yes, our playground)

After that I'm not sure where we can congregate to discuss how the Slashcott's going and whether it's time to move on.

I'm going to jump the gun and lay claim to "So long and thanks for all the Karma", and perhaps someone could do a Bob Hope and re-write the lyrics to "Thanks for the Memories".

In the meantime, a bit of housekeeping.

An AC beat me to the week-long boycott idea by a couple of hours, and suggested the date range of the 10th through the 17th.

As part of a group of people familiar with the concept of beginning a count with 0 instead of 1, I really should have spotted the mistake of putting 8 days into that particular week.

So, should Slashcott Week end as the 17th begins, or do we give Dice a bonus day?

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