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Space

Submission + - Mars Global Surveyor died from single bad command

Submitted by
wattsup
wattsup writes: "The LA Times reports that a single wrong command sent to the wrong computer address caused a cascade of events that led to the loss of the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft last November, NASA investigators reported Friday.

A command that oriented the spacecraft's main communications antenna was sent to the wrong address. The mistake caused a problem with the positioning of the solar power panels, this in turned caused one of the batteries to overheat, shutting down the solar power system and the batteries drained in 12 hours."
Google

Submission + - Vendors fudging prices for Froogle, others

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: I recently stumbled across a case of an online vendor adjusting it's prices based on url referral; notably, SoftwareMedia.com, but I've noticed similar (though harder to trace) activity from other large vendors such as Dell and Amazon.

Take a look at this page: Exchange Software, then find it again through Froogle. Once you access the SoftwareMedia site through the Froogle link, they update (generally lower) their prices to match those found on Froogle. Accessing the exact same page after going through Froogle results in an entirely different set of prices. (In my case, Exchange 2003 Enterprise was 'discounted' by a whopping $1260)

Is SoftwareMedia trying to make Froogle Fudge? Should this sort of activity be allowed? Should users be presented with two different pages depending on referral? Shouldn't all users be presented with the same set of prices?
Communications

Submission + - Vonage CEO quits

Submitted by
bednarz
bednarz writes: "The latest in the Vonage saga is news that CEO Michael Snyder resigned and quit the company's board of directors. Chairman and chief strategist Jeffrey Citron will fill in as CEO until a replacement is found. Vonage also announced plans to cut its costs by $140 million, including $110 million in marketing expenses; freeze staff recruitment; and lay off 10% of its workforce during the second quarter. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/041207-vonag e-ceo-resigns-cost-cutting-moves.html"
The Internet

Submission + - Apple, Opera, and Mozilla Push for HTML5

Submitted by
foo fighter
foo fighter writes: "The insular World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has been slumbering the past several years: HTML was last updated in 1999, XHTML was last updated in 2002, and no one is taking their largely incompatible work on "next-generation" XHTML or "modularized" XHTML seriously. Both HTML and XHTML are in sorry need of removing deprecated items while being updated to reflect the current practices of web and browser developers yet remaining compatible with legacy Recommendations. The much more open and transparent WHATWG formed in 2004 to address this problem and has been hard at work on developing a draft spec for HTML5 to update and replace legacy versions of both HTML and XHTML. The quality of this work has reached the point that Apple, Opera, and Mozilla have requested the adoption of HTML5 as the new "W3C Recommendation" for web development."
Power

Submission + - Daylight Saving Change: No savings, No point

Submitted by Giolon
Giolon writes: Ars Technica is reporting that the plan to enter daylight savings early in order to save power has been largely a bust:

"As it turns out, the US Department of Energy (and almost everyone else except members of Congress) was correct when they predicted that there would be little energy savings. This echoed concerns voiced after a similar experiment was attempted in Australia. Critics pointed out a basic fact: the gains in the morning will be offset by the losses at night, and vice-versa, at both ends of the switch. That appears to be exactly what happened."
Software

Submission + - What is the best bug-as-a-feature?

Submitted by Bat Country
Bat Country writes: The workflow system at the department I develop for was hand-coded by my predecessor in a rather short amount of time, resulting in somewhat unreadable code with a number of interesting "features."

When I took over maintenance of the code base, I started patching bugs and cleaning up the code in preparation for a new set of features.

When I was done however, I got a pile of complaints about features which disappeared which turned out to be caused by the bugs in the code.
So that leads me to ask, what is your favorite bug that you either can't live without or makes your life easier?
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - FSF releases 3rd draft of GPLv3

Submitted by
johnsu01
johnsu01 writes: "The Free Software Foundation has announced publication of the third discussion draft of the GNU General Public License Version 3. Because quite a few changes have been made since the previous draft and important new issues have surfaced, the drafting process has been extended and revised to encourage more feedback. The most significant changes in this draft include refinements in the "tivoization" provisions to eliminate unwanted side effects, revision of the patent provisions to prevent end-runs around the license, and further steps toward compatibility with other free software licenses. The FSF has also explicitly asked the community whether the new patent provisions should apply retroactively to the Microsoft-Novell deal."
Announcements

Submission + - Mercedes new car slippery like a fish

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: Inspired by the tropical boxfish, Mercedes's new concept car the Bionic gets great fuel economy using a normal turbodiesel engine. "With a Cd [drag coefficient] of just 0.19, the four-seat Bionic is significantly more slippery than today's most aerodynamic production vehicle, Honda's two-seat Insight (Cd 0.25)." The 1.9L turbodiesel delivers up to 84mpg at 56mph and 70mpg overall. Don't look for this on the new-car lots, but other fish-shaped cars may be headed your way in the next few years.

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