Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Space

Submission + - Scientists discover nearby 'diamond planet' (extremetech.com) 1

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Scientists at Yale University have discovered a nearby super-Earth that is a “diamond planet” — a planet that has a mantle made of graphite and diamond. The planet, called 55 Cancri e, is just 40 light years from Earth and orbits the binary star 55 Cancri, which is located in the constellation of Cancer. When the planet was first observed last year, it was originally thought to be a water planet, similar to Earth, but new information has allowed the scientists to infer that the planet is much more likely to be a diamond planet. The Yale scientists estimate that as much as one third of 55 Cancri e’s mass is made up of diamond — the same as three Earth masses, or roughly 18×1024kg. This is a few trillion times more diamond than has ever been mined on Earth. The identification of just a single diamond-rich planet is massive news. In recent years we have identified hundreds of rocky, Earth-like planets — and until now, we had assumed they had similar make-ups. It is now fairly safe to assume that there are millions of diamond planets in the universe."
NASA

Submission + - Curiosity discovers unidentified, metallic object on Mars (extremetech.com) 1

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "A few hundred million miles away on the surface of the Red Planet, Mars rover Curiosity has discovered an unidentified, shiny, metallic object. Now, before you get too excited, the most likely explanation is that bright object is part of the rover that has fallen off — or perhaps some debris from MSL Curiosity’s landing on Mars, nine weeks ago. There is the distinct possibility, however, that this object is actually native to Mars, which would be far more exciting. It could be the tip of a larger object, or perhaps some kind of exotic, metallic Martian pebble (a piece of metal ore, perhaps). Close-up imagery will now be captured and analyzed, and within the next few days we should know if it's simply a piece of Curiosity — or something a whole lot more exciting indeed."
The Military

Submission + - US Air Force's 1950s supersonic flying saucer declassified (extremetech.com) 2

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Tighten the strap on your tinfoil hat: Recently declassified documents show that the US Air Force was working on, and perhaps had already built, a supersonic flying saucer in 1956. The aircraft, which had the code name Project 1794, was developed by the USAF and Avro Canada in the 1950s. One declassified memo, which seems to be the conclusion of initial research and prototyping, says that Project 1794 is a flying saucer capable of “between Mach 3 and Mach 4,” (2,300-3,000 mph) a service ceiling of over 100,000 feet (30,500m), and a range of around 1,000 nautical miles (1,150mi, 1850km). According to declassified cutaway diagrams, the supersonic flying saucer would propel itself by rotating an outer disk at very high speed, taking advantage of the Coand effect. Maneuvering would be accomplished by using small shutters on the edge of the disc (similar to ailerons on a winged aircraft). Power would be provided by jet turbines. According to the cutaway diagrams, the entire thing would even be capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL). The fact that there are no disc-shaped aircraft in the skies today, though, suggests that the USAF's flying saucer efforts probably never got past the prototype stage."
Iphone

Submission + - Apple responds to iPhone 5 scuffs: Scratches and chips are "normal" (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "In an interesting twist to Scuffgate, Apple’s marketing boss Phil Schiller has admitted that the iPhone 5s susceptibility to scuffing is “normal.” Furthermore, it would seem that Apple is fully aware that the iPhone 5 is easy to scuff — and yet it knowingly proceeded to manufacture (and sell) record breaking numbers of the new device. Phil Schiller’s comments come from an email response to a customer, who had contacted the vice president to ask about some “scuffs, scratches and marks” on the chamfered edge that surrounds the phone. Schiller’s reply, in full: "Any aluminum product may scratch or chip with use, exposing its natural silver color. That is normal."

The problem with this, though, is that properly anodized aluminium doesn't scratch or chip with use — just as the military, who make extensive use of anodized aluminium. Let's not forget that Apple itself anodized most of its smaller iPods, but they didn't scuff as easily as the iPhone 5.

For the first official response from Apple, regarding the scuffing — and the fact that devices are even scuffed straight out of the box — Schiller sounds almost condescending or nonchalant."
Iphone

Submission + - iPhone 5 A6 SoC reverse engineered, reveals rare hand-made custom CPU (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Reverse engineering company Chipworks has completed its initial microscopic analysis of Apple's new A6 SoC (found in the iPhone 5), and there are some rather interesting findings. First, there's a tri-core GPU — and then there's a custom, hand-made dual-core ARM CPU. Hand-made chips are very rare nowadays, with Chipworks reporting that it hasn't seen a non-Intel hand-made chip for "years." The advantage of hand-drawn chips is that they can be more efficient and capable of higher clock speeds — but they take a lot longer (and cost a lot more) to design. Perhaps this is finally the answer to what PA Semi's engineers have been doing at Apple since the company was acquired back in 2008..."
Iphone

Submission + - Scuffgate: Will Apple have to recall the iPhone 5? (extremetech.com) 1

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "After a very successful weekend for Apple, selling some five million iPhone 5s, it seems a scandal is brewing: Numerous user and reviewer reports are saying that the iPhone 5's back and sides are very easy to scuff — and more worryingly, that many phones are already damaged before they're taken out of the box. It seems the issue is being caused by the anodized coating on the iPhone 5, which is very easy to rub off. Considering Apple's history with anodized products (almost all of the smaller iPods are anodized), though, it seems very odd that it would ship a flagship device that seems to have such a basic design fault."
Power

Submission + - Apple patents universal iBattery charging system, forgets all about USB (extremetech.com) 1

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "If a recent US patent is anything to go by, Apple may be working on an iBattery — a universal charging system for mobile devices and peripherals; a system that can recharge everything from wireless keyboards to smartphones to Kindles. Apple’s patent, titled “Battery charging system for mobile and accessory device,” outlines a simple setup: You have a host machine (a PC), an iBattery, and a variety of devices that can accept power from the iBattery. You would charge the iBattery inside the host system (which in this case looks to be an iMac with battery slots down the side), and then you plug the iBattery into your keyboard, mouse, or smartphone when they need recharging. In essence, the iBattery would be just like one of those “emergency” smartphone chargers with a couple of AA batteries inside — but aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves, though? Don’t we already have a universal charging standard in the form of USB?"
The Military

Submission + - DARPA combines human brains and 120-megapixel cameras (extremetech.com) 1

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "After more than four years of research, DARPA has created a system that successfully combines soldiers, EEG brainwave scanners, 120-megapixel cameras, and multiple computers running cognitive visual processing algorithms into a cybernetic hivemind. Called the Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System (CT2WS), it will be used in a combat setting to significantly improve the US Army’s threat detection capabilities. There are two discrete parts to the system: The 120-megapixel camera, which is tripod-mounted and looks over the battlefield; and the computer system, where a soldier sits in front of a computer monitor with an EEG strapped to his head, looking at images captured by the camera, wedding out false threats. In testing, the 120-megapixel camera, combined with the computer vision algorithms, generated 810 false alarms per hour; with a human operator strapped into the EEG, that drops down to just five false alarms per hour. The human brain is surprisingly fast, too: According to DARPA, CT2WS displays 10 images per second to the human operator — and yet that doesn’t seem to affect accuracy. Moving forward, DARPA's ultimate goal is to create binoculars or head-up displays (HUD) with threat detection technology built in. It’s very tiring for a soldier to be constantly on the lookout for threats — but such a system could monitor the surroundings, and then flash up images of potential threats for the soldier to act upon, significantly lowering his workload. With a large enough sensor and the right lenses, such a system could allow the soldier to see for miles in every direction."
Software

Submission + - Leaked Windows 8 tablet pricing suggests Microsoft may have already lost the war (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "If, like me, you thought Microsoft would price Windows RT competitively, you were wrong: A leaked slide from Asus says that its Vivo Tab RT, due to be released alongside Windows RT at the end of October, will start at $600. Unbelievably, this is $100 more than the iPad 3, and a full $200 more than the iPad 2 or Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. For $600, you would expect some sensational hardware specs — but alas, that’s sadly not the case. The Vivo Tab RT has a low-res 10.1-inch 1366×768 IPS display, quad-core Tegra 3 SoC, 2GB of RAM, NFC, 8-megapixel camera and that’s about it. Like its Androidesque cousin, the Transformer, the Vivo Tab RT can be plugged into a keyboard/battery dock — but it’ll cost you another $200 for the pleasure. (Curiously, the Transformer’s docking station only costs $150 — go figure.) What could possibly be the reason for the Vivo Tab’s extortionate price tag? The Windows Tax, of course! Microsoft better have something other than a $100 Windows Tax up its sleeve if it wants to compete with the iPad and Android tablets..."
Android

Submission + - Motorola unveils its first Intel smartphone, but USA isn't invited to the party (extremetech.com) 1

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "At a joint press conference in London, Motorola and Intel have unveiled the Razr I smartphone. The Razr I has a edge-to-edge 960×540 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display, a layer of Kevlar on the back, and — most importantly — the brains of the operation is an Intel Medfield SoC clocked at 2GHz. Rounding out the hardware specs, there’s an 8-megapixel rear shooter, a front-facing VGA camera, NFC, a 2000 mAh battery, and the entire phone (including the internal components) is protected by a “splash-guard” water repellent coating. On the software side of things, rather excitingly, it looks like the Razr I runs an almost-vanilla version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. One of the weirder aspects of today’s product announcement is that the Razr I won’t be made available in North America; it’ll only ever see the light of day in Europe and some parts of Latin America (Mexico, Brazil) sometime in October. In fact, to date, four Medfield-powered Android smartphones have been released — the Xolo X900, Lenovo K800, Orange San Diego, and now the Razr I — but not a single one of them is available in the US. Why? The most likely reason is that Intel isn’t quite ready to face off against the latest and greatest SoCs in the most hotly contested smartphone battleground."
Network

Submission + - First air-to-ground quantum network created, transmits quantum crypto keys (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "A team of quantum engineers in Germany have created the first air-to-surface quantum network, between a base station and an airplane flying 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) above. The researchers, led by Sebastian Nauerth of the Ludwig Maximilian University, performed the experiment at an airport near Munich using a specially-equipped plane. The airplane is outfitted with a a photon source (a laser), and a system that can alter the spin (polarization) of the photons very exactly to encode data using the BB84 quantum key distribution protocol. Once the plane is aloft, the base station (a telescope) tracks the plane using a motorized mirror, which is quite difficult as the plane is moving at 300 kmh (200 mph) and is 20 kilometers up in the air. The telescope picks up the transmitted photons, bounces them through a few more mirrors, and then uses a very sensitive photodetector to turn them into qubits. All told, the plane/base station were able to maintain a stable link for 10 minutes, transmitting 145 qubits per second, with a quantum bit error rate (QBER) of 4.8%. This might seem like a small amount of data, but it’s more than enough to securely transmit an encryption key that can then be used to encrypt normal data that’s sent over standard, classical networks."
Network

Submission + - Check your phone bill: You're probably being overcharged for data (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "A recent study conducted by UCLA professor Chunyi Peng shows that carriers generally count data usage correctly, but those customers who commonly use their device in areas with weak signal strength or to stream audio or video are often overcharged. Peng and three other researchers used data gleaned from an app installed on Android smartphones on two different carriers. The issue appears to be in how the system is set up to count data usage. Under the current scenario, data is charged as it is sent from the carrier’s network to the end user. What does not exist is a system to confirm whether the packets are received, and thus preventing charges for unreceived data. Peng demonstrated this in two extreme circumstances. In one case, 450 megabytes of data was charged to an account where not a single bit of it had been received. On the flipside, Peng’s group was able to construct an app which disguised data transfers as DNS requests, which are not counted by the carriers as data usage. Here they were able to transfer 200 megabytes of data without being charged. Overall, the average overcharge is about 5-7% for most users. While that does not seem like much, with unlimited plans gone and data caps in style that could pose potential problems for some heavy data users. Could you be going over your data allotment based on data you never received? It’s quite possible."
AMD

Submission + - Intel's Haswell is an unprecedented threat to Nvidia, AMD (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Fully unveiled at the Intel Developer Forum over the last few days, Intel’s next-generation architecture, codenamed Haswell, isn’t just another “tock” in Intel’s tick/tock cadence; it’s a serious threat to both AMD and Nvidia. For the first time, Intel is poised to challenge both companies in the mainstream graphics market while simultaneously eroding Nvidia’s edge in the GPGPU business. For a start, the Haswell CPU core will be 10-15% faster than Ivy Bridge, but thanks to the addition of AVX2, Haswell's floating point performance will be monstrous: a quad-core part should be capable of 256 (double-precision) gigaflops, which should be enough to outpace Nvidia's GTX 680. On the GPU side of things, Haswell will massively increase the number of processing cores, offering "up to 2x" the performance of Ivy Bridge's HD 4000. Even a conservative take on that promise spells trouble for AMD and Nvidia. According to benchmarks, Trinity’s GPU is an average of 18% faster than Llano’s across a range of 15 popular titles. Compared to Sandy Bridge, Trinity was almost 80% faster. Against Ivy Bridge, it’s just 20% faster. Given what we know of Haswell’s GPU shader counts and performance targets, it shouldn’t be hard for Intel to deliver a 30-50% performance boost in real-world games. If it does, Trinity goes from the fastest integrated GPU on the market to an also-ran, and AMD loses the superior graphics hole card it’s been playing since it launched the AMD 780G chipset four years ago. It isn't looking good for either AMD or Nvidia."

Slashdot Top Deals

What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the entrance?

Close