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NASA

NASA Preps Closest-Ever Sun Mission 111

Posted by timothy from the ask-your-actuary-if-you'll-be-around dept.
coondoggie writes "NASA today said it had picked five experiments that will ride aboard one of its most ambitious space missions to explore the Sun. The Solar Probe, a car-sized spacecraft, is scheduled to launch no later than 2018 and will fly closer to the Sun's surface than any other probe, NASA stated. Ultimately the spacecraft's goals are to help scientists understand why the sun's outer atmosphere so much hotter than the sun's visible surface and what propels the solar wind that affects Earth and our solar system, NASA said."
Space

Kepler Spacecraft Finds System With Multiple Planets Transiting the Star 136

Posted by timothy from the they've-probably-found-us-too dept.
rhaas writes "NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered the first confirmed planetary system with more than one planet crossing in front of, or transiting, the same star. They found two planets almost the size of Saturn, and possibly a third, small, very hot planet with a radius about 1.5 times that of Earth."
Science

Follow Up On Solar Neutrinos and Radioactive Decay 183

Posted by timothy from the blaming-xenu-for-their-misperception dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A few days ago, Slashdot carried a story that was making the rounds: a team of physicists claimed to have detected a strange variation in radioactive decay rates, which they attributed to the mysterious influence of solar neutrinos. The findings attracted immediate attention because they seemed to upend two tenets of physics: that radioactive decay is constant, and that neutrinos very, very rarely interact with matter (trillions of the particles are zinging through your body right now). So Discover Magazine's news blog 80beats followed up on the initial burst of news and interviewed several physicists who work on neutrinos. They are decidedly skeptical."
Star Wars Prequels

How Star Wars Trumped Star Trek For Scientific Accuracy 495

Posted by CmdrTaco from the set-phasers-to-awesome dept.
An anonymous reader writes "When George Lucas added the 'ring around the Death Star' effect to his 1997 re-release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the revision was almost as hated as Greedo shooting first, and to boot was seen as a knock-off of the seminal 'Praxis effect' in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). But a debunking astronomer claims that the Federation got it wrong and the fan-boys should thank Lucas for adding some scientific accuracy to his fictional universe."
The Military

Air Force Uses Falcons To Protect Falcons 148

Posted by CmdrTaco from the april-already dept.
coondoggie writes "Birds and high-performance jet aircraft don't mix. So at a base in Germany, the Air Force is fighting birds with birds — specifically trained falcons that patrol the base and help eliminate at least some of the feathered threat to the F-16 Fighting Falcons and other aircraft."
Image

Drunken Employee Shoots Server Screenshot-sm 309

Posted by samzenpus from the pc-load-letter dept.
Target Practice writes "A drunken mortgage worker at RANLife Home Loans decided for unknown reasons to take out the company's $100,000 server with a .45-caliber automatic, blaming the damage on an imagined assailant who: mugged him, assaulted him with his own weapon, drugged him, and then broke into his office to shoot said server. According to acquaintances, he had threatened earlier that day to shoot the server and maybe himself."
Hardware Hacking

Grad Student Invents Cheap Laser Cutter 137

Posted by samzenpus from the frugal-cutting dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Peter Jansen, a PhD student and member of the RepRap community, has constructed a working prototype of an inexpensive table-top laser cutter built out of old CD/DVD drives as an offshoot of his efforts to design an under $200 open-source Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) 3D printer. Where traditional laser cutters use powerful, fixed-focus beams, this new technique dynamically adjusts the focal point of the laser using a reciprocating motion similar to a reciprocating saw, allowing a far less powerful and inexpensive laser diode to be used. The technique is currently limited to cutting black materials to a depth of only a few millimeters, but should still be useful and enabling for Makers and other crafters. The end-goal is to create a hybrid inexpensive 3D printer that can be easily reconfigured for 2D laser cutting, providing powerful making tools to the desktop."
Technology

Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime 222

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-needs-me-a-break dept.
siliconbits writes with an excerpt from NY Times: "Technology makes the tiniest windows of time entertaining, and potentially productive. But scientists point to an unanticipated side effect: when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas."
Games

More Devs Going Indie, To Gamers' Benefit 137

Posted by Soulskill from the granularization-of-an-industry dept.
Wired is running a feature about how a growing number of game developers are abandoning jobs at major publishers and studios and taking their experience to the indie scene instead. Quoting: "They’re veterans of the triple-A game biz with decades of experience behind them. They’ve worked for the biggest companies and had a hand in some of the industry’s biggest blockbusters. They could work on anything, but they’ve found creative fulfillment splitting off into a tiny crew and doing their own thing. They’re using everything they’ve learned working on big-budget epics and applying it to small, downloadable games. The good news for gamers is that, as the industry’s top talents depart the big studios and go into business for themselves, players are being treated to a new class of indie game. They’re smaller and carry cheaper price tags, but they’re produced by industry veterans instead of thrown together by B teams and interns. Most importantly, unlike big-budget games that need to appeal to the lowest common denominator to turn a profit, these indie gems reveal the undiluted creative vision of their makers."
Advertising

Video Adverts On the Printed Page 153

Posted by timothy from the for-those-not-following-alien-tech dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Prepare yourself. A staple of near-future sci-fi—magazine video ads—are now a thing of the present. And which high-tech magazine is leading the charge? Wired? Popular Mechanics? Nope. Successful Farming. The advertisement itself is for a pesticide that protects crops against nematodes. You can see a video of the video here."
Linux

Slackware 13.1 Released 155

Posted by kdawson from the taking-up-the-slack dept.
Several readers made sure we are aware that Slackware 13.1 release is out. Here's the list of mirrors. "Slackware 13.1 brings many updates and enhancements, among which you'll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.6.1, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy-to-use desktop environment, and KDE 4.4.3, a recent stable release of the new 4.4.x series of the award-winning KDE desktop environment."
Image

Visually Demonstrating Chrome's Rendering Speed Screenshot-sm 140

Posted by kdawson from the want-to-see-it-again dept.
eldavojohn writes "Recent betas of Google's Chrome browser are getting seriously fast. Couple that with better hardware, on average, and it's getting down to speeds that are difficult to demonstrate in a way users can appreciate. Which is why Google felt that some Rube Goldberg-ish demonstrations with slo-mo are in order. Gone are the days of boring millisecond response time metrics."

Comment Uh, HIPAA - ever heard of that? (Score 1) 555

by Josepdin (#32047312) Attached to: Recourse For Draconian Encryption Requirements?
Let's see if I get this right: you've chosen to use your own computer, at your expense, for the benefit of a company for whom you work, when the provide you with computer(s) to use without said investment. But, when they say you have to secure your machine to comply with regulations (probably HIPAA) by installing whole-disk encryption on it, you complain. Get over it. Either install the same software at your own expense (probably the PGP WDE) or let them install it. Since you back up your computer you should have no issue. The problem of slow compute after WDE is installed was true with older releases but no issues that I know of recently. Here is the problem: HIPAA requires certain things and your employer's legal staff has set standards for compliance that they are satisfied will fit into the regulations. In their mind, until you have all the t's crossed and i's dotted, you are creating a legal problem for them. Legal problems typically become employment problems, particularly for the employee. In the Federal government space, they won't let anyone, even contractors who have NO government provided computer, to plug into a Fed Government network (physical wire and Feds do not allow wi-fi). Every contractor runs around with a broadband card sticking out of their laptops. Even then, contractors, from clearances for SBU data and up (that would be practically all Federal data BTW), have to have WDE. Healthcare has similar requirements and it's just a battle to lose to try and fight it. You are not even on moral ground here, you just need to suck up and either fix the encryption problem or stop trying to use your personal equipment for work.
Image

Japanese Turning To "Therapeutic Ringtones" Screenshot-sm 75

Posted by samzenpus from the take-two-calls-and-see-me-in-the-morning dept.
indiavision writes "A host of young Japanese are drawn to the allure of 'therapeutic ringtones' — a genre of melodies that promises to ease a range of day-to-day gripes, from chronic insomnia to a rotten hangover. Developed by Matsumi Suzuki, the head of the Japan Ringing Tone Laboratory, an eight-year-old subsidiary of the Japan Acoustic Laboratory, the tones are a hit with housewives as well as teenagers."

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