jcaldwel - Slashdot User

Submission + - Molten Salt based Solar Power Plant (wsj.com)

Submitted by

rcastro0

on Wednesday January 02, 2008 @12:46PM

rcastro0 writes: "Hamilton Sundstrand, a division of United Technologies, announces today that it will start to commercialize a new type of solar power plant, says this WSJ article. A new company called SolarReserve will be created to "provide heat-resistant pumps and other equipment, as well as the expertise in handling and storing salt that has been heated to more than 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit." According to venture capitalist Vinod Khosla "Three percent of the land area of Morocco could support all of the electricity for Western Europe." Molten Salt storage is already used in Nevada's Solar One power plant. Is this be the post-hidrocarbon world finally knocking?"

Submission + - Solar cheaper than coal and falling

Submitted by jcaldwel on Thursday December 27, 2007 @03:12PM

jcaldwel writes: Nanosolar ships its first panels, new developments in solar power make 'clean coal' look even dumber

Submission + - Chimps beat humans in memory test.

Submitted by jcaldwel on Wednesday December 19, 2007 @02:38AM

jcaldwel writes: From TFA: "Chimpanzees have an extraordinary photographic memory that is far superior to ours, research suggests."

Submission + - Linux kernel worth $1 billion USD by April, 2009 (informationweek.com)

Submitted by

christian.einfeldt

on Tuesday November 13, 2007 @03:20PM

christian.einfeldt writes: "Charles Babcock, writing in Information Week's Open Source Weblog, quotes Linux security pro David A. Wheeler as saying that, if the Linux kernel project continues to grow at its current rate, it will contain 6.6 million lines of code within the first 100 days (mid April) of 2009. Babcock quotes Wheeler as estimating that, at current fair market value for Linux kernel developers' time, when the kernel hits 6.6 million lines of code, it would have cost $1 billion USD to pay developers to create that much code. Depending on how you count code lines, Wheeler's conservative estimate is that the 2.6.23 version of the Linux kernel, which came out on 9 October 2007, has 5.5 million lines of code. Wheeler estimated that the 6.6 million line mark would be crossed sometime in the first 100 days of 2009, at current growth rates. Of course, with the inclusion of GNU code, that 6.6 million line mark would have been crossed long ago, not to mention X and all the other packages we have come to associate with our Free Software desktops."

Submission + - Darwin 9.0 Code Released (macnn.com)

Submitted by mr100percent on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @03:00PM

mr100percent writes: MacNN reports that Apple has released the source code to Darwin 9.0, the backbone of OS X 10.5 Leopard. x86 and PPC versions are available. According to Apple's developer mailing list, some key drivers are missing however.

Submission + - Google Search Vulnerability (finjan.com)

Submitted by Someone Somewhere on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @02:47PM

Someone Somewhere writes: According to a blog post made by Finjan Malicious Code Research Center (MCRC), the main page of Google search was recently vulnerable to a disgraceful cross site scripting (XSS) vulnerability. It took Google few hours to fix the vulnerability. The post also includes a demonstration video to record the shame.

Submission + - Navisite Massively Botches Datacenter Move (navisite.com)

Submitted by

9InchRails

on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @02:45PM

9InchRails writes: "In a move to consolidate a newly acquired datacenter, web hosting provider Navisite shutdown, boxed and transported hundreds of servers, effectively stranding in excess of 200,000 web sites and authoritative name servers. This fiasco is in its fourth day as noted here and here. How could a company been so completely incompetent?"

Submission + - US Congress Criticises Yahoo for China Arrest (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

Placid

on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @02:44PM

Placid writes: "The BBC website has an article about Yahoo's hearing with the US House foreign affairs committee over Yahoo's involvement in the arrest and incarceration of reporter Sin Tao by Chinese authorities, and their previous failings in providing information.

Yahoo had been "at best inexcusably negligent" and at worst "deceptive" in evidence given to the House foreign affairs committee last year, it said.
Michael Callahan originally told congress he did not know why China wanted the reporter's details, but later sent a letter "to apologise and stating that the pertinent information only came to his attention months after he gave testimony" and that:

he did not know why the Chinese authorities wanted to trace Shi Tao — who was jailed for 10 years — but it has since emerged that other Yahoo employees had a document stating it was to do with revealing "state secrets".
"

Submission + - Twentieth Century Fox Confirm 'X-Files 2'

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @02:43PM

An anonymous reader writes: After years of speculation, the Studio officially announced that production of the long-awaited X-Files sequel will commence December 10th, with a release date set for July 25, 2008. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are signed to reprise their roles as Mulder and Scully. The story is to be a standalone rather than a continuation of the long-running Mytharc of Alien conspiracies. [URL:http://www.variety.com/VR1117975124.html]

Submission + - Microsoft Windows PowerShell update (msdn.com) 1

Submitted by

Marco Shaw

on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @02:42PM

Marco Shaw writes: "Microsoft just released a Windows PowerShell 2.0 CTP (Community Technology Preview) which provides insight into what is being worked on for the next release of their next-generation command line shell and scripting language. Three of the major new features are: *Compatibility with PowerShell 1.0 *PowerShell Remoting *Background Jobs To read more: http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2007/11/06/what-s-new-in-ctp-of-powershell-2-0.aspx"

Submission + - RFID Chips In School Uniforms

Submitted by blurker on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @02:42PM

blurker writes: According to this Information Week article, a school in the UK is testing a student-tracking system based on RFID chips implanted in their uniforms: Ten schoolchildren in the United Kingdom are being tracked by RFID chips in their school uniforms as part of a pilot program. If the program proves successful as a way to hasten registration, simplify data entry for the school's behavioral reporting system, and ensure attendance, Trevor Darnborough, whose company, Darnbro, filed for a patent on securing RFID tags to clothing, hopes other schools will be interested, according to the Doncaster Free Press.

Submission + - Cyber-Squatter Demands Job at Google (smh.com.au)

Submitted by

Kugrian

on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @02:24PM

Kugrian writes: "A German network administrator who cyber-squatted at least eight Google-related domain names, has demanded a job at Google in exchange for handing over ownership of the domains. Sebastian Klein, 27, has posted an open letter to Google in 10 languages on each of the sites saying that he would relinquish the domain addresses for free if he got a job offer in return. In a letter, he said "Hi Google, I would not like to keep these domains, earn also no money with it. I return it to you immediately free of charge. All I seek for is a job at Google.""

Submission + - Students Tracked With RFID Chips

Submitted by on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @02:20PM

An anonymous reader writes: The Hungerhill School in Edenthorpe, England has initiated a program that puts RFID chips in the student's uniforms to keep track of there whereabouts as reported by Yahoo. A group called 'Leave Them Kids Alone' is opposing the program. Security Expert Bruce Schneier blogs: "...Now it's easy to cut class; just ask someone to carry your shirt around the building while you're elsewhere." Another disturbing 'Think of the Children' program. At least it doesn't explode if you leave the school boundaries.

Submission + - P2P File Sharing Increases CD Sales (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by Foddz on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @10:50AM

Foddz writes: A new study by the University of London researchers Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz, for Industry Canada has found a positive correlation between P2P file sharing and increased spending on audio CDs.

From the article:
"The report found that for every track downloaded using peer-to-peer (P2P) software, file sharers purchased 0.44 more CDs a year than those who did not use the software.

"There is a strong positive relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchasing," the report said. "That is, among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file-sharing increases CD purchasing.""

Submission + - Time running out for public key encryption

Submitted by holy_calamity on Thursday September 13, 2007 @11:06AM

holy_calamity writes: Two research teams have independently made quantum computers that run the prime-number-factorising Shor's algorithm — a significant step towards breaking public key cryptography. Most of the article is sadly behind a pay-wall, but this free blog post nicely explains how the algorithm works.

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