209607
story
Fantastic Lad writes
"The US Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in an alternate reality. Putting supercomputers to an innovative use, the military is simulating our planet in an effort to predict the outcome of different scenarios. They might run tests to see how long 'you' can go without food or water, or how 'you' will respond to televised propaganda. Billions of nodes are created in the system, intended to reflect every man, woman, and child. 'Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a "synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information", according to a concept paper for the project. Simulex is the company developing these systems, and they list pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and defense contractor Lockheed Martin among their private sector clients. The U.S. military is their biggest customer, apparently now running the most complex version of the system. JFCOM-9 is now capable of running real-time simulations for up to 62 nations, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and China. The simulations gobble up breaking news, census data, economic indicators, and climactic events in the real world, along with proprietary information such as military intelligence."
98742
submission
Tookis writes:
As of Monday you'll be able to pay for movie downloads from BitTorrent.com, but why should people use file sharing for good instead of evil? While there are plenty of legit uses for the BitTorrent technology, obviously the number one use is to illegally download files such as movies, television and music. So what makes BitTorrent.com think these people will suddenly be prepared to pay for what they already get for free? Will files from the BitTorrent Entertainment Network come down faster than illegal BitTorrent files from the wider internet? Not likely, as the factors that affect peer-to-peer download speeds are still at play regardless. And why should people use a legit BitTorrent with DRM instead of say iTunes? http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/9922/1085/