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Submission + - Supercomputer smashes simulation speed record 1

Submitted by Lank
Lank writes: A team of computer scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have managed to coordinate nearly 2 million cores to achieve a blistering 504 billion events per second, over 40 times faster than the previous record. This result was achieved on Sequoia, a 120-rack IBM Blue Gene/Q normally used to run classified nuclear simulations. Note: I am a co-author of the coming paper to appear in PADS 2013.
Google

Google Pledges Not To Sue Any Open Source Projects Using Their Patents 153

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the now-and-forever dept.
sfcrazy writes "Google has announced the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge. In the pledge Google says that they will not sue any user, distributor, or developer of Open Source software on specified patents, unless first attacked. Under this pledge, Google is starting off with 10 patents relating to MapReduce, a computing model for processing large data sets first developed at Google. Google says that over time they intend to expand the set of Google's patents covered by the pledge to other technologies." This is in addition to the Open Invention Network, and their general work toward reforming the patent system. The patents covered in the OPN will be free to use in Free/Open Source software for the life of the patent, even if Google should transfer ownership to another party. Read the text of the pledge. It appears that interaction with non-copyleft licenses (MIT/BSD/Apache) is a bit weird: if you create a non-free fork it appears you are no longer covered under the pledge.
NASA

Low Quality Alloy Cause of Shuttle Main Tank Issue 118

Posted by Soulskill from the heisenberg-compensators-were-acting-up dept.
BJ_Covert_Action writes "NASA engineers have finally discovered the root cause of the cracks that have been found on space shuttle Discovery's main external tank. The main tank, one of the 'Super Lightweight Tank' models developed by Lockheed-Martin, employs an aluminum-lithium alloy developed by Lockheed-Martin specifically for this application. The new alloy is used in various structural stringers throughout the SLWT design. Unfortunately, the batch of this alloy used in the tank that is currently mated with the Discovery shuttle appears to be of low quality. The alloy used in the stringers has a 'mottled' appearance, compared to the nominal appearance typically used in the main tank stringers (see picture in article). This appearance is indicative of a fracture threshold that is significantly lower than typical. NASA has determined, through testing, that this low grade alloy has only 65% of the fracture strength of the nominal alloy typically used. NASA engineers have devised a potential fix to the problem that they are currently testing to ensure the repair will cause no unintended consequences. NASA plans to have the Discovery shuttle ready to launch again by February 24th, 2011."
XBox (Games)

Submission + - New Kinect Acheivement: Ring of Death (kitguru.net)

Submitted by otter42
otter42 writes: It seems that the XBox 360's Kinect will manage to scratch 100% of games. Okay, hyperbole aside, it really does seem that playing a kinect game becomes a question of when the disc will be fatally scratched, rather than if. The problem is that, in order to save $0.25/ea., Microsoft decided to forgo rubber bumpers that protect the spinning disc from vibration. As the Kinect virtually ensures there will be lots of humans jumping, bumping, hopping, and grinding, it's difficult to imagine when vibrations won't be present.
Education

Submission + - Should Colleges Ban Classroom Laptop Use? 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: If you were a college prof, think you could successfully compete for the attention of a lecture hall of Mac-packing students? CS student Carolyn blogs that a debate has sprung up on her campus about whether it is acceptable to use a laptop in class. And her school is hardly alone when it comes to struggling with appropriate in-classroom laptop use (vendor/corporate trainers would no doubt commiserate). The problem, she says, is that the OCD Facebookers aren't just devaluing their own education — there's a certain distraction factor to worry about. 'Students,' she suggests, 'should also communicate with each other more and tell their classmates when their computer use bothers them. I'll admit it, when I'm trying to pay attention to the lecture, even someone's screensaver in the row ahead of me can be a major distraction.' Try using an iPhone in a movie theater to get a taste of the quit-being-an-a**hole candor that's typically missing in the classroom.
Games

Submission + - Real-life Frogger Ends In Hospital Visit (yahoo.com) 1

Submitted by BigSes
BigSes writes: A 23-year old man has been hospitalized after police in South Carolina say he was hit by an SUV while playing a real-life version of the video game "Frogger." Authorities said the 23-year-old man was taken to a hospital in Anderson after he was struck Monday evening. Before he was hit, police say the man had been discussing the game with his friends. Chief Jimmy Dixon says the man yelled "go" and darted into oncoming traffic in the four-lane highway.

Has it come time to ban some of the classics before someone else goes out and breaks a few bricks with their heads after eating a large mushroom? Wait, I'm betting that has already happened.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Continues to Air Dorm Room Sex Ad

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: 'Forget gay or straight,' writes the Miami Herald's Leonard Pitts in the wake of the Tyler Clementi tragedy. 'How do you do that to someone? Anyone? How do you broadcast someone's moment of intimacy or private indiscretion for the world to laugh at?' You mean like this 'hilarious' Microsoft dorm room sex commercial? OK, it's behind closed doors and the girl is presumably moaning 'awesome' about Windows 7, but the continued airing during NFL games of the Windows-7-was-my-idea 'Hallway' ad — in which a college student sits locked outside of his dorm room all day and night with a DVR-equipped laptop while his roommate is inside having sex — makes one wonder if Microsoft is oblivious to current events. 'Jason gets stranded in the hallway when his roommate is "tutoring" lady friends [nudge nudge, wink wink] in their dorm room,' explains Microsoft. 'Luckily, with Windows 7, his laptop can now work like an HD DVR. So Jason can entertain himself while waiting. And waiting. Aaand waiting some more.'
Education

IBM High School To Churn Out IT Pros 34

Posted by samzenpus from the these-grades-brought-to-you-by-Pepsi dept.
theodp writes "This week, NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the City University of New York and IBM are creating a computer science-focused school in the city that will span grades 9-14 (students leave with an associate's degree). Graduates who pass muster will reportedly be first in line for jobs at IBM. 'The idea is to create a new [educational] model for science, technology, engineering, and math — areas where companies are aggressively hiring,' explained IBM's Stanley Litow. 'If you look at hiring requirements, you won't see a huge amount of difference in a lot of entry-level IT jobs.' No word yet on the school colors or whether a uniform will be required. IBM is giving the city $250,000 to create the school, which might have looked pretty generous if that Zuckerberg kid hadn't upped the ante with his $100,000,000 donation."
Wine

Wine 1.2 Released 427

Posted by Soulskill from the pop-the-cork dept.
David Gerard writes "Stuck with that one Windows app you can't get rid of? Rejoice — Wine 1.2 is officially released! Apart from running pretty much any Windows application on Unix better than 1.0 (from 2008), major new features include 64-bit support, bi-directional text, and translation into thirty languages. And, of course, DirectX 9 is well-supported and DirectX 10 is getting better. Packages should hit the distros over the weekend, or you can get the source now."

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