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Submission + - Gartner: OpenStack lacks of clarity .. (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The OpenStack open-source project has come in for criticism from a Gartner analyst because the claims made by companies frequently don't line up with reality.

In a forthright post published on Tuesday Gartner analyst and research director Alessandro Perilli chided the OpenStack community for a lack of clarity, lack of transparency, lack of vision, and lack of pragmatism.

Submission + - Airline Pilots Rely Too Much on Automation Says Safety Panel

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Nearly all people connected to the aviation industry agree that automation has helped to dramatically improve airline safety over the past 30 years but Tom Costello reports at NBC News that according to a new Federal Aviation Administration report commercial airline pilots rely too much on automation in the cockpit and are losing basic flying skills. Relying too heavily on computer-driven flight decks now pose the biggest threats to airliner safety world-wide, the study concluded. The results can range from degraded manual-flying skills to poor decision-making to possible erosion of confidence among some aviators when automation abruptly malfunctions or disconnects during an emergency. “Pilots sometimes rely too much on automated systems," says the report adding that some pilots “lack sufficient or in-depth knowledge and skills” to properly control their plane’s trajectory. Basic piloting errors are thought to have contributed to the crash of an Air France Airbus A330 plane over the Atlantic in 2009, which killed all 228 aboard, as well as a commuter plane crash in Buffalo, NY, that same year. Tom Casey, a retired airline pilot who flew the giant Boeing 777, said he once kept track of how rarely he had to touch the controls on an auto-pilot flight from New York to London. From takeoff to landing, he said he only had to touch the controls seven times. "There were seven moments when I actually touched the airplane — and the plane flew beautifully,” he said. “Now that is being in command of a system, of wonderful computers that do a great job — but that isn’t flying." Real flying is exemplified by Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, says Casey, who famously landed his US Airways plane without engines on the Hudson River and saved all the passengers in what came to be known as the “Miracle on the Hudson.” The new report calls for more manual flying by pilots — in the cockpit and in simulations. The FAA says the agency and industry representatives will work on next steps to make training programs stronger in the interest of safety.

Comment Re:When (Score 1) 153

by gaudior (#45472633) Attached to: Many UAVs Vulnerable To Directed-Energy Weapons

When did a GPS jammer become a directed energy weapon?

You know, when Han used his Tricorder to restimulate the active particule neutrino phase shifters, which resulted in a plasma beam that disrupts the life-support system on any craft that flies slower than 22 parsecs.

Only if he reversed the polarity of the neutron flow.

Submission + - Silicon/Nickel Water Splitter Could Lead to Cheaper Hydrogen (gizmag.com) 1

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: While not a primary source of energy, hydrogen, because of its large energy density, provides a vehicle with which to store and transport energy. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells can use sunlight to sustainably split water into hydrogen and oxygen, but efficient PEC materials tend to corrode rapidly in use. A Stanford research group has been studying this problem, and has found that depositing a thin layer of nickel atoms on a silicon PEC electrode allows it to operate for over 80 hours with no sign of corrosion.

Submission + - Your Data Center Might Not Be As Reliable As You Think (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Many online data centers use a system of tiers established by the Uptime Institute to identify how reliable and resilient its various service offerings are; for instance, a Tier III center has multiple delivery paths for power and cooling, and redundant critical components. But now the Institute is complaining that many data centers are playing fast and loose with the system, with some advertising tier levels that were awarded to the data center design, not the actual center itself, while others are simply using the terms without getting certified.

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