Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Education

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What software is available to help learn about data transmission?

Submitted by bellwould
bellwould writes: In teaching information tech to a 13-yr old with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), I've found she's wildly interested in the details of data transmission but not programming. We've had limited success with command-line tools like traceroute and tcpdump, but now I'm seeking tips/advice on software that may help her explore and visualize things like transmission protocols.
Nintendo

Submission + - Hackers Discover Wii U's Processor Design and Clock Speed (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Early, off-the-record comments from game developers indicated that the Nintendo's Wii U console horsepower was on par with, or a bit behind the Xbox 360 and PS3, which raised questions about just how "next-generation" the Wii U would be. Now, Wii and PS3 hacker Hector Martin (aka Marcan) has answered some of these questions and raised a few others. According to his findings, the Wii U's CPU is a triple-core design clocked at 1.24GHz. Marcan identifies the base design as a PowerPC 750, which makes sense. Nintendo used PowerPC 750-derived processors in both the GameCube and the Wii. Retaining that architecture for the Wii U would simplify backwards compatibility and game development. Now factor in the GPU, which is reportedly clocked at 550MHz. Some have favored the Radeon HD 4000 series as a basis for the part; I still think a low-end Radeon 5000, like Redwood Pro, makes more sense. That GPU was built on 40nm, measured 104mm sq, clocked in at 649MHz, and had a 39W TDP. The die size discrepancy between the Wii U and Redwood Pro would account for the 32MB of EDRAM cache we know the Wii U offers. Nintendo may have propped up a relatively weak CPU with considerably more GPU horsepower."
Censorship

Submission + - Raided for running a Tor exit node (lowendtalk.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A Tor Exit node owner is being prosecuted in Austria. As part of the prosecution all of his electronics including over 20 computers, his cell phone and hard disks have been held by the authorities. This brings up the question: What backup plan if any should the average nerd have for something like this?

Submission + - NASA: Curiosity has found plastic on Mars (nasaupdatecenter.us) 2

Submitted by dsinc
dsinc writes: Last week Curiosity was able to use its SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) device to confirm the discovery. A robotic arm with a complex system of Spectral Analysis devices was able to vaporize and identify gasses from the sample, concluding that it is in fact plastic. How plastic formed or ended up on the Martian surface is quite an exciting mystery that sparks many questions. The type of plastic sampled as we know so far can only be formed using petrochemicals, meaning not only that there could possibly be a source of oil on the Red Planet, but that somehow it got turned into plastic. Even more interesting is that oil or petrochemicals used to create this type of plastic are only known to come from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae, which geochemical processes convert into oil pointing to the earthshaking evidence that there was once life on mars.

"Right now we have multiple working hypotheses, and each hypothesis makes certain predictions about things like what the spherules are made of and how they are distributed," said Curiosity's principal investigator, Steve Squyres, of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "Our job as we explore Matijevic Hill in the months ahead will be to make the observations that will let us test all the hypotheses carefully, and find the one that best fits the observations."
Android

Submission + - Issue 82 or android and ad-hoc (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Its 4th open issue with almost 2000 comments and 5000+ subscribers to issue. Yet google does nothing why?

So where is problem? Why android doesn't support ad-hoc? Well its dead simple: technically its programs WPA_supplicant which "picks up waves" fault it doesn't support ad-hoc. This will be google's official answer after shit will hit fan, but we all know real reason... Its to suck more cash from you to cell phone providers in case you was impatient one and did not went through all the pain of rooting, replacing wpa_supplicant and whatever else.

There is no way that google didn't notice this issue or couldn't fix it, they just don't want to.
NASA

Submission + - MESSENGER probe finds strong evidence of ice at Mercury's north pole

Submitted by
The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: "Just in time for the holiday season, the NASA space probe MESSENGER appears to have all but confirmed the existence of ice at Mercury's north pole. Ice has long been suspected to be hiding in permanently shadowed areas in deep craters at the planet's pole, but new data show several converging lines of evidence (thermal and visible light mapping, radar, neutron emission) that as much as a trillion tons of ice may be buried just centimeters deep under the surface. Scientists also see evidence of organic (carbon-based) molecules as well. That's not life, but it's more of an indication that volatile compounds can exist on the solar system's innermost planet."

Submission + - Carl Sagan on team to nuke the moon, Dr. Evil reported jealous (cnn.com)

Submitted by novakom
novakom writes: Apparently during the cold war, one fall back position the US was looking at to ensure mutual ensured destruction was to put nukes on the moon. This would ensure that the US could retaliate against even an effective first strike by the Russians. The first step, of course, would be to detonate a nuke on the moon. And yes, Carl Sagan was on the team (and apparently leaked the info!)
Businesses

Submission + - Inside An Amazon Warehouse (ibtimes.com) 1

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "In each one of Amazon.com's 80 fulfillment centers around the globe, Amazon relies on barcodes and human hands rather than robots or automation to find and ship the proper items in a quick and efficient manner. Without robots, Amazon utilizes a system known as "chaotic storage," where products are essentially shelved at random but are tagged with barcodes to be scanned at every step of the ordering, selection and shipping process. The real advantage to chaotic storage is that it's significantly more flexible than conventional storage systems. If there are big changes in a product range, the company doesn't need to plan for more space, because the products or their sales volumes don't need to be known or planned in advance if they're simply being stored at random. Free space is also better utilized in a chaotic storage system, and it's also a major time saver to not organize products as they come in. This system is the true key to Amazon.com's success in online retail."
Digital

Submission + - A set of speakers sends digital data faster than sound using supersonic waves (techtripper.com)

Submitted by
dushisud
dushisud writes: "The researchers at Keio University have brought a new technology named SteganoSonic, capable of transmitting digital information into supersonic waves, into existence. All you have to do is set out the terminal in the speaker zone and the information can be transferred from directional speakers to the screen. The speaker does not produce any sound as it sends information to the display. Now talking about the display, it is comprised of two panel units having many small supersonic wave speakers along with a tablet computer having an external receiver."

Comment Norton Family (Score 1) 646

I installed Symantec Norton antivirus and use Norton Family (no extra cost). I've used it very successfully for my two daughters' computers for everything except YouTube for the past 3 years. Because I don't want to block youtube entirely, they can only watch it while being supervised. Also, their computers are in the family room, not their bedrooms. As they get older, I gradually lighten the restrictions. Many activities can be monitored when not restriced and regular reports are emailed of questionable website visits, etc.
Government

Journal Journal: Super computer proves Occupy Theory 9

Journal by Marxist Hacker 42

In News to Nobody except those who worship capitalism, proof has come that just 147 corporations own 40% of the world- and a larger group of just 1,318 corporations (the 147 are included in that) own 80% of the world's most productive wealth. Many of these companies are in the "too big to fail" range- the 2007 dataset used included Lehman brothers, who were in the top 14
Music

EMI Using Rapidshare To Market Music 81

Posted by Soulskill from the legal-team-defeated-by-marketing-team dept.
An anonymous reader writes "While Rapidshare defends itself around the world from lawsuits by media companies for copyright infringement, new evidence was revealed that UK-based major label EMI is putting music on Rapidshare and directing people to download it in the hopes that it spreads 'virally.' This came to light in the ongoing copyright battle EMI v. MP3tunes over personal cloud media storage and the Sideload.com music search engine. EMI accuses MP3tunes of enabling piracy by linking to Rapidshare, but since EMI is using Rapidshare, this would seem to weaken their argument considerably. You can read the legal brief online."

Slashdot Top Deals

Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky

Close