Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Networking

Submission + - Industrial Ethernet helped rescue Chilean miners (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: A hardened Ethernet switch was used to help evaluate conditions in the San Jose mine in Chile just before rescue operations commenced to free the 33 trapped miners a month ago.

A 3-by-5-inch Sixnet SLX-5ES-2ST industrial Ethernet unmanaged switch with a small camera attached to it was mounted inside the "Phoenix" rescue capsule. The purpose of the network-connected camera was to get images to allow inspection of the rock structures in the tunnel prior to human transport.

Rescuers wanted to inspect the tunnel and perform test runs before any humans traveled in the capsule. They also wanted to have the camera look up, down and inside the capsule so they would know what would happen during capsule movement.

Although the Sixnet switch only weighs a few ounces, the switch and camera were removed from the Phoenix in order to remove any unnecessary weight before miners were raised from the mine.
Science

Submission + - CERN Physicists Create Genuine Antimatter

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: The news from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva keeps getting better. Researchers have now created genuine antimatter for the first time. Physicists at CERN managed to create 38 antihydrogen atoms and preserved them for more than one-tenth of one second. The antihydrogen atoms themselves consist of a positron, or antimatter electron, orbiting an antiproton nucleus. The idea for the experiment was to take a regular hydrogen atom, which consists of one proton and one electron, and check to see if its antimatter counterpart behaves in the same way.
Games

Submission + - New TOS signals PS3 bans from PlayStation Network (myce.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If you’ve modified your PS3 recently, you could soon be facing a ban from PlayStation Network. Word is spreading that a new Terms of Service update for PSN is going to take place during a scheduled maintenance outage on Thursday, November 18th for PS3 owners in Europe, Africa, and Australia. The update is reported to ..
Security

Submission + - The American Traveler Dignity Act (house.gov)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Rep. Ron Paul has introduced the American Traveler Dignity Act. As he explains it, 'My legislation is simple. It establishes that airport security screeners are not immune from any US law regarding physical contact with another person, making images of another person, or causing physical harm through the use of radiation-emitting machinery on another person. It means they are subject to the same laws as the rest of us. Imagine if the political elites in our country were forced to endure the same conditions at the airport as business travelers, families, senior citizens, and the rest of us. Perhaps this problem could be quickly resolved if every cabinet secretary, every member of Congress, and every department head in the Obama administration were forced to submit to the same degrading screening process as the people who pay their salaries.' There's also video of the introduction of this bill and you can write your representatives if you want to let them know how you feel about this issue.
Cellphones

Submission + - How Martin Cooper Invented Cell Phone (crazyengineers.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The inventor of cellular phone, Mr. Martin cooper shares how he and his team at Motorola invented the first cell phone and the story of first ever mobile call made.
Biotech

Lizard Previously Unknown To Science Found On Vietnam Menu 133

Posted by samzenpus from the try-the-bigfoot-burger dept.
eldavojohn writes "A lizard long served on the menu in the Mekong Delta has recently caught the attention of scientists when it was noted that all animals in the species appeared identical as well as female. The species appears to be a hybrid of two other species (like a mule or liger). But the curious thing is that this hybrid isn't sterile — it reproduces asexually. The species, known for some time in Vietnam, has now officially been named Leiolepis ngovantrii."

Submission + - Australian Opposition Warms to Internet Filter (smh.com.au) 4

Submitted by CuteSteveJobs
CuteSteveJobs writes: Stephen Conroy's Internet Filter has received an unexpected boost from the Australian Opposition. Instead of voting down the Filter in the Senate, the Opposition Party Leader Tony Abbot refused to articulate a definitive position on the Filter saying he would "await the final legislation and seek technical assurances from the government on the operations of the filter". Both Tony Abbot and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy who is implementing the Filter have affirmed their strong Christian faith, overwhelming anti-censorship moderates. This raises the question for those opposed to the filter: How can a Democracy work if the only two viable parties both offer the same thing?

At least Conroy recently got a taste of his own medicine when Trend Micro's parliamentary web filter blocked politicians from accessing news commentary and train timetables.
Games

Submission + - Update Re-Enables HDDs on Banned Xbox 360 Consoles (ngohq.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A few months ago, Microsoft had disabled hard drive functionality on banned Xbox 360 consoles and corrupted its data (profiles, savegames, achievements) through an Xbox 360 system update. Now, it seems that Microsoft has finally realized that move was both inappropriate and illegal. We have just confirmed that April's Xbox 360 system update re-enables hard drive functionality on banned Xbox 360 consoles. However, it still does corrupt profile data (during system update), but at least now banned consoles are allowed install games to the hard drive once again.

Submission + - What is wrong with SSD servers?

Submitted by pspahn
pspahn writes: As the process of launching our "best web site makeover, 2010" continues, I am now looking at who to host our new best digital friend. The development guys that are building our custom theme, in some discussions, recommend their own SSD hosting because of its lightning quick ability to perform transactions. At the same time, other discussions lean towards, "I don't know, there's something wrong with those SSD servers, they keep crashing."

Another hosting company tells me that they discontinued their SSD package because it was crashing too often.

Is there something fundamentally wrong with SSD drives in a server environment? It's not like these companies are using anything less than the best SSD drives money can buy. Are they simply wearing out or becoming unreliable too quickly in lighting fast environments?
Data Storage

Submission + - Stepping up to a serious hard disk (pcauthority.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Despite SSD rapidly gaining popularity, the hard disk is far from dead as far as system builders are concerned. This article looks at the announcement of the new generation of Western Digital Velociraptor drives, which don't have the biggest capacities, but are the first and only 10,000rpm desktop drives on the market, and have a long history of being the drive of choice for enthusiasts. The new models feature higher capacities, larger cache and support for the new SATA 6GB/s standard. While SSDs gain traction as the fastest option for operating system drives, the increased capacity on the new Velociraptors means that they are now much more viable to use for secondary drives.

Submission + - Unknown root certificate found in Firefox (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It seems that Firefox contains a unknown root certificate that nobody seems to know anything about. This is a significant security isse since digital certificates rely on a chain of trust, and the trust anchor for digital certificates is the Root Certificate Authority (CA). Specifically, web browsers use root certificates to verify identities used for secure web connections.

Submission + - Name That Element - Think Heavy (nytimes.com)

Submitted by mr crypto
mr crypto writes: A team of Russian and American scientists has discovered a new element that has long stood as a missing link among the heaviest bits of atomic matter ever produced. The element, still nameless, appears to point the way toward a brew of still more massive elements with chemical properties no one can predict.

Submission + - Do blind people violate causality?

Submitted by YoungJules
YoungJules writes: Several sites (http://www.physorg.com/news12084.html and http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/119487 to name but two) answering questions about the speed of light refer to the following text from Schneider:
"Theoretically, strange things happen when you exceed the speed of light," Schneider added. Time travel, for one thing, and a breakdown in cause and effect. Schneider uses an example of hitting a target with a gun that shoots bullets faster than the speed of light. "Some observers would see the bullet hit the target before they saw the shooter fire the gun," he said. "Since one of the guiding principles of relativity is that all physical laws are the same to all observers, this violation of causality would be a big problem."

What's troubling me about this example is that it depends on the fact the observers must be able to see. So, let's replace our observers with blind observers (they do have perfectly good hearing). Let's presume the target makes a noise... like "ow!" when the bullet hits and that we can find a gun that fires bullets faster than the speed of sound. Put one observer close to the unfortunate target and one near the shooter. One observer will hear "ow!" followed by the sound of a gunshot. The other observer will hear the sound of a gunshot followed by "ow!". Is this violation of causality a big problem? Is there, in fact, no violation of causality at all, because we know the blind people are mistaken? In Schneider's example, with presumably sighted people, is there a violation of causality? If so, how does it differ in essence to the same experiment with blind observers?

Slashdot Top Deals

"A car is just a big purse on wheels." -- Johanna Reynolds

Close