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Education

Explosives Camp 419

Posted by samzenpus from the if-you-love-something-blow-it-up dept.
theodp writes "How about a summer camp where you get in trouble for not blowing things up? Students with a passion for all things explosive and proof of US citizenship pay a $450 fee to attend Summer Explosives Camp, 'We try to give them an absolute smorgasbord of explosives,' quipped a professor at the University of Missouri-Rolla, which offers a minor in explosives engineering. Here's the brochure (PDF), kids!"
Robotics

Submission + - A drone as wide as a Boeing 737

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "According to a short report by AFP, Israel is developing a killer robot plane. This drone is designed for long-range operations — more than 50 hours and several thousand miles — while weighing 4 tons during takeoff. This unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), dubbed Eitan (Steadfast) will have a wing span of 35 meters — like a Boeing 737. And this long-endurance (HALE) drone is the largest unmanned aircraft designed by Israel. It should be tested in coming days, but details are scarce, and it might already have flied in 2006. Read more for my investigations about this huge drone."

Mars Probe May Have Spotted Sojourner Rover 149

Posted by Zonk from the born-free-as-free-as-the-wind-blows dept.
Maggie McKee writes "NASA's eagle-eyed Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have spotted the tiny, toaster oven-sized Sojourner rover just a few meters away from its companion, the Mars Pathfinder lander. It appears to have crawled there in an attempt to re-establish contact with the lander after the lander had already died. But the pictures aren't clear enough to definitively ID the rover, and it's possible Sojourner simply took off on its own. If it were miraculously still alive after 10 years, it could be 3 kilometers away from Pathfinder — and probably impossible to find, even with MRO."
Java

2007 Java Predictions 284

Posted by kdawson from the steaming-mug-of-prognostication dept.
jg21 writes "Java Developer's Journal has published the results of its end-of-year poll of various Internet technology players, from its own internal editors to industry high-ups like the founder of Apress, Gary Cornell, and including too the thoughts of professor Tony Wasserman of Carnegie Mellon West. Participants were asked to foretell what they saw happening in 2007. Among the predictions — Cornell: 'The open-sourcing of Java will have no effect whatsoever on Java's slow decline in favor of dynamic languages (Ruby, Python) and C#'; Wasserman: 'The use of the GPL 2 for open-sourcing Java will inhibit the completion and acceptance of the GPL 3 proposal'; and Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson: 'The stigma of being a Web programmer still using Windows will increase.'"

Draconian Anti-Piracy Law Looms Over Australia 436

Posted by kdawson from the we-are-all-criminals-now dept.
ccozan writes to tell us of a law being rushed through the Australian legislature that would criminalize great swaths of the citizenry. The Internet Industry Association of Australia is posting warning scenarios spelling out how far-reaching this law would be. From the release: "A family who holds a birthday picnic in a place of public entertainment (for example, the grounds of a zoo) and sings 'Happy Birthday' in a manner that can be heard by others, risks an infringement notice carrying a fine of up to $1,320. If they make a video recording of the event, they risk a further fine for the possession of a device for the purpose of making an infringing copy of a song... The US Free Trade Agreement does not require Australia to go down this path, and neither US nor European law contain such far-reaching measures. We are at a total loss to understand how this policy has developed, who is behind it and why there is such haste in enacting it into law — with little if any public debate."

Opening Zune Sales Flaccid 451

Posted by CowboyNeal from the meager-beginnings dept.
An anonymous reader writes "As 'Black Friday' approaches and consumers line up for the Playstation 3 it looks like Zune has become an afterthought. Despite months of hype, opening Zune sales are only so-so. While Zune did reach the top 10 on Amazon's Top 25 list for electronic product sales on its first day, it quickly fell below the top 15 and continues to drop. Six separate iPod models now outsell it as well as SanDisk's e250 player. In-store sales are not much better."

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