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Data Storage

Submission + - Hard Disk capacity set to increase up to five times (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by Dupple
Dupple writes: A technique that enables the nanopatterned layers that store data in hard disk drives to assemble themselves has been improved to better suit mass production, and could enable disks that store five times as much data as the largest available today.

Using self-assembly instead of machines that print or etch out features has long been considered a potential solution to a looming barrier to expanding the capacity of hard-disk designs. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have now worked out a solution to a problem that made self-assembly incompatible with existing factories.
Games

Submission + - Intellivision kept alive by hombrew devs (carolvsghost.com) 1

Submitted by
dzfoo
dzfoo writes: "The old Intellivision games console from the 1980s is still around, kept alive by a small band of dedicated programmers that continue development for the platform.

Just this week, and in time for the Holidays, a new game was released called "Christmas Carol vs. The Ghost Of Christmas Presents." This and other games released in the past few years, come complete in box, with glossy manuals and even hand-controller overlays, and are every bit as authentic as the ones released by Mattel "back in the day."

The Christmas Carol game made its debut at the Classic Gaming Expo 2012 in Las Vegas this August, and has been praised by even the Blue Sky Rangers themselves.

Other notable releases for the platform are: D2K Arcade, a fantastic rendition of the classic Donkey Kong arcade game; and Minehunter, a very good puzzle game in the style of Minesweeper.

The Intellivision home-brew community is even working on ports of such classics as Cinemaware's Defender Of The Crown and Apogee's The Lost Caves Of Kroz.

All these games are being produced with the highest of quality, by a very passionate community. This community may be small, but it is dedicated and resilient."
Government

Submission + - Converting sea water to navy jet-fuel (defensetech.org)

Submitted by
Jules IV
Jules IV writes: "Navy scientists and researchers say they are close to a breakthrough toward turning seawater into jet fuel.
The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory is working to extract the carbon dioxide and produce hydrogen gas from the seawater. The key is then converting the carbon dioxide and hydrogen into hydrocarbons that can then be used to develop JP-5 fuel stock."
Games

Submission + - Electronic Arts Up For Sale (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by John Wagger
John Wagger writes: One of the world's largest gaming publishers and developers Electronic Arts has quietly put itself up for sale. While there have already been talks with private equity companies, the talks have not resulted in anything concrete. One of the sources is saying that EA would do the deal for $20 per share (currently at $14.02). Over the past year EA's stock price has fallen 37 percent. Like other major game publishers EA has been struggling against growing trend of social and mobile gaming.

Submission + - Amazon Android App Store - Mandatory One Click Ordering (amazon.com)

Submitted by
JoeMerchant
JoeMerchant writes: "So, it has finally arrived... since 2003ish I have been on the lookout for a decent, affordable (sub $100) web browsing device — and it came in the shape of 7" capacitive multitouch Android tablets from cheap off-brand manufacturers. But, this isn't a hardware review. This is a cautionary tale about the importance of choice in app-store compatibility. At least one of these devices is built with a strong preference for the Amazon App Store, yes, some apps can be side-loaded, but Google Play is specifically thwarted by the built-in Android image, making Amazon the "obvious" choice.

So, what's so bad about the Amazon App Store? Well, I personally don't mind that it runs continuously in the background as a kind of license server, though some people complain that it's hard on battery life (while others disagree)... my real beef with the Amazon App Store is its always active one-click: no password, app ordering, always available. The only way I have found to deactivate one-click app ordering is to uninstall the store, which deactivates ALL the apps that use it for license checking, which includes about 18 of the 20 apps I have tested.

You can say that Amazon's customer service is excellent and that they will refund any accidental purchases, you can say that they notify you of every app purchase immediately in e-mail; free and paid app purchase notifications look identical in every way until you click on each individual transaction to open it, and it is the same in Amazon's account review. This feels like a return to the old Record/DVD Club days where you get a bunch of cool stuff you want, very conveniently, for a reasonably good deal, but then have to fight to turn the thing off and eventually get charged for something you don't want, especially if you ever hand your tablet over to an elementary school aged child to play with unsupervised for any length of time.

After getting sucked in on the Free Apps, I finally purchased a couple of paid apps and was fairly shocked that, unlike the iPad, I didn't have to put in any kind of password. It's much less the 2x0.99 that bothers me than all the time and effort spent setting up two tablets, just to find out later that if I don't want to leave my credit card fully exposed for app purchases, I'll lose use of all the apps I have installed from their store. So, suck the customer in and after they have invested maybe 20 hours into your ecosystem, finally give them a clue that there's no way to turn off purchases, the parental controls options only apply to in-app purchases, not to app purchases themselves — and if your kids are smart enough to get into the master app listing, they can always launch the app store.

Response from Amazon Customer Service:

It was a pleasure to speak with you today! I know your time is valuable and I appreciate you spending some of it with Amazon Appstore support. Thanks for suggesting we add parental control for App purchases to the Amazon Appstore for Android. Customer feedback like yours really helps us continue to improve our products and provide better service to our customers. I've passed your suggestion to the Appstore team for consideration as we make future improvements. Thanks for taking time to offer us your thoughts. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Kind words, I really doubt the absence of password entry was any kind of oversight or accident."
Businesses

Submission + - Reports: Deal in the works to move commercial space firm XCOR to Midland, Texas (examiner.com)

Submitted by
MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: "A deal is in the works to establish a corporate headquarters in Midland, Texas for XCOR, a commercial space company that is developing a suborbital space tourism vehicle, the Lynx. The deal will likely also involve certifying Midland International Air Port as a space port so that the Lynx can operate there. XCOR is characterizing the move as an expansion as it still intends to maintain operations at the Mojave Spaceport in California."

Comment Shock Waves (Score 1) 377

The engine probably uses shock waves to produce the compression necessary for combustion. As such it would have a high minimum RPM. And due to material strength and the high heat inside the engine the maximum RPM probably is close to the minimum RPM. This engine would need to run a generator to maintain its efficiency. At this high RPM it would run a generator that could be very efficient, maybe up to 95% and could be made very small, maybe incorporated into the engine itself.
Science

Submission + - Feynman wrong? Tell me it ain't so. (rdmag.com)

Submitted by Mapleperson
Mapleperson writes: Feynman in his famous physic lectures declared that the second law for thermodynamics could not be contravene by any simple machine. He described an example of the "simplest machine possible" a ratcheting lever. This machine he declared is the simplest machine that can be devised to capture the random motion of atoms or molecules and turn it into useful energy. Then he proceeded to show how this machine would not capture energy in a useful way. A machine that can capture this random motion (Brownian motion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion ) and turn it into useful energy has been a dream of inventors since atoms were first described mathematically. This site shows one more attempt to show that Mr Feynman is wrong. Many people have fooled themselves into believing they have invented just such a machine. I would not bet against Feynman. But physicist Devaraj van der Meerdo have a very persuasive video to support his claims

Comment How did it form? (Score 1) 57

by Mapleperson (#26656937) Attached to: Sizzling Weather On a Dive-Bombing Planet
The larger questions is how can such a massive planet end up in such a elliptic orbit. Assuming the gas giant was made from the swirling dust cloud around the star to start with then it would be in a almost circular orbit. What could have happened to change the orbit as much as this?
Power

Submission + - Energy storage (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by Mapleperson
Mapleperson writes: An interesting article on the energy storage capabilities of most of the recently developed storage technologies. It covers all the obvious technologies but strangely this article in the " Bulletin of Atomic Scientist" does not address the use of an atomic battery.

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