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Submission + - Google Fiber: Why Traditional ISPs Are Officially On Notice (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: A few years ago, when Google was determining which city to launch its pilot Google Fiber program, cities all over the country went all-out trying to persuade the search giant to bring all that fantastical bandwidth to their neck of the woods. And with good reason: Google Fiber offers gigabit Internet speeds and even TV service, all at prices that meet or beat the competition. In fact, the lowest tier of Google Fiber service (5Mbps down, 1Mbps up) is free, once users pay a $300 construction fee. If ISPs were concerned before, they should really start sweating it now. Although Google Fiber looked like it would whip traditional ISPs in every regard, with Time Warner Cable cutting prices and boosting speeds for users in Kansas City in a desperate attempt to keep them, surely other ISPs were hoping the pilot program would flame out. Now that Austin is happening, it’s clear that it’s only a matter of time before Google rolls out its service in many more cities. Further, this jump from legacy Internet speeds to gigabit-class service is not just about people wanting to download movies faster; it’s a sea change in what the Internet is really capable of.

Submission + - How can I talk to IOS with my embedded USB design?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This is an Ask Slashdot topic.

We have developed a portable battery powered device that uses USB for configuration, telemetry, and support. We have a companion pc utility that works fine but our marketing brethren would prefer an ios solution.

The technical challenges include the electrical interface and software. How have slashdotters solved these challenges? (Besides Android...)

Thanks in advance!

Submission + - Super Capacitors manufactured the easy way (ucla.edu)

Submitted by Mapleperson
Mapleperson writes: Graphene capacitors have been limited because of the difficulty in manufacturing. Richard Kaner, a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA and a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Maher El-Kady, a graduate student in Kaner's laboratory, may have changed the game. Using commercial grade computer hardware they have devised new methodology for the manufacture of small area super capacitors.
ISS

Submission + - SpaceX's Dragon Experiences Thruster Problem (space.com) 1

Submitted by ClockEndGooner
ClockEndGooner writes: The launch of the latest Dragon supply capsule to the ISS took place earlier today, and this time there were no issues with the Falcon 9 boosters. However, there’s a thruster problem with the Dragon itself that is keeping the craft from deploying its solar panels. Let’s hope the SpaceX team can correct this soon and still dock with the ISS.
Space

Submission + - Is This a Baby Picture of a Giant Planet? (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "Acquired by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), an infrared observation shows a portion of the disk of gas and dust around the star HD 100546, located 335 light-years away in the constellation Musca. By physically blocking out the light from the star itself by means of an opaque screen, the light from the protoplanetary disk around HD 100546 can be seen, revealing a large bright clump that’s thought to be a planet in the process of formation. If it is indeed a baby planet, it’s a big one — as large as, or perhaps even larger than, Jupiter."
Science

Submission + - Why the Arabic World Turned Away From Science (thenewatlantis.com)

Submitted by
Geoffrey.landis
Geoffrey.landis writes: "The historical period that we call the dark ages, from perhaps 600 to 1200 AD, was the golden age of Islamic science, when great advances in science and technology were taking place in the middle east. But somehow, as the west experienced its renaissance, the blossoming of the age of science, and the founding of the modern technological world, the Arabic world instead turned away from science. Muslim countries have nine scientists, engineers, and technicians per thousand people, compared with a world average of forty-one, and of roughly 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, only two scientists from Muslim countries have won Nobel Prizes in science. Why? In an article "Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science" in The New Atlantis, Hillel Ofek examines both the reasons why Islamic science flourished, and why it failed. Are we turning the same way, with a rising tide of religious fundamentalism and dogma shouting down the culture of inquiry and free thinking needed for scientific advances? Perhaps we should be looking at the decline of Islamic science as a cautionary tale."

Submission + - NTSB has discovered the cause of the battery failures on the Boeing 787 (ntsb.gov)

Submitted by AbrasiveCat
AbrasiveCat writes: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has reported that the battery problems suffered by the Boeing 787 were caused by a short circuit in a cell of the battery. http://www.ntsb.gov/news/2013/130207.html The cause of the short circuit is still under investigation and the plane is still a ways from being cleared to fly passengers again.
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.

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