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Pancake Flipping Is Hard — NP Hard Screenshot-sm 260

Posted by samzenpus from the sorting-a-large-stack dept.
mikejuk writes "French computer scientists have finally proved that sorting pancakes is hard — NP hard. No really — this isn't a joke. Well, it is slightly amusing but that's just because it is being presented as pancake flipping. The algorithm in question is sorting a permutation using prefix reversal — which is much easier to understand in terms of pancakes. Basically you have to sort a pancake stack by simply inserting your spatula and flipping the top part of the stack. We now know that if you can do the this in polynomial time then you have proved that P=NP."
Science

EU Scientists Working On Laser To Rip a Hole In Spacetime 575

Posted by samzenpus from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong? dept.
astroengine writes "Those pesky physicists are at it again; they want to build a laser so powerful that it will literally rip spacetime apart. Why? To prove the existence of virtual particles in the quantum vacuum, potentially unravel extra dimensions and possibly find the root of dark matter. The $1.6 billion Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility (known as ELI) will be built somewhere in Europe by the end of the decade and physicists are hoping the ten high-powered lasers — delivering 200 petawatts of power at a target for less than a trillionth of a second — will turn up some surprises about the very fabric of the Universe."

Comment I'll believe it when I see it... (Score 1) 271

by sajuuk (#36416994) Attached to: The Internet Is Killing Local News, Says the FCC
If by "local news" you mean Local TV News, well, there's none of that around me. On the other hand, if you mean "local newspaper" and "local radio" then you are sadly mistaken, at least up here in the Adirondacks. We get a high quality locally published and printed newspaper 6 days a week - with a superb website accompanying - but NOT replacing it. And the local NPR station isn't half bad either.
Security

Sony Officially Blames Anonymous For PSN Hack 575

Posted by samzenpus from the in-today's-sony-hack-news dept.
H_Fisher writes "In a letter to Congress, Kazuo Hirai, chairman of Sony's board of directors, blames hacker group Anonymous for making possible the theft of gamers' personal information. 'What is becoming more and more evident is that Sony has been the victim of a very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack designed to steal personal and credit card information for illegal purposes,' Hirai wrote. He also indicated that Sony waited two days before notifying the FBI of the theft."
Mars

Submission + - NASA Quest for Gas Stations in Space (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: Last week, Slashdotters read about a NASA proposal for in-space 'gas' stations located at strategic spots along a route — a potential boon to spaceflight. The system would be set up ahead of time, with depots drifting idly through the blackness while waiting for a rocket to dock. All the fuel and the propellant depots would be launched before a human mission left for the asteroids or for Mars. FoxNews.com spoke with NASA about the proposal, which the space agency says "could create a small space economy in propellants and refueling."

Space policy expert James Muncy agrees. “We will need the technologies eventually anyway,” he said. “We can’t go to Mars without them.”
Iphone

Submission + - Putting 'Apple iPhone' in a headline gets views (motherboard.tv)

Submitted by HansonMB
HansonMB writes: A recent article by CNN Tech blogger John Sutter makes the claim that, despite Apple’s recent release of a white iPhone 4 (and kudos to Apple, by the way, for making whites the minority for once), real Apple nerds are actually more interested in the upcoming release of, you guessed it, the iPhone 6.

However, by not directing readers anywhere in particular on the subject, Sutter ignores the risk of getting pwned by other writers covering the same non-story — like, say, Jared Newman at PCWorld, who has written essentially the same article, but in a sharper, funnier, and more self-aware way. Not only that, but Sutter doesn’t actually link to anything in his post, which is a decided no-no in the time-sucking, hyper-threaded blogosphere we’ve come to know and dread, whose cardinal dictum is that you have failed as a blogger if a reader is capable of dead-ending at your particular post, rather than being sucked further down the rabbit hole after drinking from one of a myriad of linking elixirs.
Blackberry

Submission + - RIM to make BING the default for search and maps (edibleapple.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Steve Ballmer announced today at BlackBerry World 2011 that Bing will soon be the default for both search and maps on upcoming BlackBerry devices. Further, the service will soon be integrated into RIM devices on an OS level, which means voice activated and location-aware search from the folks in Redmond.
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - PlayStation controller pilots tiny quadrocopter (gamepron.com)

Submitted by dotarray
dotarray writes: While the PlayStation Network remains down, and your thoughts keep drifting to the safety of your personal details, it’s understandable that you might be looking for something to distract you.

How about using that Bluetooth PlayStation controller to navigate a teeny tiny little quadrocopter? It’s not like you can use it for much else, these days
iMac

Submission + - Apple iMac gets Thunderbolt I/O, quad-core (gizmag.com)

Submitted by fergus07
fergus07 writes: Apple's desktop lineup has typically pushed users requiring plenty of fast I/O towards the Mac Pro — but the latest iMac refresh has broken the tradition. Quad-core Sandy Bridge CPUs and faster ATI Radeon HD GPUs are welcomed, but it's the addition of Thunderbolt ports (one in the 21.5-inch and two in the 27-inch) that really ups the ante for a number of professional users.
Sony

Submission + - Can it get any worse for Sony (wired.com)

Submitted by meriksen
meriksen writes: For the few of you left who still trusted Sony, now comes news of yet another massive data breach, this time for Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) users. SOE is their online multiplayer games offering. It sounds like a similar issue to the PSN hack, again with lots of data being taken. Making matters worse, apparently for players outside the US, Sony kept credit card numbers and/or bank details in an "outdated database" (read, one not properly secured or encrypted, apparently). And... Sony is now admitting that the breach occurred a few weeks ago, so this info has probably already been put to use.
Crime

Submission + - Google Raided In South Korea (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider
RedEaredSlider writes: South Korean police raided Google's offices in Seoul as they investigate whether the company illegally gathered private data.

Head of the police cyber crime unit, Chang Byuk-Duk, told the Agence-France Presse that the police were sent to the company's offices to secure evidence related to the AdMob platform. Google is accused of gathering data on users' locations via smartphone applications. The local site Daum was also raided, based on similar allegations.

Submission + - Fake AV Makers, Scammers Exploit Bin Laden News (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
Batblue
Batblue writes: "Malware makers and scammers have quickly latched onto the news that U.S. military forces killed Osama Bin Laden, security researchers said today. Antivirus vendors have spotted multiple threats based on the news, including links that lead to fake security software — dubbed "rogueware" — attack code masquerading as plug-ins that users must supposedly download to view videos and attempts to harvest personal information.

Cyber criminals wasted no time in leveraging the news. "Hackers love a big, breaking story, said Rob Rachwald of Imperva, a Redwood Shores, Calif. security firm, in a post to the company's blog Monday.

Rachwald reported that Imperva had monitored forums where hackers bragged about posting fake videos, then duping users into clicking a Facebook "Like" button that in fact generates "Likes" to a product or service page they're promoting."
Cloud

Submission + - Breaches of Trust from Amazon and Sony (enterpriseefficiency.com)

Submitted by kg4gwa
kg4gwa writes: Amazon and Sony suffered different troubles last week, but each one caused major headaches for users, and each company showed its own way of failing in the aftermath. Will Sony's security breach mean that Amazon gets a free pass for losing customer data?
Technology

Submission + - NEC Tech Controls Devices Via Arm Taps (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Fiddling with small buttons or touchscreens on your mobile device when you're running, riding a bike or even just crossing the street can be a frustrating – and dangerous – endeavor. NEC is looking to solve this dilemma by developing a system that enables users to operate devices by just tapping their arm. The ArmKeypad is made up of acceleration sensors worn on each wrist that determine the area of the arm tapped by a user and translate this into different input commands via a Bluetooth link.

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