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Google

Google Demonstrates Quantum Computer Image Search 106

Posted by Soulskill from the superposition-of-evil-and-not-evil dept.
An anonymous reader sends along this quote from New Scientist: "Google's web services may be considered cutting edge, but they run in warehouses filled with conventional computers. Now the search giant has revealed it is investigating the use of quantum computers to run its next generation of faster applications. Writing on Google's research blog this week, Hartmut Neven, head of its image recognition team, reveals that the Californian firm has for three years been quietly developing a quantum computer that can identify particular objects in a database of stills or video (PDF). Google has been doing this, Neven says, with D-Wave, a Canadian firm that has developed an on-chip array of quantum bits — or qubits — encoded in magnetically coupled superconducting loops."
Government

Real-LIfe Distributed-Snooping Web Game To Launch In Britain 419

Posted by timothy from the no-room-for-abuse-there dept.
corerunner writes "A new internet game is about to be launched which allows 'super snooper' players to plug into the nation's CCTV cameras and report on members of the public committing crimes. The 'Internet Eyes' service involves players scouring thousands of CCTV cameras installed in shops, businesses and town centres across Britain looking for law-breakers. Players who help catch the most criminals each month will win cash prizes up to £1,000."
The Internet

Amazon To Block Phorm Scans 140

Posted by Soulskill from the take-this-dpi-and-shove-it dept.
clickclickdrone writes "The BBC are reporting that Amazon has said it will not allow online advertising system Phorm to scan its web pages to produce targeted ads. For most people this is a welcome step, especially after the European Commission said it was starting legal action against the UK earlier this week over its data protection laws in relation to Phorm's technology. Anyone who values their privacy should applaud this move by Amazon."
Medicine

Are Human Beings Organisms Or Living Ecosystems? 397

Posted by Soulskill from the little-of-column-a,-little-of-column-b dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Every human body harbors about 100 trillion bacterial cells, outnumbering human cells 10 to one. There's been a growing consensus among scientists that bacteria are not simply random squatters, but organized communities that evolve with us and are passed down from generation to generation. 'Human beings are not really individuals; they're communities of organisms,' says microbiologist Margaret McFall-Ngai. 'This could be the basis of a whole new way of looking at disease.' Recently, for example, evidence has surfaced that obesity may well include a microbial component. Jeffrey Gordon's lab at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published findings that lean and obese twins — whether identical or fraternal — harbor strikingly different bacterial communities that are not just helping to process food directly; they actually influence whether that energy is ultimately stored as fat in the body. Last year, the National Institutes of Health launched the Human Microbiome Project to characterize the role of microbes in the human body, a formal recognition of bacteria's far-reaching influence, including their contributions to human health and certain illnesses. William Karasov, a physiologist and ecologist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes that the consequences of this new approach will be profound. 'We've all been trained to think of ourselves as human,' says Karasov, adding that bacteria have usually been considered only as the source of infections, or as something benign living in the body. Now, Karasov says, it appears 'we are so interconnected with our microbes that anything studied before could have a microbial component that we hadn't thought about.'"
Data Storage

Submission + - Aesthetically-pleasing, disk-intensive benchmarks.

Submitted by tomm3h
tomm3h writes: I am a final year University student in the UK, studying Network Engineering. At present I'm finishing-off my dissertation, which is based around a comparison of low-cost storage networking protocols. Whilst this comparison isn't meant to be world-changing or radical, I am required to 'show-off' my project at an exhibition held by the University shortly after the hand-in date. I am simply un-sure how best this can be accomplished where mere mortals are involved.

My testing setup consists of a cheap Ubuntu 8.10 Server, hosting some WD Raptor disks, a Dell 5224 Gigabit switch, and my own workstation (running Ubuntu 8.10) which hosts VirtualBox virtual machines. All storage is abstracted across the network with whichever protocol I'm testing, the best of which will be used within the demonstration.

There is a certain amount of competition on the day, thus I believe that the judges and potential employers present will need to be 'caught' before I can properly explain my project. As we all know that humans respond well to shiny things, I thought that the readers of Slashdot might know of a relevant, disk-intensive benchmark (running on any guest platform that VirtualBox supports) that also provides an eye-catching element to aid me with hooking-in the judges. Any suggestions?
PC Games (Games)

Does Professional Gaming Have a Future? 116

Posted by Soulskill from the fatal-one-thank-you dept.
mr_sifter writes "Three years ago, celebrity gamers such as Fatal1ty were bagging millions in prizes, and TV channels were queuing up to broadcast games on TV. Professional gaming looked set for the big time. It never happened, and in the current economic crisis, sponsors and media organizations are cutting costs, resulting in the closure of many pro gaming competitions (as we recently discussed) and a down-scaling in prize money. This feature looks at whether pro gaming can bounce back, and whether it will always be a PC sport, or if pro gaming on consoles is the future."

Comment Re:Catch-up! (Score 1) 140

by tomm3h (#27120651) Attached to: 24x DVD Burners Hit the Market

You can get a hard drive and back it up for cheaper and at faster speeds. Plus it is likely (if you go USB) that you will be able to take it with you to any computer without the need to check for blu-ray.

I don't currently back up to a hard drive and stick it in my drawer... I back up important data to CD/DVD/.

Backing up to a HDD each time is expensive compared to the cost that a few discs should run to. The problem is that next-gen optical storage isn't cheap enough yet.

Comment Catch-up! (Score 3, Interesting) 140

by tomm3h (#27115939) Attached to: 24x DVD Burners Hit the Market

I really wish they'd start investing in dragging the cost of next-generation media down. Blu-Ray is great if you ignore the DRM aspects.. Which for data backup renders it perfectly adequate.

Though I'd much rather see something with a little more than 50GB of storage... But then, if they spent their R&D money on perfecting/improving the multi-layer technology, we'd all be backing-up to n*25GB discs in no time.

Why waste all the research budget on ageing technology, when it takes a whole spindle of DVD-Rs to back-up my 2TB RAID array?
Apple

Psystar Wins a Round Against Apple 660

Posted by CmdrTaco
Daengbo writes "'A federal judge last week ruled that Psystar Corp. can continue its countersuit against Apple Inc., giving the Mac clone maker a rare win in its seven-month-old battle with Apple. He also hinted that if Psystar proves its allegations, others may then be free to sell computers with Mac OS X already installed.' Apple is currently suing Psystar over its sale of Mac clones."
Earth

Plasma Plants Vaporize Trash While Creating Energy 618

Posted by samzenpus from the Mr.-Fusion dept.
Jason Sahler writes "Recently St. Lucie County in Florida announced that it has teamed up with Geoplasma to develop the United States' first plasma gasification plant. The plant will use super-hot 10,000 degree Fahrenheit plasma to effectively vaporize 1,500 tons of trash each day, which in turn spins turbines to generate 60MW of electricity — enough to power 50,000 homes!"

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