Submission + - Patrick Stewart knighted (telegraph.co.uk) 1
An anonymous reader writes: Patrick Stewart has been knighted.
Comment Re:Well, it is still nonsense then. (Score 1) 837
Actually, my first impression is that it would clarify these people (who might not otherwise be widely known) to the mainstream employees as being employees - it is clearly noted that people recognize the help desk members by face, but not by name, and in companies were there is access control is in place, a strangle-familiar face is a security risk.
Don't get me wrong: I think uniforms is a bad idea, making janitors out of skilled talent, when an photo ID badge would probably serve better in a controlled environment.
IT and helpdesk workers don't usually support "walk-by" requests because it circumvents documentation and is very unproductive as a rule.
Submission + - Photovoltaic Eye Implant Gives Sight to the Blind (inhabitat.com)
MikeChino writes: Researchers at Stanford University recently announced that they have developed a new artificial retina implant that uses photovoltaic power and could help the blind see. The problem with previous implants was that there was no way send power to the chip in order to process light and data inside the eye, so the new device uses miniature photovoltaic cells to provide power the chip as well as to transmit data through the eye to the brain. The new device has great promise to help people afflicted by the loss of photoreceptor cells by using the power of the sun.
Submission + - Happy Birthday, Linus (linuxjournal.com)
Glyn Moody writes: Today is the birthday of Linus. Just under 19 years ago, on the first day the shops in Helsinki were open after the holidays, Linus rushed out and spent all his Christmas and birthday money on his first PC: a DX33 80386, with 4 Megs of RAM, no co-processor, and a 40 Megabyte hard disc. Today, the kernel he wrote on that system powers 90% of the fastest supercomputers, and is starting to find its way into more and more smartphones — not to mention everything in between. What would the world look like had he spent his money on something else?
Submission + - $25,000 Of Communications Gear In A $500 Car (jalopnik.com) 1
ScuttleMonkey writes: "Ham radio appears to be more of an addiction than a hobby to the seller of this $500 Dodge. Every surface is covered with $25K in communications equipment for every conceivable band (FM/UHF/HF/VHF/SPACEMAN). A gallery of technological affliction below."
Submission + - Google reveals parts of websites people don't see (pcpro.co.uk)
Barence writes: Google has developed a new tool for web developers that allows them to see how much of their website is visible to the average user. Web designers simply need to enter their URL and "Browser Size" overlays their site with a heatmap, revealing which parts are likely to be hidden from view. The service will allow sites to see whether crucial sections — such as Buy Here or Donate Now buttons — are instantly visible to the vast majority of their users. The search company was inspired to build Browser Size after the company noticed that a significant number of visitors to the Download Google Earth page never actually downloaded the software.
Submission + - Avatar preview cancelled in Berlin 2
An anonymous reader writes: Cinestar.de failed to obtain a valid "key" for James Cameron's Avatar in Berlin tonight. 600+ angry movie goers were disappointed when the cinema staff announced the problem after 30 minutes of advertising. They offered a full refund and the right to see another movie for free, but neglected to tell their staff about the free movie part so hundreds of angry patrons left, their evening ruined. So much for the digital revolution!
Submission + - Want Wi-Fi With That? McD's Serves Free Hotspots (computerworld.com) 2
CWmike writes: McDonald's restaurants may soon serve up free Wi-Fi, allowing customers to browse the Web as long as you like in a bid to encourage them to stay longer and buy McDonald's coffee drinks and hamburgers. The fast-food giant is lifting a $2.95 fee for two hours of wireless Internet access starting in mid-January, reports say. The free Wi-Fi will reportedly be available at about 11,000 of 14,000 U.S. locations. McDonald's has used Wi-Fi provided by AT&T Inc. for several years, after first launching the service at 75 locations in San Francisco in 2003. One comment overheard on Twitter: 'Great now we'll have pervs hanging out at McD's.'
Submission + - WD Advanced Format Gains 7 - 11% More HD Capacity (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: WD (Western Digital) is starting to implement a new hard disk drive format structure, known as Advanced Format, that enables 7-11% greater capacity on standard spinning hard disk drives. Traditionally, on standard hard drives each track is composed of a series of sectors. Currently the user data on the media is stored in 512 byte sectors. The storage industry and WD is improving this legacy architecture by changing the size of the sectors on the media to store 4,096 bytes of data rather than 512 bytes of data. Each sector also has a gap currently for Sync/DAM (lead-in) and error correction information. Legacy architectures are very inefficient for ECC (Error Correction Code). It requires lots of overhead to support multiple blocks of ECC. With Advanced Format technology WD (and others eventually) will be removing Sync/DAM blocks, inter-sector gaps and 8 separate blocks of ECC, gaining back approximately 7-11% in usable disk space.
Submission + - Millenium Falcon bed (makezine.com)
An anonymous reader writes: http://blog.makezine.com/milleniumFalconBed_cc.jpg
http://blog.makezine.com/milleniumFalconBed1_cc.jpg
Kayla Kromer made this sweet Millenium Falcon bed — complete with stowaway compartments and headlights. Check out more pics in the Facebook photo gallery. [http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127502&id=104545533252&ref=mf]
http://blog.makezine.com/milleniumFalconBed1_cc.jpg
Kayla Kromer made this sweet Millenium Falcon bed — complete with stowaway compartments and headlights. Check out more pics in the Facebook photo gallery. [http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=127502&id=104545533252&ref=mf]
Submission + - Swiss Geologist on Trial for Causing Earthquakes
Hugh Pickens writes: "BBC reports that Markus Haering's company had been working with the authorities in Basel, Switzerland to try to convert the heat in deep-seated rocks into electricity but the project was suspended in 2006 when drilling triggered earthquakes, one of them with a magnitude of 3.4, that led to $9m of damage. Haering's team planned to drill a series of holes penetrating up to three miles underground with water being pumped onto rocks with a temperature of more than 195C. Basel's location on top of a fault line – the upper Rhine trench – had been deliberately chosen because the heat was closer to the Earth's surface. A risk assessment has since shown the prospect of further quakes is too high to continue drilling in the city and Haering faces up to five years in prison if the judge finds he intentionally damaged property. Haering has admitted the 3.4 magnitude earthquake was stronger than he had expected and that his team "had very little knowledge of seismicity" before starting to drill, but called the quakes "a learning process for everyone involved" adding that project leaders had drawn up an emergency plan: "Every minute, we knew what was going on and were able to act instantly." Despite Haering's trial, the Swiss appetite for geothermal projects has not diminished, with engineers beginning preliminary drilling in Zurich to see whether the area was suitable for a similar scheme, and St Gallen, in eastern Switzerland, plans to start work on its own geothermal project next year. Drilling efforts are being closely watched in the US, where the energy department is sponsoring more than 120 geothermal energy projects in several states."
Submission + - New study suggests HFCS health concern (timesonline.co.uk)
garg0yle writes: A new study has found that excessive consumption of high-fructose corn sweeteners can result in fatty deposits around the liver, heart, and other organs, and may promote diabetes and heart disease. Given how common HFCS is in manufactured foodstuffs (especially, but not limited to, soda pop), this may help explain the epidemic of diabetes in Western countries in the last 30 years. A diet high in glucose, on the other hand, did not carry the same side effects.
Journal Journal: Hypersonic Travel
It would seem that hypersonic travel is here to stay...finally. Most define hypersonic as travel above Mach 5. Michael Cooney reports that the good ol USAF is now preparing to launch a scramjet test platform designed to reach speeds of Mach 6+. This is fairly significant; while the last testbed reached these speeds a few secon
Submission + - 13 GPUs in desktop supercomputer (dvhardware.net) 1
An anonymous reader writes: Last year tomography researchers of the ASTRA group at the University of Antwerp developed a desktop supercomputer with four NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics cards. The performance of the FASTRA GPGPU system was amazing, it was slightly faster than the university's 512-core supercomputer and cost less than 4000EUR. Today the researchers announce FASTRA II, a new 6000EUR GPGPU computing beast with six dual-GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 graphics cards and one GeForce GTX 275. The development of the new system was more complicated and there are still some stability issues, but tests reveal the 13 GPUs deliver 3.75x more performance than the old system. For the tomography reconstruction calculations these researchers need to do, the compact FASTRA II is four times faster than the university's supercomputer cluster, while consuming 300x less power.
Submission + - Microsoft fined for using `money power'
An anonymous reader writes: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/hardware/Microsoft-fined-for-using-money-power/articleshow/5336125.cms
The order came after the court found that the alleged violations occurred in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Mumbai.
Not only did the court note that Microsoft had offices in these cities, but it also said the company was using "money power" to "harass" the defendants, who would have to travel to Delhi to fight the cases.
The order came after the court found that the alleged violations occurred in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Mumbai.
Not only did the court note that Microsoft had offices in these cities, but it also said the company was using "money power" to "harass" the defendants, who would have to travel to Delhi to fight the cases.
