Soulskill - Slashdot User

Submission + - Two Exocomet Families Found Around Baby Star System (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @01:31PM

astroengine writes: Scientists have found two families of comets in the developing Beta Pictoris star system, located about 64 million light-years from Earth, including one group that appears to be remnants of a smashed-up protoplanet. The discovery bolsters our theoretical understanding of the violent processes that led to the formation of Earth and the other terrestrial planets in the solar system. “If you look back at the solar system when it was only 22 million years old, you might have seen phenomena that’s a like more like what’s happening in Beta Pic,” astrophysicist Aki Roberge, with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., told Discovery News.

Submission + - Astronomers Find Brightest Pulsar Ever Observed (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @11:19AM

An anonymous reader writes: Astronomers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the NuSTAR satellite have discovered a pulsar so bright that it challenges how scientists think pulsars work. While observing galaxy M82 in hopes of catching supernova, the researchers found an unexpected source of X-rays very close to the galaxy's core. It was near another source, thought to be a black hole. But the new one was pulsing, which black holes don't do. The trouble is that according to known pulsar models, it's about 100 times brighter than the calculated limits to its luminosity (abstract). researchers used a different method to figure out its mass, and the gap shrank, but it's still too bright to fit their theories.

Submission + - Raspberry Pi Founder Demos Touchscreen Display For DIY Kits (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @11:00AM

An anonymous reader writes: Over 4 million Raspberry Pis have been sold so far, and now founder Eben Upton has shown off a touchscreen display panel that's designed to work with it. It's a 7" panel, roughly tablet sized, but slightly thicker. "With the incoming touchscreen panel The Pi Foundation is clearly hoping to keep stoking the creative fires that have helped drive sales of the Pi by slotting another piece of DIY hardware into the mix." Upton also discussed the Model A+ Raspberry Pi board — an updated version they'll be announcing soon.

Submission + - The 'Traditional' Database Administrator Is Doomed (dice.com)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @10:59AM

Nerval's Lobster writes: Traditionally, database administrators (also known as DBAs) have been at the center of the data-management universe: There was always a need to have someone optimize the performance of applications by making sure data was well structured. But with the rise of Hadoop and other Big Data platforms, there’s no longer a premium on structure. In fact, many programmers are choosing to write their applications to Hadoop or other classes of so-called NoSQL databases to specifically eliminate the need to rely on having a DBA. That's not to say the "classic" DBA is going away, as there will always be transaction-processing applications invoking structured data; but even there, the rise of NoSQL alternatives such as Apache Cassandra is changing the way processing is done. Database administrators are going to need to evolve to meet this brave new world — but what else is new?

Submission + - What It Took for SpaceX to Become a Serious Space Company (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @10:52AM

An anonymous reader writes: The Atlantic has a nice profile of SpaceX's rise to prominence — how a private startup managed to successfully compete with industry giants like Boeing in just a decade of existence. "Regardless of its inspirations, the company was forced to adopt a prosaic initial goal: Make a rocket at least 10 times cheaper than is possible today. Until it can do that, neither flowers nor people can go to Mars with any economy. With rocket technology, Musk has said, "you’re really left with one key parameter against which technology improvements must be judged, and that’s cost." SpaceX currently charges $61.2 million per launch. Its cost-per-kilogram of cargo to low-earth orbit, $4,653, is far less than the $14,000 to $39,000 offered by its chief American competitor, the United Launch Alliance. Other providers often charge $250 to $400 million per launch; NASA pays Russia $70 million per astronaut to hitch a ride on its three-person Soyuz spacecraft. SpaceX’s costs are still nowhere near low enough to change the economics of space as Musk and his investors envision, but they have a plan to do so (of which more later)."

Submission + - Facebook articulates the value of open source for employees (opensource.com)

Submitted by jenwike on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @07:26AM

jenwike writes: Facebook asked their employees: "Were you aware of the open source software program at Facebook?" 2/3 said Yes. 1/2 said that the program positively contributed to their decision to work for the company, and a large number of those people said their experience using Facebook projects in the open helped them get ramped up prior to being hired. James Pearce, Head of Open Source at Facebook, says that's a huge win.

Submission + - FDA investigates 24 potentially lethal IoT medical devices (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @05:53AM

An anonymous reader writes: In the wake of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recent recommendations to strengthen security on net-connected medical devices, the Department of Homeland Security is launching an investigation into 24 cases of potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities in hospital equipment and personal medical devices.

Independent security researcher Billy Rios submiited proof-of-concept evidence to the FDA indicating that it would be possible for a hacker to force infusion pumps to fatally overdose a patient. Though the complete range of devices under investigation has not been disclosed, it is reported that one of them is an 'implantable heart device'.

William Maisel, chief scientist at the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health said: “The conventional wisdom in the past was that products only had to be protected from unintentional threats. Now they also have to be protected from intentional threats too.”

Submission + - Hungary to tax internet traffic (portfolio.hu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @05:37AM

An anonymous reader writes: Recently the hungarian government announced its newest kind of tax, based on internet traffic, 150 HUF for every started GB of traffic. At Hungary, a monthly internet subscription costs around 4000-1000 HUF, which would really put a constraint on different service providers, especially on streaming-related data. Basically this kind of tax puts back the country's technological development by some 20 years — the pre-internet age. As a side note, the Hungarian government's support for household bills produced a 92bn HUF deficit, and interestingly inspite of the officially estimated 20bn income from the internet tax, a quick look at the BIX (Budapest Internet Exchange) and a bit of math tells the real estimate of the tax will most probably be around 100bn HUF. If you think it cannot be worse, there are always governments out there who are eager to show otherwise.

Submission + - Xerox Alto Source Code Released To Public (computerhistory.org) 1

Submitted by zonker on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @12:16AM

zonker writes: In 1970 the Xerox Corporation established the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) with the goal to develop an “architecture of information” and lay the groundwork for future electronic office products. The pioneering Alto project that began in 1972 invented or refined many of the fundamental hardware and software ideas upon which our modern devices are based, including raster displays, mouse pointing devices, direct-manipulation user interfaces, windows and menus, the first WYSIWYG word processor, and Ethernet.

The first Altos were built as research prototypes. By the fall of 1976 PARC’s research was far enough along that a Xerox product group started to design products based on their prototypes. Ultimately ~1500 were built and deployed throughout the Xerox Corporation, as well as at universities and other sites. The Alto was never sold as a product but its legacy served as inspiration for the future.

With the permission of the Palo Alto Research Center, the Computer History Museum is pleased to make available, for non-commercial use only, snapshots of Alto source code, executables, documentation, font files, and other files from 1975 to 1987. The files are organized by the original server on which they resided at PARC that correspond to files that were restored from archive tapes. An interesting look at retro-future.

Submission + - First Evidence of Extrasolar Planets Discovered In 1917

Submitted by KentuckyFC on Tuesday October 21, 2014 @04:57PM

KentuckyFC writes: Earth's closest white dwarf is called van Maanen 2 and sits 14 light years from here. It was discovered by the Dutch astronomer Adriaan van Maanen in 1917, but it was initially hard to classify. That's because its spectra contains lots of heavy elements alongside hydrogen and helium, the usual components of a white dwarf photosphere. In recent years, astronomers have discovered many white dwarfs with similar spectra and shown that the heavy elements come from asteroids raining down onto the surface of the stars. It turns out that all these white dwarfs are orbited by a large planet and an asteroid belt. As the planet orbits, it perturbs the rocky belt causing asteroids to collide and spiral in towards their parent star. This process is so common that astronomers now use the heavy element spectra as a marker for the presence of extrasolar planets. And a re-analysis of van Maanen's work shows that, in hindsight, he was the first to discover the tell-tale signature of extrasolar planets almost a century ago.

Submission + - the future of stamps? (wired.com)

Submitted by Kkloe on Tuesday October 21, 2014 @03:37PM

Kkloe writes: At its core, it is a digital stamp and an app. If you want to send a parcel, you’d simply stamp it with a device that uses a laser to etch it with your name and a unique identifying pattern. After that, the USPS would pick up your package; from there, the app would prompt you to provide the name of the person you’re trying to reach.

The problem is, will such a fine print even survive a journey?, how far can you send it before all the handling and sorting will make the mark unreadable to the sorting machines in the delivery office, or even worse maybe they will mark it as a fraudulent stamp(as someone has to pay for the shipping in some way) and they will "throw" it away

Submission + - Microsoft Introduces Build Cadence Selection With Windows 10

Submitted by jones_supa on Tuesday October 21, 2014 @03:18PM

jones_supa writes: Microsoft has just released Windows 10 TP build 9860, and if you do not have the update yet, here is how you can get it via Windows Update. Along with the new release, Microsoft is introducing an interesting cadence option for how quickly you will receive new builds. The ring model goes from development, to testing, to release. By being in the slow cadence, you will get more stable builds but they will arrive less often. By choosing the fast option, it allows you to receive the build on the same day that it is released. As a quick stats update, to date Microsoft has received over 250,000 pieces of feedback through the Windows Feedback tool, 25,381 community forum posts, and 641 suggestions in the Windows Suggestion Box.

Submission + - Magic Leap Just Raised $542m, Now Hiring to Develop Their Lightfield AR Wearable (roadtovr.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21, 2014 @02:47PM

An anonymous reader writes: After rumors broke last week, it's Magic Leap has officially closed the deal on a $542 million Series B investment led by Google (http://bit.ly/1x5xQSK). The company has been extremely tight lipped about what their working on, but some digging reveals it is most likely an augmented reality wearable that uses a lightfield display. "Using our Dynamic Digitized Lightfield Signal, imagine being able to generate images indistinguishable from real objects and then being able to place those images seamlessly into the real world," the company teases. Having closed a investment round, Magic Leap is now soliciting developers (http://bit.ly/1wmvj6I) to create for their platform and hiring a huge swath of positions (http://bit.ly/1s3UBSF).

Submission + - Samsung admits to software bug on 840 EVO SSDs (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123 on Tuesday October 21, 2014 @02:29PM

Lucas123 writes: Samsung has issued a firmware fix for a bug on its popular 840 EVO triple-level cell SSD. The bug apparently slows read performance tremendously for any data more than a month old that has not been moved around on the NAND. The 840 EVO is one of the companies most affordable SSDs, as it retails for under 50 cents a gig. Samsung said in a statement that the read problems occurred on its 2.5-in 840 EVO SSDs and 840 EVO mSATA drives because of an error in the flash management software algorithm. Some users on technical blog sites, such as Overclock.net, say the problem extends beyond the EVO line. They also questioned whether the firmware upgrade was a true fix or just covers up the bug by simply moving data around the SSD.

Submission + - 80s ads are responsible for the lack of women coders (npr.org) 3

Submitted by gollum123 on Tuesday October 21, 2014 @02:18PM

gollum123 writes: From NPR, Back in the day, computer science was as legitimate a career path for women as in medicine, law or science. But in 1984, the number of females majoring in computing-related subjects began to fall, and is now as low as 20 percent compared to those other three.It's a surprising trend that NPR's Planet Money has uncovered, and the show's latest episode seeks to answer a simple question: Why? According to the show's experts, computers were advertised as a "boy's toy," and combined with early '80s geek culture staples like the novel Hackers, as well as movies like WarGames and Weird Science, the knock-on effect was to exclude women.

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