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Submission + - Password Protection Advice going mainstream (consumerreports.org) 1

Submitted by Dr.Who
Dr.Who writes: The January 2012 issue of Consumer Reports Magazine arrived yesterday. It contained:
"Hack-proof your passwords. Criminals are getting smarter. So should you."

A synopsis of the article already appeared in Tech Journal South: "Consumer Reports: Four tips for creating stronger passwords."
http://www.techjournalsouth.com/2011/12/consumer-reports-four-tips-for-creating-stronger-passwords/

Comment At first I thought that the headline was... (Score 1) 544

by Dr.Who (#36268654) Attached to: Zuckerberg Only Eating Animals He Personally Kills

Zuckerberg Only Eating Animals His Personality Kills

Disclaimer: I have never met anyone named Mark Zuckerberg. I did see a popular movie featuring a character with that name. I have seen at least two television news clips describing something that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is doing. So I know nothing about CEO Mark Zuckerberg's personality or eating habits.
Science

Submission + - Supercomputers Crack Sixty-Trillionth Binary Digit (energy.gov) 1

Submitted by Dr.Who
Dr.Who writes: According to http://blog.energy.gov/blog/2011/04/28/supercomputers-crack-sixty-trillionth-binary-digit-pi-squared, "a value of Pi to 40 digits would be more than enough to compute the circumference of the Milky Way galaxy to an error less than the size of a proton." The article goes on to cite use of computationally complex algorithms to detect errors in computer hardware.

The article references a blog http://experimentalmath.info/blog/2011/03/Pi-goes-on-forever/ which has more background.

Disclaimers: I attended graduate school at U.C. Berkley. I am presently employed by a software company that sells an infrastructure product named PI.

Submission + - Controlling Light with an Optical Event Horizon (aps.org)

Submitted by
lee1
lee1 writes: "Two German scientists have developed the theory for an all-optical transistor. In their words: 'This concept relies on cross-phase modulation between a signal and a control pulse. Other than previous approaches, the interaction length is extended by temporally locking control and the signal pulse in an optical event horizon, enabling continuous modification of the central wavelength, energy, and duration of a signal pulse by an up to sevenfold weaker control pulse.'"
Space

Submission + - The Densest Planet In The Universe (So Far) (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider
RedEaredSlider writes: Astronomers have found what may be the biggest rocky planet in the neighborhood.

The planet is called 55 Cancri e. It is 60 percent larger than the Earth, eight times as massive and orbits its star so fast that an entire year passes in less than a day.

It is about 8.57 times the mass of Earth, plus or minus about 0.64 Earth masses. That gives a density of about 10.9 grams per cubic centimeter, twice that of Earth, which averages about 5.5 grams. The surface gravity would be about 2.7 times that of Earth, comparable to what one would feel at the cloud tops of Jupiter.
Government

Submission + - DOJ: FBI Too Focused On Child Porn (itworld.com) 1

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "The Department of Justice has issued a scathing report [PDF] on the ineffectiveness of the FBI in investigating and countering cyber attacks. The shortcomings are partly attributed to lack of training and lack of communication, but the biggest issue is the allocation of effort. From the report:

Overall, we determined that in FY 2009 the FBI used 19 percent of its cyber agents on national security intrusion investigations, 31 percent to address criminal-based intrusions, and 41 percent to investigate online child pornography matters.

"
Security

Submission + - Mystery air crash blackbox found sans memory part (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Hopes that the ongoing undersea search of the Air France Flight 447 wreckage had yielded one of the key items investigators were looking for – the flight data recorder – were set back this week as the robot subs scouring the ocean floor found the box only to find its memory part missing."
PlayStation (Games)

USAF Unveils Supercomputer Made of 1,760 PS3s 163

Posted by Soulskill from the going-for-the-gusto dept.
digitaldc writes with this excerpt from Gamasutra: "The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has connected 1,760 PlayStation 3 systems together to create what the organization is calling the fastest interactive computer in the entire Defense Department. The Condor Cluster, as the group of systems is known, also includes 168 separate graphical processing units and 84 coordinating servers in a parallel array capable of performing 500 trillion floating point operations per second (500 TFLOPS), according to AFRL Director of High Power Computing Mark Barnell."
Iphone

Real Reason Why the White iPhone 4 Is Delayed 182

Posted by samzenpus from the no-phone-for-you dept.
tekgoblin writes "There have been numerous reasons why the White iPhone 4 may be delayed with one reason being the color mismatch between the home button and the body. Well this time there is another reason. A source has told CultofMac that the reason for the delay is a light leakage issue caused by the case being clear. Light from the case leaks into pictures taken by the back and front camera on the white iPhone 4, causing distorted pictures. This problem is non-existent on the black iPhone 4, because of its already black case, so Apple has been looking for a solution to this problem, thus the delay of the White iPhone 4 till spring of next year."
Idle

Paleontologists Discover World's Horniest Dinosaur 109

Posted by samzenpus from the overcompensatesaurus dept.
Ponca City, We love you writes "The Guardian reports that paleontologists have uncovered the remains of an ancient beast called Kosmoceratops richardsoni that stood 16 feet tall with a 6-foot skull equipped with 15 horns and lived 76 million years ago in the warm, wet swamps of what is now southern Utah. 'These animals are basically over-sized rhinos with a whole lot more horns on their heads. They had huge heads relative to their body size,' says Scott Sampson, a researcher at the Utah Museum of Natural History."
Crime

Girls Bugged Teachers' Staff Room 227

Posted by samzenpus from the making-the-grade dept.
A pair of enterprising Swedish schoolgirls ended up in court after they were caught bugging their teachers break room. The duo hoped they would hear discussions about upcoming tests and school work, allowing them to get better grades. It worked until one of them decided to brag about it on Facebook, and the authorities were called in. The girls were charged with trespassing and fined 2,000 kronor ($270) each in Stockholm District Court.

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