Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Communications

Military Laser/Radio Tech Proposed As Alternative To Laying Costly Fiber Cable 150

An anonymous reader writes "Californian comm-tech company Aoptix is testing new laser+radio hybrid communications technology with three major U.S. internet carriers. The equipment required can be bolted onto existing infrastructure, such as cell-tower masts, and can communicate a 2gbps stream over 6.5 miles. The system was developed over 10 years at a cost of $100 million in conjunction with the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the military implementation of it is called Aoptix Enhanced Air Ground Lasercom System (EAGLS). The laser component of the technology uses a deformable mirror to correct for atmospheric distortion over the mast-hop, in real-time. The laser part of the system is backed-up by a redundant radio transmitter. The radio component has low attenuation in rainy conditions with large refracting raindrops, while the laser is more vulnerable to dense fog. The system, which features auto-stabilization to compensate for cell-tower movement and is being proposed as an alternative to the tremendous cost p/m of laying fiber cable, is being tested in Mexico and Nigeria in addition to the three ISP trials.

Comment Multiple CDN contracts? (Score 1) 243

I assume there's a reason why Netflix hasn't perused the idea of load balancing across CDNs? Yes, it'd be a pain in the ass, but I know both Akamai and Limelight will read from your source to deliver bits to an end user.

It'd be a hell of a lot better than buckling to ISPs. At least you're in control of your costs at that point.

Medicine

Ebola Forecast: Scientists Release Updated Projections and Tracking Maps 294

An anonymous reader writes Scientists of the Northeastern University, in collaboration with European scientists, developed a modeling approach aimed at assessing the progression of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and its international spread under the assumption that the outbreak continues to evolve at the current pace. They also considered the impact of travel restrictions, and concluded that such restrictions may delay by only a few weeks the risk that the outbreak extends to new countries. Instead, travel bans could hamper the delivery of medical supplies and the deployment of specialized personnel to manage the epidemic. In the group's page, there's also an updated assessment of the probability of Ebola virus disease case importation in countries across the world, which was also invoked during the Congressional Ebola debate. The group also released a map with real-time tracking of conversations about Ebola on Twitter. Policy makers and first responders are the main target audience of the tool, which is able to show a series of potential warnings and events (mostly unconfirmed) related to Ebola spreading and case importation.
The Internet

Power and Free Broadband To the People 262

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes Slashdot member and open source developer Ben Kallos @KallosEsq — who is now a NYC Councilman — is pushing to make it a precondition to Comcast's merging with Time Warner that it agree to provide free broadband to all public housing residents in the City (and by free I mean free as in beer). Kallos, along with NY's Public Advocate, Letitia James, is leading a group of state and local politicians calling on Comcast to help bridge the digital divide in NY.

Comment Re:Ive done this (Score 1) 284

I don't know where home is for you, but when considering the general state of most of the world it would seem that even though you clearly are better off now, and most likely you bring experience and funds back to your home country, an issue does remain.

There exists a real sense of morality, an instinct for solidarity, and foremost a sense of equality among people who are naturally different from each other. Large parts of Western society are wealthy enough to dabble in such philanthropy, and that is probably a good thing. However, philanthropist of any economic background become conflicted when we observe that our unfair treatement is better than what you are accustomed to anyway. It highlights the inequality which is delieated by national borders.

Perhaps the hope that remains is that even though you came for the money, some of the good parts of the culture rubbed off on you. Finding the good parts of Western culture is a tall order in the corporate world though.

What, pray tell, do you consider the "good parts" of Western culture? Since it appears that is the shorter list than the "bad parts".

Comment So... (Score 1) 126

A base model S for 50k, if you're not afraid of a few miles on it? It'll depend on what they do to the car: if it's "check a bunch of boxes" I'm not so sure I'm interested. If it's "Test the car and repair defects in the drive line and battery", that may be much more interesting.

Comment Re:The bigger Problem is their "updates" (Score 1) 577

It's called the system registry, that buggy plague ridden POS idea that has contaminated windows for decades, remains a continuous problem. Originally done so M$ could pry into what software people are running in one location and prevent undesired software from M$'s point of view from running, an idea that had to be abandoned for obvious reasons but that POS registry crap was still left behind. A brand new clean install more than anything else tidies up the registry and that speeds up boots, shut downs and application launches. The system registry is shite, get rid of it, finally for fukity fuck fucking sake.

Good luck with that. Registry keys are pretty much a staple of most software that's written for Win32. The idea actually isn't that bad: It's a place to stuff data about and settings for software in a standardized way. Thing is that my understanding of it is that the entire thing resides in RAM, so the fatter it is, the less that's available to the system. Someone with more/better information on this would be interesting to hear from.

Comment Re:Before you even start (Score 2) 261

People who prefer inexpensive but fast vehicles get a lot of tickets. I have no idea what kind of demographic this might be (young males).

Have you priced a WRX lately? Not exactly cheap, even used.

I wouldn't buy a WRX used anyway unless I knew the owner personally. Cars like the WRX get ridden hard and put away wet FAR more often than something more sedate.

Slashdot Top Deals

Happiness is twin floppies.

Working...