Comment 3.14... (Score 1) 341
3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128 4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196 4428810975 6659334461 2847564823 3786783165 2712019091 4564856692 3460348610 4543266482 1339360726 0249141273 7245870066 0631558817 4881520920 9628292540 9171536436 7892590360 0113305305 4882046652 1384146951 9415116094 3305727036 5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548 0744623799 6274956735 1885752724 8912279381 8301194912 9833673362 4406566430 8602139494 6395224737 1907021798 6094370277 0539217176 2931767523 8467481846 7669405132 0005681271 4526356082 7785771342 7577896091 7363717872 1468440901 2249534301 4654958537 1050792279 6892589235 4201995611 2129021960 8640344181 5981362977 4771309960 5187072113 4999999837 2978049951 0597317328 1609631859 5024459455 3469083026 4252230825 3344685035 2619311881 7101000313 7838752886 5875332083 8142061717 7669147303 5982534904 2875546873 1159562863 8823537875 9375195778 1857780532 1712268066 1300192787 6611195909 2164201989
Geomagnetic Storm In Progress 110
shogun writes "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports a strong geomagnetic storm is in progress. The shuttle, ISS and GPS systems may be affected."
They think this storm was caused by a weak solar flare on April 3rd. As you may expect, this has caused some unusually impressive northern lights since it started. What you may not expect is a photograph from Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi aboard the International Space Station showing the aurora from orbit. He apparently tweets a lot of pictures from space. He and his crewmates have taken over 100,000 pictures since coming aboard the ISS.
Comment 64 fury (Score 1) 522
Well now, my '64 fury is up for rent, by the hour.
Submission + - The hype of quantum computing
Schrodinger's duck writes: Ars Technica looks at some of the hype surrounding tomorrow's expected demonstration of a 16-bit quantum computer by Canadian start-up D-Wave. 'D-Wave's demos will show Orion crunching through a database search and handling a seating plan with a large number of constraints, such as you might find at a wedding reception. It's probably safe to say that, despite any of the doubts about the company, Orion will almost certainly show a major speed advance when applied to these two problems. But, given the limitations and questions, and the fact that D-Wave doesn't appear to currently be hurting for money, why are they bothering?' Ars' science journal, Nobel Intent, also has a pair of companion articles explaining Adiabatic Quantum Computing, the method used by D-Wave, and the P vs. NP problem in computational science.
Submission + - Charter Communications Hijacks Windows Live Search
Tony Bradley writes: "There are plenty of spyware and malware programs out there that will hijack your default home page or search engine. Antivirus and anti-spyware software will typically identify and block such attempts because they are illegal, or at least unethical. Imagine my dismay then when my default Web browser search engine was hijacked...by my ISP!! I did some investigating and found that they rationalized their browser hijacking by calling it an opt in "feature". The problem is that they opted everyone in by default and never gave users the opportunity to choose. I also discovered that this "service" only seems to apply if you use Microsoft's search engine. If you are a Google or Yahoo user, apparently you don't need to be forced to opt in to Charter's new "feature". Check out my walk-through of my investigation into this browser hijacking, complete with screen shots to illustrate the story.
http://netsecurity.about.com/od/webbrowsersecurity /ss/charterhijack.htm"
Submission + - Microchip Breakthrough - IBM, Intel
An anonymous reader writes: http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/27/technology/bc.micr ochips.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes
No more silicon-based chips? Interesting read on the advancement in this field. Higher clock rate & less power consumption. I wonder how many more cores Intel will be able to put on their chips in a year or two.
Submission + - A 2-nanometer-high Solomon's knot
Roland Piquepaille writes: "UCLA chemists have built a molecular Solomon's knot at the nanoscale. The Solomon's knot is composed of two rings that interlace each other four times, with alternating crossing points that go over, under, over and under as one traces around each of the rings. This nano-version is roughly 2 nanometers high by 1.2 nanometers wide. And what would it be useful for? The project's leader offers a refreshing answer: "There is often a connection between the beauty and elegance of a chemical structure and its potential usefulness, and this Solomon knot structure is quite beautiful and elegant." Good luck to her! Read more for additional details and a picture."
Submission + - Sun gives out free Solaris 10 DVDs
Tarmas writes: "For a limited time only, just like Ubuntu's ShipIt service, Sun Microsystems lets you order Solaris 10 absolutely free of charge. The operating system comes on a single DVD sporting both the x86 and SPARC versions. Also included is Sun Studio 11."
Submission + - Canada To Lose Fair-Use Copyright Rights?
DotNM writes: "This article from CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) reports that the Canadian government is considering revising the copyright law in Canada. These revisions include removing the fair use rights that Canadians enjoy. Will recording a TV show to watch later or ripping your CDs to MP3s become a crime in Canada?"
Netscape Dumps Critical File, Breaks RSS 0.9 Feeds 137
An anonymous reader writes "In the standard definition of RSS 0.91, there are a couple of lines referring to 'DOCTYPE' and referencing a 'dtd' spec hosted on Netscape's website. According to an article on DeviceForge.com quite a few RSS feeds around the web probably stopped working properly over the past few weeks because Netscape recently stopped hosting the critical rss-0.91.dtd file. Probably someone over at netscape.com simply thought he was cleaning up some insignificant cruft." Some explanation has been offered by a Netscape employee.
Submission + - VerizonMath blogger gets hit with lawyer stick
akohler writes: "The VerizonMath blogger, who you may remember chronicled the story of how Verizon does not teach their employees the difference between dollars and cents, has been threatened with legal action by the Verizon Legal Department over his use of their Trademark on T shirts parodying the incident."
Submission + - New Spin on "Big Brother" database for UK
POPE Mad Mitch writes: The BBC is reporting that in a move that both the opposition party and the Information Commission have condemned as another step towards a "Big Brother" society, Tony Blair is on monday going to unveil planas to build a single database to pull together and share every piece of personal data from all government departments, the claimed justification for which is to improve public services. Sharing information in this way is currently prohibited by the "over zealous" data protection legislation. An attempt to build a similar database was a key part of the, now severely delayed, ID card scheme.
Submission + - Jobs Announces iPhone, AppleTV & Movies
An anonymous reader writes: Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced made some much anticipated announcements in his keynote address at Macworld Expo today. Along with the previously previewed AppleTV (formerly known at the iTV), Jobs announced that Apple struck a deal to sell Paramount movies through the iTunes store. He also announced the much-anticipated iPhone, which he boasts will "leap frog" ahead of other mobile phones. Jobs believes that usability will set this phone apart. Instead of a keyboard or stylus, it uses "multitouch" for touch screen navigation. This smart phone runs OS X, so you can access email, the web, and text message through a familiar interface. One of the most interesting features is "visual voicemail" that lets you navigate through your voicemail directly to the message you want. It synchronizes with both Macs and PCs through iTunes.
Submission + - Jobs' Officaly Announces iPhone
Thansal writes: Jobs has announced the Applie iPhone at Macworld. Reuters snippit
Apple-branded mobile phone with a touch-screen that combines features from the popular iPod music player.
