Comment Re: Innovation? (Score 1) 361
Posting to undo flamebait mod. One would think that I could simply select the correct moderation after the fact, but that would entail logic.
FCC Guidance On Radio For Commercial Space Operations Falls Short 48
RocketAcademy writes "The Federal Communications Commission has issued a Public Notice to help commercial space companies obtain use of communications frequencies for launch, operations, and reentry. Commercial space companies can obtain the use of government frequencies on a temporary, non-interference basis through the FCC's Experimental Authorization process. Experimental Authorizations are valid for a six-month period from the date of grant and are renewable, but applicants must obtain a new authorization for each launch and must apply 90 days in advance. Unfortunately, this requirement does not meet the needs of suborbital launch providers who expect to fly several times per day and schedule launches as needed, on very short notice."
Comment Re:Missing option (Score 1) 283
Is that a Klingon drink or something? I think you were trying to say Yerba Mate.
Comment Re:Bought a Lytro (Score 1) 79
While it is technically stereoscopic 3D, my HTC evo 3D takes and displays 3D photos and videos at a decent quality and resolution as long as the lighting isn't too dim. I'm not sure what you mean by "realistic 3D". Do you mean to have the ability to rotate the photo and view from multiple vantage points? Because AFAICT that would require a snapshot from more than one perspective (ie the evo 3d - and that only supplies two shots. For a good example, consider bullet time from "The Matrix"). If you want the ability to take a photo of something and rotate it 360 degrees, you need a shot of it from more than a one or two angles.
Comment Re:FYI (Score 2, Informative) 98
I'm a courier and I work all sides of Chicago. While I must admit 25th and Washington isn't exactly the first place I would choose to hang out, areas around 51st and western make me way more nervous (and that's not even actually going into the neighborhoods around there).
Comment Re:Use LED LCD TV instead -- not really (Score 2) 242
At those kinds of rates solar/wind power starts to look rather enticing. There are numerous home-brew solutions that could allow you to cut that bill down significantly. Some low-cost solar panels and a battery bank that kicks on during peak usage hours for example. This doesn't make sense everywhere but at $0.40/kWh, it might be something to consider. Of course, there will be upfront costs and I'm lazy and only do math out of necessity, but I'm willing to bet that the turnaround on such a project could be at or around ten years if you choose your materials wisely and do most of the work yourself. I'm a tad off-topic here, but that just seems crazy. Also, please excuse my extensive abuse of commas.
Comment Haven't read a word of TFA (Score 1) 264
But I can emphatically say: "no". Excuse my grammar. I have a P4 HT clocking around 3.4ghz. I would overclock it if the mobo wasn't an HP OEM and what-have-you. I also have a 1Gb Nvidia card. My point is that my computer meets the minimum specs for prettymuch every modern game sans the CPU. You simply can't run a newer game on a single core machine without serious gameplay consequences. If I had even a core 2 duo, the rest of my setup would beat the shit out of games like crysis. So, once again: a new GPU will only make your textures look really awesome at 3 FPS.
Submission + - US spots $120M for lab to tackle rare earth shortages (networkworld.com)
coondoggie writes: "With China once again playing games with the rare earth materials it largely holds sway over, the US Department of Energy today said it would set up a research and development hub that will bring together all manner of experts to help address the situation."
Submission + - Public Health Nightmare as First Cases of 'Incurable Gonorrhea' Emerge 5
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Jason Koebler reports that the fears of major health organizations have come true with the detection of Gonorrhea that is immune to the last remaining effective oral antibiotic in at least nine North American patients, meaning the era of "incurable" gonorrhea could be close. Scientists have found that 6.7 percent of patients with gonorrhea at a Toronto clinic still had the disease after a round of cephalosporins, the last effective oral antibiotic used to treat the disease. This is the first time cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea has been found in humans in North America. "These are the clinical cases we've been waiting for," says Vanessa Allen of Public Health Ontario. "This is the translation of the lab information into what the clinical consequence is." Gonorrhea is estimated to infect close to 700,000 Americans each year with symptoms including painful urination, abdominal pain, genital discharge, itching, and infertility in women. Less than a year ago, Gail Bolan, director of the CDC's sexually transmitted disease prevention program, wrote that the "threat of untreatable gonorrhea is emerging rapidly." At the time, just 1.7 percent of gonorrhea isolated in the lab were considered resistant to cephalosporins. Allen says her study shows just how fast antibiotic resistance is evolving in the organisms. "Our results aren't generalizable to the overall population because they all came from one clinic," concludes Allen. "But basically, the problem appears worse than we originally thought.""
Submission + - thepiratebay.se Blocked In North America? (reddit.com) 3
Anarki2004 writes: The famous torrent website thepiratebay.se is silently being blocked by Comcast, AT&T, and other ISPs in the USA. I have been unable to find a link to a proper news article, but the reddit page makes it clear. Anecdotal, but from my Chicago connection, I can't connect unless using a proxy. On the other hand, a traceroute shows the server not responding to be in Sweden so perhaps my conjecture is wrong?
Submission + - CES: Intel salvages the Ultrabook (networkworld.com)
colinneagle writes: Ultrabooks made a big splash at last year's CES, but sales over the course of 2012 were disappointing. Intel yesterday made a determined bid to change all that.
Craig Stice, an analyst at HIS iSuppli, said one reason Ultrabooks didn't gain much traction was the $1,000 price tag. At a CES press conference yesterday, Kirk Skaugen, general manager of Intel's PC client group, acknowledged this misstep, announcing that the company's manufacturing partners will soon roll out "dozens of platforms [priced] below $750," including touch-enabled devices for $599. Ultrabooks made a big splash at last year's CES, but sales over the course of 2012 were disappointing. Intel yesterday made a determined bid to change all that.
Intel's Skaugen announced that the second-generation Ultrabooks would feature touchscreens and a convertible form factor, in addition to longer batter life.
Intel executives showed off a handful of convertible notebook/tablet Ultrabooks, including the Lenovo Yoga 11s and the Acer Aspire, whose screen can be detached from its keyboard to act as a 10-millimeter-thin Windows 8 tablet.
In terms of battery life, Intel delivered in this category, announcing that new, lower-power, third-generation processors shipping today will drop to 7 watts of power consumption. The previous generation consumed 15W, and many had expected the upcoming Haswell processor (which Skaugen said will launch within the next few months) to consume around 10W.
Skaugen showed a concept platform called Northscape that, even at 17 mm thin, boasted 13-hour battery life. The update is the largest increase in battery life Intel has ever made between two generations of the same processor, Skaugen said.
Craig Stice, an analyst at HIS iSuppli, said one reason Ultrabooks didn't gain much traction was the $1,000 price tag. At a CES press conference yesterday, Kirk Skaugen, general manager of Intel's PC client group, acknowledged this misstep, announcing that the company's manufacturing partners will soon roll out "dozens of platforms [priced] below $750," including touch-enabled devices for $599. Ultrabooks made a big splash at last year's CES, but sales over the course of 2012 were disappointing. Intel yesterday made a determined bid to change all that.
Intel's Skaugen announced that the second-generation Ultrabooks would feature touchscreens and a convertible form factor, in addition to longer batter life.
Intel executives showed off a handful of convertible notebook/tablet Ultrabooks, including the Lenovo Yoga 11s and the Acer Aspire, whose screen can be detached from its keyboard to act as a 10-millimeter-thin Windows 8 tablet.
In terms of battery life, Intel delivered in this category, announcing that new, lower-power, third-generation processors shipping today will drop to 7 watts of power consumption. The previous generation consumed 15W, and many had expected the upcoming Haswell processor (which Skaugen said will launch within the next few months) to consume around 10W.
Skaugen showed a concept platform called Northscape that, even at 17 mm thin, boasted 13-hour battery life. The update is the largest increase in battery life Intel has ever made between two generations of the same processor, Skaugen said.
Submission + - Japanese Cops Collar Malware-Carrying Cat (net-security.org)
Orome1 writes: "When imagining law enforcement officers investigating and searching for cyber criminals or evidence about their activities, the last thing that you can probably envision is them searching for a stray cat. But that was exactly what detectives of Japan's National Police Agency recently did as the last step in a complex "treasure hunt" started on New Year’s Day by a person (persons?) who is allegedly the mastermind behind the so-called “Remote Control Virus”. The malware in question was instrumental in staging a continuous campaign of death and bomb threats sent to airline companies, kindergartens, schools, law offices, broadcasting networks and shrines."
Submission + - Ruby on Rails SQL Injection Flaw has Serious Real-Life Consequences
vikingpower writes: "As a previous Slashdot story already reported, Ruby on Rails was recently reported to suffer from a major SQL injection flaw. This has prompted the Dutch government to take the one and only national site for citizens' digital identification offline ( link in Dutch ), here is the English-language placeholder page for the now-offline site. This means that 16 million Dutch citizens can not authenticate themselves anymore with government instances, and that those same government instances can not communicate anything to those same citizens anymore."
Submission + - Fireflies Bring Us Brighter LEDs (gizmag.com)
Zothecula writes: Fireflies have helped an international team of scientists get over 50 percent more light out of existing LED bulbs. It was discovered that in the Photuris genus of firefly, scales in the insect's exoskeleton possess optical qualities that boost the amount of bioluminescence that can shine through. Those same qualities were found to dramatically increase the light output of an LED bulb.
7 Jailed In 'Kidney For iPad' Case In China 100
hackingbear writes "In China, the whole team of medical staff and their brokers were sentenced to jail yesterday over their involvement in the case of a teenager who sold a kidney to buy an iPhone and iPad. He Wei, who organized the illegal transaction in April 2011, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment by the Beihu District People's Court in Chenzhou City. The court added that the defendants had paid compensation worth more than 1.47 million yuan (~ US $237,000) to Wang. Ministry of Health statistics show that about 1.5 million people in China need transplants, but only 10,000 operations are performed each year."
