Submission + - India launches spacecraft to Mars (bbc.co.uk)
neo12 writes: India has successfully launched a spacecraft to the Red Planet — with the aim of becoming the fourth space agency to reach Mars.
Submission + - Indian-built aircraft carrier INS Vikrant to be launched (bbc.co.uk)
neo12 writes: India is all set to unveil it's first indigenously built aircraft carrier from Cochin.
Submission + - New Animated PNG creation tools intend to bring APNG into mainstream use (kickstarter.com) 1
Kagetsuki writes: While grainy GIF images can have entertaining uses they aren't the ideal animated image format due to lack of full color support and an alpha channel [for varied transparency]. Animated PNG doesn't have these faults and has been available and incorporated in quite a few browsers since roughly 2004. Lack of tools and recogniting has hurt adoption, so to remedy this there is a campaign on kickstarter to create an Open Source, high quality Animated PNG [APNG] conversion library and GUI Editor based on the APNG Assembler tool "apngasm". Even the primary goal includes libraries/modules for C/C++ and Ruby along with a cross platform GUI authoring tool. Aside from supporting the project simply using APNG willl help raise interest and support in the standard and bring us one step closer to a world with cleaner animated images.
Submission + - Aakash tablet unveiled at U.N. (thehindu.com)
neo12 writes: Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of Datawind, presented U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon an Aakash2 tablet during a meeting at the United Nations headquarters on Wednesday. They were accompanied by India's U.N. Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri.
Submission + - Hackers Discover Wii U's Processor Design and Clock Speed (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: "Early, off-the-record comments from game developers indicated that the Nintendo's Wii U console horsepower was on par with, or a bit behind the Xbox 360 and PS3, which raised questions about just how "next-generation" the Wii U would be. Now, Wii and PS3 hacker Hector Martin (aka Marcan) has answered some of these questions and raised a few others. According to his findings, the Wii U's CPU is a triple-core design clocked at 1.24GHz. Marcan identifies the base design as a PowerPC 750, which makes sense. Nintendo used PowerPC 750-derived processors in both the GameCube and the Wii. Retaining that architecture for the Wii U would simplify backwards compatibility and game development. Now factor in the GPU, which is reportedly clocked at 550MHz. Some have favored the Radeon HD 4000 series as a basis for the part; I still think a low-end Radeon 5000, like Redwood Pro, makes more sense. That GPU was built on 40nm, measured 104mm sq, clocked in at 649MHz, and had a 39W TDP. The die size discrepancy between the Wii U and Redwood Pro would account for the 32MB of EDRAM cache we know the Wii U offers. Nintendo may have propped up a relatively weak CPU with considerably more GPU horsepower."
Submission + - ISRO scores on 100th mission, PSLV rocket launch successful (hindustantimes.com)
blogmedia1 writes: "SRO's PSLV C21 rocket successfully blasted off into space on its 100th mission on a cloudy Sunday morning.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was among the cheering congregation of officials, scientists and media persons at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra
related stories
ISRO's 100th mission a milestone: PM
India's space odyssey: A timeline
Not locked in a space war with China, says ISRO
Pradesh.
On this journey, the PSLV C21 rocket ferried two dollar-paying foreign passengers – a French Earth observation satellite Spot 6 and a Japanese micro satellite Proiteres into polar orbit.
On Sunday, precisely at 9.52 minutes, the rocket lifted off with a deafening roar and thick orange flame powering its upward spiralling journey, amid much cheers and claps from hundreds of special guests from the government, scientific community and media representatives. Located some 80km north of Chennai, Sriharikota hosts the Satish Dhawan Space Centre from where ISRO carries of all the launches of its rockets that put satellites into orbit.
"
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was among the cheering congregation of officials, scientists and media persons at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra
related stories
ISRO's 100th mission a milestone: PM
India's space odyssey: A timeline
Not locked in a space war with China, says ISRO
Pradesh.
On this journey, the PSLV C21 rocket ferried two dollar-paying foreign passengers – a French Earth observation satellite Spot 6 and a Japanese micro satellite Proiteres into polar orbit.
On Sunday, precisely at 9.52 minutes, the rocket lifted off with a deafening roar and thick orange flame powering its upward spiralling journey, amid much cheers and claps from hundreds of special guests from the government, scientific community and media representatives. Located some 80km north of Chennai, Sriharikota hosts the Satish Dhawan Space Centre from where ISRO carries of all the launches of its rockets that put satellites into orbit.
"
Submission + - Indian Prime Minister formally announces Mars mission (thehindu.com) 1
neo12 writes: Making the first formal announcement on the country’s Mars mission, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said India will send a mission to the Red Planet that will mark a huge step in the area of science and technology.
Comment One enough? (Score 1) 155
Isn't one Win*OS enough to cause misery and pain? Why do we need these clones?
Submission + - Programmers sought for tropical hackathon (bbc.com)
neo12 writes: This sounds something pretty interesting.
Comment Re:So, which country do we nuke first? (Score 1) 349
How about terminating you first and put you out of your misarable life. Easier, cheaper and less painfull option I would say.
Comment Lot of time (Score 1) 67
I think people have lot of time commenting on random stuff (me included lol)
Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What coding exercises would interest female students?
Torby writes: Over the last seven years I have been teaching introductory programming classes and AI classes in several UK universities and I have typically set programming exercises related to simplified RPGs or sport-related applications in order to give the students something that can get their imagination flowing beyond the Towers of Hanoi and the Sieve of Eratosthenes.
For a while now, I have been painfully aware that my exercises motivate my male students to a much greater extent than my female students. I have started thinking in the direction of social networking or inter-personal applications as common wisdom says that these domains appeal to women.
However, I am not a great believer in common wisdom and I wondered if the Slashdot community (possibly not the best community to ask) could provide some inspiring ideas or poignant insights for programming problems that would inspire female students (ideally both male and female students).
For a while now, I have been painfully aware that my exercises motivate my male students to a much greater extent than my female students. I have started thinking in the direction of social networking or inter-personal applications as common wisdom says that these domains appeal to women.
However, I am not a great believer in common wisdom and I wondered if the Slashdot community (possibly not the best community to ask) could provide some inspiring ideas or poignant insights for programming problems that would inspire female students (ideally both male and female students).
Submission + - China Has Backdoor On US Military Chip (cam.ac.uk) 11
jjp9999 writes: Based on claims that silicon chips could be infected, security researcher Sergei Skorobogatov claims he and his team developed chip scanning software to put this to the test. They got their hands on a US military chip "that is highly secure with sophisticated encryption standards," that also happens to be manufactured in China. What they found was the chip has a backdoor on it that can disable the chip or reopen it at will. "This particular chip is prevalent in many systems from weapons, nuclear power plants to public transport. In other words, this backdoor access could be turned into an advanced Stuxnet weapon to attack potentially millions of systems. The scale and range of possible attacks has huge implications for National Security and public infrastructure," Skorobogatov writes on his blog.
Submission + - MirageTable: Microsoft presents augmented reality device (bbc.com)
neo12 writes: Microsoft has shown off an augmented reality system that allows users at different locations to work together on tabletop activities, sharing objects which they can both handle.
Submission + - U.S., China Face Mutually Assured Destruction In Cyber War (threatpost.com)
chicksdaddy writes: "A panel of security and policy experts speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday said that, despite dire warnings about the information warfare capabilities of China and other developing nations, the risk of an all-out cyber war is remote, and that the U.S. still holds many of the cards.
Rather than trying to deliver a knock-out cyber war capability, the U.S. should embrace the Cold War notions of containment and mutually assured destruction with advanced nations like China and Russia. Tried and true methods to win security from cyber attacks include international diplomacy, multilateral agreements that clarify the parameters for peaceful and hostile cyber actions and — of course — a strong offensive capability."
Rather than trying to deliver a knock-out cyber war capability, the U.S. should embrace the Cold War notions of containment and mutually assured destruction with advanced nations like China and Russia. Tried and true methods to win security from cyber attacks include international diplomacy, multilateral agreements that clarify the parameters for peaceful and hostile cyber actions and — of course — a strong offensive capability."
