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Robotics

Submission + - Swiss UAV coaxial helicopter flies (suasnews.com)

Submitted by garymortimer
garymortimer writes: The makers of all the coaxial indoor models can't be wrong. A coaxial helicopter that can lift 7kgs will not doubt have a great appeal!

SWISS UAV AG finished the development of the brand new KOAX X-240 system.

This easy to handle new VTOL UAV uses the exciting technology of the ultra stable coaxial helicopter platform and is able to perform fully autonomous flights from start to landing. Equipped with exactly the same electronics than the bigger brother NEO S-300 it can be handled by the same ground control station without any changes. The small design makes it interesting for a lot of civil applications or military applications
Image

Criminal Photoshops Himself Into Charity Photos In Bid For Leniency Screenshot-sm 108

Posted by samzenpus from the shopping-daryl-in-a-crowded-theater dept.
38-year-old Daryl Simon decided it would be a good idea to submit fake pictures of himself at charity events, and forged letters of support from various charitable organizations to the court before he was sentenced for credit card fraud. Unfortunately for Daryl, he is as good at Photoshop as he is at credit card scams, and Judge Stephen Robinson was not amused. Simon was sentenced to 285-months in prison — 50 months more than the maximum under sentencing guidelines. From the article: "Daryl Simon's bald-faced move included sticking a picture of himself into a shot with a physical-therapy patient, then flipping the image and placing it next to a teen student. 'Evidence that his image was inserted and flipped can be seen by examining the single detail on his shirt above his fingers — that detail appears on the left side of the shirt in the top photograph, and on the right side of the shirt in the bottom photograph,' prosecutors wrote."
Earth

Submission + - Airplanes Unexpectedly Modify Weather (discovery.com)

Submitted by reillymj
reillymj writes: Commercial airliners have a strange ability to create rain and snow when they fly through certain clouds. Scientists have known for some time that planes can make outlandish "hole-punch" and "canal" features in clouds. A new study has found that these odd formations are in fact evidence that planes are seeding clouds and changing local weather patterns as they fly through. In one case, researchers noted that a plane triggered several inches of snowfall directly beneath its flight path.
IBM

Is OS/2 Coming Back? 432

Posted by CmdrTaco from the high-school-flashback dept.
mstansberry writes "Is IBM considering relaunching OS/2? One source close to IBM says Big Blue plans to repurpose OS/2 services atop a Linux core. IT managers ask, why now?" Hey, back in simpler times OS/2 was super badass. Both of the guys who ran it were hard core.
Image

Facebook Leads To Increase In STDs in Britain Screenshot-sm 270

Posted by samzenpus from the friends-and-really-good-friends dept.
ectotherm writes "According to Professor Peter Kelly, a director of Public Health in Great Britain: 'There has been a four-fold increase in the number of syphilis cases detected, with more young women being affected.' Why the increase? People meeting up for casual sex through Facebook. According to the article, 'Social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex. There is a rise in syphilis because people are having more sexual partners than 20 years ago and often do not use condoms.'"

Comment Re:From the Wall Street Journal MOD PARENT UP!! (Score 1) 479

by crosseyedatnite (#31407032) Attached to: Gas Wants To Kill the Wind

From the WSJ article, it seems that the beef that the natural gas electric generators have is that they're cleaner than coal, especially CO2 wise, and thus gas wants to displace coal-powered units and is seen as a very good mid-term solution until the pure green technologies come about, but in the near term, any gains that wind makes comes out of the share that the gas producers make and coal is not seeing its portion diminshed.
Security

Doom-Like Video Surveillance For Ports In Development 56

Posted by Soulskill from the hurt-me-plenty dept.
oranghutan writes "A research and development group down under is working to develop an advanced video surveillance system for ports around the world that uses video superimposed onto a 3D map. With 16-megapixel high-definition cameras on a distributed (cabled) network and a proprietary system written in a variety of languages (C++, Python, SQL, etc.), the group from NICTA is aiming to allow security teams at the Port of Brisbane — which is 110km long — to monitor shipping movements, cargo and people. By scrolling along a 3D map, the security teams can click on a location and then get a real-time video feed superimposed onto the map. Authorities from around the world with the right permissions can then access the same system. The main difference from regular surveillance systems is the ability to switch views without having to know camera numbers/locations and the one screen view."
Google

Submission + - Google Chrome Extensions are now available (digitizor.com)

Submitted by kai_hiwatari
kai_hiwatari writes: Google Chrome Extensions is now open for Windows and Linux users, but not yet available for Mac users. An AdBlock extention, however, is not yet available. Does the availability of extentions put Chrome at the risk of becoming bloated like many complain in the case of Firefox?

Submission + - Silicon is the New Lithium (mnn.com)

Submitted by
hduff
hduff writes: "While lithium-ion batteries offer better performance than lead-acid and ni-cad batteries, the supply of lithium is limited and the batteries can pose problems. The Technion-Israel Institute is building a better mousetrap with easily obtainable sand and air."

Comment Re:No IPv6 records :-( (Score 2, Interesting) 540

by Wowlapalooza (#30316248) Attached to: Google Launches Public DNS Resolver

Google has a special "Cluefulness Test" when it comes to IPv6: http://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/. In order to get IPv6 resolution, you need to register the source addresses of your nameservers with them, and claim/prove that you and your provider have "good" IPv6 connectivity to Google. You're also expected to troubleshoot any IPv6 problems that may occur, as opposed to your clueless users bugging Google directly about it.

If you don't meet those criteria, you're still welcome to use ipv6.google.com for searches, of course. But that's not the whole suite of Google tools/products, and the URL is just not as convenient...

Comment Re:Why? (Score 4, Insightful) 540

by zunger (#30316218) Attached to: Google Launches Public DNS Resolver

That depends on whether you're running a Linux box at home in a "reliable enough" way to be functioning as a server. And in the example you give, as your primary machine as well. While I realize that many /. users do this, I would certainly say that most people don't.

I actually stopped doing it several years ago. I concluded that I have to maintain enough complex systems at work; I don't see any need to be a sysadmin for a complex system that requires nonstop patching and understanding of 30-year-old system internals at home, too. Plus the desktop environment was frankly primitive compared to modern machines. So I ditched it and started running OS X. (And I should say that I'm an experienced Linux sysadmin and engineer professionally, so this was not the "I don't know how to use it and it appears to have been designed by badgers" issue)

It's definitely true that, if you're already doing all of the work to run your own system at home, adding a DNS server isn't a big deal. But that's really a hobbyist thing to do. If your home system is primarily for the purpose of getting things done, rather than for playing with systems, it's an enormous amount of extra work. Yet having faster DNS lookups is still a win.

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