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Comment USB, if not already stated (Score 1) 696

by da3dAlus (#24762923) Attached to: What To Do With All of My Gadget Chargers?
A while back I switched to all USB chargers for my gadgets. I found a USB adapter for my Nintendo DS (charges both the Lite and older "phat" model) and my cellphone, and a 3rd-party charger for my iPod. Since I normally travel with my laptop, I can charge my devices from that during the day. However, the NDS charger came with a car adapter that has a USB socket, so I could use that to charge a device while on the road. And my iPod charger came with a tiny wall-wart that also has a USB socket, so I could use household current to charge as well. So my only problem now is that I have maybe 3 different types of cables floating around in my gadget bag, but at least I've dropped all the bulky chargers.

Robotic Cannon Loses Control, Kills 9 580

Posted by Zonk from the keep-quiet-on-the-terminator-jokes dept.
TJ_Phazerhacki writes "A new high tech weapon system demonstrated one of the prime concerns circling smarter and smarter methods of defense last week — an Oerlikon GDF-005 cannon went wildly out of control during live fire test exercises in South Africa, killing 9. Scarily enough, this is far from the first instance of a smart weapon 'turning' on its handlers. 'Electronics engineer and defence company CEO Richard Young says he can't believe the incident was purely a mechanical fault. He says his company, C2I2, in the mid 1990s, was involved in two air defence artillery upgrade programmes, dubbed Projects Catchy and Dart. During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, "I personally saw a gun go out of control several times," Young says. "They made a temporary rig consisting of two steel poles on each side of the weapon, with a rope in between to keep the weapon from swinging. The weapon eventually knocked the pol[e]s down."' The biggest concern seems to be finding the glitches in the system instead of reconsidering automated arms altogether."
Space

The Dark Side of Iapetus 73

Posted by kdawson from the like-e-ink-writ-large dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The difference in coloring between Iapetus' leading and trailing hemispheres is striking. NASA's Jet Propulsion Labs has just released a report on a bizarre 'runaway' process that may explain the strange and dramatically two-toned appearance recently revealed in images collected during a close flyby by the Cassini spacecraft. Scientists believe that initially dark material on one side of Iapetus may have come from other moons orbiting Saturn in the opposite direction. Since Iapetus is locked in synchronous rotation about Saturn, as dusty material from the outer moons spiraled in and hit Iapetus head-on, the forward-facing side began to darken. As it absorbed more sunlight, its surface water evaporated, and vapor was transported from the dark side to the white side of Iapetus. Thermal segregation then proceeded in a runaway process as the dark side lost its surface ice and got darker still. Now the leading hemisphere is as dark as a tarred street and the trailing hemisphere resembles freshly fallen snow."

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