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Submission + - 5D 'Superman memory' crystal could lead to unlimited lifetime data storage (southampton.ac.uk)

Submitted by dsinc
dsinc writes: Using nanostructured glass, scientists at the University of Southampton have, for the first time, experimentally demonstrated the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional digital data by femtosecond laser writing. The storage allows unprecedented parameters including 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1000C and practically unlimited lifetime.

Coined as the ‘Superman’ memory crystal’, as the glass memory has been compared to the “memory crystals” used in the Superman films, the data is recorded via self-assembled nanostructures created in fused quartz, which is able to store vast quantities of data for over a million years. The information encoding is realised in five dimensions: the size and orientation in addition to the three dimensional position of these nanostructures.

A 300 kb digital copy of a text file was successfully recorded in 5D using ultrafast laser, producing extremely short and intense pulses of light. The file is written in three layers of nanostructured dots separated by five micrometres (one millionth of a metre).

Professor Peter Kazansky, the ORC’s group supervisor, adds: “It is thrilling to think that we have created the first document which will likely survive the human race. This technology can secure the last evidence of civilisation: all we’ve learnt will not be forgotten.”

Comment Re:Are there still memory leaks? (Score 2) 156

by dsinc (#44104909) Attached to: Firefox 22 Released, Boosts 3-D Gaming and Video Calls
Funny you should say that. I regularly use Firefox and Chrome on two very different machines: one, is an anemic laptop with a Pentium T4200, the other a desktop with 8 cores and lots of memory. On the weaker machine, Chrome is visibly snappier - and never slows down at the end of the day. Firefox seems quite spry in the beginning, but quickly becomes visibly slower - not its rendering, but its general reaction, the awful, XUL-based interface. By the end of the day, right-clicking on a page and/or opening a new tab has a very visible, very annoying lag and the overall reactivity has decreased greatly. It's not a problem induced by some esoteric extensions (I only use Ghostery), I have enough memory (8GB, and the system memory load never goes beyond 50-52%), I only read text (lots of pages, though), no video, no games, flash is disabled via click-to-run. The faster/newer machine exhibits the same behaviour, it only takes a while longer for the lag to be apparent (due, obviously, to the increased computing power). I've always been a supporter of Firefox, I've been using it continuously since the 0.x era (in its Phoenix incarnation), but I'm not blind and statements like "FF is faster than Chrome" simply make no sense to me (and my browsing habits).

Submission + - TSA eliminates all invasive X-ray machines

Submitted by dsinc
dsinc writes: The Transportation Security Administration announced it has finished removing from all airports the X-ray technology that produced graphic and controversial images of passengers passing through security screening checkpoints.
The machines, which the TSA first deployed in 2008, provoked public outrage as the technology, better able than traditional X-rays to detect hidden contraband, also created images that appeared as if they were "virtual nudes." Critics called this an invasion of privacy and questioned whether the scanning devices truly lacked the ability to save the images, as the TSA claimed.

Submission + - Intel Core i Haswell Microprocessors May Require New Power Supply Units for PCs (xbitlabs.com)

Submitted by dsinc
dsinc writes: Intel Corp.’s Haswell microprocessors due in early June are expected to bring a number of innovations designed to improve performance and cut power consumption, however, in many cases not all users will be able to enjoy all of them. As it appears, end-users will either have disable low-power states of Haswell or get a new power-supply units compatible with the new Intel chip.

As it appears, Haswell's C6/C7 states require a minimum load of 0.05A on the 12V2 rail, and many desktop power supply units (PSUs) just cannot provide that low current. Meanwhile, numerous older PSUs, which comply with ATX12V v2.3 design guidelines only called for a minimum load of 0.5A on the CPU power rail, hence a less sophisticated internal feedback loop/protection could be used. As a result, unless C6/C7 power states are disabled in the BIOS, PCs with older/cheap PSUs may become unstable when processors enter these states.

Submission + - Microsoft wants you to pay $100 a year for Office (cnn.com)

Submitted by dsinc
dsinc writes: Starting on Tuesday, Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) will be offering Office as a subscription service for consumers. For $100 a year, "Office 365 Home Premium" customers can put Office on up to five computers (including Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) Macintoshes and Windows 8 tablets) and store up to 27 gigabytes of data on Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud storage service. The subscription includes frequent software updates and allows users to automatically load their customized Microsoft Office settings on each different device.

Submission + - Mathematical breakthrough sets out rules for more effective teleportation (cam.ac.uk)

Submitted by dsinc
dsinc writes: Once considered impossible, in 1993 a team of scientists calculated that teleportation could work in principle using quantum laws. Quantum teleportation harnesses the âentanglementâ(TM) law to transmit particle-sized bites of information across potentially vast distances in an instant.

Entanglement involves a pair of quantum particles such as electrons or protons that are intrinsically bound together, retaining synchronisation between the two that holds whether the particles are next to each other or on opposing sides of a galaxy. Through this connection, quantum bits of information â" qubits â" can be relayed using only traditional forms of classical communication.

Previous teleportation protocols have fallen into one of two camps, those that could only send scrambled information requiring correction by the receiver or, more recently, âoeport-basedâ teleportation that doesnâ(TM)t require a correction, but needs an impractical amount of entanglement â" as each object sent would destroy the entangled state.

Now, physicists from Cambridge, University College London, and the University of Gdansk have developed a protocol to provide an optimal solution in which the entangled state is ârecycledâ(TM), so that the gateway between particles holds for the teleportation of multiple objects.

Submission + - Air Force sends mystery mini-shuttle back to space (ap.org)

Submitted by dsinc
dsinc writes: The Air Force launched the unmanned spacecraft Tuesday hidden on top of an Atlas V rocket.

It's the second flight for this original X-37B spaceplane. It circled the planet for seven months in 2010. A second X-37B spacecraft spent more than a year in orbit.

These high-tech mystery machines — 29 feet long — are about one-quarter the size of NASA's old space shuttles and can land automatically on a runway. The two previous touchdowns occurred in Southern California; this one might end on NASA's three-mile-long runway once reserved for the space agency's shuttles.

The military isn't saying much if anything about this new secret mission. In fact, launch commentary ended 17 minutes into the flight.

But one scientific observer, Harvard University's Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, speculates the spaceplane is carrying sensors designed for spying and likely is serving as a testbed for future satellites.

Submission + - ITU Approves Deep Packet Inspection, Ignores Huge Privacy Implications (techdirt.com)

Submitted by dsinc
dsinc writes: Techdirt has run a number of articles about the ITU's World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) currently taking place in Dubai. One of the concerns is that decisions taken there may make the Internet less a medium that can be used to enhance personal freedom than a tool for state surveillance and oppression.
The new Y.2770 standard is entitled "Requirements for deep packet inspection in Next Generation Networks", and seeks to define an international standard for deep packet inspection (DPI). As the Center for Democracy & Technology points out, it is thoroughgoing in its desire to specify technologies that can be used to spy on people.

One of the big issues surrounding WCIT and the ITU has been the lack of transparency — or even understanding what real transparency might be. So it will comes as no surprise that the new DPI standard was negotiated behind closed doors, with no drafts being made available.

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