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Sci-Fi

30 Years of Star Wars Technology 146

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the everything-i-need-to-know-i-learned-from-star-wars dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this month, Computerworld Australia checked out the exhibition of 30 years of Star Wars history at Sydney's Powerhouse museum. They also have a pictorial look at what's on display: one of the largest collections of Star Wars memorabilia combined with real-life examples of how such technology is being applied for business and social advancement."
United States

DHS To Grab Biometric Data From Green Card Holders 248

Posted by Soulskill from the imports-with-documentation dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Nextgov: "The Homeland Security Department has announced plans to expand its biometric data collection program to include foreign permanent residents and refugees. Almost all noncitizens will be required to provide digital fingerprints and a photograph upon entry into the United States as of Jan. 18. A notice (PDF) in Friday's Federal Register said expansion of the US Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology Program (US VISIT) will include 'nearly all aliens,' except Canadian citizens on brief visits. Those categories include permanent residents with green cards, individuals seeking to enter on immigrant visas, and potential refugees. The US VISIT program was developed after the Sept.11, 2001 terrorist attacks to collect fingerprints from foreign visitors and run them against the FBI's terrorist watch list and other criminal databases. Another phase of the project, to develop an exit system to track foreign nationals leaving the country, has run into repeated setbacks." Reader MirrororriM points out other DHS news that they're thinking about monitoring blogs for information on terrorists.

Comment Re:Time to move... (Score 2, Interesting) 314

by pjt48108 (#25842845) Attached to: Massive Martian Glaciers Found

Check out the Mars Direct proposal championed by Robert Zubrin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct.

Not only did it involve pre-setting equipment and habitats, it's launch framework was shuttle-derived, thus precluding a need for new (potentially troubled) launch system. Such a shuttle-derived system is reflected in the Direct proposal: http://www.directlauncher.com./

For my money, the whole Ares launch system is a waste of time, money, and effort, too. We could probably be on Mars in ten years if they followed the Mars Direct/Direct Launcher path.
Robotics

Flower Robots For Your Home 119

Posted by timothy from the pretty-high-on-maslow's-hierarchy dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Flower robots are not new, and some have already been developed in the US. Now, South Korean researchers have created a robotic plant which acts like real ones. This robot has humidifying, oxygen-producing, aroma-emitting, and kinetic functions. It is about 1.30 meters tall and 40 centimeters in diameter. The robotic plant can interact with people when they approach, and it can 'dance' when music is played. The researchers don't say when a commercial version of their flowers will come to the market. They also don't mention a retail price."
Moon

The Case for Lunar Property Rights 387

Posted by timothy from the title-check's-a-bitch dept.
longacre writes "Who owns the moon? In a thought provoking piece, Instapundit blogger/law professor Glenn Reynolds gives us a brief history of earthlings' discourse on lunar property rights, a topic which has stagnated since the 1979 Moon Treaty. Is it possible to claim good title on land that is not under the dominion of a nation? He goes on to plead his case for the creation of lunar real estate legislation. From the article: 'Property rights attract private capital and, with government space programs stagnating, a lunar land rush may be just what we need to get things going again.'"
Communications

Dealing With Dialup 588

Posted by kdawson from the life-through-a-soda-straw dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like my parents may end up stuck having to use dialup to access the Internet from their cottage inside the Cape Cod National Seashore. Neither Comcast nor Verizon want to bother upgrading the hardware required to get them faster service. They could put a satellite dish on their roof, but it's a 300-year-old house and they feel a dish would be as prohibitively ugly as running dedicated lines would be prohibitively expensive. I've suggested they get familiar with a text-only email client; I also suggested they talk with their senators and local political reps. , Are there other ways they can increase the functionality despite the pitiful bandwidth? Any other good ideas? Any success stories you can share where people have finally got the bandwidth they crave?"
Security

CNN Website Targeted by DoS 187

Posted by CmdrTaco from the different-kind-of-d-o-s dept.
antifoidulus writes "CNN is reporting that they were the target of a Denial of Service attack yesterday. According to the article, there have been reports on Asian tech sites that Chinese hackers were targeting CNN for their coverage of the unrest in Tibet. One has to wonder if this hacking attempt was government sponsored or not. The Chinese government hasn't been very happy with CNN -- in fact, the Beijing Bureau Chief has been summoned about a day before this happened."
Privacy

FBI Accidentally Received Unauthorized E-Mail Access 122

Posted by Zonk from the that's-a-big-oops dept.
AmishElvis writes "The New York Times reports that 'glitch' gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network. A hundred or more accounts may have been accessed, rather than 'the lone e-mail address' that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation. The episode was disclosed as part of a new batch of internal documents that the F.B.I. turned over to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit the group has brought."
Science

Vote To Eliminate Leap Seconds 531

Posted by kdawson from the making-y2k-look-like-a-walk-in-the-park dept.
Mortimer.CA writes "As discussed on Slashdot previously, there is a proposal to remove leap seconds from UTC (nee 'Greenwich' time). It will be put to a vote to ITU member states during 2008, and if 70% agree, the leap second will be eliminated by 2013. There is some debate as to whether this change is a good or bad idea. The proposal calls for a 'leap-hour' in about 600 years, which nobody seems to believe is a good idea. One philosophical point opponents make is that the 'official' time on Earth should match the time of the sun and heavens."
Education

How Much is Your Right to Vote Worth? 857

Posted by samzenpus from the how-much-are-you-offering dept.
Attila Dimedici writes "Two thirds of the students at NYU would give up their right to vote in the next election for a full scholarship. Some would be satisfied with an ipod. A few would be willing to give up the right for the rest of their lives for one million dollars."
Networking

Aussie Claims Copper Broadband now 200x Faster 208

Posted by CmdrTaco from the alarms-going-off-in-brain dept.
SkiifGeek writes "Winner of Melbourne University's Chancellor's Prize for Excellence, Dr John Papandriopoulos could soon find himself the focus of a number of networking companies and government agencies interested in wringing more performance from existing network infrastructure. Dr John developed a set of algorithms (US and Aussie patents pending) that reduce the impact of cross talk on data streams sharing the same physical copper line, taking less than a year to achieve the breakthrough. It is claimed that the algorithms can produce up to 200x improvement over existing copper broadband performance (quoted as being between one and 25 mbit/sec), with up to 200 mbit/sec apparently being deliverable. If the mathematical theories are within even an order of magnitude of the actual gains achieved, Dr John's work is likely to have widespread implications for future bandwidth availability across the globe."
Star Wars Prequels

Star Wars Television Series Moving Forward 178

Posted by Zonk from the seems-like-it-started-a-long-time-ago dept.
merg717 writes "George Lucas has confirmed that work has begun on a live-action Star Wars television series. This is the companion piece to the Clone Wars animated series, focusing on entirely new characters outside of the frame of the six movies. 'Lucas joked that the series would be about "the life of robots" but wouldn't let any details slip about the true premise. The "extended universe" of "Star Wars" has come to life already in Lucas-sanctioned novels, comics and games that chronicle the history of the Jedi and tell the tales of bit players in the films, such as the bounty hunters from "The Empire Strikes Back."'"

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