Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Internet

Submission + - Is Comcast at it again? 3

Submitted by
dreamchaser
dreamchaser writes: "I'm a guitarist and frequently record my music to MP3 via a digital mixer/recorder. Yesterday I tried to share a few of my songs with a friend who happens to have Comcast Cable. We were using ICQ at the time and after I shot my friend a picture or two, I tried sending her a song. The transfer fizzled out at about 200k. Tried it a few more times, no luck. Tried another (large) picture and it worked. Scratching my head, I renamed the MP3's to BIN and they whoosed right through the old Internet tube like they should have in the first place.

In light of the previous news about Comcast throttling P2P apps, it now appears that merely trying to exchange a file of a 'bad' type (MP3 in this case) gets your transfer throttled. I do not have Comcast anymore, having given it up for Verizon's FIOS. My question for Slashdot is can those of you who DO have Comcast test this and see if it consistently like is all over? It's beyond ridiculous that one cannot send legal content to a friend via a direct IM connection wihtout having the filenames (and who knows what else) sniffed out and the transfer killed. Is anyone else seeing this? What can we do about it other than raise awareness?"
Security

Submission + - Cryptography experts sounding alarms

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "First we learn from Bruce Schneier that the NSA may have left itself a secret back door in an officially sanctioned cryptographic random-number generator that would allow the good guys to easily decipher encrypted messages sent between bad guys (not to mention anyone else). Now Adi Shamir is warning that a math error unknown to a chip maker but discovered by a bad guy could lead to serious consequences, too. Remember the Intel blunder of 1996?

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/22026"
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Possible Development in Primate Cloning (wired.com)

Submitted by
explosivejared
explosivejared writes: "Researchers from Oregon allege that they have successfully derived embryonic stem cells (ESCs) from a blastocyst created through somatic cell nuclear transfer. If confirmed, this would be a world first and could potentially lead to the creation of human ESCs through cloning.

While details of the new research — led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov and performed at the Oregon National Primate Research Center — will be unavailable until the work is published in the journal Nature, his past work may provide some indication of what to expect. (Given the fraud of Hwang Woo-Suk, who came out of nowhere, one can't be too careful.)

If this bears any fruit this will be sure to stir a frenzied debate over the ethics of cloning all over again."
The Internet

Submission + - 'When the patient is a Googler'

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "A New York orthopedist's essay carrying that headline sets out to make the point that patients who rely more on their Web browsers than the expertise of their doctors are likely to be ill served by both. It's a valid enough point, but the doctor in this case so savages the patient he puts forth as Exhibit A — a 40-something Mom with an unruly 3-year-old — that he's likely to send even more skeptics of modern medicine scurrying for the Internet.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/21776"
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - Ipod's success baffles Sony Japan (japanesecustomer.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Sony, large, powerful and technological wizards cant work out why apples ipod is so popular? Duh These quotes from a recent article here in Japan explain why Sony is baffled. "We researched the iPod and fixed what [we considered] was difficult to use about it," said Takashi Kinouchi, head of Sony's product planning department". "it is not easy to lure customers used to Apple's software over to Sony products". Source: Sony trying to bite into Apple's iPod market share, Shigeki Kurokawa / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer, November 5, 2007. Daily Yomiuri
Graphics

Submission + - The first image taken with an ultra low field MRI (arxivblog.com)

Submitted by
KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: "MRI machines are about to get smaller, much smaller. Most of their bulk is taken up by the huge superconducting magnets required to generate fields of about a Tesla. Now a team at the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico has built a machine that can produce images using a field of only a few microTesla. So giant superconducting magnets aren't necessary, a development that has the potential to make MRI machines much smaller, perhaps even suitcase sized. Today, the team has posted sections of the first 3D brain image taken with the device (abstract, pdf)."
Enlightenment

Submission + - Pseudoscience winning weblog award (scienceblogs.com) 1

Submitted by OneMHz
OneMHz writes: A pseudoscience climate change denialist blog is currently winning the science weblog award. Why? Because conservative websites are encouraging people to go vote for it, whether they read it or not. Their strongest competitor, Bad Astronomy, needs help. I encourage people to go read it, then vote for it. They've embedded the science poll in the page, so you can vote there, or here. It's a sad day when pseudoscience wins over real sience...
The Military

Submission + - The real Mother Of All Bombs - 46 years ago today (wikipedia.org)

Submitted by
vaporland
vaporland writes: "Tsar Bomba is the Western name for the RDS-220, the largest, most powerful weapon ever detonated.

The bomb was tested on October 30, 1961, in an archipelago in the Arctic Sea. Developed by the Soviet Union, the bomb had a yield of about 50 megatons. Its detonation released energy equivalent to approximately 1% of the power output of the Sun. The device was scaled down from its original design of 100 megatons to reduce the resulting nuclear fallout.

The detonation of Tsar Bomba qualifies as being the single most powerful device ever utilized throughout the history of humanity."
Portables

Submission + - Asus' Linux-based Eee PC 701 reviewed 3

Submitted by Bongo Bob
Bongo Bob writes: CNET.co.uk has a review up of the Asus Eee PC 701 that runs Linux and according to the reviewer "It's hard to fault the Eee PC, mainly because of its price. It can be difficult to use because of the cramped keyboard, but it's better than similar-sized laptops like the Toshiba Libretto. If you're in the market for a second PC, or looking for something you can take with you almost anywhere, the Eee PC is definitely worth buying."
Software

Submission + - LoggerFS: a revolutionary take on logging (itauth.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: LoggerFS is a FUSE-based virtual file system written in C++ using the FUSEXX C++ bindings. It seamlessly passes log data through the file system and directly into a database. Unlike existing log parsers, which often run periodically and scan the entire file for changes, LoggerFS takes a unique approach by masking the database backend with a filesystem frontend. When log lines are appended to a virtual file on the LoggerFS file system, lines that match a regex pattern are directly stored in a database. Read on for an Introduction to LoggerFS.
Software

Submission + - Browsing Wikipedia differently (webaroo.com)

Submitted by
Sheece
Sheece writes: "With the explosive growth of Wikipedia content, there seems to be a lot of interest in offering not just mirrors to Wikipedia, but alternative ways to interact with Wikipedia content. Some examples out there are WikiProject and futef.com. A new mashup that's just been released is WikiSlice from Webaroo.

WikiSlice produces slices of Wikipedia, based on a particular topic. Anyone can easily create a slice and browse through it, just by running a search query. There is also the option of downloading and using a WikiSlice with the Webaroo software."
Robotics

Submission + - Operator Turns Off Engine - UAV Crashes in Arizona

Submitted by Scott Tracy
Scott Tracy writes: The plane crashed near Nogales, Ariz., because the pilot had turned off the engine and never noticed, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled Tuesday. The board chairman, Mark V. Rosenker, said part of the problem was inadequate supervision and regulation of U.A.V.'s. "We definitely need to change the mind-set from computer game-boy to pilot of an aircraft," he said. If the object was simply to operate a computer console, with no reference to safety on the ground, "you could get an 8- or 10-year-old kid who probably could fly it better than what the pilots are doing."
Space

Submission + - Extrasolar Planet Predicted, Then Found (astrobio.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Breaking news! It has been more than 150 years since astronomers last predicted the orbit of an unknown planet — and then found it. Last time around, the planet was Neptune. This time, it is a Saturn-mass planet orbiting a sun-like star more than 200 light years away. The discovery is a feather in the cap of astronomers Rory Barnes and Sean Raymond. Their new theory that solar systems are "packed," as full of planets as they can be, led to the successful prediction of the distant world.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller than the both put together."

Close