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Businesses

Submission + - Dog pees on server rack and shuts down business (funtechtalk.com)

Submitted by Funny Finder
Funny Finder writes: After taking her small lap dog to the vet on her day off Stint stopped by Action Tools to pick up her first paycheck. She sat her dog down to talk to another employee in the back office. While the dog was unattended it walked over to the company's small floor computer rack server and did its business all over the set up. Dog pee story
Patents

Submission + - 100 Terabyte 3.5-inch Digital Data Storage Disks (physorg.com)

Submitted by
oblonski
oblonski writes: "A very good article over at PhysOrg.com about a new patented technology that allows the manufacturing of 100 Terabyte 3.5" digital data storage discs There is lots of technical explanations and diagrams of the science involved. From the article: "Have you ever dreamt of 100 terabyte of data per 3.5-inch disk? New patented innovation nanotechnology from Michael E. Thomas, president of Colossal Storage Corporation, makes it real. Michael invented and patented the world's first and only concept for non-contact UV photon induced electric field poling of ferroelectric non-linear photonic bandgap crystals, which offers the possibility of controlling and manipulating light within a UV/Deep Blue frequency of 1 nm to 400 nm. It took him 14 years to find a practical conceptualization that would work to advance the storage industry; 3D Volume Holographic Optical Storage Nanotechnology, for which Michael holds the patents. He was invited to present this fascinating discovery to the National Science Foundation in February 2004. This invention and patents on a technique for changing matter at the molecular level is one of the World's only new enabling technologies, having many hundreds of electro-optic applications. Atomic Holographic Nanotechnology will allow for the first time a functional method for programmable molecular lenses that will allow incoming light to be rejected, modified internally, or allowed to pass unaltered through a transparent lens known as disk, tape, card, drum, film, etc. By being able to program optical lenses, many applications based on light and color can be developed, such as holographic storage, bio-terror detection devices, optical electronics, security products, and hundreds of other products never seen before on the world's markets. The small size of ferroelectric transparent structures makes it possible to fabricate nano-optical devices, such as volume holographic storage, having both positive and negative index of refraction that will allow molecular particles of an atomic size to be modified, controlled, and changed to perform a specific function, desired task, used for low cost accurate chemical / biological matter detection, and reprogrammed to accept new non-volatile data and molecular functions. ""
Media

Submission + - Kodak unveils brighter CMOS color filters (eetimes.com)

Submitted by brownsteve
brownsteve writes: Eastman Kodak Co. unveiled what it says are "next-generation color filter patterns" designed to more than double the light sensitivity of CMOS or CCD image sensors used in camera phones or digital still cameras. The new color filter system is a departure from the widely used standard Bayer pattern — an arrangement of red, green and blue pixels — also created by Kodak. While building on the Bayer pattern, the new technology adds a "fourth pixel, which has no pigment on top," said Michael DeLuca, market segment manager responsible for image sensor solutions at Eastman Kodak. Such "transparent" pixels — sensitive to all visible wavelengths — are designed to absorb light. DeLuca claimed the invention is "the next milestone" in digital photography, likening its significance to ISO 400 color film introduced in the mid-1980's.
The Internet

Senate Discusses Third Pipe Using 700MHz Spectrum 78

Posted by Zonk from the stevens-confused-between-pipes-and-tubes dept.
Freebird writes "The US Senate Commerce Committee held hearings on the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction today, and much of the discussion centered around Frontline Wireless' proposal to create a commercial wireless broadband network that would also be used for public safety. 'Under Frontline's proposal, the FCC would auction off 10 MHz from the commercially available spectrum and offer that to the highest bidder. The winner would also be given (free) 12 MHz out of the 24 MHz currently allotted to public safety.' Some senators were skeptical, especially Ted Stevens of Alaska who had a 'long and testy interchange' with Frontline CEO James Barksdale. 'He seemed to be zeroing on criticisms that the Frontline proposal was simply a way for a new company to get a huge discount on a prime chunk of spectrum by playing the "public safety" card.'"
IBM

Submission + - POWER6 Goes Thud: A Look at POWER6's Architecture (sun.com)

Submitted by
AustinJ
AustinJ writes: "POWER6 is clearly in the microprocessor category of diminishing performance returns described by the Berkeley whitepaper because it has pinned its hopes on old, unimaginative, and out of date techniques that the rest of the industry has largely abandoned"
Intel

Submission + - Intel V8 Octa-Core System, Full Performance Tests

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: In the April time frame, details of Intel's dual-socket 8-core system dubbed "V8" became available but only preliminary performance numbers were shown. The platform consists of quad-core Xeon processors in an Intel 5000X chipset-based motherboard, along with FBDIMM (Fully Buffered DIMM) serial memory. This follow-on article goes into significantly more detail on the platform and showcases many more performance metrics on a Windows Vista 64-bit installation. The POV-Ray and Cinebench 95 benchmark numbers alone are something to smile about.
Television

Submission + - 10 MORE Reasons Why HD-DVD Formats Have Failed (audioholics.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Almost exactly a year ago Audioholics wrote an eye-opening piece on the demise of both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc high definition DVD formats. On the anniversary of that article Clint DeBoer has penned a follow-up article called "10 MORE Reasons Why HD-DVD Formats Have Already Failed" that discusses each point in light of a year's worth of released hardware and software and whether his predictions were on the mark or just a bunch of hot air. The bottom lines are interesting and it does seem to indicate that his initial assumptions are still on track.
NASA

Submission + - Space station oxygen, water computers fail

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: HOUSTON, Texas (AP) — Russian computers that control the international space station's orientation and supply of oxygen and water have failed, potentially extending the space shuttle's mission — or cutting it short.

Russian engineers aren't sure why the computers stopped working. A failure of this type has never occurred before on the space station.

The station is operated primarily by the Russian and U.S. space agencies, with contributions from the Canadian, European and Japanese space agencies.

"We have plenty of resources, so we have plenty of time to sort this out," said Mike Suffredini, NASA manager of the space station program.

http://64.236.16.20/2007/TECH/space/06/14/space.sh uttle.ap/index.html
Data Storage

Submission + - The future of data storage?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Are solid state disks really the next step for data storage? Here's a review of a Samsung SSD compared to desktop and notebook hard disks. If massive capacity isn't paramount and you have deep pockets, the switch to solid state could well be a good move. http://www.trustedreviews.com/storage/review/2007/ 06/14/Samsung-32GB-Solid-State-Drive/p1
Space

Submission + - New spy satellite can see bottles on floor

Submitted by morpheus83
morpheus83 writes: Israel successfully launched its new spy satellite on June 11, 2007. The Ofeq-7 is an advanced satellite comprised of newer surveillance equipment than its larger predecessor, Ofeq-5, which recently completed five years in orbit. Its camera is as good as anything available, and that includes the United States claim Israeli officials. The 300 kg satellite could identify and send high-resolution images of items as small as 40 centimeters.
Power

Submission + - PC's are only 50% energy efficient

Submitted by
Matt
Matt writes: "An awful 50 percent of the power delivered from a wall socket to a PC simply gets wasted says Urs Hölzle, Google fellow and senior vice president of operations. Half the energy gets converted to heat or is dissipated in some other manner in the AC-to-DC conversion. Around 30 percent of the power delivered to the average server gets lost, he added. The power in both cases is lost before any work is accomplished by a computer: later, even more energy is lost by PCs sitting idle, or as heat dissipated by other components."
IBM

Submission + - [Yet another] patent with a prior art gallery

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: IBM has filed a patent for external memory

IBM is pitching the invention as a technology that could provide a cheaper and more flexible way to temporarily upgrade the available memory in computing systems ranging from PDAs to servers. According to the description of the patent, the technology includes three separate parts — a connector, a container to hold RAM as well as a cable that couples the connector to the container.
I'm not sure if the cable, and the fact that the memory is exchangeable make this "unique" enough to patent, but it reminds me a lot of the memory expansions you could get for the N64, or the fast load cartridges for the Commodore 64.
Linux Business

Submission + - Venezuela launches Linux 'Bolivarian Computers' (venezuelanalysis.com)

Submitted by Voline
Voline writes: In the pursuit of technological independence Venezuela has begun shipping the first 'Bolivarian Computers'. Named after the hero of the South American independence struggle against Spain, they are made by VIT (Venezuela de Industria Tecnológica), which is a joint venture of the Chinese company Lang Chao and the Venezuelan government. The four desktop and single laptop models all run Gnu/Linux. VIT hopes to eventually begin distributing the inexpensive computers throughout Latin America.
Technology

Liquid Lens Can Magnify at the Flick of a Switch 108

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the zap-zoom dept.
An anonymous reader writes "German engineers have designed the first liquid camera lens with no moving parts that provides two levels of zoom. 'Liquid lenses bend light using the curved boundary between watery and oily liquids. When the two liquids are held in the right container, the boundary between them can be made to curve in a way that focuses light simply by applying a voltage. Liquid lenses have attracted much attention because they are potentially smaller than conventional optics and cheaper to build. Samsung has already built them into some cellphones.'"

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