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Submission + - Popular Science posts their archives for free (popsci.com)

Submitted by
DesScorp
DesScorp writes: "Popular Science magazine has scanned every issue they've ever produced, and posted the archives at their website, at no charge. "We've partnered with Google to offer our entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. It's an amazing resource that beautifully encapsulates our ongoing fascination with the future, and science and technology's incredible potential to improve our lives. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.""
AMD

AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA Over the Next 10 Years 213

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the what-next dept.
GhostX9 writes "Alan Dang from Tom's Hardware has just written a speculative op-ed on the future of AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA in the next decade. They talk about the strengths of AMD's combined GPU and CPU teams, Intel's experience with VLIW architectures, and NVIDIA's software lead in the GPU computing world." What do you think it will take to stay on top over the next ten years? Or, will we have a newcomer that usurps the throne and puts everyone else out of business?

Submission + - Broader Broadband (gigaom.com)

Submitted by hhawk
hhawk writes: Hey Buddy, can you spare 100 Mpbs hook up?

The US is lagging behind other countries in making high speed networking available to residential customers. You might think that market forces would be enough but the FCC has weighted in...

"Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communication Commission, has outlined his vision for broadband in America: 100 Mbps connections to 100 million homes. As part of an update on the National Broadband Plan due to Congress in mid-March, Genachowski sketched out a plan that would keep the U.S. competitive with other nations and enable 90 percent of the population to have and use broadband, up from about 65 percent today..."
Image

Measuring the Speed of Light With Valentine's Day Chocolate 126

Posted by samzenpus from the speed-of-the-sound-of-loneliness dept.
Cytotoxic writes "What to do with all of those leftover Valentine's Day chocolates? — a common problem for the Slashdot crowd. The folks over at Wired magazine have an answer for you in a nice article showing how to measure the speed of light with a microwave and some chocolate. A simple yet surprisingly accurate method that can be used to introduce the scientific method to children and others in need of a scientific education."
Games

Correlation Found Between Brain Structure and Video Game Success 110

Posted by Soulskill from the correlation-does-not-equal-yadda-yadda dept.
kghapa writes "Still want to argue that video games shrink your brain? While video games have been previously shown to stimulate brain activity and improve coordination skills, a recently published study has directly linked structures in the human brain with video game aptitude. And yes, apparently size does matter in this case. Quoting: '... each subject received 20 hours of training to play a video game specifically created for research purposes, called Space Fortress. It's basically an Asteroids-type arcade game, in which the object is to knock down and destroy an enemy fortress while dodging space mines. However, the game has lots of extra twists that require close attention. Some of the players were told to focus exclusively on running up a high score, while others were told to shift their priorities between several goals. The result? The subjects who had more volume in an area called the nucleus accumbens did significantly better in the early stages of training. Meanwhile, those who were well-endowed in different areas of the striatum, known as the caudate nucleus and putamen, handled the shifting strategies better.'"
Image

Police Called Over 11-Year-Old's Science Project 687

Posted by samzenpus from the duck-and-cover dept.
garg0yle writes "Police in San Diego were called to investigate an 11-year-old's science project, consisting of 'a motion detector made out of an empty Gatorade bottle and some electronics,' after the vice-principal came to the conclusion that it was a bomb. Charges aren't being laid against the youth, but it's being recommended that he and his family 'get counseling.' Apparently, the student violated school policies — I'm assuming these are policies against having any kind of independent thought?"
Space

Submission + - Dark Matter Revealed By Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by c0mpliant
c0mpliant writes: A huge halo of Dark Matter that surrounds our galaxy has been revealed to Astronomers at the University of California. The team, headed by Dr David Law, examined the orbit of stars which were dragged out of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy as it pass by the Milky Way. The team noticed that pattern suggested that the composition of Dark Matter around the Milky Way is not uniform, instead making what they are referring to as a 'Beach Ball' shape that has been squashed.This marks the first definitive measure of Dark Matter in our universe

The announcement was made at the 215th American Astronomical Society Meeting which was the largest astronomy meeting in history.
Data Storage

Submission + - WD Advanced Format Gains 7 - 11% More HD Capacity (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: WD (Western Digital) is starting to implement a new hard disk drive format structure, known as Advanced Format, that enables 7-11% greater capacity on standard spinning hard disk drives. Traditionally, on standard hard drives each track is composed of a series of sectors. Currently the user data on the media is stored in 512 byte sectors. The storage industry and WD is improving this legacy architecture by changing the size of the sectors on the media to store 4,096 bytes of data rather than 512 bytes of data. Each sector also has a gap currently for Sync/DAM (lead-in) and error correction information. Legacy architectures are very inefficient for ECC (Error Correction Code). It requires lots of overhead to support multiple blocks of ECC. With Advanced Format technology WD (and others eventually) will be removing Sync/DAM blocks, inter-sector gaps and 8 separate blocks of ECC, gaining back approximately 7-11% in usable disk space.
Science

Submission + - SETI@home Project Responds to School Firing (berkeley.edu)

Submitted by SETIGuy
SETIGuy writes: The SETI@home Project Scientist, Eric Korpela, has posted an FAQ responding to many of the allegations made by Higley Unified School District administrator Denise Birdwell regarding the difficulties caused by the installation of SETI@home. One of the founders, David Gedye, takes issue with Dr. Birdwell's claim that "an educational institution ... cannot support the search for E.T."

Meanwhile, the fired IT director denies misusing school computers
Government

Submission + - Microsoft denies it built 'backdoor' in Windows 7 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Microsoft has denied that it has built a backdoor into Windows 7, a concern that surfaced yesterday after a senior National Security Agency (NSA) official testified before Congress that the agency had worked on the operating system. "Microsoft has not and will not put 'backdoors' into Windows," a company spokeswoman said, reacting to a Computerworld story Wednesday. On Monday, Richard Schaeffer, the NSA's information assurance director, told the Senate's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security that the agency had partnered with the developer during the creation of Windows 7 "to enhance Microsoft's operating system security guide." Thursday's categorical denial by Microsoft was accompanied by further explanation of exactly how the NSA participated in the making of Windows 7. "The work being discussed here is purely in conjunction with our Security Compliance Management Toolkit," said the spokeswoman. The company rolled out the Windows 7 version of the toolkit late last month, shortly after it officially launched the operating system.
Mars

Submission + - Hovering communication satellites near Mars (esa.int)

Submitted by japan_dan
japan_dan writes: An interesting way to enable Earth-Mars communication even when the Sun occults the direct radio line-of-sight: ESA proposes placing a pair of continuous-thrusting relay sats — one in front and ahead, one behind and below — Mars, with both following so-called 'B-orbits' (non-Keplerian). This means the direction of thrust is perpendicular to the satellites' direction of flight, allowing them to 'hover' with both Earth and Mars in view.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Digital Forensics Tool (net-security.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft announced an agreement with the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) to distribute the Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE). A Microsoft-developed program, COFEE uses digital forensic technologies to help investigators gather evidence of live computer activity at the scene of a crime, regardless of their technical expertise. With COFEE, a front-line officer doesn't have to be a computer expert to capture this volatile information before turning off the computer on the scene for later analysis.

Comment I want one now but... (Score 3, Informative) 93

by e144539 (#17600030) Attached to: Canon-Toshiba Joint Venture On SED Collapses
A few months ago, I was wondering what happened to this tech, so I went searching. Turns out it has been in development for about 20 years, and it was first estimated to be out in the late 90's.

I'm too lazy to look for a link..
Well, Wikipedia should say something about it...

Yep!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-conduction_el ectron-emitter_display#History

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