Comment Re:Bittorrent (Score 2, Interesting) 248
Also, add in the other forms of digital distribution, and digital cable, can't the source providers just collect their own data?
Comment Bittorrent (Score 1) 248
Maybe they can justify Bittorrent "profit" losses by using download statistics to provide ratings. Nielsen is just an extrapolation anyways. At least for certain markets they could save a ton of money on this research.
Comment Re:But how would this be deployed? (Score 1) 328
Well, they talked about introducing the genes to the liver. And people can have liver transplants. And we can grow livers. Sounds like aftermarket possibilities. Even if not the liver, some effective organ.
Comment Re:I knew it! (Score 1) 610
Interesting idea... you should write a book on it. And maybe refer to those as Strange Loops.
Submission + - Using Google to crack MD5 passwords. (lightbluetouchpaper.org) 2
stern writes: "A security researcher at Cambridge, trying to figure out the password used by somebody who had hacked his website, ran a dictionary through the encryption hash function. No dice. Then he pasted the hacker's encrypted password into Google, and Shazzam — the all-knowing Google delivered his answer. Conclusion? Use no password any other human being is ever likely to use for any purpose, I think."
Submission + - Wildfires sweep southern California (miaobaby.com)
miaobaby writes: Smoke from several large wildfires which flared across Southern California on October 21, 2007 is shown in this image taken at 14.50 PDT (21.50 GMT) taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite, and released by NASA October 22, show several active fires (outlined in red) northwest of Los Angeles.
Submission + - Girls of Engineering pin up calendar ?
bongey writes: Thought this was funny , seems some engineering students got together and talked some of the woman engineers at U of I to take some racy photos for a calendar . Needless to say the title of the calendar is smart is sexy . All I can say is where can I get a copy.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/246420,CST-NWS- calendar07.article
Submission + - World's first Quantum Computer to be demoed
Leemeng writes: "EE Times reports that D-Wave will demonstrate the world's first commercial quantum computer on Tuesday (Feb 13) at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. If it works, that means it can solve some of the most difficult problems, called NP-complete problems, thousands of times faster than current supercomputers.
Initially, D-Wave (Vancouver, B.C.) will lease time on its quantum computer, which will be accessed over a secure Internet connection. Eventually, the company plans to sell quantum computer systems.
Being able to quickly solve NP-complete problems has enormous consequences. A fairly well-known NP-complete problem is the travelling salesman problem, which has real-world implications for logistics. NP-complete problems are present in such diverse fields as medicine, biology, computing, mathematics, and finance. Of immediate concern is quantum computers' potential for cryptanalysis (codebreaking). Specifically, a quantum computer could factor very large numbers in a fraction of the time needed by current computers. That BTW, is just what you need for cracking the RSA cipher and other widely-used ciphers that depend on one-way mathematical functions. Perhaps this will light a fire under quantum cryptography efforts."
Being able to quickly solve NP-complete problems has enormous consequences. A fairly well-known NP-complete problem is the travelling salesman problem, which has real-world implications for logistics. NP-complete problems are present in such diverse fields as medicine, biology, computing, mathematics, and finance. Of immediate concern is quantum computers' potential for cryptanalysis (codebreaking). Specifically, a quantum computer could factor very large numbers in a fraction of the time needed by current computers. That BTW, is just what you need for cracking the RSA cipher and other widely-used ciphers that depend on one-way mathematical functions. Perhaps this will light a fire under quantum cryptography efforts."
