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Submission + - Magellan II adaptive optics beats Hubble Space Telescope (arizona.edu)

muon-catalyzed writes: The incredible 'first light' images captured by the new adaptive optics system called Magellan|AO for "Magellan Adaptive Optics" in the Magellan II 6.5-meter telescope are at least twice as sharp in the visible light spectrum as those from the NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. "We can, for the first time, make long-exposure images that resolve objects just 0.02 arcseconds across — the equivalent of a dime viewed from more than a hundred miles away." said Laird Close (University of Arizona), the project's principal scientist.
The 6.5-meter Magellan telescopes in the high desert of Chile were widely considered to be the best natural imaging telescopes in the world and this new technology upgraded them to the whole new level. With its 21-foot diameter mirror, the Magellan telescope is much larger than Hubble with its 8-foot mirror. Until now, Hubble always produced the best visible light images, since even large ground-based telescope with complex adaptive optics imaging cameras could only make blurry images in visible light. The core of the new optics system the so-called Adaptive Secondary Mirror (ASM) that can change its shape at 585 points on its surface 1,000 times each second, counteracting the blurring effects of the atmosphere.

Submission + - Misinterpretation of standard causing USB disconnects on resume in Linux (paritynews.com)

hypnosec writes: Misinterpretation of the USB 2.0 standard is probably the culprit behind USB disconnects on resume in Linux all along rather than cheap and buggy devices. The USB 2.0 standard states that USB system software must provide for 10ms resume recovery time (TRSMRCY) during which it shouldn't attempt a connection to the device connected to that particular bus segment. Sharah Sharp claims that USB core is to blame for the disconnections rather than the devices themselves as the core doesn’t wait long enough for the devices to transition from a "resume state to U0". It turns out that this TRSMRCY value is the minimum and not the maximum. This means that a USB device may take longer to resume. Sharp notes that if the USB core attempts to access the port while the device is still in ‘resume’ status, the device will disconnect.

Submission + - Linode hacked, CCs and passwords leaked 6

An anonymous reader writes: On Friday Linode announced a precautionary password reset due to an attack despite claiming that they were not compromised. The attacker has claimed otherwise, claiming to have obtained card numbers and password hashes. Password hashes, source code fragments and directory listings have been released as proof. Linode has yet to comment on or deny these claims.

Comment tl:dr Recipe for recording the audio of multiple i (Score 5, Informative) 66

tl:dr Recipe for recording the audio of multiple individuals in a large crowd.

Ingredients:

Sandisk Sansa Clip+ MP3 Player - http://www.sandisk.co.uk/products/sansa-music-and-video-players/sandisk-sansa-clipplus-mp3-player
Rockbox - http://www.rockbox.org/

Instructions:

Install Rockbox (open source firmware for MP3 players) on the Sansa Clip+. Configure to record on the Sansa Clip+ microphone in .wav format. Give a Sansa Clip+ to every person you want to record the audio for. Have every person start recording at roughly the same time, leave for 5 hours.

Gather all Sansa Clip+s at the end of the session, and extract the .wav file. 10-participants = 10-track equivalent audio recording of the session.

Mix and fade between the tracks to isolate the audio of single conversations between participants.

He basically has created a relatively inexpensive and reliable way to get this audio. Much like using multiple Go Pro cameras to record action of sports events beats out using professional equipment (and in some ways has become professional equipment). He's arguing that the Sansa Clip+ together with the Rockbox open source firmware, is a better solution than using professional radio mic's and then having recording equipment receive those signals and store them on disk for editing later.

I've no idea how "crowdsourced" fits into this though, nor how this is anything more than an advert even though the solution is a little interesting. It's useful enough and potentially cheap that you might imagine giving everyone at a Ted one of these as the conversations caught off-record might be even more valuable than the sessions.

Comment Re:Happened to My Wife (Score 1) 186

Have you guys not tried the 2 factor authentication yet?

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/advanced-sign-in-security-for-your.html

I was afraid that my girl might find it difficult to use or overly technical, but once I explained how it worked and supported her through the setup of it, it's been working brilliantly.

Basically any new machine that you connect to Gmail from requires not just your password (something you know) but also the code generated from the supplied app (on our Android phones - something you have).

The key to internet security is to always have 2 out of the 3 following things:
1) something you know (passwords, answers to secret questions, etc)
2) something you have (physical keys, dongles, RSA SecurID)
3) something you are (biometrics, fingerprints, etc)

Google as yet, are the only major provider of email offering security that can use 2 factor auth by the something you know and something you have.

It's really worth turning it on, just for peace of mind.

Google

Honeycomb To Require Dual-Core Processor 177

adeelarshad82 writes "According to managing director of Korean consumer electronics firm Enspert, Google's new Android Honeycomb tablet OS will require a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor to run properly. That means that many existing Android tablets will not be upgradeable to Honeycomb, as they lack the processor necessary to meet the spec. Currently, Nvidia's Tegra 2 platform is the only chipset in products on the market to include a Cortex-A9, although other manufacturers have said they're moving to the new processor architecture for 2011 products."

Comment Measuring speed from *where* exactly? (Score 5, Interesting) 230

Where are the measuring *from*?

I've moved a site from Linode New Jersey to Linode London, UK because the target audience are in London ( http://www.lfgss.com/ ).

However in Google Webmaster Tools the page load time increased, suggesting that the measurements are being calculated from US datacentres, even though for the target audience the speed increased and page load time decreased.

I would like to see Google use the geographic target preference and to have the nearest datacentre to the target be the one that performs the measurement... or better still to have both a local and remote datacentre perform every measurement and then find a weighted time between them that might reflect real-world usage.

Otherwise if I'm being sent the message that I am being penalised for not hosting close to a Google datacentre from where the measurements are calculated, then I will end up moving there in spite of the fact that this isn't the right thing for my users.

Open Source

OpenBSD 4.7 Preorders Are Up 191

badger.foo writes "The OpenBSD 4.7 pre-orders are up. That means the release is done, sent off to CD production, and snapshots will turn -current again. Order now and you more likely than not will have your CD set, T-shirt or other cool stuff before the official release date. You get the chance to support the most important free software project on the planet, and get your hands on some cool playables and wearables early. The release page is still being filled in, but the changelog has detailed information about the goodies in this release."

Comment So all we need do is to change to shopping lists. (Score 1) 117

If you allow the user to have multiple shopping lists, and then take each list to the checkout rather than a basket... then one-click doesn't apply, right?

In the UK there is a chain of brick and mortar stores called Argos. You don't have a shopping trolley, cart or basket... you have a bit of paper on which you write the codes of the items you want and you take that to the checkout and then once paid someone gets them from the warehouse and brings them to the counter near the exit.

You can have multiple lists, and pay separately. Thus, this is not a shopping cart.

By taking the idea of shopping lists online it's feasible that the multiplicity of lists breaks the existing cart definition enough to allow one-click.

Actually one-click becomes even easier then... as it's just one of many lists that you have... a buy-now list, a buy-later list... a gift-list... etc.

Would this be enough?

Comment I can see how this would upset reporters (Score 1) 3

They wouldn't be able to use the phone as a recording device to automatically transcribe interviews:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/05/chair_chucking/

"Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy" - Steve Ballmer (allegedly)

If all you've got is:
"#### Eric Schmidt is a #### pussy. I'm going to #### bury that guy"

Well, it becomes a little harder to make an exact quote... "was it the f-word or was it the c-word?"

News

Submission + - Obama's Dir. of Citizen Participation Patents News

theodp writes: Ex-Googler and now White House Director of Citizen Participation Katie Stanton can be excused if she takes a break from promoting open public dialogues on Thursday. After all, she and Google might want to celebrate that they've just managed to snag a patent on displaying financial news. The patent for Interactive Financial Charting and Related News Correlation (as seen on Google Finance), which Google describes as techniques that 'facilitate and encourage the user's use and understanding of financial information,' expires in 2027. To loosely paraphrase JFK, 'Domestic policy can only defeat us; patent policy can kill us.'
Google

Submission + - How Google's Nexus One censors cuss words (cnet.com) 3

tugfoigel writes: The built-in voice-to-text feature on Google's new Nexus One phone replaces rude utterances with hash marks.

Some of you who have been basking in the beauty of your new Nexus One Googlephone may not have tried out all of its delightful features.

And what I am about to tell you may lead you to utter some naughty words. Please, go ahead. I have heard them all, in several different languages. And I respect the vehemence of the vernacular.

However, your Nexus One will not be so charmed by the vigor of your tongue. It will, dare I utter the word when referring to a product from the newly emancipated Google, censor you.

You see, the pungently polite people at Reuters were playing with their Nexus One when they noticed something about its built-in voice-to-text feature.

Every time they said something naughty into the phone, the naughty word came out as "####"--and not just "f---." It even censored the "S" part of BS.

Reuters immediately called Google and screamed at them: "What the #### are you miserable ############# playing at?"

PlayStation (Games)

PS3 Hacked? 296

Several readers have sent word that George Hotz (a.k.a. geohot), the hacker best known for unlocking Apple's iPhone, says he has now hacked the PlayStation 3. From his blog post: "I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I've also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip. 3 years, 2 months, 11 days...that's a pretty secure system. ... As far as the exploit goes, I'm not revealing it yet. The theory isn't really patchable, but they can make implementations much harder. Also, for obvious reasons I can't post dumps. I'm hoping to find the decryption keys and post them, but they may be embedded in hardware. Hopefully keys are setup like the iPhone's KBAG."

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