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Medicine

Visible Light 'X-Ray' Sees Through Solid Objects 122

disco_tracy writes "Some day we may not need X-rays to see inside people, thanks to a new way to decipher light that passes through opaque surfaces. Normally visible light becomes too scattered to detect after passing through opaque surfaces. But scientists in France have developed a way to reconstruct images from light passing through such surfaces by deciphering just how the material makes the light scatter. In the short term the research will help improve the strength of telecommunications signals and fiber optics cables, but years from now the technology could supplement or even replace traditional ultrasounds for baby imaging and X-rays for weapons detection at airports."
Cellphones

Microsoft To Charge Phone Makers a Licensing Fee 225

angry tapir writes "Microsoft may be one of the only remaining mobile operating-system providers that charges handset makers a licensing fee, but in exchange vendors get at least one important benefit: protection from intellectual property worries. 'Microsoft indemnifies its Windows Phone 7 licensees against patent infringement claims,' the company said. 'We stand behind our product, and step up to our responsibility to clear the necessary IP rights.'" In related news, Windows Phone 7 will be exclusive to AT&T at launch, and it seems Microsoft is counting on Xbox Live integration to be the "hook" that gets people interested in the new devices.
Piracy

US ISP Adopts Three-Strikes Policy 280

Andorin writes "Suddenlink, a United States ISP that serves nineteen states, has implemented a three-strikes policy. Subscribers who receive three DMCA takedown notices are disconnected without compensation for a period of six months. According to TorrentFreak, the takedown notices do not have to be substantiated in court, which effectively means that subscribers can be disconnected based on mere accusations. In justifying the policy, Suddenlink turns to an obscure provision of their Terms of Service, but also claims that they are required by the DMCA to disconnect repeat offenders."

Comment Re:stating the obvious... (Score 1) 440

Agreed.

What he's proposing is simply to ignore the rule No 1 of network security: never trust anyone, specially you users.

This reminds me of a place I worked where one of the computers kept getting infected with a virus, even when their files were on regularly scanned network storage. After some time I found out that everytime I cleared the virus (which could not be repaired by my AV, so I had to delete the file) someone that used that computer restored the infected file from a floppy disk, which they never bothered to scan!

Japan

The State of Household Robots 102

paulelaguna writes "The dream of owning a household robot is starting to become reality, particularly for people in Japan. There are robots to help you do the dishes, move furniture, and even robotic wheelchairs to help you get around. Really, the only question that remains for us is when do we move?"

Comment So what? (Score 1) 258

Well, then maybe one should just study project management and soft skills. So in a few years, all we'll have will be some soft managers, thinking they know something about computer science.

Comment Re:All they need to do is everything (Score 5, Informative) 173

I think there's more trouble facing the early adopters. For example, even the hardware isn't all that good to start with. The "modern replacement" of SheevaPlug (mentioned in "hardware is being taken care of") isn't all that good. In fact, this new version, the GuruPlug, suffers greatly of an lack of thermal design. This causes the plug to overheat and start rebooting, until the embedded power supply fails (also because of heat dissipation problems). As a result, to use one of those, the user must also mod the hardware, which creates all sorts of trouble. The manufacturer doesn't even care about it, and keep selling it for those naive enough (like me) to think that the manufacturer should take care of those problems before even starting to sell a product.
Earth

100-Sq.-Mile Ice Island Breaks Off Greenland Glacier 323

suraj.sun sends word of a 100-sq.-mile (260-sq.-km) ice island that broke off of a Greenland glacier on Thursday. "The block of ice separated from the Petermann Glacier, on the north-west coast of Greenland. It is the largest Arctic iceberg to calve since 1962... The ice could become frozen in place over winter or escape into the waters between Greenland and Canada. ... [NASA satellite] images showed that Petermann Glacier lost about one-quarter of its 70-km-long (43-mile) floating ice shelf. There was enough fresh water locked up in the ice island to 'keep all US public tap water flowing for 120 days,' said Prof Muenchow." The Montreal Gazette has more details and implications for Canadian shipping and oil exploration, along with this telling detail: "the ice island’s thickness [is] more than 200 metres in some places... [or] half the height of the Empire State Building." The NY Times has a good satellite photo of the situation.

Comment Re:Kazkek (Score 1) 337

I looked at its specs. No way I'd buy that. With 10KS/s you can't even decode audio! The simplest audio files usually are 44kHz. It may be better to build one's own scope with an Arduino (which will get you more geek points), or buy a DSO Nano (with 1Msps 12Bits, and 8 times the sample storage). Minimum Voltage Range Accuracy of 37.5 mV also won't get you very far, specially if you try simple amplifier stuff (which very often can vary only a few millivolts or even only microvolts).

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