Comment Good Luck (Score 5, Informative) 435
As someone who just went through this, it is going to be tough
Comment Re:Att Merger is over so why do they have to payu (Score 1) 169
consider it an ETF - Early Termination Fee
Comment Good eatery (Score 1) 368
is Watson's a good place to eat?
Submission + - Delta IV Rocket Launched With Secret Payload (nro.gov)
a_hanso writes: The National Reconnaissance Office has announced the launch of what we may assume to be a rather large reconnaissance satellite. According to the NRO press release, it is the third of a series of six such payloads. We can only speculate as to what kind of monitoring capabilities these satellites will bring to the US defense/intelligence community once they are fully operational.
Submission + - JVC Shrinks Super High-Def Projector (itworld.com)
itwbennett writes: JVC on Tuesday unveiled a projector compatible with an experimental broadcasting format called Super Hi-Vision (higher than high-def) that is less than half the size and a quarter the weight than previous devices — and is cheaper to boot. At 7,680 pixels by 4,320 pixels, a Super Hi-Vision picture has 16-times the resolution of today's high-def TV and four times that of 4K digital cinema. You can watch this video of the device in action, but you'll have to take our word for it that the images are far better than anything you've seen.
Submission + - New Sunlight Reactor Produces Fuel (caltech.edu)
eldavojohn writes: A new reactor developed by CalTech shows promise for producing renewable fuel from sunlight. The reactor hinges on a metal oxide named Ceria that has very interesting properties at very high temperatures. It exhales oxygen at very high temperatures and inhales oxygen at very low temperatures. From the article, 'Specifically, the inhaled oxygen is stripped off of carbon dioxide (CO2) and/or water (H2O) gas molecules that are pumped into the reactor, producing carbon monoxide (CO) and/or hydrogen gas (H2). H2 can be used to fuel hydrogen fuel cells; CO, combined with H2, can be used to create synthetic gas, or "syngas," which is the precursor to liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Adding other catalysts to the gas mixture, meanwhile, produces methane. And once the ceria is oxygenated to full capacity, it can be heated back up again, and the cycle can begin anew.' The only other piece of the puzzle is a large sunlight concentrator to raise the temperature to the necessary 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The team is working on modifying and refining the reactor to require a lower temperature to achieve the two-step thermochemical cycle. Another issue is the heat loss which the team claims could be reduced to improve efficiency to 15% or higher. Since CO2 is an input, the possibility exists for coal and power plants to collect CO2 emissions to be used in this process which would effectively allow us to "use the carbon twice." Another idea listed is that a "zero CO2 emissions" is developed along these lines: 'H2O and CO2 would be converted to methane, would fuel electricity-producing power plants that generate more CO2 and H2O, to keep the process going.' The team's work was published last month in Science.
Submission + - google's war on h.264 (webmproject.org)
An anonymous reader writes: With google offering a "no-cost license" to camera hardware IP that encodes/decodes video in google's vp8/webm, all the way to the silicon VHDL, are we going to see big camera companies like panasonic changing their h.264 media format to vp8? What about digital television broadcasters (like DVB), will they move away from h.264?
Submission + - AMD Launches First Embedded APU - The G-Series (thinq.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: AMD has today unveiled the newest member of its Fusion APU family, the Embedded G-Series processor.
The combined central and graphics processor is designed for use in embedded environments, and will eventually replace the company's current and longstanding Geode line.
The combined central and graphics processor is designed for use in embedded environments, and will eventually replace the company's current and longstanding Geode line.
Submission + - Samsung Secret About Android 2.2 Update in US (xda-developers.com)
An anonymous reader writes: An anonymous poster on XDA forums has revealed what many US Galaxy S users have suspected for some time:
"I’m going to step across the NDAs and explain the issues behind the Android Froyo update to Samsung Galaxy S phones in the United States. I think most of you have come to this realization yourself now: the withholding of the Froyo update is a largely political one, not a technological one: Froyo runs quite well on Galaxy S phones, as those of you that have run leaked updates may have noticed."
Samsung has denied that this is the case and that "No. Samsung is not charging carriers for Froyo updates to Galaxy S. We hope to have more detail on status shortly. Promise!" http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=7346&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter.
"I’m going to step across the NDAs and explain the issues behind the Android Froyo update to Samsung Galaxy S phones in the United States. I think most of you have come to this realization yourself now: the withholding of the Froyo update is a largely political one, not a technological one: Froyo runs quite well on Galaxy S phones, as those of you that have run leaked updates may have noticed."
Samsung has denied that this is the case and that "No. Samsung is not charging carriers for Froyo updates to Galaxy S. We hope to have more detail on status shortly. Promise!" http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=7346&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter.
Graphic Map of Linux-2.6.36 25
conan.sh writes "The Interactive map of Linux Kernel was expanded and updated to the recent kernel linux-2.6.36. Now the map contains more than four hundred important source items (functions and structures) with links to source code and documentation."
Submission + - Algae Could Be the Key to Ultra-Thin Batteries (inhabitat.com)
MikeChino writes: Algae is often touted as the next big thing in biofuels, but the slimy stuff could also be the key to paper-thin biodegradable batteries according to researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden. Uppsala researcher Maria Stromme and her team has found that the smelly algae species that clumps on beaches, known as Cladophora, can also be used to make a type of cellulose that has 100 times the surface area of cellulose found in paper. That means it can hold enough conducting polymers to effectively recharge and hold electricity for long amounts of time. Eventually, the bio batteries could compete with commercial lithium-ion batteries.
Submission + - Plasma Device Kills Bacteria on Skin in Seconds
Ponca City, We love you writes: "In medicine, plasma, the fourth state of matter, is already used for the sterilization of surgical instruments as plasma works at the atomic level and is able to reach all surfaces, even the interior of hollow needle ends. Now BBC reports that researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics have demonstrated a plasma device that can rid hands, feet, or even underarms of bacteria, including the hospital superbug MRSA, by creating cold atmospheric plasma that produces a cocktail of chemicals that kills bacteria but is harmless to skin. "The plasma produces a series of over 200 chemical reactions that involve the oxygen and nitrogen in air plus water vapor — there is a whole concoction of chemical species that can be lethal to bacteria," says Gregor Morfill. "It's actually similar to what our own immune system does." The team says that an exposure to the plasma of only about 12 seconds reduces the incidence of bacteria, viruses, and fungi on hands by a factor of a million — a number that stands in sharp contrast to the several minutes hospital staff can take to wash using traditional soap and water. Morfill says that the approach can be used to kill the bacteria that lead to everything from gum disease to body odor and that the prototype is scalable to any size and can be produced in any shape. "One can treat plasmas like a medical cocktail, which contains new and established agents that can be applied at the molecular level to cells in prescribed intensities and overall doses.""
Comment Re:Perseverance (Score 1) 836
I didn't mention that I am actually one of the free thinker types, and I DO have problems finishing tasks unless I really work at it. It took me 4 years to get my BS in Computer Science, mainly because I was able to stay pissed that long at the hypocrisy of not being able to get a job as an Engineer without a degree.
Comment Perseverance (Score 1, Insightful) 836
A 4 year degree shows you can start a complex, diverse series of tasks and stick with them to completion. People that don't
have degrees are normally the free thinker types that have problems finishing projects.
Comment Re:Bruce says the obvious (Score 1) 296
Emergency Exit Doors have a pressure seal, and will not open in flight. They actually need to swing in before they swing out.
