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Space

First Four-Exoplanet System Imaged 89

Posted by CmdrTaco from the space-is-really-big dept.
Phoghat writes "Among the first exoplanet systems imaged was HR 8799. In 2008, a team led by Christian Marois at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Canada took a picture of the system, directly imaging three giant planets."
Robotics

A Mind Made From Memristors 320

Posted by Soulskill from the fully-functional dept.
Csiko writes "Researchers at Boston University's department of cognitive and neural systems are working on an artificial brain implemented with memristors. 'A memristor is a two-terminal device whose resistance changes depending on the amount, direction, and duration of voltage that's applied to it. But here's the really interesting thing about a memristor: Whatever its past state, or resistance, it freezes that state until another voltage is applied to change it. Maintaining that state requires no power.' Also theoretically described, solid state versions of memristors have not been implemented until recently. Now researchers in Boston claim that memristors are the new key technology to implement highly integrated, powerful artificial brains on cheap and widely available hardware within five years."
United States

Deported Russian (Spy?) Worked At Microsoft 162

Posted by timothy from the sure-why-not dept.
subtropolis writes "KOMO News in Seattle is reporting that a recently-deported 23-yr-old Russian man 'appears to have ties to the recently-exposed Russian counterintelligence' (according to unnamed Feds). The article states that he admitted to unspecified immigration violations and was promptly shown the door on Tuesday. It also says that 'Microsoft confirms Karetnikov worked as an entry-level software tester for less than a year.' So, I'm thinking that MS had better take a really good at their logs for that time. He may have got in at 'entry-level' but his abilities may have been a fair bit beyond that. ... Interestingly, his admission to mere 'violations' and swift departure would be right in line with how this swap has gone down. The four Russians who were flown to Britain and the US had to first sign a confession before President Medvedev granted them pardons." The same news is at CBS News, too.
Transportation

Should Cities Install Moving Sidewalks? 698

Posted by timothy from the that-and-bicycle-elevators dept.
theodp writes "The real problem nowadays is how to move crowds,' said the manager of the failed Trottoir Roulant Rapide high-speed (9 km/h) people mover project. 'They can travel fast over long distances with the TGV (high-speed train) or airplanes, but not over short distances (under 1 km).' Slate's Tom Vanderbilt explores whether moving walkways might be viable for urban transportation. The first moving sidewalks were unveiled at Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition, and at one point seemed destined to supplant some subways, but never took root in cities for a variety of reasons. Vanderbilt turns to science fiction for inspiration, where 30 mph walkways put today's tortoise-like speed ranges of .5-.83 m/s to shame. In the meantime, Jerry Seinfeld will just have to learn to live with 'the people who get onto the moving walkway and just stand there. Like it's a ride.'"
Google

Submission + - Mobile Phone Sales Rise, iPhone and Android Grow (gartner.com)

Submitted by mark0
mark0 writes: Gartner reports that mobile phone sales have risen in 1Q2010, up 17% year-on-year. That's good news for iPhone OS and Android, which saw their market shares grow to 15.4% and 9.6%, respectively. Other platforms slipped and ZDNet already proclaims the death of Windows Mobile. They suggest open-sourcing WM could have saved it, but that doesn't seem to be helping Symbian.
Image

Oil Leak Could Be Stopped With a Nuke 799

Posted by samzenpus from the lesser-of-two-disasters dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico could be stopped with an underground nuclear blast, a Russian newspaper reports. Komsomoloskaya Pravda, the best-selling Russian daily, reports that in Soviet times such leaks were plugged with controlled nuclear blasts underground. The idea is simple, KP writes: 'The underground explosion moves the rock, presses on it, and, in essence, squeezes the well's channel.' It's so simple, in fact, that the Soviet Union used this method five times to deal with petrocalamities, and it only didn't work once."

Comment And CableCARD? (Score 1) 214

by mark0 (#32167628) Attached to: MythTV 0.23 Released
I have FiOS and until MythTV supports CableCARD, it's rather useless. A google of the site just turns up a dry wiki definition of CableCARD and a bunch of forum postings that degenerate into DRM-related poo flinging.
Firefox

ISP Is Bypassing Firefox's Location Bar Search 385

Posted by CmdrTaco from the that's-not-kosher dept.
It was only a matter of time before ISPs began doing more than just redirecting failed DNS requests to their own pages. An anonymous reader writes "It looks like the largest ISP in Hong Kong has started bypassing search results from Firefox's location bar (which typically uses Google), forcing their own search provider (yp.com.hk) onto their users. ... Can an ISP just start re-directing search traffic at will?"
Bug

Ubuntu LTS Experiences X.org Memory Leak 320

Posted by timothy from the like-it-when-windows-crashed-more dept.
MonsterTrimble writes "Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Beta 2 is experiencing a major memory leak due to patches for X.org. 'An X.Org Server update that was pushed into the Lucid repository last week has resulted in the system being slower and slower as it is left on, until it reaches a point where the system is no longer usable. ... In order to make the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS deadline, the developers are looking at just reverting three of the patches, which brings the GLX version back to 1.2. Ubuntu developers are now desperate for people willing to test out this updated X.Org Server package so they can determine by this Friday whether to ship it with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS or doing an early SRU (Stable Release Update). Right now this X.Org Server that's being tested is living in the ubuntu-x-swat PPA.'"
Wireless Networking

Israel Blocks iPad Imports, Citing Wi-Fi Transmission Regulations 204

Posted by timothy from the we're-looking-for-droids dept.
unixcrab writes with this excerpt from The Mac Observer: "Apple's iPad is proving to be popular everywhere — except Israel. The country's Communication Ministry is refusing to let people bring the multimedia tablet into the country because it hasn't tested and approved the Wi-Fi technology used in the device, according to Haaretz. Ministry officials commented, 'The iPad device sold exclusively today in the United States operates at broadcast power levels [over its Wi-Fi modem] compatible with American standards. As the Israeli regulations in the area of Wi-Fi are similar to European standards, which are different from American standards, which permit broadcasting at lower power, therefore the broadcast levels of the device prevent approving its use in Israel.' The government seems serious about its iPad import ban. Customs officials have already confiscated ten iPads and told their owners to ship them overseas."
Businesses

BlackBerry Maker To Buy QNX For RTOS & Dev. Suite 51

Posted by Soulskill from the expanding-the-portfolio dept.
Freshly Exhumed writes "Research In Motion, maker of BlackBerry smartphones, said on Friday it will buy QNX Software Systems, makers of Real-Time Operating Systems, for an undisclosed amount as it moves to boost integration of its devices with in-vehicle audio systems. QNX Neutrino is a Unix-like RTOS, and their Momentics development suite is for embedded applications for a wide variety of industries. While RIM has offered somewhat limited support of open source projects on its BlackBerry platform, the future of QNX's Foundry27 development project, which uses the Apache 2.0 license, has not yet been mentioned."
Earth

Cooling the Planet With a Bubble Bath 219

Posted by Soulskill from the rubber-ducky-optional dept.
cremeglace writes "A Harvard University physicist has come up with a new way to cool parts of the planet: pump vast swarms of tiny bubbles into the sea to increase its reflectivity and lower water temperatures. 'Since water covers most of the earth, don't dim the sun,' says the scientist, Russell Seitz, speaking from an international meeting on geoengineering research. 'Brighten the water.' From ScienceNOW: 'Computer simulations show that tiny bubbles could have a profound cooling effect. Using a model that simulates how light, water, and air interact, Seitz found that microbubbles could double the reflectivity of water at a concentration of only one part per million by volume. When Seitz plugged that data into a climate model, he found that the microbubble strategy could cool the planet by up to 3C. He has submitted a paper on the concept he calls “Bright Water" to the journal Climatic Change.'"

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