Comment Mandatory reading (Score 1) 468
This discussion should be mandatory reading for PHBs and HR drones.
Submission + - Flat lens focuses without distortion (harvard.edu)
yahyamf writes: Applied physicists at the Harvard have created an ultrathin, flat lens that focuses light without the distortions of conventional lenses.
“Our flat lens opens up a new type of technology,” says principal investigator Federico Capasso. “We’re presenting a new way of making lenses. Instead of creating phase delays as light propagates through the thickness of the material, you can create an instantaneous phase shift right at the surface of the lens. It’s extremely exciting.”
“Our flat lens opens up a new type of technology,” says principal investigator Federico Capasso. “We’re presenting a new way of making lenses. Instead of creating phase delays as light propagates through the thickness of the material, you can create an instantaneous phase shift right at the surface of the lens. It’s extremely exciting.”
Submission + - Hackers Dump Millions of Records of CIA, Banks, Politicians (paritynews.com)
hypnosec writes: TeamGhostShell, a team linked with the infamous group Anonymous, is claiming that they have hacked some major US institutions including the likes of CIA, major banking institutions, accounts of politicians and has posted those details online. The dumps comprising of millions of accounts has been let loose on the web by the hacking collective. The motivation behind the hack, the group claims, is to protest against banks, politicians and the hackers who have been captured by law enforcement agencies.
Submission + - Application Development is a $9 Billion Industry (drdobbs.com)
CowboyRobot writes: "Although not as lucrative as video games or movies, Gartner projects the software application development industry to pass the US$9 Billion mark this year. They credit "evolving software delivery models, new development methodologies, emerging mobile application development, and open source software". Also in the report is a projection that "mobile application development projects targeting smartphones and tablets will outnumber native PC projects by a ratio of 4:1 by 2015.""
Comment Re:Here's how to fix slashvertizements (Score 1) 233
ok, so seriously, what are good or better alternatives to Plantronics?
Submission + - Smartphone recommendation for a former N900 user?
yahyamf writes: My N900 recently broke and I'm looking for a replacement. The N9 looks great, despite not having a keyboard, but it seems that it will not have as many packages and developer interest as the N900. The iPhone is not an option as a matter of principle. I've never used Android before, and am a bit bewildered by the number of choices. Is there any particular phone the Slashdot crowd would recommend as a worthy replacement for the N900 both in functionality and spirit? Or should I wait for Tizen phones to appear?
Submission + - Advice on software for running a small library
yahyamf writes: "I've been asked to help setup software for managing a small library at a non-profit school in the middle-east for under-privileged children. The library has about 5000 books and will be run mostly by student workers. The requirements are low cost, ease of use and maintenance, and support for Arabic and English. Barcode printing and scanning capabilities would be great as well. I've looked briefly at koha, but is there anything else out there (both hardware and software) slashdotters can recommend?"
Comment No need to block everyone (Score 1) 107
The UAE authorities know very well that they cannot block everyone.
Even with the "gaping holes" in their firewalls, I won't be surprised if they block more that 90% of the local population from accessing restricted sites. That's probably good enough for them. The effort required to block the remaining 10% would be too high and not worth it.
Submission + - Giant buses in China that cars can drive under (inquisitr.com)
yahyamf writes: One Chinese company has proposed new buses that are so big they straddle the road, while cars drive beneath them. Designers at Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co., Ltd say that these behemoth buses solve a number of issues in one fell swoop, and would result in fewer traffic jams, less emissions, and faster travel.
These buses are actually being put into pilot use shortly. They should make their debut in Beijingâ½âsÂâs Mentougou district, where work is to commence on the first 186km of track at yearâ½âsÂâs end.
Each of the jumbo buses will measure 4 to 4.5 meters high, with passengers aboard the upper level and other vehicles lower than 2 meters going under. Powered by electricity and solar energy, the bus can carry 1,200 to 1,400 passengers at a time.
These buses are actually being put into pilot use shortly. They should make their debut in Beijingâ½âsÂâs Mentougou district, where work is to commence on the first 186km of track at yearâ½âsÂâs end.
Each of the jumbo buses will measure 4 to 4.5 meters high, with passengers aboard the upper level and other vehicles lower than 2 meters going under. Powered by electricity and solar energy, the bus can carry 1,200 to 1,400 passengers at a time.
SolarPHP 1.0 Released 125
HvitRavn writes "SolarPHP 1.0 stable was released by Paul M. Jones today. SolarPHP is an application framework and library, and is a serious contender alongside Zend Framework, Symphony, and similar frameworks. SolarPHP has in the recent years been the cause of heated debate in the PHP community due to provocative benchmark results posted on Paul M. Jones' blog."
64-Bit Flash Player For Linux Finally In Alpha 172
Luchio writes "Finally, a little bit of respect from Adobe with this alpha release of the Adobe Flash Player 10 that was made available for all Linux 64-bit enthusiasts! As noted, 'this is a prerelease version,' so handle with care. Just remove any existing Flash player and extract the new .so file in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins (or /usr/lib/opera/plugins)."
Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195
diegocg writes "Linus Torvalds has officially released the version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. New features include virtualization memory de-duplication, a rewrite of the writeback code faster and more scalable, many important Btrfs improvements and speedups, ATI R600/R700 3D and KMS support and other graphic improvements, a CFQ low latency mode, tracing improvements including a 'perf timechart' tool that tries to be a better bootchart, soft limits in the memory controller, support for the S+Core architecture, support for Intel Moorestown and its new firmware interface, run-time power management support, and many other improvements and new drivers. See the full changelog for more details."
Comment Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score 1) 720
In many cases it makes sense to spend more energy in extracting oil than the energy available in the oil itself. This is because oil is mobile energy. It can be easily transported and stored. Also, much of modern infrastructure depends on energy in liquid form, eg. cars, airplanes, farming equirpment etc. There may be plentiful nuclear, solar, coal, or natural gas energy, but it's useless in many cases because the current infrastructure can not use it. So it does make sense for example to use a certain amount of nuclear energy to get a lesser amount of energy in the form of oil.
Crowd-Source Translation Software For Free Content? 62
yahyamf writes "I have a lot of free educational content in the form of audio lectures and text, which I'd like to translate into as many languages as possible. I would also want to transcribe the audio and create audiobooks from the text. There are already several volunteers willing to contribute, but I need some web based software to manage all the work. Facebook is already doing something like this, but it is only for their content. I've also looked at Damned Lies, which is part of the Gnome project, but it doesn't seem to handle audio. Are there any other open source translation projects out there that I can customize and build upon?"
Comment Deep packet inspection used for blocking VoIP (Score 4, Informative) 180
In Dubai in the UAE as well as in most Gulf countries, VoIP is completely illegal, and the state run telcos use DPI technology to block it. This adds about 200ms of latency to *all* packets which the telcos think is an acceptable tradeoff to preserve their monopoly revenue.
