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NASA

Software Error Likely Killed MGS Spacecraft 199

Posted by kdawson from the off-by-one dept.
Aglassis writes "NASA investigators have determined that a software update performed in June of 2006 may have doomed the 10-year-old spacecraft. Apparently the software error caused the solar arrays to drive against a mechanical stop which then forced the spacecraft into safe mode. Unfortunately, after that the spacecraft's radiator was pointed at the sun which overheated the battery and destroyed it. Contact was lost with the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in November 2006. NASA will form an internal review board to determine formally the cause of the loss of the spacecraft and what remedial actions are needed for future missions."
Microsoft

Submission + - UK schools at risk of Microsoft lock-in

Submitted by Robert
Robert writes: UK schools and colleges that have signed up to Microsoft Corp's academic licensing programs face the 'significant potential' of being locked in to the company's software, according to an interim review by the UK government agency responsible for technology in education. The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency report also states that most establishments surveyed do not believe that Microsoft's licensing agreements provide value for money.
It's funny. Laugh.

Journal Journal: You have been... Goatsed?

Journal by Noryungi

About 2,500 people have had a (very) nasty surprise recently when they looked at their MySpace page. Let's just say a small image was replaced by... another small image. Only, the second one was from the infamous "Goatse.cx" (You remember THAT one, don't you?). But what exactly happened? Jason Scott, the owner of textfiles.com explains all -- or is it confesses all?. The email received are hilarious. Well worth a read and a chuckle
The Media

Submission + - PC World editor killed in his home

Submitted by smooth wombat
smooth wombat writes: Rex Farrance, PC World Magazine's senior technical editor, was shot dead by masked gunmen who had broken into his home on Tuesday evening. His wife, Lenore Vantosh-Farrance, was pistol whipped. She was able to call 911 but the assailants fled before the police arrived.

Investigators are suggestng the attack was drug related. From the article:

"We have substantial reason to believe that the victim and his wife were involved in the possession and, potentially, the distribution of illegal narcotics," said Pittsburg police Inspector John Conaty, who declined to specify what type of drugs were involved.
Links

Submission + - Tragic Early Death of Boy Genius

Submitted by BayaWeaver
BayaWeaver writes: Is there a moral to this tragic story? Boy goes to Caltech at the age of 12, gets his Ph.D from Cornell in string theory (under Brian Greene, a boy genius himself), and then things seem to have gone downhill after that. He is treated in a hospital for depression at 25, dies at age 30 and his family won't say why. Here is the story from the New Straits Times in Malaysia.
"Boy genius Chiang Ti Ming, who died on Saturday, was buried yesterday at the Jalan Sikamat Christian Cemetery. The cause of his death is unknown and family members were tight-lipped at the funeral. Chiang made the headlines in 1989 when, as a 12-year-old, he was accepted into the prestigious California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to study physics. He went on to pursue a doctorate in the field of Super String Theory in 1992 at Cornell University, an Ivy League institution.Not much was known about Chiang after his initial "fame", though in 1993, he suffered a personal tragedy when his four-year-old sister Eei Wern drowned at the swimming pool of the Seremban International Golf Club. In 2002, it was reported that he was admitted to a hospital in Kuala Lumpur after suffering from depression."
If there a lesson to be learnt here, what would that be? Don't go to Caltech when you are 12yo? Don't waste the best years of your life doing string theory? Was the poor kid pushed too far too fast? One can only imagine the overwhelming pressure the boy must have felt to perform. Perhaps he should have been left alone to find his way and not be pushed to what is very possibly a dead end
User Journal

Journal Journal: Server death, the sequel... 4

Journal by Cyberdyne

*sniff* Alas, poor Server!

My current server, home to some of my websites, some e-mail and half my DNS service, has decided it would make life more fun if it rebooted spontaneously every few minutes. Nothing in the logs, just unsolicited rebooting - possibly a power supply issue of some sort. (All I know is SMART shows the hard drive is OK; I'd expect most memory or CPU problems to give different symptoms, but being eight time zones away makes diagnostics rather limited.)
Hardware Hacking

Methods of Learning to Build Electronic Circuitry? 134

Posted by Cliff from the beyond-resisters-and-capacitors dept.
Peristaltic asks: "I've seen some cool articles in Instructables detailing how to create various electronic gadgets. A couple of these as well as the odd DIY kit have come to life on my kitchen table. While it's satisfying to see the things work after time spent soldering, I would love to be able to take the next step beyond the basics of component functionality, i.e. a resistor does -this-; a capacitor does -that-. Forest Mimm's books have been helpful towards this end, but it's time to move forward. Every month or so, I read here on Slashdot a plea for help getting started with, or expanding someone's knowledge of programming. OK, I'd like to make that plea for help with electronics theory & circuit building. I've found plenty of references on the web, Amazon, etc., but can someone who's already taken this trip outline what has and hasn't worked for them?"
User Journal

Journal SPAM: Iran starstruck by UFO phenomenon 1

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius

UFO fever is gripping Iran after dozens of Unidentified Flying Object sightings in the last few days.

State television has shown pictures of a sparkling white disc which it says was filmed over Tehran on Tuesday.

Other UFOs have been spotted in several northern and north-western cities moving quickly through the atmosphere emitting brightly coloured rays.

Scientists say the sightings are a result of natural phenomena, but many people say they are spy planes.
Portables

Submission + - Microvision Turns Cellphone Into Digital Projector

Submitted by Art Vanderlay
Art Vanderlay writes: Microvision will unveil at CES an ultra-miniature full-color digital projection display designed to be embedded into handheld electronic devices such as cellphones, PDAs, or multimedia handhelds. This would allow images to be projected onto a nearby surface, such as a wall, whiteboard or desktop. Pricing or availability not yet set, you can be sure it won't be cheap.
Businesses

Submission + - Cisco Sues Apple Because of iPhone Name

Submitted by ruffnsc
ruffnsc writes: Cisco Systems is suing Apple Computer for trademark infringement in a US federal court, for using the iPhone name. Apple launched its new handheld device under the iPhone name on Tuesday, at the Macworld event in San Francisco. Following the launch Cisco said it hoped to resolve the matter by Tuesday evening after negotiations. — BBC News
Television

Submission + - TiVo as a s/w download for generic Comcast HD DVR

Submitted by evw
evw writes: TiVo and Comcast announced at CES that they would make TiVo software available for the generic Comcast HD DVR. "Working in concert with Comcast, TiVo has developed a software application that will enable Comcast to deploy the service for a modest monthly fee to existing set-top boxes without an additional in-home visit by a technician." The extra monthly cost has not been announced. Apparently they started doing trials of this at the end of 2006. This is great news because I love my TiVos but I'm fed up with DirecTV and was ready to look at a Series3 but it was going to be tough to justify the steep price vs. the generic cable company box.
Wireless (Apple)

Submission + - Nice List of iPhone Problems

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Mac fanboy site roughlydrafted.com has just released a post listing ten of the iPhones biggest problems (referred to as "myths"). It has the usual anti-microsoft, anti-palm and anti-cisco comments, but seems to be quite an accurate and complete list of how the iPhone is broken and what ridiculous explanation one might think of to defend it.
Myth Eight: An integrated battery is a significant problem for users
[...]
Having an extra battery to swap in makes sense on a laptop, but does not make sense for a phone, particularly one that has standard external battery packs that can be used via its dock connector.
Businesses

Submission + - FINLAND: Red Hat becomes the 100th member of COSS

Submitted by
Jukka Matikainen
Jukka Matikainen writes: "The world's leading Linux distributor Red Hat joins COSS, the Finland-based Centre for Open Source Solutions. Red Hat becomes the 100th member organisation of the centre.

Rapid growth of COSS reflects the expansion of open source based business. In two years COSS has evolved into an international network of 100 organisations. In terms of active involvement of companies COSS is the leading European open source centre. COSS has attracted main Finnish and international OSS players and smaller innovative companies to join forces in order to improve the business ecosystem. The COSS members include major international companies such as Nokia, Novell, IBM, HP as well as Finnish open source companies such as Plenware, Nomovok, Movial, and Flander.

COSS expects to have a lot of new members also in the future. Expectations are based on the fact that Open Source is still booming in software development and industry.

According to Mr Petri Räsänen, the director of COSS, internationalisation is the next main theme for COSS. COSS is already carrying out international R&D projects, building European network for OSS centres, organising international events, coordinating EU-funded projects and holding discussions with the European Commission. International operations will become even more inherent with Red Hat as a member.

- We are very happy to see Red Hat joining our network. The company is both a global business leader and a well-respected player in open source communities. We are welcoming Red Hat to be an important part of the OSS business ecosystem we represent. Our goal is to provide them with great opportunities to exploit Finnish Open Source competence and cooperate with Finnish companies and universities, says Petri Räsänen.

As the home country of Linux, Finland is a natural operation environment for the leading Linux distributor. Red Hat values high Finnish open source know-how.

- Within COSS we are seeking partners, exchanging information, building visions and strategies and scanning new opportunities with other Open Source players. We are developing our business and at the same time we are improving Finnish Open Source markets. Collaboration creates value for all parties involved, says Werner Knoblich, Vice President, EMEA at Red Hat.

—

COSS — The Finnish Centre for Open Source Solutions — is a national development agency for open source business ecosystem. The operational environment for COSS is provided by Technology Centre Hermia Ltd.

About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat, the world's leading open source solutions provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with satellite offices spanning the globe. The most trusted name in open source, CIOs and other senior-level IT executives have ranked Red Hat as the industry's most valued vendor for two consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value study. Red Hat is leading Linux and open source solutions into the mainstream by making high-quality, low-cost technology accessible. Red Hat provides an operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, along with applications, management, and middleware solutions, including JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite. Red Hat is accelerating the shift to service-oriented architectures and enabling the next generation of web-enabled applications running on a low-cost, secure open source platform. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide and through top-tier partnerships. Red Hat's open source strategy offers customers a long term plan for building infrastructures that are based on and leverage open source technologies with a focus on security and ease of management. Learn more: http://www.europe.redhat.com/

For more information:

Petri Räsänen, Director, COSS
+358 40 772 3008
petri.rasanen(at)coss.fi
http://www.coss.fi/

Petri Maanonen
+358 40 558 2550
petri.maanonen@redhat.com
www.redhat.com"
Sony

Submission + - Sony battery recall a done deal?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple and Dell have apparently replaced a vast majority of their exploding batteries — which made headlines all over the world last year. Many airline companies had put a ban on these notebooks as a result of the problem. Both companies alone recalled about 6 million Sony-produced batteries last year.

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