The_Myth - Slashdot User

Sun Turns to Lasers to Speed Up Computer Chips 130

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday March 24, 2008 @01:44PM from the friggin-lasers dept.

alphadogg writes to mention that Sun is attempting to move from the typical design of multiple small chips back to a unified single-wafer design. "The company is announcing today a $44 million contract from the Pentagon to explore replacing the wires between computer chips with laser beams. The technology, part of a field of computer science known as silicon photonics, would eradicate the most daunting bottleneck facing today's supercomputer designers: moving information rapidly to solve problems that require hundreds or thousands of processors."

Submission + - Harry Potter 5 Standard DVD Defective by Design

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 13, 2007 @11:02PM

An anonymous reader writes: Many people I know — and unsurprisingly, many people online — have already written that the quality of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix standard DVD is of such poor quality that a VHS tape is a superior version. Even older DVDs from earlier movies in the series stand up with higher quality than this release. Is this a ploy by Warner Bros. to push the HD versions of the film?

Submission + - Harry Potter and the Security Exploit (insecure.org)

Submitted by

Dragoonmac

on Thursday June 21, 2007 @05:33PM

Dragoonmac writes: "A hacker/cracker/script kiddie named "Gabriel" claims to have infiltrated Bloomsbury Publishing to retrieve an advance copy of the new Harry Potter text.
He claims to have used "The usual milw0rm downloaded exploit delivered by email/click-on-the-link/open-browser/click-on-this -animated-icon/back-connect to some employee of Bloomsbury Publishing, the company that's behind the Harry crap."

He posted his spoiler synopsis to insecure.org.

The publishing house would not say if the posting was accurate or not.

The full spoilers post can be found here
http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2007/Jun/0380.h tml
Needless to say, spoiler warning."

Submission + - Windows Marketplace offers Ubuntu download! 1

Submitted by

the_rajah

on Thursday June 21, 2007 @03:18PM

the_rajah writes: "From http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/details.aspx?vie w=info&itemid=3411347

"Ubuntu is a community developed operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops, and servers. Whether you use it at home, at school or at work Ubuntu contains all the applications you'll ever need, from word processing and e-mail applications, to Web server software and programming tools. Ubuntu is and always will be free of charge. You do not pay any licensing fees. You can download, use and share Ubuntu with your friends, family, school or business for absolutely nothing.Version 7.04, named "Feisty Fawn," adds the Ubuntu Studio, a multimedia editing and production suite, to the distribution."

Microsoft distributing Linux and now constrained by the GPL? Probably not since the download link is to download.com, but still interesting."

Submission + - SDF Public Access UNIX System Celebrates 20 Years (lonestar.org)

Submitted by

Stephen Jones

on Thursday June 14, 2007 @11:33PM

Stephen Jones writes: "It was on June 16th, 1987 that the SDF-1 received its first caller at
300bps. This little Apple ][e BBS of the late 80s turned into a Public
Access UNIX System with the demise of "killer.dallas.tx.us" during the
"Operation Sundevil" raids. Since then it has grown to become the oldest
and largest continually operating PUBNIX on the planet.""

Submission + - Perfect silicon sphere to redefine the kilogram (theage.com.au)

Submitted by MrCreosote on Thursday June 14, 2007 @07:50PM

MrCreosote writes: The Age reports optical specialists at CSIRO are helping create a new standard for the kilogram, based on a precise number of atoms in a perfect sphere of silicon. This will replace the International Prototype, a lump of metal alloy in a vault in Paris.

Submission + - Kodak unveils brighter CMOS color filters (eetimes.com)

Submitted by brownsteve on Thursday June 14, 2007 @07:36PM

brownsteve writes: Eastman Kodak Co. unveiled what it says are "next-generation color filter patterns" designed to more than double the light sensitivity of CMOS or CCD image sensors used in camera phones or digital still cameras. The new color filter system is a departure from the widely used standard Bayer pattern — an arrangement of red, green and blue pixels — also created by Kodak. While building on the Bayer pattern, the new technology adds a "fourth pixel, which has no pigment on top," said Michael DeLuca, market segment manager responsible for image sensor solutions at Eastman Kodak. Such "transparent" pixels — sensitive to all visible wavelengths — are designed to absorb light. DeLuca claimed the invention is "the next milestone" in digital photography, likening its significance to ISO 400 color film introduced in the mid-1980's.

Submission + - IT ads from the past: From the quaint to the weird (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

PetManimal

on Thursday June 14, 2007 @06:50PM

PetManimal writes: "Computerworld has dug up some funny IT advertising gems from decades past. The highlights include "The Personal Mainframe", Elvira hawking engineering software, and an image of the earliest screenless "briefcase portables." Strange to think that people not only took these technologies so seriously, but also paid big bucks for gear that seems positively primitive now."

Submission + - Time capsule opened, 1957 Plymouth inside...sorta

Submitted by patmandu on Wednesday June 13, 2007 @11:24PM

patmandu writes: Back on June 15th, 1957, they sealed a showroom-fresh 1957 Plymouth into a time capsule in Tulsa, OK. The time capsule was opened this week as planned on the 50th anniversary, and the car was revealed. Let's just say that 'sealed' was an optimistic description. Oops. That'll buff right out!

Submission + - Beware of fortune cookies or why your pet suffered (newburyportnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13, 2007 @10:36PM

An anonymous reader writes: On May 1, scientists at the University of Guelph in Canada made a startling discovery. In a laboratory they found that melamine and cyanuric acid reacted with each other to form crystals that could impair kidney function — crystals similar to those discovered in affected pets. Cyanuric acid, a chemical stabilizer in swimming pools, was then found by U.S. investigators to have been added by Chinese pet food producers because it was cheaper than melamine and also helped to increase protein count

Submission + - Doctor Who to be legally downloadable

Submitted by Porsupah on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @10:32PM

Porsupah writes: It appears Azureus Inc. and BBC Worldwide have reached agreement on making Doctor Who, as well as a few other series including Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, and The League of Gentlemen, available as legal downloads on their recently announced Azureus 3.0-based Zudeo platform. There's no word yet on what episodes, pricing, or DRM.

Submission + - New Google feature exploited for free prank calls

Submitted by

always_ramrod_straight

on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @10:18PM

always_ramrod_straight writes: "A new way to make free prank calls anywhere in the u.s. using a new Google feature has been posted on a forum where trolls congregate to hone their skills: http://www.whofailedtoday.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?id =175031 the basic way is: 1. go to http://local.google.com/ 2. search for any business. example ideas are whorehouse, republican member offices etc. 3. click "call". enter phone number of your victims e.g. liberal member offices. it is estimated in the past few days tens of thousands of prank calls have been made all over america and Google has allowed it to go on."

Submission + - Freedom Tower construction begins at Ground Zero

Submitted by John Sokol on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @10:12PM

John Sokol writes: The Freedom Tower would be 1,776-foot tower and is to be completed in 2011.
The skyscraper's 2.6 million sq. ft. (234,000 sq. m.) of office space will actually top out at 1,500 feet (455 meters). Above that will be a 276-foot (84-meter), lattice-like structure containing windmills generating as much as 20 percent of the building's energy.
It's not clear if the Freedom Tower's extension would be considered a spire and not counted in it's height by CTBUH

The new building is to be 400ft taller than the original World Trade Center towers that was 1,350 feet (410 meters) and 110-stories.
At 1,450.5 feet, (442 m) tall, with antenna 1,758 feet (533 meters) the Sears Tower usurped New York's claim to the world's tallest building in 1974.
The Freedom Tower would be taller then the current world's tallest building, the 1667ft-high Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which recently surpassed the previous holder of the title, the 1,483 feet (450 meters) Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
This would make Freedom Tower the tallest structure in the world — at least until the completion of Burj Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which is projected to be 2,313ft high and with spire 2,640 feet (800 m).
Canadians claim the 1,815-foot CN Tower in Toronto as the world's tallest freestanding structure.

The Petronas Towers and the Burj Dubai are very Muslim and built with Islamic symbols in every facet of their designs. In some respect, the battle for the worlds tallest building is a competition between the west and the Islamic world.

The most widely acknowledged authority on the tallest buildings is the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH).

Wikipedia, has a nice graphic of this

Submission + - Robots to have human rights in 50 years -- report

Submitted by

futuresheet

on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @09:42PM

futuresheet writes: "Robots will have basic rights like human beings in the year 2056, according to a report commissioned by the British government. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5ae9b434-8f8e-11db-9ba3-00 00779e2340.html The government will be obligated to provide full social benefits to them including income support, housing and possibly robo-healthcare to fix the machines over time. From the article: Robots and machines are now classed as inanimate objects without rights or duties but if artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous, the report argues, there may be calls for humans' rights to be extended to them. It is also logical that such rights are meted out with citizens' duties, including voting, paying tax and compulsory military service."

Submission + - A sign of the MMO gold market

Submitted by

Jack

on Tuesday December 19, 2006 @09:35PM

Jack writes: "A while ago, Slashdot commented on the emergence of a price comparison site just for MMO game gold trading, and what that says about the level of real money trading going on in such games.

Now even such price comparisons seem to be evolving into a competitive industry: a UK based company has just launched GamerPrice.com, what it dubs a "next generation" price comparison service for the market. The site makes use of bots to fetch a range of price data from up to 18 different sellers while the user waits, delivering results in under 10 seconds. The service currently supports all World of Warcraft Europe/USA servers. This site reportedly took a full 3 months of development.

Whether you agree with real money trading or not, this kind of investment in such services certainly goes to show just how much money the industry is worth."

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