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Robotics

Submission + - Robot Discovers Itself and Adapts to Injury

Submitted by androthi
androthi writes: Nothing can possibly go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong ... The truth behind the old joke is that most robots are programmed with a fairly rigid "model" of what they and the world around them are like. If a robot is damaged or its environment changes unexpectedly, it can't adapt.

Cornell researchers have built a robot that works out its own model of itself and can revise the model to adapt to injury. First, it teaches itself to walk. Then, when damaged, it teaches itself to limp.

Although the test robot is a simple four-legged device, the researchers say the underlying algorithm could be used to build more complex robots that can deal with uncertain situations, like space exploration, and may help in understanding human and animal behavior.
Space

Submission + - Here come the Leonids 2006

Submitted by
yukk
yukk writes: "The nights and early morning hours of November 17-19 mark the return of the Leonid meteor shower to the skies of Earth. Viewers along the northeastern coast of the United States and Canada, as well as people in Europe and western Africa might get to see a possible "outburst" of as many as 100-600 meteors per hour. This spike in activity is predicted for 11:45 p.m. — 1:33 a.m. EST on November 18-19 (4:45 — 6:33 UT on November 19). Get the scoop here."
User Journal

Submission + - Internet gambling legislation leads to... cheap MS

Submitted by daveo0331
daveo0331 writes: As you may know, in October the US passed legislation that tries to limit online gambling (it hasn't proven to be very effective, but that's a different story). The law happens to blatantly violate WTO rules because it differentiates between different forms of online gambling and, in the process, gives preferential treatment to domestic gambling sites over foreign ones. Then again, who cares? It's not like the US cares about international law or what the rest of the world thinks.

This is where it gets interesting. Antigua has complained to the WTO about this. And, the US doesn't have much of a case. The WTO has already ruled in favor of Antigua, and that was before the legislation even passed. Antigua's case is even stronger now. At this point, you may be saying so what, Antigua can't really hurt the US with trade sanctions. But the WTO can do a lot more than just authorize trade sanctions. They can exempt Antigua from their WTO obligations, specifically their obligation to support US intellectual property laws. I wonder what the RIAA would think of cheap-mp3s.ag, 100% legal according to international law? Maybe the corporate lobbyists can get the US to actually respect things like their treaty obligations and international law.
Java

Submission + - Sun JRE plus new DST means work for IT

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "Next year's changes to the start and end dates for Daylight Savings Time promise to create many an additional hassle for IT professionals. Especially troublesome will be bringing applications that use Sun's Java Runtime Engine up to speed. While the issue has been public knowledge for some time, the recent passage of the last time change under the old rules has whipped up a fresh round of discussion regarding the breadth and depth of what needs to get fixed. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/9254 "
Unix

Submission + - ZFS on FreeBSD

Submitted by
setantae
setantae writes: "Pawel Dawidek announced the first ZFS on FreeBSD patch set for testing. With the ZFS on FUSE project floundering on the early VFS operations and Apple's port merely vapourware, this is a great opportunity for those who still have a Sun allergy to try out the latest in easy storage administration."
Google

Submission + - Google Sponsors the LinuxBIOS project

Submitted by
Rockgod
Rockgod writes: "From the article:
The LinuxBIOS project aims to take down the last barrier in Open Source systems by providing a free firmware (BIOS) implementation. LinuxBIOS celebrates its Sixth anniversary this year, and has an installed base of over 1 million LinuxBIOS systems. With the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, that number is expected to exceed 10 million users in 2007. LinuxBIOS supports 65 mainboards from 31 vendors in v1 and another 56 mainboards from 27 vendors in v2
"
United States

Submission + - Electronic voting machines missed 18k votes

Submitted by
ndogg
ndogg writes: "Electronic voting machines are being blames for an 18,000 undercount of votes in the Florida county of Sarasota. That's nearly 13% of all the voters — a rather significant margin, especially in a race with a margin of 368 votes in favor of the winner, Vern Buchanan. Of course, there is a call for a recount, but without a paper trail, what are they recounting?"
Software

Submission + - Software Quality Assurance Engineer to Development

Submitted by noobcake
noobcake writes: I'll be graduating with a Master's in Computer science with only a couple months under my belt as a software intern. My concentrations in my master's is networking/distributed systems and software engineering.

I have been offered a job as a SQA engineer and my professor advised me that I may be pigeonholed into QA and it will be hard for me to move into software engineering/development. I have 3 questions for /.

1. Is this true?
2. Am I shooting myself in the foot by taking a job in SQA?
3. If I do take this job are there things I can do besides asking to help in development so I can add "development" onto my resume on top of QA/testing? Thank you
The Internet

Submission + - A Wiki About Every Website

Submitted by CaspianXI
CaspianXI writes: A new website, AboutUs.org, has launched an effort to build a wiki containing every site on the Internet. This week, they announced that it has closed a Series A round of funding and raised $1 million. According to TechCrunch's article: The site is a wiki directory of web sites, mostly populated automatically but with a healthy amount of traffic and a growing number of edits being made daily. If you look up your website on AboutUs, youll probably find an entry there.
Power

Submission + - Physics promises wireless power

Submitted by
Spluch
Spluch writes: "Plugs and wires could soon become obsolete as researchers in the US have come up with a relative simple system that is capable of powering devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players wirelessly. From BBC: The answer the team came up with was "resonance", a phenomenon that causes an object to vibrate when energy of a certain frequency is applied."
Displays

Submission + - Z80 8-Bit CPU Formed on Glass Substrate World

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Sharp Corporation, and Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd. have successfully integrated an 8-bit Z80*1 CPU onto a glass substrate designed for LCD displays, based on their jointly developed CG- Silicon*2 technology; a world first. CG (Continuous Grain) Silicon technology is the core technology behind System LCDs, next-generation functional devices developed jointly by the two companies in 1998. CG-silicon maintains atomic-level continuity at the crystal grain boundaries, thereby enabling electrons to travel through the semiconductor approximately 600 times faster than conventional amorphous silicon and approximately three times faster than low-temperature polysilicon."

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