Comment Re:It's not about how much it costs to make (Score 1) 110
Solution: collaborate.
I know, I know. Obviously beyond any real-world scenario in academia.
Yellowstone Supervolcano Larger Than First Thought 451
drewtheman writes "New studies of the plumbing that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park shows the plume and the magma chamber under the volcano are larger than first thought and contradicts claims that only shallow hot rock exists. University of Utah research professor of geophysics Robert Smith led four separate studies that verify a plume of hot and molten rock at least 410 miles deep that rises at an angle from the northwest."
Submission + - Peer-to-Patent Pilot Project Launches in Australia (iptoday.com)
panikhide writes: Intellectual Property Today reports that Peer-to-Patent is being trialled in Australia. Peer-to-Patent Australia is based on the successful Peer-to-Patent project conducted by New York Law School, and is the result of the collaborative efforts between the Law School and the Queensland University of Technology. From June 2007 to June 2009, the Law School conducted the successful Peer-to-Patent pilot, in cooperation with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and opened the patent examination process for the first time to a network of scientific and technical experts.
"I am delighted to witness the launch of Peer-to-Patent Australia," Mark Webbink, Executive Director of New York Law School’s Center for Patent Innovations, said. "We have enjoyed working with Queensland University of Technology in extending the reach of Peer-to-Patent and look forward to a successful pilot."
Professor Brian Fitzgerald, from QUT's Faculty of Law, said the project's aim is to assist patent examiners by identifying prior art they might not otherwise have discovered or had access to. He invites appropriately qualified people to get involved as peer reviewers.
"The success of the project requires the participation of appropriately qualified people from industry, government, academia, and the broader community, many of whom will be exposed to new technologies on a daily basis," Professor Fitzgerald said.
"I am delighted to witness the launch of Peer-to-Patent Australia," Mark Webbink, Executive Director of New York Law School’s Center for Patent Innovations, said. "We have enjoyed working with Queensland University of Technology in extending the reach of Peer-to-Patent and look forward to a successful pilot."
Professor Brian Fitzgerald, from QUT's Faculty of Law, said the project's aim is to assist patent examiners by identifying prior art they might not otherwise have discovered or had access to. He invites appropriately qualified people to get involved as peer reviewers.
"The success of the project requires the participation of appropriately qualified people from industry, government, academia, and the broader community, many of whom will be exposed to new technologies on a daily basis," Professor Fitzgerald said.
Submission + - "Universal Jigsaw Puzzle" Hits Stores in Japan (ameba.jp)
Riktov writes: I came across this at Tokyo toy store last week, and it's one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. Jigazo Puzzle is a jigsaw puzzle, but you can make anything with it. It has just 300 pieces which are all just varying shades of a single color, though a few have gradations across the piece; i.e., each piece is a generic pixel. Out of the box, you can make Mona Lisa, JFK, etc, arranging it according to symbols printed on the reverse side. But here's the amazing thing: take a photo (for example, of yourself) with a cell-phone, e-mail it to the company, and they will send you back a pattern that will recreate that photo.
This article is in Japanese, but as they say, a few pictures are worth a million words. And 300 pixels are worth an infinite number of pictures.
Submission + - MS can resume collecting protocol royalties (idg.com.au)
angry tapir writes: "Microsoft may begin collecting royalties again for licensing some protocols because clear technical documentation is now available, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The change comes after the DOJ issued its latest joint status report regarding its 2002 antitrust settlement with Microsoft. The settlement required Microsoft to make available technical documentation that would allow other vendors to make products that are interoperable with Windows."
Comment Re:Same type of experience here (Score 1) 467
Sure dimmers used to just use a variable resistor, but a good while ago nearly all moved onto a bit more of a complex (and efficient) solution: turning the bulb on and off real fast - varying how long the 'on' period is for the dimness factor.
Enabling that lovely buzzing noise they sometimes make.
See here and here for more info
Enabling that lovely buzzing noise they sometimes make.
See here and here for more info
Comment Re:TFD (Score 1) 263
I don't doubt that ISPs retained a lot of this data in the past, giving it up to law enforcement when asked. However prior to now, AFAIK, the data wasn't made available for searching to everything down to my local council.
Maybe this is just in the UK's national implementation - but that's the scary part.
Comment Re:That's odd... (Score 1) 500
They are special effects guys, they have done all of maybe 2 or 3 really large explosions and all of them were oversaw by professionals because most of the stuff they deal with is not generally available.
OK, so:
With the amount of experience their [professional experts overseeing the experiment] have causing explosions, I'm curious why they were unable to predict the size of this one in particular
Comment Re:Wait, what? (Score 2, Informative) 314
Heck yes.
The year I began my A-levels coincided with the schools introduction of a new "practical physics" syllabus. That alone led to many more people choosing to study the subject.
So we embarked on something of an adventure involving high velocity projectiles, lasers, electronics, some minor explosions and fire. We were presented problems to solve and/or relatively open-ended projects. We made things, learned the physics, encountered real-world problems, learned more physics, solved the problems and then worked out what our results meant and why. It was a learning experience for the teachers too that 1st year - there was definite surprise when our brief to build the best elasticity driven marble launcher possible led to the results achieved.
The end result was that not only did we learn a lot, but we enjoyed it. Plus the uptake of physics rose *dramatically*. A far cry from seeing previous 4-strong A-level class constantly working from a gargantuan tome. Funnily enough the teachers said they liked things better the new way too.
Comment Re:"Also revealed are MI6's London offices" (Score 1) 240
Apparently there's some sort of big round building in Cheltenham, too.
You mean GCHQ's doughnut?
US Cyber Command Reveals Plans To Hit Back At Cyber Threats 95
CNet News.com is reporting that the Air Force's Cyber Command has just as much interest in offense as defense. "Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER), a US military unit set up in September 2007 to fight in cyberspace, is due to become fully operational in the autumn under the aegis of the US Eighth Air Force. Lieutenant general Robert J. Elder Jr., who commands the Eighth Air Force's Barksdale base, told ZDNet.co.uk at the Cyber Warfare Conference 2008 that Air Force is interested in developing its capabilities to attack enemy forces as well as defend critical national infrastructure. "
Comment Re:Default Install (Score 2, Informative) 164
OSX comes with very little out of the box. New Macs usually come with iLife and some with iWork (or at least a trial) pre-installed - ie third party software. Mine even came with a 30 day trial of Office 2004. A stock installation of OSX doesn't include Quicktime or the like either.
When you buy a mac, it comes with iLife and Quicktime. Both are made by Apple. Both are pretty fundamental to macs providing quite a lot of functionality out of the box.
Even if you delete Quicktime.app, the quicktime framework is still there, it's needed by many things.
Submission + - Aluminum Pellets As Alternative Fuel
s31523 writes: "As gas prices in the US creep towards $4.00 a gallon, there is more focus on alternative fuels. Researchers at Purdue University have created a system that generates hydrogen "on demand" using pellets made from pure aluminum and gallium. The gallium prevents a "skin" from forming and allows the aluminum to react with oxygen to form hydrogen and aluminum oxide. Although this reaction leaves behind aluminum oxide, which can be recycled, it solves the problem of stabilizing hydrogen. According to Purdue, this new method combines two methods of creating hydrogen, both of which have flaws that make them impractical, but combining the two seems to solve many of the problems."
Submission + - Symantec Anti-Virus software damages system files
fleung writes: This morning (18 May 2007, Asia Pacific time), Symantec's worldwide customers fount their computer failed to reboot, while the helpdesk was plunged into a hot pot. The rough root course is that Norton released wrong virus code definition by identifing a few system files(.exe and .dll) as virus and removing them. This will cause system reboot failure.
I tried on my Traditional Chinese XP SP2, no problem was found.
Till now, only Simplified Chinese version Windows XP SP2 system is reported to be impacted. Two system files under C:\windows\system32: netapp32.dll, and lsass.exe are identified wrongly as virus.
The solution is to copy the correct version of the above two files into windows\system32 and reboot the machine, stop the Norton.
