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PhD Candidate Talks About the Physics of Space Battles 361

Posted by samzenpus from the load-photon-torpedoes dept.
darthvader100 writes "Gizmodo has run an article with some predictions on what future space battles will be like. The author brings up several theories on propulsion (and orbits), weapons (explosives, kinetic and laser), and design. Sounds like the ideal shape for spaceships will be spherical, like the one in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie."
Idle

Submission + - "Impossible" technology (cnet.co.uk)

Submitted by ianpm
ianpm writes: CNET UK has a feature about technology that's "Totally Impossible". In reality, it's all perfectly possible, but it's reasonable to say that all of it does at least boggle the mind slightly. Interesting to hear if Slashdotters have any better suggestions of implausible technology that's either possible, or on the verge of being so?
Security

Submission + - Ikee worm author wins job as iPhone app developer (sophos.com)

Submitted by Unexpof
Unexpof writes: It looks like the owners of non-jailbroken iPhones might soon be running code written by a virus writer after all.

Ashley Towns, the 21-year-old author of the Rickrolling Ikee worm which displayed an image of 1980s pop star Rick Astley on infected iPhones, has been given a job by an Australian company that develops applications for the iPhone, according to a report from Sophos.

Towns revealed on his Twitter page that he had been hired by Mogeneration, a Sydney-based firm that develops a number of different iPhone apps including Lingopal, TrueLocal and Xumii.

Sophos researcher Graham Cluley claims that the iPhone worm's code includes a number of bugs, and that "there are plenty of young coders out there who would not have acted so stupidly, are just as worthy of an opportunity inside a software development company, and are actually quite likely to be better coders than Towns."
Java

Submission + - OSS Group Brings Java, .NET, Android to iPhone (xmlvm.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The xmlvm team has devised a way, using XSLT to convert an XML representation of Java, .NET CLR, and Ruby bytecode into: well, it looks like almost anything! Including: Objective C — along with a (albeit minimal) Java port of the iPhone's UI and OpenGL APIs, providing developers a perfectly legal, non-jailbreak development path for iPhone apps in Java, or .NET. There is even a Java-based iPhone simulator so one could move almost the *full* iPhone application development lifecycle to Java. You still need a mac, Xcode and a developer registration to actually deploy to the iPhone device or sell via the appstore, so nothing 'seems' to be (IANAL) in violation of the iPhone developer regulations. All sorts of other development paths seem possible also, including running Android apps on the iPhone (since Android is Java, and the xmlvm team has ported parts of the Android APIs to the iPhone, also!). Other language output modules they have created, and working: C++, Javascript so your Java/.NET/Ruby apps can potentially run in a web browser or pre-compiled, as well. Major kudos to these guys.... personally I will sleep much better knowing that, as a new iPhone developer, I'll never have to touch a line of Objective C to build iPhone apps! Note: xmlvm is not an actual 'vm', Java VM, or .NET CLR, (which would qualify as interpreters, something Apple disallows in the iPhone SDK EULA, and has banned/rejected apps for) but a piece of software that can convert these bytecodes into native Objective C code that can be compiled, and deployed to the iPhone.
Space

Submission + - Buzz Aldrin's Plan for NASA (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by FleaPlus
FleaPlus writes: Apollo 11 astronaut (and MIT Astronautics Sc.D.) Buzz Aldrin suggests a bolder plan for NASA (while still remaining within its budget), which he will present to the White House's Augustine Commission; he sees NASA heading down the wrong path with a "rehash of what we did 40 years ago" which could derail future exploration and settlement. For the short-term, Aldrin suggests canceling NASA's troubled and increasingly costly Ares I, instead launching manned capsules on commercial Delta IV, Atlas V, and/or SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. In the medium-term, NASA should return to the moon with an international consortium, with the ultimate goal of commercial lunar exploitation in mind. Aldrin's long term plan includes a 2018 comet flyby, a 2019 manned trip to a near-earth asteroid, a 2025 trip to the Martian moon Phobos, and one-way trips to colonize Mars.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft launches free smart home energy monitor (examiner.com)

Submitted by
Johnathan Martinez
Johnathan Martinez writes: "Microsoft announced the launch of a new online home energy monitoring service. The service is called 'Hohm' and is being released as a beta to help people lower their energy bills by giving consumers detailed reports of energy usage. The service is completely free to consumers and runs algorithms developed by the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and the Department of Energy."
Earth

Submission + - SPAM: Jets on Saturn's moon Enceladus not geysers

Submitted by
FiReaNGeL
FiReaNGeL writes: "Water vapor jets that spew from the surface of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus are not really geysers from an underground ocean as initially envisioned by planetary scientists, according to a study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. First observed following a close flyby by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in July 2005, the jets were found to consist of both water vapor and icy particles, said Professor Nicholas Schneider of CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The jets inspired speculation by planetary scientists that they were geysers — violent explosions of water out of a vent caused by expanding bubbles of water vapor emanating from an ocean beneath the icy crust of Enceladus."
Link to Original Source
Security

Submission + - New Attack Highlights Twitter 'Security Nightmare' (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "The latest attack to hit Twitter is a 'security nightmare', marking the first time hackers have taken to using the micro-blogging site for profit, a researcher said today. Twitter said Saturday it had shut down compromised accounts. But Roel Schouwenberg, a senior antivirus researcher with Kaspersky Labs, said he was sure Twitter's talk of cleaning accounts was a smokescreen, as unlike attacks in April, this one wasn't a worm. 'There was no self-replicating code in the binary,' he said. Instead, Schouwenberg believes that the malicious tweets were sent from Twitter accounts whose log-on credentials had been hijacked previously by basic phishing-style scams. The problem in a nutshell: 'The whole idea of Twitter is to click on links,' said . 'It's a security nightmare.'"
Security

Submission + - World's strongest "laser beam" unveiled 1

Submitted by
EEGeek
EEGeek writes: "The world's most powerful "laser beam", created to help keep tabs on the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile while also studying the heavens, has been unveiled. The super laser, known officially as the National Ignition Facility, was unveiled Friday at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory about 80 kilometres east of San Francisco. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., were among thousands of people in attendance at the ceremony."
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Solar Powered Bus Shelter Unveiled in San Francisc (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by
Mike
Mike writes: "San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom recently unveiled the first of 1,100 solar powered bus shelters that will be installed throughout the city between now and 2013. Crowned with a rolling red crest of photovoltaic panels, the shelters will use the sun's rays to power their intercom, LED lighting, and even a wireless router that will help blanket the city with WiFi goodness, with all excess energy being fed back into the city's electrical grid."
Music

Submission + - Sony Back-Catalog Joins EMusic

Submitted by phorest
phorest writes: According to the New York Times, Sony and EMusic has entered into an agreement to make available and sell their entire back-catalog from before 2007.

In another example of struggling major music labels and Internet services finding common ground, Sony Music Entertainment has agreed to make its back catalog of songs available on eMusic, one of the largest music retailers on the Web.
The company plans to announce on Monday that it will add all Sony Music tracks that are more than two years old, including material from artists like Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel.

The article also mention that EMusic's prices are going to rise on this news as well. Great news except for that price-rise. As a long-time subscriber I both applaud and disagree with the deal. To me it appears that the music bigs (Sony, Time-Warner etc.) are looking to raise the prices not only for them but for independent record labels as well.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - What Geeky Things Must Be Done? 2

Submitted by John
John writes: A few weeks ago, my friends were discussing "The Princess Bride", and most of the references went completely over my head — I've not seen it all the way through, nor read the book. Naturally, revealing this fact made these people look at me as if I'd just moved into town from under some rock. This led into a discussion of the things that most general geeks should be expected to know; for example, reciting the inscription on the One Ring, or (apparently) quoting "Princess Bride" on-demand. The suggestions we came up with ranged from personal things, like having one's movie/game library in an online database, to big, world-scoped things like contributing to an open-source project of your choosing. I'm curious to know what the general consensus is on the most obvious or biggest geek/nerd things that should be seen, done, or read/watched/heard.
Democrats

Submission + - Jack Hansen and Politicization of Science

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When Jack Hansen bashed the Bush administration over the politicization of science and being censored, perhaps he wasn't the unbiased scientist he presented himself to be. At a blog of the Daily Tech, Michael Asher points out that Open Society Institute, a George Soros supported organization, secretly funded Hansen's media campaign bashing Bush and NASA to the tune of $720,000. Jack Hansen also received a $250,000 from the Heinz Foundation (run by Kerry's wife), after which Hansen endorsed Kerry for President.
Security

Submission + - Hackers Cause Generator to Self-Destruct

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: It has been revealed that in a U.S. Department of Homeland Security exercise codenamed "Aurora" conducted in March of this year, researchers were able to cause a power generator to self destruct remotely via a "cyber attack" which changed the operating cycle of the generator. "Government sources said changes are being made to both computer software and physical hardware to protect power generating equipment."

Full Story

Biotech

Justice Department's Bio-terror Mistake 477

Posted by samzenpus from the more-deadly-than-the-mooninites dept.
destinyland writes "University professor and artist Steve Kurtz publicizes the history of chemical weapons with performance art pieces. The day his wife died of a heart attack, 911 responders mistook his scientific equipment for bioterrorism supplies. After he was detained for 22 hours, Homeland Security cordoned off his block, and a search was performed on his house in hazmat suits, they found nothing. Now they're prosecuting him for "mail fraud" for the way he obtained $256 of harmless bacteria."

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