Comment Re:New slogan (Score 2) 161
Cadbury's approach is...
Well, I won't spoil it for you.
Aw, man. I had to click on the article.
Submission + - Huge Defunct Satellite to Plunge to Earth Soon (space.com)
cultiv8 writes: "The huge Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere in an uncontrolled fall in late September or early October. Much of the spacecraft is expected to burn up during re-entry, but some pieces are expected to make it intact to the ground, NASA officials said.
The U.S. space agency will be taking measures to inform the public about the pieces of the spacecraft that are expected to survive re-entry."
The U.S. space agency will be taking measures to inform the public about the pieces of the spacecraft that are expected to survive re-entry."
Submission + - Israel, Germany jointly develop UAV arms system (suasnews.com)
garymortimer writes: "Loitering weapons system combines drones developed by both nations.
A rare look into Israel’s unmanned weapons capabilities was revealed on Tuesday with an announcement by Germany’s Rheinmetall that it had jointly developed with Israel a loitering weapons system based on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
The system, called WABEP, which in German stands for “Weapons system for standoff engagement of individual and point targets,” was developed by Rheinmetall together with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), a world leader in the development of UAVs and loitering weapons.
The WABEP is a combination of Rheinmetall’s KZO drone and IAI’s Harop attack drone, which according to media reports, is already in operational use in India and Turkey.
The Harop was developed as a weapon to suppress enemy radar systems used together with surface-to-air missiles or other similar high-value targets."
A rare look into Israel’s unmanned weapons capabilities was revealed on Tuesday with an announcement by Germany’s Rheinmetall that it had jointly developed with Israel a loitering weapons system based on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
The system, called WABEP, which in German stands for “Weapons system for standoff engagement of individual and point targets,” was developed by Rheinmetall together with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), a world leader in the development of UAVs and loitering weapons.
The WABEP is a combination of Rheinmetall’s KZO drone and IAI’s Harop attack drone, which according to media reports, is already in operational use in India and Turkey.
The Harop was developed as a weapon to suppress enemy radar systems used together with surface-to-air missiles or other similar high-value targets."
Submission + - Single-chip DIMM to replace big sticks of RAM (extremetech.com) 1
MrSeb writes: "Invensas, a subsidiary of chip microelectronics company Tessera, has discovered a way of stacking multiple DRAM chips on top of each other. This process, called multi-die face-down packaging, or xFD for short, massively increases memory density, reduces power consumption, and should pave the way for faster and more efficient memory chips. Multi-die face-down packaging is exactly what it sounds like, with memory dies stacked on top of each other like roofing tiles. Much like a normal desktop DIMMs and laptop SO-DIMMs, each of the stacked dies is wired to each other in series — but in this case, the connections are much shorter, as they only have to run a few micrometers to the chip below it. This is where all of the power and speed enhancements come from: shorter interconnects mean less power is needed (and thus less heat is dissipated) and signals propagate faster."
Submission + - New Mexico will build renewable energy ghost town (sfgate.com)
LesterMoore writes: It won't be New Mexico's first ghost town, but it will be the first to be built intentionally. Complete with highways, commercial buildings and houses and 35,000 hypothetical residents, the ghost town will allow renewable energy innovators to test their wares in real-world conditions.
Submission + - Find my iPhone used to locate plane crash in Chile (9to5mac.com)
spagiola writes: Late last week, a military transport aircraft with 17 people on -board went missing near Robinson Crusoe, Chile. The relatives of one of the crash victims logged into Find My iPhone and were able to isolate the coordinates of the last known whereabouts of the plane before it crashed.
Submission + - IBM, 3M team to glue together silicon "bricks" (networkworld.com)
coondoggie writes: "IBM and 3M today said they will jointly develop a new line of adhesives they hope will let them make it possible to build commercial microprocessors composed of layers of up to 100 separate chips. Such stacking would allow for higher-powered servers and more advanced consumer electronics applications, the companies stated. Processors could be tightly packed with memory and networking, for example, into a "brick" of silicon that would create a computer chip 1,000 times faster than today's fastest microprocessor enabling more powerful smartphones, tablets, computers and gaming devices."
Journal Journal: Climate Change Caused by Cosmic Rays?
When journalists talk about climate change, they are usually talking about the man-made kind. There may be more important contributors, however, like cosmic radiation and solar output variations possibly affecting the rate of cloud formation on Earth. If you've ever seen a cloud chamber, you might get the idea. Physicists at CERN have been doing experiments to test this hypothesis. The Wall Street Journal has an
Submission + - Ammonia: The Fuel Technology Of The Future? (allcartech.com)
thecarchik writes: Ammonia: Useful in fertilizers, cleaning products and fairly unpleasant in direct human contact. Used as a fuel for vehicles? Certainly not impossible.
Rather than using hydrogen to power fuel cells and the associated high-pressure storage problems associated with this, we could would use water to produce hydrogen from electrolysis, and this is then combined with nitrogen from the air to produce ammonia.
The ammonia itself would then be burned in an internal combustion engine, but the burning process only releases water vapor and nitrogen, rather than the unburned hydrocarbons and other pollutants that internal combustion is normally associated with.
In theory, the ammonia is also simple and cheap to produce — enough so that it could be sold at 20 cents per gallon. As long as researchers keep working on radical ideas such as Ammonia powered cars or "urine powered cars", they are bound to one day to hit on the formula that can be widely adopted.
Rather than using hydrogen to power fuel cells and the associated high-pressure storage problems associated with this, we could would use water to produce hydrogen from electrolysis, and this is then combined with nitrogen from the air to produce ammonia.
The ammonia itself would then be burned in an internal combustion engine, but the burning process only releases water vapor and nitrogen, rather than the unburned hydrocarbons and other pollutants that internal combustion is normally associated with.
In theory, the ammonia is also simple and cheap to produce — enough so that it could be sold at 20 cents per gallon. As long as researchers keep working on radical ideas such as Ammonia powered cars or "urine powered cars", they are bound to one day to hit on the formula that can be widely adopted.
Submission + - CRESST-II search finds evidence for dark matter (arxiv.org)
pmarinus writes: "The CRESST-II cryogenic Dark Matter search, aiming at detection of WIMPs completed 730 kg days of data taking in 2011. Detector modules picked up both a phonon signal and coincidently produced scintillation light. From the abstract "The former provides a precise measure of the energy deposited by an interaction, and the ratio of scintillation light to deposited energy can be used to discriminate different types of interacting particles and thus to distinguish possible signal events from the dominant backgrounds. Sixty-seven events are found in the acceptance region where a WIMP signal in the form of low energy nuclear recoils would be expected." A model was used to estimate the contribution of several background sources to the signal. "Using a maximum likelihood analysis, we find, at a high statistical significance, that these sources alone are not sufficient to explain the data. The addition of a signal due to scattering of relatively light WIMPs could account for this discrepancy, and we determine the associated WIMP parameters.""
Comment Later (Score 1) 1521
/. is the only site I followed regularly in the 20th century that I still follow. It's still relevant. I check
One of my regrets is that I lurked before registering. It didn't seem important at the time, but a low ID has turned into a prized possession. That this is something I sincerely regret has to say something.
About OMG Ponies! When I checked
My post is going to be buried at the bottom, but I'm confident you'll read them all. I know that says something.
NASA's Commercial Plans for Kennedy Space Center 106
coondoggie writes "Whether or not NASA launches two or three more shuttle missions, NASA's venerable hub of operations, the Kennedy Space Center will need a new mission. That's why NASA today said it was looking to morph the center's unique space rocket facilities into a new more commercial role after the shuttles stop flying. While its facilities would likely rise far above others, NASA could find some competition in any commercial launch venture."
Obama Nominates RIAA Lawyer For Solicitor General 463
Xiph1980 writes "President Barack Obama on Monday nominated former Recording Industry Association of America lawyer Donald Verrilli Jr. to serve as the nation's solicitor general. The solicitor general is charged with defending the government before the Supreme Court, and files friend-of-the court briefs in cases in which the government believes there is a significant legal issue. The office also determines which cases it would bring to the Supreme Court for review. Verrilli is best known for leading the recording industry's legal charge against music- and movie-sharing site Grokster. That 2003 case ultimately led to Grokster's demise when the US Supreme Court sided with the RIAA's verdict."
BBC To Dispose of Douglas Adams Website 189
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC has announced their intention to dispose of the H2G2 website, originally founded by Douglas Adams. This comes as part of an initiative by the BBC to cut their online spending by 25%. 'BBC Online will be reorganised into five portfolios of "products." All parts of BBC Online have to fit with these. Over the past year all areas of the site have been reviewed to see where, and if, they fit. Sadly ... H2G2 does not fit in the new shape of BBC Online. However, H2G2 is unusual. It is a pre-existing community that the BBC brought into its fold, not a community that the BBC set up from scratch. So rather than closing it, we've decided to explore another option. This process has been referred to elsewhere as the "disposal" of H2G2. I'll admit this is not a great choice of words, but what is means is that we'll be looking for proposals from others to take on the running of H2G2.' One option under discussion is a community buyout."
'Universal' Memory Aims To Replace Flash/DRAM 125
siliconbits writes "A single 'universal' memory technology that combines the speed of DRAM with the non-volatility and density of flash memory was recently invented at North Carolina State University, according to researchers. The new memory technology, which uses a double floating-gate field-effect-transistor, should enable computers to power down memories not currently being accessed, drastically cutting the energy consumed by computers of all types, from mobile and desktop computers to server farms and data centers, the researchers say."
