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Transportation

Colorado Company Says It Plans To Test Hyperloop Transport System 258

Posted by timothy from the pie-in-the-tube dept.
Freshly Exhumed writes "Elon Musk's dream of a hyperloop transport system seems to be closer to reality than he anticipated. Hyperloop transportation, referred to by Musk as a "cross between a Concorde, a railgun, and an air hockey table", is a tubular pneumatic transport system with the theoretical capability of carrying passengers from New York to L.A. in about 30 minutes at velocities near 4,000 miles per hour, while maintaining a near-continuous G force of 1. Colorado-based company ET3 is planning to build and test its own version of such a hyperloop system, Yahoo reports." A more critical article would point out that the numbers presented seem absurdly optimistic; $100 for a 4,000mph cross country trip may be "projected," but construction of a cross-country train tube is a long way off, and so are ticket sales.
Electronic Frontier Foundation

DOJ Often Used Cell Tower Impersonating Devices Without Explicit Warrants 146

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the bending-the-rules dept.
Via the EFF comes news that, during a case involving the use of a Stingray device, the DOJ revealed that it was standard practice to use the devices without explicitly requesting permission in warrants. "When Rigmaiden filed a motion to suppress the Stingray evidence as a warrantless search in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the government responded that this order was a search warrant that authorized the government to use the Stingray. Together with the ACLU of Northern California and the ACLU, we filed an amicus brief in support of Rigmaiden, noting that this 'order' wasn't a search warrant because it was directed towards Verizon, made no mention of an IMSI catcher or Stingray and didn't authorize the government — rather than Verizon — to do anything. Plus to the extent it captured loads of information from other people not suspected of criminal activity it was a 'general warrant,' the precise evil the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent. ... The emails make clear that U.S. Attorneys in the Northern California were using Stingrays but not informing magistrates of what exactly they were doing. And once the judges got wind of what was actually going on, they were none too pleased:"

Comment Re:Wrong Professor is Wrong (Score 4, Informative) 148

Correct. Also, it's important to point out that the Mach number of a vehicle is a local measure of vehicle speed. As the speed of sound varies with temperature, and thus altitude, you'll find that two vehicles having the same trace ground speed but that are flying different altitudes will be at different Mach numbers. Acoustics and aerodynamics are fun.

Comment Even more obscure privacy setting (Score 2) 188

by WallaceAndGromit (#41700579) Attached to: User Tracking Back On iOS 6
Here is an even more obscure privacy setting. If you read through the privacy page here...
http://www.apple.com/privacy/
You'll notice about halfway down the page in the "cookies and other technology" section a discussion of interest based advertising, which is basically iAd's targeted at you based on your usage habits. The only way to opt out of this "feature" on an iOS device is to click on the link in that paragraph to http://oo.apple.com/ from Safari on your iOS device, which will bring you to a settings page that will allow you to disable "interest based iAds". I have not found a way to get to this setting page through the settings App (queue up the people who will promptly correct me).
Science

Dolphins Can Sleep One-half of Their Brain At a Time Say Researchers 139

Posted by samzenpus from the we-don't-need-no-stinking-sleep dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like the evolution in multi-core computing is something nature has already figured out. Dolphins will sleep one core while the other remains vigilant, running background tasks necessary for survival. From the article: 'The scientists wrote: "From an anthropomorphic viewpoint, the ability of the dolphin to continuously monitor its environment for days without interruption seems extreme. However, the biological, sensory and cognitive ecology of these animals is relatively unique and demanding. If dolphins sleep like terrestrial animals, they might drown. If dolphins fail to maintain vigilance, they become susceptible to predation. As a result, the apparent 'extreme' capabilities these animals possess are likely to be quite normal, unspectacular, and necessary for survival from the dolphin's perspective."'"

Comment Firefox + gestures + OS X (Score 2) 364

by WallaceAndGromit (#36591664) Attached to: One Week: No Mouse, Just Keyboard
Many may already know this, but I thought I would post anyways... if you want to make greater use of gestures while browsing, and use Firefox, see the article here...

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=737074

There are assignable gestures hidden in about:config, and browsing is so much better once you find some customized combinations that you like. Here are the ones that I have altered and find helpful:
Swipe down: new tab
Swipe up: go home
Pinch in: close tab
Pinch out: toggle between full screen/not full screen
Rotate right: reload
Rotate left: undo close tab (for those times you accidentally pinch in)

Comment NASA source footage (Score 5, Informative) 202

by WallaceAndGromit (#36370254) Attached to: Massive Explosion On the Sun
Go here and you can view animations of the sun using all the different telescopes on SDO...

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/aiahmi/rangeform.php

Instructions to view the subject solar flare: select browse by date range, enter 2011-06-07 00:00:00 as the beginning and 2011-06-07 12:00:00 as the end dates, select movie as the display, select resolution 1024x1024, and set nth = 1, submit and enjoy. Also, you can play with the different telescopes.

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