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Submission + - UK 'virtual ID card' scheme set for launch (independent.co.uk)

evrybodygonsurfin writes: The UK Government will announce details this month of a controversial national identity scheme which will allow people to use their mobile phones and social media profiles as official identification documents for accessing public services.

People wishing to apply for services ranging from tax credits to fishing licences and passports will be asked to choose from a list of familiar online log-ins, including those they already use on social media sites, banks, and large retailers such as supermarkets, to prove their identity.

United Kingdom

Submission + - Scottish Scientiests Create World's Smallest Smart Antenna (techweekeurope.co.uk)

judgecorp writes: "each generation of smartphones actually has more dropped calls and worse battery life than the last, because antena design has fallen behind. says Edinburgh-based Sofant Technologies. The firm has made a tunable, steerable RF antenna using micro-electro-mechanical-system (MEMS) which it says will change all that. It's based on research from Edinburgh University and is designed to get the best our of LTE/4G."
Youtube

Submission + - YouTube Alters Copyright Algorithms, Will 'Manually' Review Some Claims (wired.com)

thomst writes: David Kravets of Wired's Threat Level blog reports that Google's Thabet Alfishawi has announced YouTube will alter its algorithms "that identify potentially invalid claims. We stop these claims from automatically affecting user videos and place them in a queue to be manually reviewed.” YouTube's Content ID algorithms have notably misfired in recent months, resulting in video streams as disparate as Curiosity's Mars landing and Michelle Obama's Democratic Convention speech being taken offline on specious copyright infringement grounds. Kravets states, "Under the new rules announced Wednesday, however, if the uploader challenges the match, the alleged rights holder must abandon the claim or file an official takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act." (A false takedown claim under the DMCA can result in non-trivial legal liability.)

Submission + - The M22 globular cluster has a dark side (abc.net.au)

brindafella writes: "Astronomers using the Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico have found two black holes in M22, a 12 billion year old globular cluster located only about 10,000 light-years from Earth. These are each several times the mass of our Sun, and are actively feeding from nearby companion stars, as confirmed by X-ray observations using the Chandra space telescope. The astronomers expect to find other black holes."

Comment Re:It's Just Gigawatts (Score 1) 568

As I see it, it is unfamiliarity with several concepts. In general, people will be much more comfortable with understanding Horsepower as a rate of delivery of work and will probably have a better understanding of Horsepower than Watts in terms of meaning, quite aside from the question of the magnitudes. I doubt that the majority know that Horsepower and Watts represent the same type of quantity in the way that metres and feet do. But even when people understand Horsepower, they are mostly stumped on relating it to energy - only remembering that it was something dealt with in an otherwise forgotten physics lesson. Journalists are universally flummoxed. Having said that, I am surprised it passed muster for Slashdot.

Comment Inappropriate media (Score 1) 191

Isn't there a write up somewhere? Wouldn't it be better to link to a write up? I don't want to spend 4m19s watching some dumb video with sound in space and fancy graphics. Spoken narrative is too slow. A write up and a diagram or 2 is enough to convey principles, which is what interests me.

Comment Re:How did they do it? (Score 1) 426

I am guessing, but I think it was a long time in preparation. With the UK broad gauge, the difference in gauges was large enough that track could be laid in mixed gauge, so the actual changeover could be years of dual gauge operation. For the Southern US, the gauges were too close to permit mixed gauge, I would think. An easy way to do a quick change would be to spike the sleepers [US = ties] on one side only left and right on alternate sleepers when laying track to the broader gauge. Gauge would be held by stretcher bars every few sleepers. On changeover day, the stretcher bars could be taken out and the left and right rails complete with sleepers slewed together and the unspiked sides of the sleepers spiked to the new gauge.
Transportation

Submission + - 125th Anniversary of the Great Gauge Change May 31 (railfan.net)

Arnold Reinhold writes: "This month ends with the 125th anniversary of one of the most remarkable achievements in technology history. Over two days beginning Monday, May 31, 1886, the railroad network in the southern United States was converted from a five foot gauge to one compatible with the slightly narrower gauge used in the U.S. North, now know as standard gauge. The shift was meticulously planned and executed. It required one side of every track to be moved three inches closer to the other. All wheel sets had to be adjusted as well. Some minor track and rolling stock was sensibly deferred until later, but by Wednesday the South's 11,500 mile rail network was back in business and able to exchange rail cars with the North. The Days They Changed the Gauge Other countries are still struggling with incompatible rail gauges. Australia still has three. Most of Europe runs on standard gauge, but Russia uses essentially the same five foot gauge as the old South and Spain and Portugal use an even broader gauge. India has a multi-year Project Unigauge aimed at converting its narrow gauge lines to the subcontinent's five foot six inch standard.

The US South's two day conversion was accomplished in difficult times, only 21 years after the end of the bloody American Civil War, and required cooperation among bitter competitors. Could it serve as a model for the Internet's long-delayed transition from IPv4 to IPv6? Are we less able to work together toward an important goal than our great-great-grandparents?"

Software

Graphic Map of Linux-2.6.36 25

conan.sh writes "The Interactive map of Linux Kernel was expanded and updated to the recent kernel linux-2.6.36. Now the map contains more than four hundred important source items (functions and structures) with links to source code and documentation."
The Courts

Judge Berates Prosecutors In Xbox Modding Trial 285

mrbongo writes with this excerpt from Wired: "Opening statements in the first-of-its-kind Xbox 360 criminal hacking trial were delayed here Wednesday after a federal judge unleashed a 30-minute tirade at prosecutors in open court, saying he had 'serious concerns about the government's case.' ... Gutierrez slammed the prosecution over everything from alleged unlawful behavior by government witnesses, to proposed jury instructions harmful to the defense. When the verbal assault finally subsided, federal prosecutors asked for a recess to determine whether they would offer the defendant a deal, dismiss or move forward with the case that was slated to become the first jury trial of its type. A jury was seated Tuesday."

Comment Re:Impossible (Score 1) 80

But Shakespeare has well defined meaning to a considerable level of sophistication. The way to do it is to extend the language logically from what is already available and where this is not enough, invent more Klingon to express the concepts. Done well, this project has great potential to develop the Klingon language into something fully functional. Not that there is much point, of course.

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