Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:How do they calculate the upper bound? (Score 5, Informative) 210

by fljmayer (#38356212) Attached to: LHC Homes In On Possible Higgs Boson Around 126GeV
As said at http://cms.web.cern.ch/news/cms-search-standard-model-higgs-boson-lhc-data-2010-and-2011, they have excluded 128 – 525 GeV at 99% confidence level. I am not sure they measure higher than 525 GeV with LHC for now. I would expect that existing theories for the Higgs put limits on its mass. Of course theories can be wrong, but if all theories about the Higgs are wrong, then there is no such particle.

Comment Re:Hmmm (Score 2) 937

by fljmayer (#37072370) Attached to: 8 Grams of Thorium Could Replace Gasoline In Cars
There is no way heat could cause a nuclear decay unless you get to 50 million Kelvin or so. With a laser it could conceivably be done, if the laser is powerful enough to reach that temperature. The reason is that things happen in the atom's nucleus, and you need to interact with via strong and/or weak forces (don't remember the details), not electromagnetism. Neutrons can do it, but that means radiation. Since the article doesn't say where the energy comes from, it's surely a scam.
Science

Submission + - Solar Impulse completing international flight (explorersweb.com)

Submitted by fljmayer
fljmayer writes: Solar Impulse (http://www.solarimpulse.com/), a solar-powered airplane that can fly at night, in on track for completing its first international flight (http://explorersweb.com/air/news.php?id=20155). Up next: a flight around the globe.

Submission + - Instant Quantum Communication Is Near (popsci.com)

Submitted by fljmayer
fljmayer writes: In this experiment, researchers in Australia and Japan were able to transfer quantum information from one place to another without having to physically move it. It was destroyed in one place and instantly resurrected in another, “alive” again and unchanged. This is a major advance, as previous teleportation experiments were either very slow or caused some information to be lost. See more at http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-04/quantum-teleportation-breakthrough-could-lead-instantanous-computing
Linux

Submission + - Find Your chakra Linux 2011.04 | With screenshots (unixmen.com)

Submitted by
coldsystem
coldsystem writes: "elegance of a KDE. Project Chakra with telling Qt design and cutting-edge KDE Software compilation is charting new courses by adopting a half-rolling release model for stable updates for software and a one-of-a-kind bundle system for integrating key GTK apps with the environment."

Submission + - ECML/PKDD 2011 challenge starts on 18th April 2011 (tunedit.org)

Submitted by
bart_blaszczyk
bart_blaszczyk writes: "Discovery challenge affiliated with ECML/PKDD 2011 Conference started on April 18th. It is organized and sponsored by EU project e-LICO and launched via the TunedIT platform. The challenge is related to recommendation of lectures recorded at VideoLectures.Net site and is based on lecture viewing sequences and contents from the site.
Best solutions will be awarded with prizes worth 5,500 EUR.
Competition web page: http://tunedit.org/challenge/VLNetChallenge
VideoLectures.net is a free and open access multimedia repository of video lectures, mainly of research and educational character. The lectures are given by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many fields of Science. The portal is aimed at promoting science, exchanging ideas and fostering knowledge sharing by providing high quality didactic contents not only to the scientific community but also to the general public. All lectures, accompanying documents, information and links are systematically selected and classified through the editorial process taking into account also users' comments.
The challenge is organized in order to improve the website’s recommender system. The challenge consists of two main tasks and a “side-by” contest. Due to the nature of the problem, each of the tasks has its own merit: the first task simulates new-user and new-item recommendation (cold-start mode) situation; the second task simulates (normal mode) clickstream based recommendation. A side-by contest is organized for the best computational workflow, to be chosen by an expert panel. The competition will last till 8th July 2011.
e-LICO is a virtual laboratory for interdisciplinary collaborative research in data mining and data-intensive sciences, built through an EU FP 7. e-LICO lab consists of three layers: the e-science layer, data mining layer and application domains, one of which is related to the domain of multimedia repositories and problem of recommendation.
ECML/PKDD — The European Conference on "Machine Learning" and "Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases" provides an international forum for the discussion of the latest high quality research results in all areas related to machine learning, knowledge discovery in databases, data mining and new innovative application domains. ECML/PKDD 2011 is held in Athens, Greece on September 5-9.
TunedIT is a web platform for data mining researchers and practitioners. It delivers a set of tools that facilitate experimental investigation and scientific collaboration in the field of data mining and machine learning."
Businesses

Submission + - Samsung to sell HDD unit to Seagate in $1.4B deal (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "Samsung Electronics will sell its hard-disk drive operations to Seagate Technology in a US$1.375 billion deal. The deal stands to solidify Seagate's position as the world's second-largest maker of hard disk drives and comes less than a month after market leader Western Digital said it would buy Hitachi GST. If both deals go through, the hard disk drive market will have just three players by the end of the year, the other being Toshiba."
Crime

Submission + - Cybercriminals Shifting to Smaller Attacks (net-security.org)

Submitted by Orome1
Orome1 writes: The number of compromised records involved in data breaches investigated by Verizon and the U.S. Secret Service dropped from 144 million in 2009 to only 4 million in 2010, representing the lowest volume of data loss since the report’s launch in 2008. The seeming contradiction between the low data loss and the high number of breaches likely stems from a significant decline in large-scale breaches, caused by a change in tactics by cybercriminals. They are engaging in small, opportunistic attacks rather than large-scale, difficult attacks and are using relatively unsophisticated methods to successfully penetrate organizations. For example, only 3 percent of breaches were considered unavoidable without extremely difficult or expensive corrective action.
EU

Submission + - BSA worried about proposed EU consumer law (pcworld.com)

Submitted by crimperman
crimperman writes: The Business Software Alliance is worried about proposals for a new EU consumer rights law. The new law (to be voted on in a couple of weeks) would bring software and digitial content into line with other goods. That is that the consumer would own what they "buy". The BSA is clearly worried about its members revenue and raises a number of arguments against this law including the fact that software companies "could stop offering patches and updates because they are only liable for faults at the time of purchase."

Comment Where is the useful information? (Score 1) 469

by fljmayer (#34389952) Attached to: WikiLeaks Should...
I haven't sifted through the actual information, but my impression right now is that the leaked information is mostly embarrassing gossip, with very few actually interesting revelations. If things stay that way, it seems childish to piss off so many people by publishing private communication. I would hate to see WikiLeaks degraded to the level of tabloids, but right now they seem to be on their way.
Technology

Submission + - 'Flapless' Aircraft Steered by Air Bursts (discovery.com)

Submitted by disco_tracy
disco_tracy writes: The movable parts of an aircraft's wings and tail — the flaps — have been used to control it since the Wright brothers first took flight. Until now. Engineers have developed flapless flight by using bursts of air to control an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) they call DEMON. The research will lead to UAVs that are safer, more maneuverable and more stealthy.

Submission + - h264 permanent royalty moratorium announced. (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by vistapwns
vistapwns writes: MPEG LA has announced that free h264 content (vs. paid h264 content which will still have royalties) will be royalty free forever. With ubiquitous h264 support on mobile devices, personal computers and all other types of media devices, this assures that h264 will remain the de facto standard for video playback for the foreseeable future.
Education

Submission + - Nonlinear Narrative in Games: Theory and Practice (gamecareerguide.com)

Submitted by Weemz
Weemz writes: When it comes to writing for video games, there are a few decisions that need to be made before you even begin brainstorming about plot points, characters, or dialogue. Even if the genre and style has been determined, there is a bigger question about the story that must be answered: Will this be a linear or nonlinear narrative? If you are a game enthusiast, you are probably already aware of the exciting complexities, depth, and robustness of nonlinear stories. However, if you have ever attempted to write a nonlinear story, you may have encountered several infuriating problems that are typical when trying to present the player with multiple options. This article will take a look at some of these issues as well as offer some thoughts on how to work through them. Why is nonlinear writing important to know? Because as more schools offer degrees in game design, the competition is greater than ever. In a world where some video games are outselling big budget movies, you have to put as many stunning bullet points on your curriculum vitae as you can to stand out from the crowd.

Submission + - How Hadoop is being used at Orbitz (cloudera.com)

Submitted by rgeorge28
rgeorge28 writes: This post, authored by Orbitz, describes how Hadoop was selected to solve their problem of long-term storage and processing large quantities of un-structured and semi-structured data.

Slashdot Top Deals

The rule on staying alive as a program manager is to give 'em a number or give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once.

Close