Grue_Food - Slashdot User

Experts warn of lightning-strike wearing iPods 0

Submitted by mnovotny on Thursday July 12 2007, @12:58PM

mnovotny writes "According to CNN, listening to an iPod during a storm and you may get more than electrifying tunes. Contrary to some urban legends and media reports, electronic devices don't attract lightning the way a tall tree or a lightning rod does.

"It's going to hit where it's going to hit, but once it contacts metal, the metal conducts the electricity," said Dr. Mary Ann Cooper of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an ER doctor at University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago."

Robot walks - and learns about walking 0

Submitted by FLJerseyBoy on Thursday July 12 2007, @12:57PM

FLJerseyBoy writes "The BBC reports:

Roboticists are using the lessons of a 1930s human physiologist to build the world's fastest walking robot.

Runbot is a self-learning, dynamic robot, which has been built around the theories of Nikolai Bernstein.

...Runbot is a small, biped robot which can move at speeds of more than three leg lengths per second, slightly slower than the fastest walking human.

Bernstein said that animal movement was not under the total control of the brain but rather, "local circuits" did most of the command and control work.

The brain was involved in the process of walking, he said, only when the understood parameters were altered, such as moving from one type of terrain to another, or dealing with uneven surfaces.

Video at the site shows Runbot initially failing but then learning to walk up a ramp."

FBI Employees Face Criminal Probe Over Patriot Act-> 0

Submitted by

DevanJedi

on Thursday July 12 2007, @12:49PM

DevanJedi writes "According to an article at Wired.com, "FBI personnel who used misleading emergency letters to acquire thousands of Americans' phone records are the subject of a criminal investigation [...] The privately disclosed investigation would mark the first time government officials have faced possible prosecution for misuse of Patriot Act investigative tools.""
Link to Original Source

Deceptive Blu-ray Promo Site Faces Backlash 0

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12 2007, @12:48PM

An anonymous reader writes "A bunch of Blu-ray supporting companies have banded together to create a faux content site that purports to be about high-def discs in general that's actually a thinly vieled promo site for Blu-ray. They've been feeling the heat from commenters on their blog for about a day now — scroll down to the bottom of their editor's introductory blog post and read from bottom to top. Will Sony never learn?"

US Temperature measurement errors?-> 0

Submitted by

Natros

on Thursday July 12 2007, @12:41PM

Natros writes "A data set is only as reliable as the instrumentation used to collect the data. One of the important data sets in the climate change field is the system of NOAA/NWS climate monitoring stations. The cumulative data from these stations shows warming trends nationwide. But what if the data from these stations is suspect? This blog has been documenting problems with weather station placement and maintenance that makes the data collected from some of these stations quite questionable. Among the most egregious errors: placing the station in the midst of A/C exhausts, and stations surrounded by asphalt parking lots. Whatever your position on the question of climate change, I think we can all agree that accurate measurement and reporting should be a priority of good science."
Link to Original Source

Sigbritt, 75, has world's fastest broadband 0

Submitted by mernil on Thursday July 12 2007, @12:14PM

mernil writes "The Local reports: "A 75 year old woman from Karlstad in central Sweden has been thrust into the IT history books — with the world's fastest internet connection. Sigbritt Löthberg's home has been supplied with a blistering 40 Gigabits per second connection, many thousands of times faster than the average residential link and the first time ever that a home user has experienced such a high speed. [...] The secret behind Sigbritt's ultra-fast connection is a new modulation technique which allows data to be transferred directly between two routers up to 2,000 kilometres apart, with no intermediary transponders [...] "The most difficult part of the whole project was installing Windows on Sigbritt's PC," said Jonsson.""