Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror
The Internet

The Year the Internet Split in Half->

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes "If there's one thing 2011 will be remembered for, it'll be the year the Internet split in half. In one corner, we have the traditional web, the one you've known and loved since the 90s. In the other corner, there's the "app" or mobile Internet. It's the one ushered in by the iPhone, and it grew to record levels last year with help from Android, iPads, and tablets. And increasingly, there's different stuff on them.

"There's definitely a big rift between traditional Internet content accessed via a web browser and mobile applications on smartphones and tablets," Engadget editor-in-chief Tim Stevens said. "Five to 10 years ago people were getting excited about new websites. Now it's all about new apps." As a result, software developers and content producers are splitting their workload. Sometimes they release stuff on one or the other platform, but not always both. They publish on the Internet — but not every version of the Internet."
Link to Original Source

Comment: When there is financial incentive (Score 2) 84

by Muckluck (#38502892) Attached to: More Details On Drug Cartel's Clandestine Communications Network
People get creative. In this case, the sale of the drugs provides the incentive and the network throughout a non-cellular covered area is the resulting creativity. WE (the technically oriented community) should be doing this as well with 802.11 networks. I imagine a day where everywhere you go, you can stay connected for general (non-secure) data transfer / searches, etc.
Businesses

SPAM: Solar-Powered Airplane Completes First Ever Flight

Submitted by
liqs8143
liqs8143 writes "Solar Impulse, a fully solar-powered airplane has completed the world's first international solar-powered flight. After a flight lasting 12 hours 59 minutes at an altitude of 12,400 feet, using no fuel and propelled by solar energy alone, Solar Impulse HB-SIA landed safely in Brussels, Switzerland.

After the landing, plane's co-founder Bertrand Piccard said:

Our goal is to create a revolution in the minds of the people . . . to promote solar energies — not necessarily a revolution in aviation.

Compared with 2003, energy efficiency has increased from 16 to 22 percent. And the cells are now half as thick.

The project has a total cost of $88 million which is funded by mostly-Swiss partners and public donations."
Link to Original Source
Technology

The World's Largest Water Pump in New Orleans->

Submitted by
hasanabbas1987
hasanabbas1987 writes "When nature strikes, man always look for alternatives to fight back, failing on most occasions though. This time when nature showed its anger in the Mississippi River, man again decided to act, this time they have decided to build the world’s largest water pump in New Orleans. This monster pump is powered by a 5,000 horsepower diesel engine which moves a giant four blade propeller 150 times in a minute. As a result 150,000 gallons of water is moved every second (15 Olympic size swimming pools every minute)."
Link to Original Source
Space

Europe Defends 'Stupid' Galileo Satellite->

Submitted by mvar
mvar writes "Following the dismissal of OHB-System's CEO Berry Smutny who, according to a Wikileaks cable, had stated that "Galileo is a stupid idea that primarily serves French interests" , Antonio Tajani Vice President of the European Commission has stated once again that "The Galileo project is going ahead, the commission has decided on this" and that "[Galileo] will improve the lives of citizens in sectors such as transport, agriculture, energy and combatting illegal immigration". Tajani also dismissed the Wikileaks report saying that he had met Smutny before the leak and that he had stated that he believed in Galileo."
Link to Original Source
Sony

Portal 2 For PS3 To Include Cross-Platform Support->

Submitted by Blacklaw
Blacklaw writes "Valve has confirmed plans to resurrect something which hasn't been attempted for quite some time in a mainstream game: cross-platform multiplayer gaming, due to hit the PlayStation 3 and PC in the company's first-person puzzle title Portal 2.
In even better news, those who buy Portal 2 for the PS3 — which Valve's Gabe Newell claims will "be the best console version of the product" — will be able to link their PlayStation Network accounts with their Steam accounts and unlock a free, full copy of the game for PC or Mac."
Link to Original Source
The Internet

What happens when mom unplugs teens for 6 months?->

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes "Susan Maushart lived out every parent's fantasy: She unplugged her teenagers. For six months, she took away the Internet, TV, iPods, cell phones and video games. The result of what she grandly calls "The Experiment" was more OMG than LOL — and nothing less than an immersion in RL (real life).

As Maushart explains in a book released in the U.S. this week called "The Winter of Our Disconnect", she and her kids rediscovered small pleasures — like board games, books, lazy Sundays, old photos, family meals and listening to music together instead of everyone plugging into their own iPods.

Maushart wrote that her kids "awoke slowly from the state of cognitus interruptus that had characterized many of their waking hours to become more focused logical thinkers." Maushart decided to unplug the family because the kids — ages 14, 15 and 18 when she started The Experiment — didn't just "use media," as she put it. They "inhabited" media. "They don't remember a time before e-mail, or instant messaging, or Google," she wrote

Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fea_parenting_teens_unplugged"
Link to Original Source
Science

New camera adds a zoom to the "human eye"->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers have created a camera that mimics the human eye, but has the added feature of zooming . The "eyeball camera" — more officially dubbed a curvilinear camera — was created by scientists from Northwestern University and the University of Illinois in the US. One version is the size of a coin and cheap to make, but takes crisp images at up to 3.5x optical zoom. Other variations could allow for an even greater zoom, the researchers said."
Link to Original Source

Microbiology Lab: Staph Only!