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NASA

Submission + - NASA's Plutonium Supply Dwindling, ESA to Help (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: NASA's stockpile of the plutonium isotope Pu-238 is at a critical level, causing concern that there won't be enough fuel for future deep space missions. Pellets of Pu-238 are used inside radioisotope thermoelectric generators (or RTGs) to generate electricity for space probes traveling beyond the orbit of Mars — solar energy is too weak for solar arrays at these distances. Blocked by a contract dispute with Russia to supply Pu-238 and the U.S. Department of Energy that has not been granted funds to produce more of the isotope, NASA lacks enough of the radioisotope to fuel the future joint NASA-ESA mission to Europa. However, the head of the European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that they have plans to commence a new nuclear energy program to alleviate the situation.
Google

Obama Anti-Trust Chief on Google the Monopoly Threat 364

Posted by CmdrTaco from the it-has-to-be-said dept.
CWmike writes "The blogosphere regularly excoriates Microsoft for being a monopoly, but Google may be in the cross-hairs of the nation's next anti-trust chief for monopolistic behavior, writes Preston Gralla. Last June, Christine A. Varney, President Obama's nominee to be the next antitrust chief, warned that Google already had a monopoly in online advertising. 'For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem,' Varney said at a June 19 panel discussion sponsored by the American Antitrust Institute, according to a Bloomberg report. The US economy will 'continually see a problem — potentially with Google' because it already 'has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising.' Varney has yet to be confirmed as antitrust chief, and she said all this before she was nominated. Still, it spells potentially bad news for Google. It may be time for the company to start adding to its legal staff."
HP

HP Creates First Hybrid Memristor Chip 155

Posted by timothy from the stitch-in-time dept.
An anonymous reader writes "HP researchers have built the first functioning hybrid memristor-transistor chip. Lead researcher Stanley Williams and his team built the very first memristor — the '4th fundamental element' of integrated circuits after resistors, capacitors and inductors — back in April. Memristors can remember their resistance, leading to novel electronic capabilities. The new FPGA circuit uses memristors to perform tasks normally carried out by (many more) transistors and is therefore smaller, more power efficient and cheaper to make, HP says. Memristors could also turn out to be a more compact, faster alternative to flash memory."

Comment NSW RFS still uses pagers (Score 1) 584

by achard (#25727605) Attached to: Where Have All the Pagers Gone?
I'm a volunteer firefighter for the NSW rural fire service. We still use pagers for fire calls and general information. The comment about batteries is absolutely true. I usually don't have to replace my pager batteries more than every 3 months. And that is not because I recharge them. Also the coverage is great. I frequently get pages where no phone has reception. And it allows me to adapt to ignoring my phone over night. The pager is loud and annoying, and as was said previously, it keeps going until I acknowledge the page. With a phone, at best the person trying to contact you needs to keep ringing until you answer. As for where to get them... Motorola make the one I use. Wouldn't know where to buy them though.

China Malware War Gets Personal 35

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fight-to-the-death dept.
bcaulfield writes to tell us Zhou Hongyi has filed a 3.6 million yuan ($450,000) defamation suit against Yahoo China. Hongyi, the former president of Yahoo China, filed his suit in response to comments made in a recent Yahoo press conference accusing him of unethical business practices. From the article: "A rift between Mr. Zhou and Yahoo China has been developing since before his departure from Yahoo last year, just prior to Alibaba's takeover of Yahoo's China operations. Mr. Zhou doled out generous bonuses to Yahoo employees in a ploy his detractors derided as a naked purchase of loyalties. Mr. Zhou defended the disbursements. 'Many of these people were longtime Yahoo employees, and they were under no obligation to follow me,' he said. 'It was my money to do with as I wanted.'" Update 08/20/2006 15:01 GMT by SM: Corrected the currency for the suit.

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