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Science

Submission + - Empa Claims New World Record for Solar Cell Efficiency (gizmag.com)

Zothecula writes: Scientists based at Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, have set a new efficiency record for thin-film copper indium gallium (di)selenid (or CIGS) based solar cells on flexible polymer foils, reaching an efficiency of 20.4 percent. This is an increase from a previous record of 18.7 percent set by the team back in 2011.
EU

Submission + - US Activists Oppose US Govt Support For EU Privacy Rules (techweekeurope.co.uk) 2

judgecorp writes: "The European Commission has proposals for data privacy (including the "right to be forgotten") and the US government is opposing them. Now US activists have arrived in Brussels to lobby against their government's support for the European measures. The move comes following reports of "extreme" lobbying by US authorities against the European proposals."
Government

Submission + - UK government to Use PayPal for Identity Assurance (techweekeurope.co.uk)

judgecorp writes: "A UK government contract has confirmed earlier reports that British citizens will have the option to use PayPal to accredit themselves for public services such as the new Universal Credit benefit system. Using PayPal might be a public relations goof, as PayPal's parent eBay is notoriously clever at avoiding UK taxes, recently paying only £1.2 million on profit of £789 million (around 0.15 percent)."
Games

Submission + - Analyst believes Microsoft will sell off Xbox division, maybe even to Sony (geek.com) 1

An anonymous reader writes: Forbes analyst Adam Hartung has predicted that Microsoft will sell off its entertainment division, which includes Xbox, in the coming years. He even goes so far as to list Sony or Barnes & Noble as potential buyers.

Lets forget how crazy this sounds for a moment and focus on the reasons why Hartung believes such a sale will happen. It basically comes down to Windows 8, and how poorly it is selling. Combine that with falling sales of PCs, the Surface RT tablet not doing so great, the era of more than one PC in the home disappearing, and Microsoft has a big problem.

The problem not only stems from the PC market not growing, but because Microsoft relies so heavily on Windows and Office for revenue. With that in mind, Hartung believes Steve Ballmer will do anything and everything to save Windows, including ditching entertainment and therefore Xbox.

Education

Submission + - Student expelled from Montreal college for finding "sloppy coding" (nationalpost.com)

innocent_white_lamb writes: In what appears to be a more-and-more common occurrence, Ahmed Al-Khabez has been expelled from Dawson College in Montreal after he discovered a flaw in the software that the college (and apparently all other colleges across Quebec) uses to track student information.

His original intention was to write a mobile app to allow students to access their college account more easily, but during the development of his app he discovered "sloppy coding" that would allow anyone to access all of the information that the system contains about any student.

He was initially ordered to sign a non-disclosure agreement stating that he would never talk about the flaw that he discovered, and he was expelled from the college shortly afterward.

Comment Re:Why cloud? (Score 4, Insightful) 55

According to article, yes I admit to having read it, they have a stand-alone java based version that runs on just about anything; the 'cloud' version is constantly collecting historical data that allows the diagnostic algorithms to learn and improve themselves. I'm not sure that last part is actually true but it is a nice thought.

Comment Tinocular scope? (Score 1) 118

I'm not sure of your budget or whether you are looking at this for yourself or your son, but a trinocular scope allows human binary focus on the subject/target as well as a digital imaging output that can be displayed on a dedicated Workstation or PC. These images can then be captured and later analysed.

This is what my techs use at work for FA on PCAs... but YMMV with "bacteria to paramecium's".

Later...

Comment Closed Loop System (Score 2) 321

The article describes a closed loop system, not one where they'd be simply dumping water down the pipe continuously from an infinate supply. Some volume of water is being pumped down, the water heated by the rock, the energy extracted, and then that same water being sent back down through the loop.

The Military

Submission + - Droneception: A drone within a drone within a dron (wired.com)

smitty777 writes: Given the US's recent drone issues, what is the new recipe for sending a drone over another country of interest? Simple, just take a balloon, and attach a Tempest drone to the bottom of it. Now, attach two more CICADA (sic) drones to that. The balloon climbs to over 55k feet, drops the first drone which can travel another 11 miles or so. It then deploys the CICADA drones. These unpowered gliders slip past the radars undetected and start sending back info. There are future plans to mount many (count hundreds) of the CICADA glider drones to the Tempest in the future. The article quotes the flight engineer describing the process as "straight forward".

Comment VM Snapshots...? (Score 1) 441

Why not just run it in a VM? I've been doing this for quite a while with: WinXP, Vista, and now Win7; all running as VMware VMs on a Linux base. I just snapshot the Windows VM after the initial install.and again after it's fully configured. If (when) the image gets itself honked up, I just restore one of the snapshots and I'm back to a known good image.

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