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+ - 'Darkness Ray' Beams Invisibility From A Distance->

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes "Optical engineers generally build imaging systems with the best possible resolving power. The basic idea is that an imaging system focuses light into a pattern known as a point spreading function. This consists of a central region of high intensity surrounded by a concentric lobe of lower intensity light. The trick to improving resolution is narrowing and intensifying this central region while suppressing the outer lobe. Now optical engineers have turned this approach on its head by suppressing the central region so that the field intensity here is zero while intensifying the lobe. The result is a three-dimensional beam of darkness that hides any object inside it. The engineers say this region can be huge--up to 8 orders of magnitude bigger than the wavelength of the imaging light. What's more, that the optics required to create it are simple and cheap: a lens consisting of concentric dielectric grooves. The team has even tested a prototype capable of hiding a 40-micrometre object in visible laser light."
Link to Original Source

+ - Wikipedia's Lamest Edit Wars 1

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Who says Wikipedians don't have a sense of humor? While perusing Wikipedia I recently came across an article documenting the lamest examples of wikipedia edit wars over the most trivial things. As one wikipedian says: "Some discussions are born lame; some achieve lameness; some have lameness thrust upon them." A few of the most amusing examples include: Was Chopin Polish, French, Polish–French, or French–Polish? Can you emigrate from a country of which you are not a citizen? Can you receive citizenship if you already have it? The possibilities for intensive study are endless. Next up, Are U2 an "Irish band" or simply a band that happen to be from Ireland, since two of their members were born in the UK? A heated discussion took place for over two-and-a-half weeks that resulted in at least one editor getting blocked and many more getting warnings. Next, should members of the Beatles be listed in the "traditional" order or in alphabetical order? Another edit war which flares up continuously in The Beatles involves whether to identify the band as "The Beatles" with a capital T or "the Beatles" with a lower case t. The issue became so contentious it merited an article in the Wall Street Journal. One such installment of this saga was brought before the arbitration committee (by an administrator, no less) where it was quickly declared "silly." Next, Is J. K. Rowling's name pronounced like "rolling" or to rhyme with "howling"? Rowling is on record claiming she pronounces her name like "rolling". An irate editor argues that this is a "British" pronunciation and the "American" pronunciation of her name should also be noted. "This is slightly ridiculous as she is English, and therefore of course will pronounce it in an English manner. Perhaps it rhymes with "Trolling"?" Finally did Jimmy Wales found Wikipedia or co-found it? "Not surprisingly, those who actually were around at the time and know the answer stayed far away from this one. The casualty list has yet to be compiled, but no doubt editor egos will be among the worst hit.""

Comment: Commenters are worth it! (Score 4, Interesting) 247

by zipherx (#41388901) Attached to: Slashdot Turns 15, What Are You Doing Later?
I have been reading /. for about all the time I have really worked in IT, when a few friends and I started out Cybercafe back in Martch '97. The era of Quake and IRC, I will never forget.
Thanks for all the news, and the great comments, who, most of the time are worth spending quite alot of time reading (more interesting than the actual news) ;)

Have some nice parties, "overthere".
Education

+ - Grad Student Wins Alan Alda's Flame Challenge->

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes "Scientists have long been criticized of their inability to communicate complex ideas adequately to the rest of society. Similar to his questions on PBS' Scientific American Frontiers, actor Alan Alda wrote to the Journal of Science with a proposition called The Flame Challenge. Contestants would have to explain a flame to an eleven year old kid and the entries would be judged by thousands of children across the country. The winner of The Flame Challenge is quantum physics grad student Ben Ames whose animated video covers concepts like pyrolysis, chemiluminescence, oxidation and incandescence boiled into a humorous video complete with song. Now they are asking children age 10-12 to suggest the next question for the Flame Challenge. Kids out there, what would you like scientists to explain?"
Link to Original Source
Canada

+ - Canada No Pirate Nation: Global Leader in Music Download Sales->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The IFPI, the global recording industry association, recently released its Recording Industry in Numbers 2012, which provides detailed sales data from countries around the world. While CRIA talks about "rebuilding the marketplace", the industry's own data indicates that Canada already stands among the global leaders in digital music sales. Michael Geist digs into the data and finds that Canadians purchased more single track downloads than Germany or Japan, and more than double the sales in France, despite the fact that each of those countries has far larger populations. In fact, Canadian sales were larger than all the sales from Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden combined. Not only is the Canadian digital market far larger than virtually every European market, it continues to grow faster than the U.S. digital music market as well. In fact, the Canadian digital music market has grown faster than the U.S. market for the past six consecutive years."
Link to Original Source
Social Networks

+ - Milions of passwords LinkedIn published.->

Submitted by Razgorov Prikazka
Razgorov Prikazka writes "from the hurrychangeyourpasswordquickly dept.

The passwords of 6,5 million LinkedIn accounts are published on a Russian website. The passwords are SHA1 hashed, and no further account details are provided according to the Norwegian site Dagensit. It seems that 240.000 passwords are already cracked. Linkedin has about 161 million users.

(Google translate Here: http://translate.google.nl/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagensit.no%2Farticle2411857.ece&act=url

Original here: http://www.dagensit.no/article2411857.ece"
Link to Original Source

+ - If You Can't Secure IPv6. Don't Turn it On.-> 1

Submitted by darthcamaro
darthcamaro writes "Lots of hoopla today about World IPv6 Launch day. The day the pundits tells us that we should be switching to IPv6. Well not all pundits, the Chief Security Officer of VeriSign (you know the guys the run the root DNS and .com) doesn't think IPv6 should be turned on by a whole lot of people. The problem is network security devices in many cases don't scan IPv6. So if you turn IPv6 on, you're screwed.
"If you don't have that visibility into IPv6, you should probably consider explicitly disabling IPv6 on your systems until you can take a very concerted approach to enabling IPv6 in a secure manner," McPherson said."
Link to Original Source
Your Rights Online

+ - Fourth European Committee Rejects ACTA->

Submitted by Dangerous_Minds
Dangerous_Minds writes "Last month, ACTA was rejected by three European committees (the industry committee, the civil liberties committee, and the legal affairs committee). Now, the fourth European committee, the the Development Committee, has voted to reject ACTA as well, making it zero for four. ZeroPaid is offering a quick timeline of the series of blows to ACTA all last month as well. The next stop for ACTA will be the lead committee, the Trade Committee which is scheduled to hand down a decision later this month on June 21. From there, it'll head to the full house for a vote in July."
Link to Original Source
Games

+ - Star Wars: 1313 To Offer M-Rated Gaming Adventure in a Galaxy Far, Far, Away-> 1

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes "When it comes to Star Wars, the gaming industry has a long history of cranking out titles of uncertain quality. For every brilliant title like Knights of the Old Republic, we've seen several clunkers and a few outright failures like Republic Heroes. LucasArts demonstrated a new Star Wars game at E3 this week, Star Wars: 1313 and despite the brand's uneven history, folks are cautiously optimistic. The 1313 moniker refers to a specific level of Coruscant which is a haven for criminals, bounty hunters, and crime lords. You take on the role of a bounty hunter looking for information on an unspecified criminal conspiracy who descends to 1313 in search of data. This will be the first Star Wars game to be rated "M" for mature, and it focuses on the seedy underbelly of the universe."
Link to Original Source

"You stay here, Audrey -- this is between me and the vegetable!" -- Seymour, from _Little Shop Of Horrors_

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