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Submission + - NASA's Next 5 Missions (informationweek.com)

Submitted by CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: From a spacecraft that captures asteroids to a telescope that reveals details of the universe, NASA's upcoming missions will break ground in space science and technology. NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph lifted off from the Vandenberg Air Force Base on June 27, successfully riding into low Earth orbit aboard a Pegasus XL rocket. IRIS will study the sun's lower atmosphere, and it's one of several major missions in the works at the space agency. In the next few years, NASA missions will include visiting an asteroid, searching below Mars's surface, and studying the atmosphere of Earth's moon.
Crime

Submission + - NYPD Developing Portable Body Scanner for Detectin (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: You have to feel sorry for the police officers who are required to frisk people for guns or knives — after all, if someone who doesn't want to be arrested is carrying a lethal weapon, the last thing that most of us would want to do is get close enough to that person to touch them. That's why the New York Police Department teamed up with the United States Department of Defense three years ago, and began developing a portable scanner that can remotely detect the presence of a gun on a person's body. The NYPD announced the project this week.
Apple

Submission + - Apple announces iBooks 2 to reinvent textbooks (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
knuthin
knuthin writes: "Apple announced what it's calling "iBooks 2" during its media event in New York on Thursday, a textbook software program that allows textbook-makers and instructors to create rich, interactive teaching media for the iPad. The announcement is akin to "GarageBand for e-books," giving authors access to easy-to-use tools on the computer in order to create multimedia content for the iPad."

Comment Experiment Methodology (Score 1) 442

by LordBmore (#38097904) Attached to: OPERA Group Repeats Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Results
I am by no means a physicist, so maybe someone can explain this to me. Instead of just measuring the time that it takes for the neutrinos to travel the span and comparing that to the known value based on the speed of light, why not shine a beam of light across the distance, measure that time, and then compare the values directly? It seems like that would remove some possible errors in timing and distance measurement.

Comment Re:Vulnerable (Score 2) 386

by LordBmore (#35418406) Attached to: $30 GPS Jammer Can Wreak Havok
I was at a conference recently where Gen. Schwartz, Air Force Chief of Staff, brought up your point exactly. To combat jamming of a particular system, they are working to build redundant navigation systems into their weapons. So, for example, if GPS guidance fails maybe it switches over to laser guidance, if that fails maybe it switches over to INS.
Security

Submission + - Facebook: Tunisian Govt. tried country-wide hack (threatpost.com)

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: Facebook's security team has been saying for months that account integrity is a top priority, and that so-called "social authentication"- using your knowledge of your own network to help authenticate yourself — was their preferred method to secure account access. Now an exclusive report in The Atlantic says that the company employed social authentication earlier this month to secure the accounts of Tunisian protesters calling for the ouster of that country's ruthless dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. According to the report, Facebook security engineers detected large scale efforts by Tunisian ISPs to intercept user logins to Facebook and to remove protest pages set up on the social network. They responded by forcing Tunisian users to connect through a secure HTTP server and required Tunisian users to complete social authentication challenges before accessing their accounts. The company's efforts seem to have worked — the protests succeeded in driving Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from the country on January 15. Vive la Facebook!
Google

Submission + - Honeycomb to Require Dual-core Processor

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: According to managing director of Korean consumer electronics firm Enspert, Google's new Android Honeycomb tablet OS will require a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor to run properly. That means that many existing Android tablets will not be upgradeable to Honeycomb, as they lack the processor necessary to meet the spec. Currently, Nvidia's Tegra 2 platform is the only chipset in products on the market to include a Cortex-A9, although other manufacturers have said they're moving to the new processor architecture for 2011 products.
Open Source

Open Source After 12 Years 174

Posted by CmdrTaco from the seems-like-only-yesterday dept.
GMGruman writes "12 years ago, seven people in a room coined the term "open source" and launched what initially seemed like a quixotic exercise. Today, open source is mainstream, with original believers such as Red Hat worth billions and superpowers such as Oracle buying in. But open source has changed along the way, says InfoWorld's Peter Wayner, and may change more in coming years."

Comment Oblig. Simpsons (Score 5, Funny) 229

by LordBmore (#33747280) Attached to: Govt To Bomb Guam With Frozen Mice To Kill Snakes
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

Comment Actual Statistics (Score 1) 1138

by LordBmore (#32210594) Attached to: Too Many College Graduates?
TFA was sorely lacking in actual statistics stating how many Americans actually have four year college degrees and I didn't see any posted in the comments yet, so here goes. This chart Educational Attainment of the Population 25 Years And Over By Age: 1947 to 2003 seems to show that approximately 25% of the population has at least a Bachelor's Degree. You may think that the number is skewed by the older generation being less educated, but the chart also shows that the number is still under 30% for people ages 25-29. I would hardly say that this means that there are too many college graduates in the US.

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