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Submission + - Boffins embed electronic components into optical fibres (techworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists at the Universities of Southampton and Penn State have found a way to embed electronic components into optical fibres, in a breakthrough that could lead to the creation of super high-speed telecommunications networks.

Rather than trying to merge flat chips with round optical fibres, the team of scientists used high-pressure chemistry techniques to deposit semiconducting materials layer by layer directly into tiny holes in optical fibres. This bypasses the need to integrate fibre-optics onto a chip, and means that the data signal never has to leave the fibre.
Facebook

Submission + - Moglen: Facebook Is A Man-In-The-Middle Attack (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruh
jfruh writes: "In an email exchange with privacy blogger Dan Tynan, Columbia law professor Eben Moglen referred to Facebook as a "man in the middle attack" — that is, a service that intercepts communication between two parties and uses it for its own nefarious purposes. Tynan is a critic of Facebook, but he thinks Moglen is overstating the case."

Comment Re:you prefer psychological abuse (Score 1) 182

by Thyrsus (#38866129) Attached to: Gates Paying Murdoch For System To Track U.S. Kids' School Progress

"There is absolutely nothing wrong with swatting a kid on the behind if he/she refuses to behave." That statement has been falsified by the epidemiologic evidence (it obviously being unethical to have an un-spanked control group and a spanked test group). Children subject to physical discipline are more likely to be charged with crimes once they mature. Unfortunately, I can't find an un-paywalled citation.

Submission + - How to monitor your Internet data transfer amounts 1

Submitted by Vrtigo1
Vrtigo1 writes: With many ISPs either already using bandwidth caps or talking about them, I was wondering how other Slashdot readers are keeping tabs on how much data is being transferred through their home Internet connections. None of the consumer routers I've used seem to make this information easily accessible. I'd like some way to see exactly how much data has been sent and received by the WAN port facing my ISP's modem so I can compare the numbers I get with the numbers they give me. I don't want to pay for their modem firmware updates and other network management traffic, so I'd like to see how the two numbers line up.
Government

Submission + - Tom Tom Sells GPS Info To Dutch Cops (itworld.com) 2

Submitted by
jfruhlinger
jfruhlinger writes: "As smartphones with GPS capabilities wear away at the dedicated GPS market, vendors like Tom Tom need to find new revenue streams. Tom Tom decided that it would be a good idea to "share" (i.e., sell) aggregated data from their users to Dutch law enforcement. The company claims that they assumed that the data would be used to improve traffic safety and road engineering, and were shocked, shocked to discover that instead the police used it to figure out the best places to put speed traps."

Comment Re:Efficiency is not the issue (Score 1) 204

by Thyrsus (#35981090) Attached to: 80% Improvement In Solar Cell Efficiency

RFMD has licensed some NREL 3-junction technology, and is in the midst of the approx. 3-year project to take it from "we made one in the lab" to "we're mass-producing them in our foundry". I think they're going to rock the market in one to two years. http://www.semiconductor-today.com/news_items/2011/MAR/RFMD_030311.html

"All forward-looking statements are present expectations of future events and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements."

Comment Re:Persistent myth? (Score 2) 705

by Thyrsus (#35270872) Attached to: Why You Shouldn't Reboot Unix Servers

Unix is a trademark owned by the The Open Group, and you may use that trademark to describe your system if you pay money to have them run their tests to verify compliance with the Single Unix Specification. I believe Red Hat has done that in the past, and that particular version of Linux was thus bona fide Unix(R), but it seems Red Hat has not chosen to continue certifying their systems. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

I believe Red Hat sent back upstream all the changes they needed to make to pass the test; I presume many others also worked on conformance to the standard. Sometimes those behaviors aren't there unless the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is set.

Thus, while not "legally" Unix, Linux normally does realize all the concepts and behaviors of real Unix.

Submission + - New Form of Matter? (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by locallyunscene
locallyunscene writes:

'Back in 1970, a young physicist working in the Soviet Union made a counterintutive prediction. Vitaly Efimov, now at the University of Washington in the US, showed that quantum objects that cannot form into pairs could nevertheless form into triplets.
In 2006, a group in Austria found the first example of such a so-called Efimov state in a cold gas of cesium atoms. [...]
Today, Nils Baas at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology makes another startling prediction. He says that the strange, unworldly bonds that allow cesium atoms to stick together in triplets should allow much more complex objects to form too. In fact, he says we're on the verge of discovering a brand new form of matter governed by an entirely new branch of physics.'

Looking at the pictures in the article and trying to imagine how they work in multiple dimensions only makes my brain hurt a little bit. Here is the arxiv paper the article references.

Submission + - Missile Defense Gets an F (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Martin Hellman
Martin Hellman writes: Today’s test of our missile defense system failed to intercept its target, making the score only 8 successes in 14 tests. That would be a failing grade on any exam, and countermeasures are likely to reduce the success rate even further in a real attack. So why do the Russians object so strenuously to our missile defense program? Because, where nuclear deterrence is concerned, perception matters more than reality.

Submission + - Free Aviation Site Sued Offline Over Patent Claims (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Techdirt reports on an unfortunate outcome in the beginning steps of a new patent troll. A small Oregon firm, FlightPrep, has begun suing free flight planning web sites (using Google Maps, etc) with the claim that it violates their broad patent. Although some of the largest industry players (Jeppesen, AOPA, FlightAware, etc) have pushed back on the infringement, a site called RunwayFinder.com has gone offline after being unwilling/unable to pay $3.2M/mo.

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