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Data Storage

Submission + - Nanoscale "Optical Antennas" enable 3.6TB

Submitted by
K7DAN
K7DAN writes: "How would you like to be able to put your entire DVD, music, video and picture collection plus more on a single disc? An article in MIT's Technology Review (http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18295/)r eveals that Harvard University electrical engineers Kenneth Crozier and Federico Capasso have found a way to achieve a data density of 3.6 terabytes on a single DVD-like disc using nanoscale "optical antennas" added to a commercially available laser. That's equivalent to 750 of today's 4.7-gigabyte recordable DVDs. The development of this technology seems perfectly timed to enable easy storage of large video files in HD format leaving Blu-ray and HD DVD in the dust."
Mars

Mars Rovers Moving After Winter Hibernation 82

Posted by Zonk from the kicking-the-dust-off dept.
jcasman writes to mention an article at Astronomy.com discussing the now on-the-move Mars rovers, which have been effectively in hibernation over the long Martian winter. Spirit has been stationary in the Columbia Hills area, just barely powered up and taking the finest panoramic shot of the planet to date. On the other side of the world, Opportunity has been skulking around the Victoria crater. Scientists have been getting to know the area before attempting to send Opportunity into the geographical feature itself. "Opportunity now is traversing Victoria's rim, and mission scientists are naming features they find after places visited by Ferdinand Magellan and his crew during the first circumnavigation of Earth. (Victoria Crater itself is named after the lone ship that completed Magellan's quest.) [Steve Squyres of Cornell University] and his team are committed to driving Opportunity into the crater eventually, if they're sure the rover will be safe -- in other words, that they can get it out again. Squyres is confident they can, and he thinks it will be sooner rather than later."
The Internet

Submission + - Web Spider Sued By Colorado Woman

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Internet Archive is beind sued by a Colorado woman for spidering her site. Suzanne Shell posted a notice on her site saying she wasn't allowing it to be crawled. When it was, she sued for civil theft, breach of contract, and violations of the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations act and the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act. A court ruling last month granted the Internet Archive's motion to dismiss the charges, except for the breach of contract claim. If Shell prevails on that count, sites like Google will have to get online publishers to "opt in" before they can be crawled, radically changing the nature of Web search.
Graphics

Submission + - Rays light up life-like graphics

Submitted by
TheDawgLives
TheDawgLives writes: "BBC News is carying a story of researchers from the University of Saarland in Germany that have developed new ray tracing algorithms that could revolutionize video games.
A video demonstration is also available.

From TFA:
Daniel Pohl, one of the researchers who has worked with Professor Slusallek, has used the algorithms to produce ray-traced versions of the Quake 3 and 4 video games. "It gives much higher image quality in shadows and reflections," said Mr Pohl. "You can even do reflections on reflections on reflections." This is something that would be impossible with traditional rendering techniques. The algorithms are well-suited to the next generation of PC chips that have multiple processing cores inside them. Separate cores could be used to model different rays to make good use of the available computer power, said Mr Pohl. The algorithms are being made available to anyone to use via the Open RT project."
Enlightenment

Submission + - Should a computer algorithm make health decisions?

Submitted by aeoneal
aeoneal writes: Scientific American discusses whether programs or humans are better at estimating the wishes of incapacitated patients. From the article:

Motherboard Knows Best: Should a Computer Make Life-or-Death Decisions? Researchers say computers, using a mathematical formula, can determine the wishes of incapacitated patients as well as—if not better—than their kin.

Just because a computer algorithm is a better predictor, it doesn't then follow that we should use it," says Dan Brock, director of medical ethics at Harvard Medical School. There are many other reasons for human surrogate decision makers, he adds, such as the fact that many patients want their family to have a say in what is perhaps the most important decision of their lives, regardless of accuracy.
From that perspective, if they do develop a highly accurate system for predicting patient wishes (right now it's accurate about two-thirds of the time), the crucial question then seems to be whether the patient's wishes or the family's come first. Arguing that the patient's wish would be to let the family chose seems perilously close to using sophistry to rationalize a desire for a human factor. But what does the /. community think?

Feed '30s Hollywood Cartoon Censorship (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
Cartoon Brew highlights how the Hayes Code impacted cartoons in 1939 -- male characters couldn't be effeminate, kids had to behave and Flossie the cow's sexy udders had to be clothed. At Table of Malcontents.


Music

Submission + - Idiots Unite! Blog and Panel

Submitted by
Andy Flynn
Andy Flynn writes: "It's a blog, it's a SXSW Music panel. How to survive, thrive, and be happy working with the universally loved art form called music. Idiots Unite!, Room 12AB Austin Convention Center, Thursday, March 15th, 2:45 pm — 4:00 pm Moderator: David Katznelson Pres, Birdman Recording Group Inc Yobie Benjamin CEO, goodstorm.com Jonathan Blaufarb Esquire, Davis Shapiro Lewit & Hayes LLP Scott Booker Co-Founder/Owner, World's Fair/Hellfire Enterprises LTD Jeff Castelaz Pres, Dangerbird Records/Cast Management Celia Hirschman Managing Dir, One Little Indian"
Google

Submission + - Microsoft: Google 'cavalier' on copyright

Submitted by
w1z4rd
w1z4rd writes: "The Guardian reports, "Microsoft will today launch a blistering attack on Google, accusing the Silicon Valley giant of a "cavalier" attitude to copyright."

"Companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the backs of other people's content, are raking in billions through advertising revenue and IPOs," says Microsoft Lawyer Tom Rubin"
Censorship

Submission + - France Bans Filming of Violence By Non-Journalists

Submitted by
BostonBTS
BostonBTS writes: "According to this Macworld Story, the French Constitutional Council has made it illegal to film (or distribute video of) violence unless you are a professional journalist. The law was approved exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday. From the article:

The broad drafting of the law so as to criminalize the activities of citizen journalists unrelated to the perpetrators of violent acts is no accident, but rather a deliberate decision by the authorities, said [Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi]. He is concerned that the law, and others still being debated, will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet.
"
Editorial

Submission + - Factory soot leads to increased pacific storms.

Submitted by Cryolithic
Cryolithic writes: From the Vancouver Sun

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html ?id=e28e0f63-8add-4f03-aa2e-f64a8499bad5&k=5988

Soot from the factories of Asia is changing weather across the Pacific Ocean and causing storms like the December howler that clobbered Vancouver's Stanley Park, a new study says.

"The intensified Pacific storm track is climatically significant," and is the first time climate scientists have been able to measure the effect of "aerosols" — minute airborne particles — on climate, the team writes.
Windows

Submission + - Stopping WGA Installation sends data to Microsoft

Submitted by
rev
rev writes: "The new WGA Notification installation that can be installed using Windows Update sends data to Microsoft if the user decides to cancel the installation. A cookie is set that could be used to identify the host and information such as version of Windows and WGA as well as language of the operating system are transmitted. Part of the data is encrypted. (read more)"

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