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Moon

Europe's Space Agency Wants To Do What NASA Can't 136

Posted by timothy from the can-we-borrow-your-studio? dept.
coondoggie writes "The European Space Agency is moving forward with a plan to land an autonomous spacecraft on the moon by 2017, with the idea a manned vehicle could land there sometime in the future. It's a mission NASA had on its roadmap before the current budget debate, but such plans seem doomed now. The ESA is now seeking proposals for a lunar lander that would land on the south polar region of the Moon, which possible deposits of water ice, heavily cratered terrain, and long periods of sunlight make promising for explorers and scientists, the agency stated."
Image

Microsoft RickRolls Wi-Fi Network Leechers 165

Posted by samzenpus from the never-gonna-tell-a-lie-and-hurt-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has revealed that it RickRolled users that were killing its TechEd conference Wi-Fi network last year by torrenting large files. Network administrators at the event quickly built a list of all of the top torrent trackers around and got the nod to add them all to the local DNS resolver and point them at a local Web server containing some Rick Roll scripts. According to the admin: 'It killed me that I didn't see anyone getting done by this first hand, but there were hundreds of impressions in the server logs containing the Rick Roll scripts so I did get a fair amount of satisfaction at least. It was the most evil of evil Rick Roll scripts too — worse than any that anyone has used to get me in the past.' Fun and games aside, it looks like the leechers will force quotas and traffic shaping for the first time in the event's history."
Communications

White House Press Secretary's Tweets Archived 63

Posted by samzenpus from the for-future-generations dept.
RedTeflon writes "The White House spokesman, who has just started using Twitter, told reporters this afternoon that he met with government lawyers yesterday to determine whether his tweets would be archived along with emails and just about everything else produced at the White House. After deliberation, White House lawyers have decided that any and all tweets will be archived in keeping with the Presidential Records Act of 1978."
Displays

No Glasses Needed For TI's New 3D Display 165

Posted by timothy from the you-may-still-need-them-for-driving dept.
adeelarshad82 writes "At the MWC, TI showed off a tablet-sized device with a 3D display that doesn't require glasses, running on an existing TI OMAP3 chipset. The 3D demo showed images and video in 3D by using a standard 120-Hz LCD with a special overlay film from 3M that can direct images either towards your left or right eye. By flickering two images very quickly, running at 60 frames per second rather than the usual 30, the display transmits a different picture to each eye, creating a simulated 3D image. The 3D picture can be created using a handheld with dual 3-megapixel cameras and an 800-MHz TI OMAP 3630 chipset."
Social Networks

Facebook Now Supports Jabber/XMPP 174

Posted by timothy from the cross-pollination-nation dept.
supersloshy writes "Facebook Chat has so far only been meant to be used in a web browser, and instant messaging applications have had a hard time implementing its undocumented protocol. Today, Facebook is making this job much easier by enabling support for XMPP to access its chat service. AOL's AIM and the Empathy Instant Messenger are also including pre-set Facebook options, due to already supporting XMPP." Here are instructions for setting up XMPP Facebook chat with popular instant messaging clients, including Pidgin and Adium.
Social Networks

Submission + - Using social network sites for business promotion

Submitted by Toam
Toam writes: So my girlfriend was planning to present a proposal to her employers outlining several ways for them to better promote their business. Apparently someone there had heard of these 'facebook' and 'twitter' things and they now want her to incorporate promotion via social networking websites into her presentation which currently consists of some more traditional methods of promoting the business. Are any slashdotters employed by companies which use social networking websites to advertise, or otherwise communicate with the public? Have any of you been involved in implementing a similar type of thing? Have you had much success? Are there any pitfalls to be wary of when using social networking sites to promote your business?
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Poll -- slashdotters at lunch

Submitted by mpoulton
mpoulton writes: What do you usually do for lunch?

1. No lunch
2. Vending machines
3. Bring lunch to work
4. Eat at a cafeteria/snack bar at work
5. Go grab a quick bite
6. "Do lunch" with business associates
7. Start my round of golf about that time
8. Eat At Neal's
NASA

Submission + - SPAM: Shuttle Retirement Bad News For ISS

Submitted by
stoolpigeon
stoolpigeon writes: "NASA might not be able to send crews and necessary equipment to the international space station if the space shuttle is retired in 2010 as planned, government investigators said Thursday. The "predicament" is that no existing spacecraft can match the hauling power of the shuttle, which can transport almost 38,000pounds to the station. And alternatives are either still on the drawing boards or, in the case of Russian-built Soyuz capsules, possibly problematic, according to the Government Accountability Office, the watchdog of Congress."
Link to Original Source
Space

Submission + - New telescope to challenge theory of universe (cio.com.au)

Submitted by Bergkamp10
Bergkamp10 writes: Australian astronomers will be using a new specially constructed 'rapid survey' telescope to digitally map the southern sky, imaging in six filters with six exposures per filter. The filters have been specially designed to 'decode' stars, with astronomers calling it a 'new window' into the parameters of the universe. The impact on stellar astrophysics will be significant, allowing for much more insightful data collection on how stars were formed and how they got to where they are today. The telescope, called Skymapper, can look at objects in our solar system and according to the report can focus its 'decoding' powers on objects at the farthest regions of the visible universe. Once the project to digitally map the southern sky is complete the results will become available to anyone via an online virtual observatory.
Space

Submission + - NASA, Russia test sex in space (guardian.co.uk) 1

Submitted by azuredrake
azuredrake writes: According to The Guardian, both NASA and the Russian space agency have tested the feasibility of sex in space with human astronauts as the so-called "guinea pigs". While the purpose behind this research was to ascertain whether families could be sent on colonization missions together in zero-g, it's still amusing to think that two humans were sent up into space with government funding to copulate repeatedly on video. Of course, leave it up to the American government to come up with a mission codename like "STS:XX".
KDE

Submission + - KDE 4 to be relelased on Jan 11th

Submitted by
VincenzoRomano
VincenzoRomano writes: "It's official! KDE 4.0 will be released on next January 11th. The release itself doesn't sound very firm, as "the developers are confident to be able to release a more polished and better working KDE" and not the long awaited prime time release.
At the very first Alpha release on march 11th, the release date had been forecasted to October 2007, and then shifted to the end of the year with the second Beta.
Despite this, the promises for the fourth version are quite interesting and maybe deserve a "stay tuned"."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft says firefox is spyware (maneelgrover.com) 1

Submitted by MozeeToby
MozeeToby writes: Microsofts new Anti-Spyware tool (currently in beta) identifies Firefox as spy ware with a high security risk. To quote the author, "I strongly believe Mozilla Foundation should sue Microsoft for defamation."

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