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Submission + - FreedomPop Launches Open Wi-Fi, Challenging ISPs (forbes.com)

Submitted by Chuckles08
Chuckles08 writes: Forbes has a story about how FreedomPop is trying to disrupt the public Wifi business. From the article: "Getting hosed by your Internet service provider may seem as inevitable as death and taxes, but a new startup aims to change that. Startup FreedomPop, which is backed by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom, DCM and Mangrove Capital, provides cheaper Internet access and the ability for people to share access with others on its network."
Power

Submission + - Nano-sandwich material claimed to boost solar cell efficiency by 175 percent (gizmag.com) 1

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: One of the main reasons that solar cells aren’t more efficient at converting sunlight into electricity is because much of that sunlight is reflected off the cell, or can’t be fully absorbed by it. A new sandwich-like material created by researchers at Princeton University, however, is claimed to dramatically address that problem – by minimizing reflection and increasing absorption, it reportedly boosts the efficiency of organic solar cells by 175 percent.

Comment Unlike the Universe (Score 1) 156

by Pyrotech7 (#42215305) Attached to: New Theory About the Source of Pioneer Space Probe Deceleration
Accelerating masses from the big bang expand the universe, but for some unknown reason instead of decelerating they are accelerating outward. I wonder how this affects the Pioneer spacecraft somehow.

The discovery that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate contradicts past popular opinion that the universe will decelerate, with the all-powerful force of gravity winning yet again. However, with the discovery of a possible anti-gravity force, new fields of study will open up in order to explain this quandary. This discovery could also challenge current thinking on the history of space and time. The discovery of our accelerating universe is such a new discovery that the future prospects are still in the air. However, as the acceleration of the universe continues, within billions of years, many of the stars we can see today will be gone from view. Robert Kirshner, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, stated that "The universe will become a very different place to look at."

Expansion of the universe
Earth

Submission + - US Birthrate Plummets to Record Low 5

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Washington Post reports that the US birthrate is at its lowest since 1920, the earliest year with reliable records decreasing to 63.2 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age — a little more than half of its peak, which was in 1957. The overall birthrate decreased by 8 percent between 2007 and 2010, but the decline is being led by immigrant women hit hard by the recession with a much bigger drop of 14 percent among foreign-born women. For example almost half of all immigrants to the United States are of Hispanic origin but in recent years, immigration from Mexico, the biggest contributing country, has dried up while Latino immigrants who have been here longer tend to adopt US attitudes and behavior, including having smaller families. Overall the average number of children a US woman is predicted to have in her lifetime is 1.9, slightly less than the 2.1 children required to maintain current population levels. Although the declining US birthrate has not created the kind of stark imbalances found in graying countries such as Japan or Italy, it should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers, says Roberto Suro, a professor of public policy at the University of Southern California. “We’ve been assuming that when the baby-boomer population gets most expensive, that there are going to be immigrants and their children who are going to be paying into [programs for the elderly], but in the wake of what’s happened in the last five years, we have to reexamine those assumptions,” he said. “When you think of things like the solvency of Social Security, for example, relatively small increases in the dependency ratio can have a huge effect.”"
The Internet

Submission + - DIY 4G Antenna Design for the Holidays?

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: This holiday season I will return to the land of my childhood. It is flat and desolate with the nearest major city being a three hour car drive away. Although being able to hear the blood pulse through your ears and enjoying the full milky way is nice, I have finally convinced my parents to get "the internet." It's basically a Verizon Jetpack that receives 4G connected to a router. My mom says it works great but she has complained of it cutting in and out. I know where the tower is, this land is so flat and so devoid of light pollution that the tower and all windmills are supernovas on the horizon at night. Usually I use my rooted Galaxy Nexus to read Slashdot, reply to work e-mails, etc. I would like to build an antenna for her 4G device so they can finally enjoy information the way I have. I have access to tons of scrap copper, wood, steel, etc and could probably hit a scrap yard if something else were needed. As a kid, I would build various quad antennas in an attempt to get better radio and TV reception (is the new digital television antenna design any different?) but I have no experience with building 4G antennas. I assume the sizes and lengths would be much different? After shopping around any 4G antenna costs way too much money. So, Slashdot, do you have any resources, suggestions, books, ideas or otherwise about building something to connect to a Jetpack antenna port? I've got a Masters of Science but it's in Computer Science so if you do explain complicated circuits it helps to explain it like I'm five. I've used baluns before in antenna design but after pulling up unidirectional and reflector antenna designs, I realize I might be in a little over my head. Is there an industry standard book on building antennas for any spectrum?
Medicine

Submission + - A Blood Test That Screens for Cancer (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: People usually find out that they have cancer after developing symptoms or through a screening test such as a mammogram—signs that may appear only after the cancer has grown or spread so much that it can't be cured. But what if you could find out from a simple, highly accurate blood test that you had an incipient tumor? By sequencing the abnormal DNA that a tumor releases into a person's bloodstream, researchers are now one step closer to a universal cancer test. Although the technique is now only sensitive enough to detect advanced cancers, that may be a matter of money: As sequencing costs decrease, the developers of the method say, the test could eventually pick up early tumors as well.
NASA

Submission + - New small fission reactor for deep-space missions demonstrated (gizmag.com)

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: Exploring the regions of deep space beyond Mars means sending probes where solar power isn’t practical. Since the 1960s, NASA has equipped its Apollo missions and unmanned explorers with Radioisotope Thermal Generators (RTGs). These have worked very well, but they run on plutonium 238, which is currently in short supply. Therefore, the Los Alamos National Laboratory is developing a new small nuclear reactor for spacecraft that uses uranium instead of plutonium to power Stirling engines and generate electricity. At the Nevada National Security Site’s Device Assembly Facility near Las Vegas, engineers from Los Alamos, the NASA Glenn Research Center and National Security Technologies LLC conducted a Demonstration Using Flattop Fissions (DUFF) experiment that produced 24 watts of electricity using a pair of free-piston Stirling engines.
Education

Submission + - Programming, puzzles and problem solving - free open online course 1

Submitted by dncsky1530
dncsky1530 writes: UNSW professor Richard Buckland, lecturer of the famous Computing 1 course on YouTube, is now running a large scale open online Computer Science course for the world. UNSW Computing 1 — PuzzleQuest and the Art of Programming starts off with microprocessors and works it way through C with interactive activities while taking students on an adventure of hacking, cracking and problem solving. It's based around a three month long PuzzleQuest with grand and suspiciously unspecified prizes as well as fame and glory for the intrepid. The next class starts December 3rd 2012.
Your Rights Online

Submission + - Reserve Bank of India rejects Islamic Banking (firstpost.com) 1

Submitted by vencs
vencs writes: Earning interest on deposits is prohibited under Islamic banking. Instead, the money could be utilised for enterprises and the profit earned from their functioning could be shared by investors. There had been offers of Islamic funding schemes from NRIs and groups in the Middle East and other countries. However, the Governor of Reserve Bank of India said that Islamic banking is not permissible under existing rules.

In its intended form, Islamic banking as advocated by the Prophet would be close to venture capital or even a mutual fund – where the investor earns nothing if his money makes a business loss. He gets a share of profit or dividends if the venture or underlying investment makes a profit.
Science

Submission + - Cancer can teach us about our own evolution (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by
hessian
hessian writes: "Cancer, it seems, is embedded in the basic machinery of life, a type of default state that can be triggered by some kind of insult. That suggests it is not a modern aberration but has deep evolutionary roots, a suspicion confirmed by the fact that it is not confined to humans but is widespread among mammals, fish, reptiles and even plants. Scientists have identified genes implicated in cancer that are thought to be hundreds of millions of years old. Clearly, we will fully understand cancer only in the context of biological history."
Technology

Submission + - Teenage Girls Invent Pee-Powered Generator (gizmocrazed.com)

Submitted by Diggester
Diggester writes: Going green may now involve something a bit yellow, as four teenage girls show off a urine-powered generator at Makers Faire Africa. The small group of 14 and 15 year old girls had the ingenuity and inspiration to help change world with one bathroom trip at a time. Imagine powering your house or charge you electronic devices after making a trip to the little boy or girls room. It takes only one liter of urine to run the generator for 6 whole hours.
Firefox

Submission + - Happy Birthday Firefox (ostatic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Firefox's eighth birthday goes to show how much innovation can take place in less than a decade including tabbed browsing, the extension ecosystem, and the meteoric rise of open source browsers.
Media

Submission + - Scandalous Wiki Timelines (wecheck.org)

Submitted by
sparkydevil
sparkydevil writes: "WeCheck, the people's fact check, is generating a new kind of wiki page — the scandal timeline. So far the site is getting success with its Benghazi Attack Timeline and it has just launched the David Petraeus Scandal Timeline

As new data comes in the page can be instantly updated with new sources, giving an up-to-date overview of the situation. Take that traditional media!"
Power

Submission + - The Cyber Threat to the Global Oil Supply (nationalinterest.org)

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: Blake Clayton with an excellent piece on the cyber threat to the global oil supply. His description of the August attack on Saudi Aramco, which rendered thirty thousand of its computers useless, is pretty solid evidence.

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