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Mozilla

Submission + - Student given detention for using Firefox 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Several sites are reporting that a student has been given detention for using "Firefox.exe" to do his classwork. No, really. The student was in class, working on an assignment that necessitated using a browser. The teacher instructed him to stop using Firefox and to do his classwork, to which the student responded that he was doing his classwork using a "better" browser (it is unclear whether the computer was the student's own computer or not). The clueless teacher (who called the rogue program "Firefox.exe") ordered him to detention.
Christmas Cheer

Submission + - Santa to relocate? (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by xarak
xarak writes: The kind of brains who are delocalising your IT job have done another study on a rather more fictional activity.
Neither Reindeers' nor Santas Helpers' work conditions have been taken into account...

From the article:

Santa Claus should leave the North Pole and relocate to Kyrgyzstan to optimise the delivery of Christmas presents, a Swedish engineering firm says. The Sweco consulting firm found Kyrgyzstan was the most logical base to avoid time-wasting detours. It took into account main population centres and the Earth's rotation. Santa would have 34 microseconds for each chimney stop, and his reindeer would have to travel at nearly 6,000km (3,700 miles) per second.
Announcements

Submission + - RF Energy Breaks H2O Bonds in Saltwater Solution

Submitted by Out of Round
Out of Round writes: While researching a means to cure his cancer, inventor John Kanzius serendipitously discovered that radiating saltwater with RF energy at a frequency 14GHz, results in the release of H2 and O at a significant rate. The article doesn't mention the amount of RF power used but there is a You Tube video showing the process in action with the resulting vigorous flame spewing out of the test tube powering a Stirling engine. The mechanism for this phenomenon is not understood but with sufficient conversion efficiencies, it could have wide-ranging implications for the future of this planet. http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/4121ddb25aa36110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
AMD

Submission + - Why all current AMD Phenom benchmarks are wrong (techreport.com)

Submitted by J. Dzhugashvili
J. Dzhugashvili writes: AMD's new quad-core Phenom processors already lag behind Intel's Core 2 Quads overall, but as The Tech Report found, the presence of a hardware bug means their reported performance is off. The bug, or erratum, has to do with translation lookaside buffer in the Phenom's L3 cache, and it causes system hangs when the chip is under heavy utilization. To fix it, AMD will soon roll out a BIOS fix and microcode update, but that update will reduce performance by as much as 20%. The workaround currently being unavailable, all Phenom reviews show higher performance than what users will get out of existing chips if they want a stable PC. A hardware fix without a performance hit isn't expected until February or March next year.

Feed Engadget: London Underground to get half-kilometer-long LED video display (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Displays, Misc. Gadgets, Transportation

Because all of the posters plastered on every single surface on the inside of the cars is clearly not enough advertising for your average subway passenger, London is poised to light up a half-kilometer-long LED display in the tunnel between Heathrow and Paddington Station. Manufactured by Canadian firm SideTrack, the simulated video system -- which is composed of 360 individual LED bars synchronized to train speeds -- will replace a static version already installed along the same Heathrow Express route, thus allowing officials to change the message without swapping out physical signage. No word yet on who the premiere advertiser will be, but this medium would seem like a good way for rental car companies to make a compelling point: "Avoid these crappy ads, rent from Avis next time."

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Spam

Submission + - Building a better spam trap (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
SpiritGod21
SpiritGod21 writes: "Steven T. Kirsch, the developer of the optical mouse, has been thinking about the spam problem for a number of years. After filing several patents covering other approaches, Mr. Kirsch hit on the idea underlying his latest invention, Abaca, quite by accident.

The approach underlying the Abaca technique is the recognition that the ratio of spam to legitimate e-mail is individually unique. It is also a singular identifier that a spammer cannot manipulate easily. By assessing the combined reputations of the recipients of any individual message, the Abaca system determines the "spaminess" of a particular message. Mr. Kirsch asserts this provides a high degree of accuracy in deciding whether the message is spam."
Encryption

Submission + - The Sony PS3 Crackstation (pcworld.com)

Submitted by ianare
ianare writes: Nick Breese, a security consultant at Security-assessment.com, has come up with a way of cracking encryption algorithms 100 times faster, using a Sony PS3. The speed increase relates to the use of the Cell processor's SIMD (or vector) computing, allowing him to run cryptography calculations in parallel. Breese has pushed the current upper limit of 10-15 million cycles per second on Intel-based architecture to 1.4 billion cycles per second for MD5 calculations. This discovery will unfortunately make cracking certain types of passwords much faster, hopefully it will also drive stronger and better implemented cryptography.
Supercomputing

Submission + - Super Fast, Super Green Supercomputers (baselinemag.com)

Submitted by Absalom621
Absalom621 writes: Supercomputers were once measured solely on the number of computations pers second the could perform. Now, researchers at Virginia Tech are trying to change that with their Green 500, which lists the most energy efficient supercomputers. Rather than looking at raw computational power, the Green 500 looks at the number of calculations a supercomputer can perform per lowest kilowatt hour. Interesting concept. http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1540,2223693,00.asp
Announcements

Submission + - New super efficient LEDs developed (compoundsemi.com)

Submitted by WileyC
WileyC writes: A prototype of a new LED from LED Lighting Fixtures, Inc. just kicked the butt of current LEDs in energy efficiency (not to mention making fluorescents and incandescents look completely outdated). From the press release:

LLF's latest prototype fixture operates using less than 15 percent of the power of standard 65-watt incandescent bulbs and 50 percent of the power of compact fluorescent bulbs, while delivering equivalent warm white light as measured in lumens. The company's LED fixtures produce virtually no heat and can provide 50,000 hours of light, as compared to the average 2,000 hours provided by conventional 65-watt bulbs.
According to the article this makes them 35% more efficient than current LEDs on the market.
Software

Do OpenOffice Users Save In Microsoft Format? 620

Posted by kdawson from the compatibility-or-purity dept.
superglaze writes "Looking through an article on the smartphone office suite Quickoffice, I noted a claim by a company executive that OpenOffice users usually save their documents in a Microsoft format, e.g. .doc. Hence the company has no plans to support .odf. I guess I can see the rationale for this — it helps if you're sending a document to an MS-using company — but what's this community's general experience of saving in .odf vs. .doc format?"
Editorial

Submission + - The Bane of Forced Obsolescence

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Everyone hates being forced to upgrade when they don't want to. Especially when it's the hardware or software company forcing them to upgrade. This article discusses some of the reasons behind this, suggestions for changes, and calls for both hardware and software companies to start changing in ways that the customers want, not just what the investors and managers demand or dictate.
Announcements

Submission + - Wanna be great surgeon? Start playing video games

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Surgeons with video game skill appear to perform better than non-gamers, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Training curricula that include video games may help thin the technical interface between surgeons and screen-mediated applications, such as laparoscopic surgery," the authors conclude. "Video games may be a practical teaching tool to help train surgeons.""
Software

Submission + - Hollywood training swedish police in Anti-Piracy

Submitted by
Oxygen
Oxygen writes: "IDG.se reports on it's online newssite that representatives from the MPAA, FBI and the Swedish lobbyorganisation Antipiratbyrån have held seminars for swedish police officers (Swedish only) that are being trained in fighting piracy and copyright violations. From the article: "According to Bertil Ramsell, responsible for the course, the purpose of the visit was to give the invited speakers a chance to explain to the students what their organsation's purpose was. But in a report from the IIPA, the pupose was to educate students in anti-piracy." Educating is one thing, but the acronym MPAA doesn't really spell "objective" or "no hidden agenda" to me."
Biotech

Regrowing Lost Body Parts Getting Closer All the Time 210

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the go-go-gadget-hand dept.
[TheBORG] writes "There are two stories on Yahoo! News about regrowing lost body parts. One is about regrowing lost fingers & limbs and the other one is about regrowing teeth. The story about regrowing lost fingers and limbs talks about the experimental use of powdered pig bladder to regrow fingers and eventually lost limbs for soldiers and others in need from information that Pentagon-funded scientists hopefully learn from studying the salamander. The story about regrowing teeth talks about how Japanese scientists used primitive cells and injected them into a framework of collagen. Once grown to a certain point, scientists implanted the growths into mice where the teeth developed normally."

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