202239
submission
akkarin writes:
Following Google's complaint to Microsoft regarding Vista's 'desktop search',
Google claims that Vista's search has not changed enough
From the article:
... Google said yesterday that the remedies don't go far enough. Google chief legal officer David Drummond said in a statement, "We are pleased that as a result of Google's request that the consent decree be enforced, the Department of Justice and state attorneys general have required Microsoft to make changes to Vista."
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070621-goog le-says-vista-search-changes-not-enough.html
202237
submission
djasbestos writes:
Motor Development International of France and Tata Motors of India are teaming up to bring a new kind of (nearly) pollution-free hybrid car.
From the article: "Instead of those tiny, tiny explosions of gasoline and oxygen pushing the pistons up and down, like in a normal internal combustion engine, the all-aluminum four-cylinder air engine used compressed air for the job.
"A hybrid version, using a small gasoline engine to power an onboard compressor for a constant supply of compressed air, is claimed to be able to travel from Los Angeles to New York on just one tank of gas."
A similar vehicle developed by Energine Corporation (South Korea) is mentioned, whose design supplants an electric battery for the small gas motor in powering the air compressor. The battery is also used to power the vehicle once it has reached cruising speed.
202233
submission
madsheep writes:
Verizon's FiOS Internet service, which brings fiber to he premises (FTTP), has recently reached its 1 millionth customer. This is quite a feat for the high speed service, which many were initially calling too expensive of an undertaking to turn profitable. It looks like the decision to bring fiber into homes has really paid off for them. However, it is also paying off for you the consumer in the way of lower prices, more choices, and better bandwidth. Another notable item is that the Verizon FiOS TV service has reached over 500,000 subscribers.
202231
submission
akkarin writes:
ARS Technica have an interesting article titled
'The Ten most Hated words on the Internet".
From the article:
The Internet has much to answer for, but one of its chiefest sins
its relentless stupifidication of the English language. And no,
I did not just make up the word "stupifidication.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070621-folk sonomy-most-hated-word-on-the-internet.html
202215
submission
jcgam69 writes:
Scientists have proposed using a liquid compound to craft a giant disc-shaped mirror that would be capable of reflecting objects that are undetectable by other telescopes, according to a paper published this week in the journal Nature. With much less expense than transporting a solid mirror, the liquid would be carried in a drum and poured over a disc-shaped mesh that unfurls robotically, according the paper. Surface tension on the mesh would prevent the liquid from dripping through its small holes, according to the scientists.
The result would be an optical-infrared telescope with a 66-foot to 328-foot aperture, which could reflect faint objects in dwarf or normal galaxies.
202175
submission
Theodore Magnavius writes:
According to research carried out by the Carphone Warehouse and the London School of Economics, one in three people aged 16 to 24 in the UK, would not give up being able to own or use a cell phone in exchange for a million pounds ($2m). It seems like an extraordinarily high number, so I want to know if you would give your phone for the cash?
202167
submission
steveb3210 writes:
It seems that what was once a 5 acre glacial lake in the Andes has mysteriously disappeared. "In March we patrolled the area and everything was normal," Juan Jose Romero from Chile's National Forestry Corporation, Conaf, said.
"We went again in May and to our surprise we found that the lake had completely disappeared. All that was left were chunks of ice and an enormous fissure."
202157
submission
nodrog writes:
A preprint at the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) claims that AES may be susceptible to a new cryptanalysis technique. From the article abstract: — We describe a new simple but more powerful form of linear cryptanalysis. It appears to break AES (and undoubtably other cryptosystems too, e.g. SKIPJACK). The break is "nonconstructive," i.e. we make it plausible (e.g. prove it in certain approximate probabilistic models) that a small algorithm for quickly determining AES-256 keys from plaintext-ciphertext pairs exists — but without constructing the algorithm.
Even if this break breaks due to the underlying models inadequately approximating the real world, we explain how AES still could contain "trapdoors" which would make cryptanalysis unexpectedly easy for anybody who knew the trapdoor. If AES's designers had inserted such a trapdoor, it could be very easy for them to convince us of that. But if none exist, then it is probably infeasibly difficult for them to convince us of that.
202149
submission
Wordsmith writes:
A UK firm has compiled a list of the worst Internet words that have wormed their way into the English language. What's number one? 'UK pollsters YouGov have just completed a survey on the web's most-hated words, the abominations that threaten to turn English into a long series of "plzkthxbye" utterances. At the top of the list (and rightly so) is the word "folksonomy."' "Blog" and "Blogosphere" are also on the list, and Ars Technica adds a few of its own ("Crowdsourcing. Typing tags on other people's photos? I want in. Wait. No I don't.").
What are Slashdot readers' biggest pet peeves when it comes to vocabulary?
202145
submission
DesertBlade writes:
France Government officials are no longer allowed to use BlackBerries fearing that the US can snoop government secrets. Are these risks real or just unfounded. What will they ban next, cell phones, computers or talking. Maybe they like most of slashdot they are waiting for the new iPhone and just needed an excuse to find a way to pay for them.
