Nah. Apart from the last two, all these items are addressed by the GPS receivers. Companies with dire needs for accurate time can use two, they never go down when the network is down, they can work in a mobile environment, multiple corporate sites can be assured of having synced time regardless of network delays.... I'm all for the development of new algorithms and code, but this is about as interesting as an update to the Windows clock program.

So, someone's invented ntp_time? That's only been around collecting time from time servers, many of which are atomic clock connected, since about 1985.

I'm also pretty sure there are desktop clocks based on microcontrollers that implement ntp, so they display an accurate time without a computer.

Most data centers that really care about time nowadays install a commonly available GPS unit on site, which syncs clock time with all the atomic clocks in the flying GPS constellation.

Seriously, could the editor that greenlighted this have done a google search or something? It's getting embarrassing to read slashdot these days.

I remember sitting in our college computer lab watching one of my fellow students (who was a bit more advanced than me) start up the first version of Linux that would boot off of floppies... boot and root disk, no installer, no hard disk device driver either. It had a serial terminal emulation and some basic network capabilities, so we connected a telnet session from it to a 300 bps decwriter terminal nearby and chatted back and forth for a bit. For those not familiar with the Decwriter, it was a slowish bidirectional dot matrix printer connected to a tty keyboard... one of those terminals for which the early line based editors were state of the art, because they could print a line at a time.

This article is pretty much pointless... I suppose all it does is underscore how skills that used to be mainstream (every computer person knew how to connect a terminal, or they didn't connect) are now "special"... I wonder if the guy who did this is one of the kids whose parents always told him he was a winner and gave him a trophy even if he lost?

If you want to really impress me, find a way to create/modify a netbook so it has a real, usable keyboard that others can build. Improve the product, don't just connect old hard to find hardware to it for the sake of nostalgia.

At $99, I can buy one with low expectations and play with it... much better than the ZL-5000 or the other 20-ish handhelds I've had over the years, but never used regularly. I'm just a sucker for gadgets like this. I think I'll use it to control the rotary table on my mill until I get CNC set up... Erik

I've faced the same problems with developing for any Apple product since the original Macintosh computers were released.

Apple's policy is that they control their products. Originally that meant you couldn't get hardware level programming information for your Mac because they didn't want anyone to write an application (or heaven forbid another OS) for the platform. They wanted to be able to change their underlying hardware (and the implementation of the API) at will without breaking legacy code. Sounds good on the face of it, but that also meant that if the API had a bug, or didn't do what you needed, or was otherwise unacceptable, you were screwed. You usually found this out after you were knee deep in your project and it was too late to change platforms.

You couldn't find out details on hardware you owned from the people who made it... outrageous. At that time I made the decision that even though the Apple platforms were just about the best functioning user interface around (and their graphics were state of the art compared to the PC platform), their corporate policies made it impossible for me to justify buying their products. It hurt to not have the shiny.

Apple's expanded their control to new levels with the App store, but it's the same reasoning. You will use their products in their way or else.

A example conversation about objections to Apple's policies to illustrate the "problem":

Apple: "Since it's our store we can choose who will sell items there or not be allowed. The fact that there's no other store competing with us isn't our fault, even though we didn't provide any way for anyone else to sell software for our devices. We're doing things the right way and we'll enforce that as we feel like it. We're also going to charge you through the nose for the privilege. Now bend over and take it, or else be uncool."

Mac Hacker 1: "Cool product, but I can't live with that." He scratches his head, walks away, and goes off to write open source Arduino code)

Mac Hacker 2: "This product is too cool to live with those rules" Reverse-engineers the iPhone to allow third party software to be loaded and publishes the info. Is sued by Apple, loses entire bank account plus cost of iPhone.

Third Party retail software developer: "But, but, but..... the iPad is sooooo cooooooool... and we could make soooooo much money writing software for it, and I have a reeeally cool idea, and I don't wanna follow your rules, and it hurts, and my iPhone is too cooool to stop using it... can't you guys at Apple just approve our application for the store? Pretty please? "

Then he runs off and posts to a blog to complain that Apple isn't being fair, because after all they made their products too cool for us to not use them, and we can't possibly be responsible enough to NOT BUY PRODUCTS FROM THEM.

I love the iPhone interface... it's fun and good looking. Too bad it's an Apple product, or I'd buy a couple.

Erik

I expected reading this article to call this hype... there are many new discoveries reported here on Slashdot, especially with regard to optical technologies like solar cells and LCD displays, that are interesting and potentially useful... if they were at all practical or near market ready.

This looked like another one, except upon reading what there is of the article and web page it just looks like the company building these has no PR or web staff, and seems completely focused on technology. Their web page looks like it was made by an intern, and they don't seem to have supplied much in the way of exciting facts or sound bites to the reporter, leaving them to provide some basic facts and fill in some boilerplate hyperbole: "Could Provide Low-Cost Solar for Developing Nations".

From the looks of the technology, the basic principles were discovered prior to 2007 and a patent filed about then. Likely the patent was just granted. The company that is researching this stuff formed then, got a round of funding, and started delivering prototypes and test types.

As of now they seem to be creating and testing whole assemblies, IE solar panels you can put outside and use for electricity.

This is interesting because it means this isn't a lab curiosity.. they haven't demonstrated an effect in the lab, they've actually managed to develop it into a form that is nearing mass production capability.

So why is this interesting for those of us not in the third world? Well, that bit about "developing nations" is an attempt to get people to relate to what the tech is good for.... possibly because wide implementation of solar power needs more than just good cells to work, it requires a massive change in infrastructure to distribute power or a major change on a per home basis to store and use the power in your own house. That's not as much of a problem in third world countries which have no reliable power anyway, and where people would be happy to have solar during the day.

Third world comments aside, if the efficiency curve they're measuring is correct, these cells are a disruptive technology for the solar cell business. They're cheap to produce, relatively environmentally friendly, flexible, light... basically an excellent solar cell technology that everyone can use everywhere it's sunny.

If these work out and get into mass production (the technology company making them is partnered with a couple manufacturing firms already) then you'll see a lot of them around everywhere, because they'll remove a couple major barriers to wider solar cell use... cost and the fragility of existing cells.

Of course, odds are this is another cool announcement that won't go anywhere, but at least there are indications of some substance here and there...

Erik

Those of you who think that a laser annihilating a fuel pellet to make a "mini-star" is news should probably do a little reading about the National Ignition Facility.

They've been doing this for literally years... they produce a lot of good, difficult to gather scientific data because they can achieve higher energy levels than most fusion research projects.

This article disguises what would be a great article for an internal newsletter at the NIF by changing terms and neglecting the fact that this is a continuation of older, ongoing research, in an attempt to publicize the research and possibly publicize the "problems" with the government run facility. The hint of scandal and potential for "changing everything" are meant to attract attention to this old news article.

Included are the usual bright sunny statements about solving the energy issues of the world, plus the usual over the top implications about unknown scientific territory, to make people uneasy, which also encourages interest.

There's no chance of a catastrophe happening from this... if it was going to happen, it would have done so in the 1980s or earlier.

This article should have been titled "National Ignition Facility gets new laser to continue years long research project"... but then it's not worth posting here, right?

Erik

It's interesting how many people here are discussing whether this is a good law(ordinance, ruling) or not based on whether the food in question is healthy or not, or whether such a choice should be left to parents.

No one seems to notice that the really scary thing happening here is that the government is using its power to control free choice under cover of doing something "for the good of all" based on one small group of people's views on things they have no expertise in.. nutrition, child behavior, or even parenting skills.

Few people would disagree with the general statement that "McDonalds' food is unhealthy", vague as it is. A better statement would be that "McDonalds food contains large amounts of undesirable food substances, and consumption should be limited to benefit health" or maybe even "Don't feed your kids Big Macs every day, they'll get too much fat and cholesterol".

The problem here is that the government is essentially accepting as fact that A) McDonalds food should not be eaten by children B) That inclusion of toys in happy meals encourages children to eat there, even though their parents make the ultimate decision, and C) That it's the government's responsibility to protect those children from their parents' choices.

The government here is supporting one corporation (McDonalds) less than another (all other restaurants without toys). If this doesn't tick you off as much as Halliburton getting no-bid contracts, it should.

It doesn't matter if the idea behind the ruling was a good or bad one... actually, it wouldn't matter if McDonalds was serving carcinogenic hamburgers. The government, any government at any level, needs to abandon the idea that it "knows better" and keep its hands off its citizens... the people it's supposed to be serving, not herding. If the experts within the government (FDA) decide that food is harmful, they have the authority to stop its sale, explicitly granted them by the people of this country. If a state, county, or town representative disagrees, tough luck. It's none of their business, and they have no more right to try to control those things than any other citizen.

Erik

I'm sure it's a nice conversation starter for the military types around here, but note that even this nearly information free news article is vague on the status of this "in the concept stage" weapon system. Sure, they're marketing it, but that's how corporations raise money and make themselves look worth investing in, or attract attention to their other products, or just try to stave off the bank closing them down.

Essentially this article looks like some marketer dreamed up a cool-sounding product, convinced management to make a sales video, and used it to generate some interest in his/her company. Then a clueless reporter grabbed it, looked up potential effects of "cruise missiles", combined it with an out of context quote from someone at Jane's for expert effect, and spewed it out onto the net with a healthy dose of fear mongering about how it could be sold to terrorists.

Let's review...There's no evidence that such a weapon exists other than marketing drivel. There's no evidence that the company claiming to produce it has the capability to do so. If they do produce it, odds are good it won't meet the "looks good on paper but hard to actually do" marketing goals and be a viable threat to anyone. Once it exists, the Russians are not likely to allow it to be sold any more than most other non US countries with Naval forces.

So, this article should only generate interest if you A) Accept the premise that a relatively unknown company in Russia can suddenly produce an advanced weapon system like this B) Accept that once produced, the weapon will somehow be more of a threat than existing weapon systems, many of which are probably more advanced and C) Are ignorant enough to think that because the Russian government is not made of Americans that they'll sell weapons which could potentially threaten them to terrorist groups just so they can make the small amount of cash that would provide (a few million dollars... most terrorists aren't rich, although OBL is) and in exchange for which they earn the enmity and political consequences of supplying terrorists.

It's specifically targeted at sloppy thinking westerners who have a stereotypical view of other world countries. How plausible would the article be if it talked about a smaller American company in eg. California producing the same product? You'd automatically think that terrorists wouldn't get it because the US Military would buy it, or the US Government would prevent export of it, or you'd choose not to believe the hype about it.. after all, with billions of dollars more in funding larger companies haven't produced a missile system superior to existing Exocet and Harpoon series weapons. Yet if the mythical company is placed in Russia, suddenly people swallow this completely... because everyone knows Russians are genius weapon designers who are all desperately poor and willing to sell their products to everyone regardless of who they threaten, with the support and assistance of the corrupt Russian government, right?

This is NOT NEWS. It's barely even marketing material.

But enjoy the testosterone pumped discussion of weapons and ships.

Please... you're placing a dent in my ethnocentric view of the world! :)

I address the US because A) That's where Google is and B) The question of whether or not Google is or is not currently violating any laws in countries around the world has less import than whether or not a new way of looking at privacy as a concept is needed.

Obviously if what Google's doing is illegal where they're doing it, they should stop or face the consequences.

But I'm not aware of any country with a comprehensive set of privacy laws addressing aggregated, inferred, or derived data use to avoid privacy violations. Are you?

Google is not doing any individual act that's illegal, and isn't doing anything in aggregate that's illegal. It makes people nervous that they have the ability to cross reference information on a massive scale... to mine the data they have collected for information that was not intended to be revealed by the average person on the street.

It should make people nervous, of course. What's "off" is the perception that Google is the only entity doing this and that they should stop because it's obviously somehow illegal. It's not illegal for them or anyone else to perform, and indeed the government and many other corporate entities are doing this sort of thing now with any data they can collect.....information on TV watching habits, information collected from online shopping on Amazon, data mined from Facebook relationships, information on who updated Wikipedia and when. As a country (and species) we haven't really had both the massive amount of information available to us that we have now along with the ability to process it and infer further data. There have been organizations and individuals that have been able to sift through libraries and census data and pick out small amounts of information, but the fact that they were rare and the resources involved formed a natural barrier to inferred information being generated and acted upon. That's no longer the case - a clever teenager in his first job can do the work now.

I submit for your consideration that a new kind of law is needed, one that limits uses of aggregated data and recognizes that privacy considerations apply both for the actual data collected and the data that can be inferred from it. There's a fine path to be walked here...after all, doesn't the census permit thousands of useful things to be done with population data? We can't make that illegal entirely. Likewise we can't continue to do nothing... despite the fact that information "wants" to be free, it's only a matter of time before corporations make use of the data for everyday business, and once their use is entrenched, it'll be nearly impossible to stop. Worse, once the data is collected and generated, it's available to anyone who can rent, steal, co-opt, or copy it. The worst risk of misuse is of course from the government itself.

It's not enough to wait for the court system to re-interpret the right to privacy so it includes inferred and collected data.. the courts shouldn't be making laws regardless.

But do we have any hope that our government A) Understands the problem B) Believes it needs to be addressed and C) Is willing to limit its own power through laws?

I don't.

As an aside, I'm sure the Slashcode website base is quite impressive with regards to its moderation, comment system, karma and performance. So why are the authors stuck in the dark ages as far as text editors go? I feel like I'm typing on a buggy 80s dial-up bbs here...

Those of you excited about this should take a closer look. This is a breakthrough for data over copper, but fiber is faster, and this tech is only useful for locations that are densely populated with short wire distances... IE the same locations where fiber could be installed economically. There have been dozens of "breakthroughs" like this over the years, and none of them has substantially improved high speed access in the US. Mostly they're incremental upgrades for DSL users, a lot of whom don't see the full speed promised anyway.

It's always been possible to transfer large amounts of data over relatively short distances. If you shorten the distance to bus length you can transfer dozens of gigabytes per second. 400 meters is almost no distance as far as telco wiring is concerned.

The problem that has existed since the internet began (and since I was an ISP tech in the late 90s) is that the central office to subscriber connection is slow, operates over short distances, and is handicapped by the desire (on the phone companies' part) to use existing infrastructure.

The public telephone network was built at taxpayer cost and "inherited" by the various post-bell system phone companies. They didn't pay for it in the first place and they're not going to pay to replace it if they can help it. They have some of the most legally protected profit margins anywhere... imagine if you were handed an infrastructure with thousands of subscribers, guaranteed no competition, and otherwise allowed to make as much money as you can in exchange for some occasional government regulation... it's every businessman's dream (provided they're not completely ethical). Having the gravy train rolling in doesn't give them any incentive to build out the network, especially to the less populated areas. They get the same money anyway provided they lie well enough to the government to keep additional regulation and competition away. The only way for them to make less money is to spend it on major improvement projects like replacing the old copper pairs to each house with fiber, especially if you do it in areas where people can't or won't pay a premium price for the service, IE the areas that don't have high speed internet now.

The same telco companies have even requested money from the federal government in tax breaks and outright subsidies over the years to "bring internet into rural communities". I have to laugh when I hear that. Many rural communities in the US still have dial-up only. The telcos go on their merry way and pocket the money.. after all, that's what they're good at.

Greatly expanded speeds over copper for a relatively short distance are pointless because it doesn't help with the access problem. All this improved technology means is that for a small subset of DSL users in densely populated metro areas where the telco is willing to upgrade equipment a speed increase to the telco will be seen. Who knows if the bandwidth exists at the central office to make it worth it? The telcos aren't going to spend money to link multiple intermediate sites together with the high speed tech to extend service out to sparsely populated areas. Sure, it would work technically, but it costs money for little return. Despite the fact that they're effectively subsidized by the taxpayers, they're under no obligation to help the taxpayers.

What's really needed to kick off broadband development is someone other than the phone companies taking on network service delivery to the home, without using the public telephone network and without handing money to the telcos. Like Google is trying to do... I guess if you get enough money on your side in this country, you find the power to do things. Too bad the government can't do things like that itself. Change, pfft. It's too late.

Now, a communications break through that lets 10 mbit bidirectional data be delivered over, say, a 10 wire mile distance (50,000 feet).. that would be a game changer. What's needed is a moderate speed tech that costs the phone companies very little to implement but works over long distances.... something cheap enough for the telcos to preserve their precious profits but still install it and provide service farther out.

Erik

Or is there more to this game than the video shows? I always thought Time was the 4th dimension...

There was an old cartoon from back in the 80s when the first really painful desktop security measures were put in place... back when people still ran unpatched OSs and downloading updates (via dial-up modem) wasn't common.

I think it was "The Fifth Wave" series. Wish I could find it to post a link.

Basically, it was a manager turning to an employee looking stubborn at his computer terminal and saying "Now c'mon, Bob, you know nose scanning is our best defense against unauthorized computer use!" The nose scanners were cups on thick cords hanging from the ceiling like airline oxygen masks.

Biometrics is a cute marketing trick, but it's no substitute for good security process. That's why I like signing in to my laptop using the "fingerprint" of a small area on the underside of my scrotum. Any legitimate reason to doff one's pants at work is good. "I'm just logging in." or "Whoops, there goes my screensaver. Zzzzzzzip...."

Erik

Yes, that was the command. Thanks for bringing back those nightmares.

(I'll skip talking about different ROM addresses for diff. controllers since someone already did. I had machines with multiple controllers in them, and god help you if you picked the wrong address).