Submission + - New Hack Gives You ROOT on DROID Cellphones (hackaday.com)
pky666 writes: "always just a matter of time for these linux based appliances to be hacked..."
Submission + - Virgin Galactic Spaceship the Tip of The Iceberg (popularmechanics.com)
YIAAL writes: The Virgin Galactic Spaceship Two rollout got a fair amount of attention, but Rand Simberg, writing in Popular Mechanics, says it's just the beginning:
Despite all of the Virgin-focused hoopla, there is a lot more going on in Mojave these days than just Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites. And even for those two companies, there is more to space going on in Mojave than suborbital tourism. . . . XCOR Aerospace, located next door to one of Scaled's hangars, continues to develop its own suborbital tourist vehicle, the Lynx. While it won't initially get all the way to the 62-mile altitude considered to be the threshold of space, it will still allow long weightless periods for its passenger and a smaller experiment, with the opportunity to go higher and longer with follow-on versions. Meanwhile, just a couple of blocks down the road, Masten Space Systems, fresh off its recent surprise win over Texas' Armadillo Aerospace in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Landing Challenge, plans to start flying to altitudes far beyond the meager few hundred feet needed to win that prize. According to business development manager Michael Mealling, "about half of next year's flights will be in the 1500- to 10,000-foot range. Toward the end of the year we'll be breaking through the 100,000-foot [about 20 miles, or about a third of the altitude needed for official spaceflight] barrier."
Are we seeing a critical mass of innovative space companies, something like the explosion of computer companies in the mid-1970s? Let's hope it's similarly fruitful.
Submission + - Nano-Material Paves Way for Self-Washing Windows (inhabitat.com)
MikeChino writes: While working on a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, researchers at Tel Aviv University recently discovered a new nano-material that repels dust and water. It's created by placing peptides (short polymers) in a vacuum under high pressure, which creates "forests" of self-assembling nanotubes. Because the nanotubes are resistant to water and heat, researchers figure that the nano-material would be an ideal coating for windows and solar panels, essentially creating products that clean themselves. Once commercialized, the material could be applied as a sheer coating, creating self-washing windows and solar panels.
Submission + - SysAdmin: Climategate an Inside Job (climateaudit.org)
brian0918 writes: "Since this story broke, almost everyone in the media has claimed that the Climategate emails were hacked by Russians, maybe even ex-KGB types, maybe even working with oil companies in the United States. Now, a sysadmin has examined the structure and provenance of the files and concludes that "the only reasonable explanation for the archive being in this state is that the FOI Officer at the University was practising due diligence. The UEA was collecting data that couldn't be sheltered and they created FOIA2009.zip. It is most likely that the FOI Officer at the University put it on an anonymous ftp server or that it resided on a shared folder that many people had access to and some curious individual looked at it.""
Submission + - Microsoft Invents Price-Gouging Least Influential
theodp writes: In the world envisioned by Microsoft's just-published patent application for Social Marketing, monopolists will maximize revenue by charging prices inversely related to the perceived influence an individual has on others. Microsoft gives an example of a pricing model that charges different people $0, $5, $10, $20, or even $25 for the identical item based on the influence they wield — better start accepting those Facebook friend requests! A presentation describing the revenue optimization scheme earned one of the three inventors applause (MS-Research video), and the so-called 'influence and exploit' strategies were also featured at WWW 2008 (pdf). By the way, the invention jibes nicely with Bill Gates' pending patents for identifying influencers. Welcome to the brave new world of analytics, kids!
Submission + - The Lotus Omnivore engine
JohnnyBGod writes: Lotus claim to have invented a new, more efficient engine design. The two-stroke, flex-fuel engine can achieve, according to the surprisingly technical press release,"approximately 10% better [fuel consumption] than current spray-guided direct injection, spark ignition engines".
The engine has a sliding puck arrangement to control its compression ratio, and has direct injection and a wet sump, to eliminate fuel leakage to the exhaust and the need to mix oil with the fuel, two common problems with two-stroke engines. Lotus engineering have released a video explaining the engine's operation.
The engine has a sliding puck arrangement to control its compression ratio, and has direct injection and a wet sump, to eliminate fuel leakage to the exhaust and the need to mix oil with the fuel, two common problems with two-stroke engines. Lotus engineering have released a video explaining the engine's operation.
Comment And yet (Score 1) 1
I think I'm still willing to take that risk :-P
Submission + - Chasing babes not so good for the species (cosmosmagazine.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: Aggressively courting the most attractive females could be bad for the species as a whole, according to a new study on sexual selection in fruit flies.
Comment I agree (Score 4, Interesting) 267
They should have at least thrown in a couple grams of blow.
IBM Faces DOJ Antitrust Inquiry On Mainframes 190
Several sources are reporting that IBM is facing an antitrust inquiry from the US Department of Justice due to a supposed refusal to issue mainframe OS licenses to competitors. "Part of CCIA's complaint stems from the tech giant's treatment of former competitor Platform Solutions. IBM had little competition in the mainframe market when Platform Solutions, early this decade, began work on servers that could mimic the behavior of more expensive IBM mainframes, CCIA said. Platform Solutions, based on past mainframe agreements between IBM and the DOJ, requested copies of IBM's OS and technical information under a licensing agreement. IBM declined to grant Platform Solutions a license and prohibited customers from transferring IBM software licenses to Platform Solutions machines, said CCIA, which has members that are potential competitors of IBM."
Submission + - 2009 Nobel ribosome structures, patented (yalepatents.org)
tabascoj writes: The announcement of this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry is the latest reminder that fundamental components of biology are being increasingly, and aggressively, patented. A commentary, from yalepatents.org, focuses on the research and subsequent patents, held by Yale and Thomas Steitz, one of this year's laureates.
Comment Missing option: (Score 4, Insightful) 452
Diablo III with more exclamation points after it. Those gameplay videos are boner inducing.
Comment Re:Perhaps (Score 1) 844
I've actually broken one, which is why I don't use them anymore.
Comment Re:Makes sense (Score 0, Redundant) 439
I must say, good response.
Comment Makes sense (Score 4, Insightful) 439
Why not? They already sort of have government granted monopolies of certain areas of the country, there's very little competition, etc. Regulation would be the key to prevent a company from taking advantage of these situations to adversely hinder a user's right to consume what they have paid for.
