Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Perl

perl6 and Parrot 0.5.2 Released 229

Posted by Zonk from the for-camels-with-time-on-their-hands dept.
mAriuZ writes "Bob Rogers just released Parrot 0.5.2. This monthly release includes a couple of interesting new features. First, we've bundled Patrick Michaud's Rakudo (thats the implementation of Perl 6 on Parrot) such that you can type make perl6 on Unixy platforms and make perl6.exe on Windows and get a working standalone Perl 6 binary. This is experimental and we hope to iron out some installation and deployment issues by next months release, but it was important to demonstrate our progress. The second new feature is a toolkit for starting your own compiler. Max Mohun built a prototype several months ago, and we've added a stripped-down version for now that builds the skeleton of a compiler for you using the Parrot Compiler Tools. I mentioned the LOLCODE compiler in What the Perl 6 and Parrot Hackers Did on Their Christmas Vacation; this is how Simon and Company were able to get LOLCODE up and running so quickly."
Databases

Sun Buys MySQL 588

Posted by CmdrTaco from the didn't-see-that-coming dept.
Krow alerted me that MySQL has been bought by Sun. Right now there is only a brief announcement but it discusses what the acquisition will mean for the core developers, community etc.
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Nearly Entire id Back Catalog Now on Steam

Submitted by
Pluvius
Pluvius writes: "The constantly growing list of games available on Valve's online-gaming network Steam has become even more impressive with a contribution from id software. With the exception of the relatively new Quake IV and a few early games, every PC game released by id is now available, including the first five Commander Keen episodes, the Wolfenstein games, the Doom series, most of the Quake series, Heretic and HeXen, and all of the addons and expansions thereof. Better yet, all of these games can be bought together at the low price of $70, minus a 10% discount if you buy before August 10. Other packages are also available."
Power

Submission + - Untapped Energy Below Us (yahoo.com) 1

Submitted by
EskimoJoe
EskimoJoe writes: "BASEL, Switzerland — When tremors started cracking walls and bathroom tiles in this Swiss city on the Rhine, the engineers knew they had a problem. "The glass vases on the shelf rattled, and there was a loud bang," Catherine Wueest, a teashop owner, recalls. "I thought a truck had crashed into the building." But the 3.4 magnitude tremor on the evening of Dec. 8 was no ordinary act of nature: It had been accidentally triggered by engineers drilling deep into the Earth's crust to tap its inner heat and thus break new ground — literally — in the world's search for new sources of energy. On paper, the Basel project looks fairly straightforward: Drill down, shoot cold water into the shaft and bring it up again superheated and capable of generating enough power through a steam turbine to meet the electricity needs of 10,000 households, and heat 2,700 homes. Scientists say this geothermal energy, clean, quiet and virtually inexhaustible, could fill the world's annual needs 250,000 times over with nearly zero impact on the climate or the environment. A study released this year by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said if 40 percent of the heat under the United States could be tapped, it would meet demand 56,000 times over. It said an investment of $800 million to $1 billion could produce more than 100 gigawatts of electricity by 2050, equaling the combined output of all 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S."
Security

Submission + - Your media player could be a hacker's playground (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by
Tech.Luver
Tech.Luver writes: "Theglobeandmail reports, " Media players in personal computers have serious vulnerabilities that could allow online criminals to attach malicious code and infect computers without the user's knowledge, a researcher said Thursday. Mr. Thiel, who exposed the flaws on relatively obscure open-source media players during a presentation at the Black Hat hacker conference, said he has found several flaws in popular commercial players. But he declined to provide their brand names because, he says, he is still disclosing the exploits to the companies so they can issue fixes. ""
GUI

Submission + - Automatix Activly Dangerous to Ubuntu

Submitted by exeme
exeme writes: Ubuntu developer Matthew Garrett has recently analysed famed Ubuntu illegal software installer Automatix and found it to be actively dangerous to Ubuntu desktop systems. In a detailed report which only took Garrett a couple of hours he found many serious, show-stopper bugs and concluded that Ubuntu could not officially support Automatix in its current state. Garrett also goes on to say that simple Debian packages could provide all of the functionality of Automatix without any of the problems it exhibits.
Data Storage

Submission + - WD's New Caviar SE16 750G Hard Drive, Huge, Fast (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Western Digital took a bit longer than expected to finally release a desktop drive larger than 500 Gig, but their first release, the Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS looks to be an impressive rendition of new advancements in hard disk perpendicular recording technology. This new 750G WD drive gave Seagate's 7200.10 equivalent a run for its money and beat it in every performance test shown at HotHardware. Also, with storage prices so low right now, the 750G monster weighs in at a svelte $0.33/GB or better, with current street prices falling below the $250 range.""
Power

Submission + - Hydrogen turbines generate clean electricity

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) has developed near-zero-emission gas turbines using pure hydrogen as a fuel. But because this LSI (low-swirl injector) technology also can use other fuels, it has the potential to help eliminate millions of tons of carbon dioxide and thousands of tons of nitrous oxides (NOx) from power plants each year. In fact, burners with the LSI emit 2 parts per million of NOx, more than five times less than conventional burners. The multi-patented technology is currently available for licensing. I sure hope that a utility company will be interested. But read more for many additional references and photographs comparing a high-swirl injector (HIS) and a low-swirl injector (LSI)."
Announcements

Submission + - World of Warcraft Expansion info leaked (mmo-champion.com)

Submitted by reddcell
reddcell writes: *The dark, necromatic Death Knight — the first new character class added to World of Warcraft since its launch.

*Northrend, the harsh, icy continent where the Lich King holds rule, complete with new zones, quests, items and monsters.

*New level cap of 80 providing access to mighty new powers and talents

*New battlegrounds featuring siege engine warfare and destructable buildings

*Expanding character customisation options including new hairstyles & dances, the ability to change the hairstyles of existing characters, and new skin color variants.
Data Storage

Submission + - UCF Researcher develops DVD which holds 1 Terabyte

Submitted by Miti
Miti writes: University of Central Florida Chemistry Professor Kevin D. Belfield and his team have developed a new technology that will allow users to record and store massive amounts of data around 1 Terabyte on a single DVD like disc reports Newlaunches. Belfield's Two-Photon 3-D Optical Data Storage system involves shooting two different wavelengths of light onto the recording surface. The use of two lasers creates a very specific image that is sharper than what current techniques can render. Depending on the color (wavelength) of the light, information is written onto a disk. The information is highly compacted, so the disk isn't much thicker. It's like a typical DVD. The challenge scientists faced for years was that light is also used to read the information. The light couldn't distinguish between reading and writing, so it would destroy the recorded information. Belfield's team developed a way to use light tuned to specific colors or wavelengths to allow information that a user wants to keep to stay intact.
Portables

Submission + - The next notebook battery? Lithium polymer

Submitted by Lewis Clarke
Lewis Clarke writes: Looks like after the laptop battery fire fiasco, Sony would be changing its course to use an old technology for its future battery manufacturing. ZDNet reported on Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow meeting with reporters, where he said that Notebook makers will "likely" soon choose to incorporate lithium polymer batteries (A battery technology that emerged nine years ago) over the current commonly used type, lithium ion batteries. Lithium polymer batteries use lithium as an active ingredient. Lithium is a volatile material, but the lithium in these batteries isn't packed into cells as it is in lithium ion batteries. Instead, it is contained in a polymer gel. These gel batteries can't provide the same sort of energy density as lithium ion batteries but its safe from internal short circuit that set off a chain reaction and start a fire.
Wireless (Apple)

Submission + - How does Apple hash passwords to WEP keys?

Submitted by simm1701
simm1701 writes: Does anyone know the details of Apple's WEP password->key hashing algorithm?

My neighbour has gone on holiday but after talking to him via email and mentioning that my ADSL is dead he kindly offered me access to his wireless network which he left running.

Unfortunately his setup is apple and he only knows the password, not the hex key that Apple hashes this to. Sure Apple has a solution for this which is to log into the base station (which you have to be connected to, ie either by wire or be on a mac, or already know the key which you are trying to find out) and the base station will display the network equivalent key on request.

I always thought that showing a key/password on screen was a bad idea — so does anyone know of an application into which you can enter the password and it will hash it to the key in the same way that apple does? Or does anyone know of the algorithm used so I can code it myself?

Please no discussion on the benefits of moving to WPA — I agree with them all completely, unfortunatly some of the older apple hardware (which my neighbour has) will only work with WEP.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Locating a server in your home

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: It's going to be 41 degrees C here tomorrow. At the moment my server (with 5 hard disks) is located temporarily in a room on it's own, mostly because no one wants to be in the same room as all those fans and disk motors. This is not a wise allocation of limited house space :-} (Yes — you guessed it — I am single) Q: Where do folks locate their servers in suburban homes? Q: Whats your best tricks and tips for making that server more house friendly? I am thinking about security, heat, noise, space, access...I guess in cooler climates any cupboard will do....
Google

Submission + - Google Blinks - Responds to AdWords Accusations

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Based on the thoroughness of the statement and the use of the word "precedent" in the second sentence, it appears that the Google PR team huddled with the legal team and issued a statement on the Inside AdWords Blog.
"...it seems that the underlying issue here is Google's lack of transparency which is a recurring theme in how it runs its business."

Slashdot Top Deals

THEGODDESSOFTHENETHASTWISTINGFINGERSANDHERVOICEISLIKEAJAVELININTHENIGHTDUDE

Close