Comment Canning (Score 1) 87
Canning likes this.
Comment Re:Related Conficker Incident ... (Score 1) 508
No way.
Rick Astley would never give you up or let you down.
Submission + - Passwords in small companies
daeg writes: As any person in a small company can tell you, we have too many passwords and too many people know them because the defined job roles are very lax. The programmers know our shipping password because they've had to ship things before and the administrative assistants know our printer passwords, for instance. Are there any easy ways to manage these types of passwords securely? If an employee leaves, we have to change all of the passwords (particularly for the places that do not allow multiple delegate user accounts) and simultaneously tell everyone the new password, which is tedious and error prone, at best. What are some methods that have worked in your small companies?
Submission + - MYT Combustion Engine - 150 mpg !!! (greencarcongress.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A California inventor is developing a new compact and highly efficient engine — the Massive Yet Tiny (MYT) engine — that promises high power output with a very high power to weight ratio (20:1). The inventor, Raphial Morgado, recently won first prize in the 2005 Emhart-NASA Tech Briefs Design Contest for his work on the engine.
The engine moves pistons on different rotors relative to each other to form combustion chambers of variable volume in a toroidal cylinder. The pistons move in stepwise fashion, with the pistons on one rotor travelling a predetermined distance while the pistons on the other rotor remain substantially stationary.
Fuel is drawn into a chamber as one of the pistons defining the chamber moves away from the other, and then compressed as the second piston moves toward the first.
Myt2
The cycles of the MYT engine. Click to enlarge.
Combustion of the fuel drives the first piston away from the second, and the spent gases are then expelled from the chamber by the second piston moving again toward the first. An output shaft is connected to the rotors in such manner that the shaft rotates continuously while the rotors and pistons move in their stepwise fashion.
The engine fires 16 times on one revolution of the crankshaft, 32 times on two. By comparison, a standard V8 fires four times per crankshaft revolution — one-quarter the number of the MYT. Angel Labs, the company developing the engine, calculates the equivalent displacement of the MYT as 848 cubic inches (13.9 liters), with a 3-inch bore and a 3.75-inch stroke. The company further calculates that the 14" x 14", 150-pound prototype could produce power in excess of 3,000 hp.
[The 3,000 hp rating] is conservatively estimated from 850 CID. A conventional engine can produce 4 hp per CID (when turbo charged). Four times 850 [the equivalent displacement] is more than 3,000. Our data of air motoring (800 lb.ft. of torque from 150 psi of compressed air) extrapolates to more than 4,000 lb.ft. of torque when fuel is ignited, exceeding our conservative estimate.
— Jin K. Kim, Managing Member, Angel Labs
The design is also modular. Additional MYT units can be connected by removing the rear cover of the engine and connecting another ME chamber assembly. With a dual-assembly configuration, the engine becomes a "64-cylinder" engine with 1,695 cubic inches displacement (27.8 liters), raising the power-to-weight ratio up to a projected 40:1.
The engine uses only about 20% of the number of parts normally found in a reciprocating internal combustion engine, and only 12 of the MYT parts are moving parts, reducing friction and parasitic losses.
Unlike a reciprocating combustion engine, the MYT engine permits a piston dwell at the equivalent of Top Dead Center (TDC) — the starting point for combustion. The current prototype is set for a piston dwell of approximately 12 degrees of the crankshaft rotation. By adding in that delay under combustion before permitting the power stroke, the MYT burns a greater percentage of the fuel and air mixture in the combustion chamber, resulting in a more complete combustion.
All we know is that 12-degrees dwell at the TDC, which no other engine can do, will burn all the fuels completely. Therefore, we expect very clean emissions.
— Jin K. Kim
Other features of the engine include:
*
The ability to support a compression ratio as high as 70:1.
*
No valves. The MYT uses open ports with no restriction. Airflow action is one way.
*
The entire engine acts as a heat sink and a radiator. It is both air and oil cooled.
*
There is no thrust loading on piston skirts.
*
Pistons do not touch the cylinder walls, only the rings do.
*
Pistons travel only the same direction. No reciprocation, only stop and go.
*
There are no cylinder heads, no cam shaft, no valves (the ME is equivalent to the bottom end of a reciprocating engine).
*
Intake compression and power stroke and exhaust stroke events are happening all at the same time, so there are no load strokes.
The MYT engine is not the first implementation of rotating pistons in a toroidal cylinder — the 1968 Tschudi engine is very similar in concept. (A newer derivative is by Hoose, 2005.) The key to the MYT engine is its timing mechanism.
The stop and go actions can be generated in many different ways, but you can not have active locking mechanism, because it will break under repeated stress. It took Raphial, who usually can invent in a couple of hours per invention, more than two years to come up with this invention (he threw away about 10 different ways of implementation.)
— Jin Kim, in the Angel Labs forum
Angel Labs is targeting a number of application: autombiles and trucks, pumps and compressors, aviation (helicopter, fixed wing and UAV), and military. Their goal is to license the technology non-exclusively to everyone. According to Jin Kim, Angel Labs is currently in discussions with Lockheed Margin, Boeing, Ford and several smaller potential licensees.
(A hat-tip to Bob C!)
The engine moves pistons on different rotors relative to each other to form combustion chambers of variable volume in a toroidal cylinder. The pistons move in stepwise fashion, with the pistons on one rotor travelling a predetermined distance while the pistons on the other rotor remain substantially stationary.
Fuel is drawn into a chamber as one of the pistons defining the chamber moves away from the other, and then compressed as the second piston moves toward the first.
Myt2
The cycles of the MYT engine. Click to enlarge.
Combustion of the fuel drives the first piston away from the second, and the spent gases are then expelled from the chamber by the second piston moving again toward the first. An output shaft is connected to the rotors in such manner that the shaft rotates continuously while the rotors and pistons move in their stepwise fashion.
The engine fires 16 times on one revolution of the crankshaft, 32 times on two. By comparison, a standard V8 fires four times per crankshaft revolution — one-quarter the number of the MYT. Angel Labs, the company developing the engine, calculates the equivalent displacement of the MYT as 848 cubic inches (13.9 liters), with a 3-inch bore and a 3.75-inch stroke. The company further calculates that the 14" x 14", 150-pound prototype could produce power in excess of 3,000 hp.
[The 3,000 hp rating] is conservatively estimated from 850 CID. A conventional engine can produce 4 hp per CID (when turbo charged). Four times 850 [the equivalent displacement] is more than 3,000. Our data of air motoring (800 lb.ft. of torque from 150 psi of compressed air) extrapolates to more than 4,000 lb.ft. of torque when fuel is ignited, exceeding our conservative estimate.
— Jin K. Kim, Managing Member, Angel Labs
The design is also modular. Additional MYT units can be connected by removing the rear cover of the engine and connecting another ME chamber assembly. With a dual-assembly configuration, the engine becomes a "64-cylinder" engine with 1,695 cubic inches displacement (27.8 liters), raising the power-to-weight ratio up to a projected 40:1.
The engine uses only about 20% of the number of parts normally found in a reciprocating internal combustion engine, and only 12 of the MYT parts are moving parts, reducing friction and parasitic losses.
Unlike a reciprocating combustion engine, the MYT engine permits a piston dwell at the equivalent of Top Dead Center (TDC) — the starting point for combustion. The current prototype is set for a piston dwell of approximately 12 degrees of the crankshaft rotation. By adding in that delay under combustion before permitting the power stroke, the MYT burns a greater percentage of the fuel and air mixture in the combustion chamber, resulting in a more complete combustion.
All we know is that 12-degrees dwell at the TDC, which no other engine can do, will burn all the fuels completely. Therefore, we expect very clean emissions.
— Jin K. Kim
Other features of the engine include:
*
The ability to support a compression ratio as high as 70:1.
*
No valves. The MYT uses open ports with no restriction. Airflow action is one way.
*
The entire engine acts as a heat sink and a radiator. It is both air and oil cooled.
*
There is no thrust loading on piston skirts.
*
Pistons do not touch the cylinder walls, only the rings do.
*
Pistons travel only the same direction. No reciprocation, only stop and go.
*
There are no cylinder heads, no cam shaft, no valves (the ME is equivalent to the bottom end of a reciprocating engine).
*
Intake compression and power stroke and exhaust stroke events are happening all at the same time, so there are no load strokes.
The MYT engine is not the first implementation of rotating pistons in a toroidal cylinder — the 1968 Tschudi engine is very similar in concept. (A newer derivative is by Hoose, 2005.) The key to the MYT engine is its timing mechanism.
The stop and go actions can be generated in many different ways, but you can not have active locking mechanism, because it will break under repeated stress. It took Raphial, who usually can invent in a couple of hours per invention, more than two years to come up with this invention (he threw away about 10 different ways of implementation.)
— Jin Kim, in the Angel Labs forum
Angel Labs is targeting a number of application: autombiles and trucks, pumps and compressors, aviation (helicopter, fixed wing and UAV), and military. Their goal is to license the technology non-exclusively to everyone. According to Jin Kim, Angel Labs is currently in discussions with Lockheed Margin, Boeing, Ford and several smaller potential licensees.
(A hat-tip to Bob C!)
Submission + - Apple iPhone to be dialling for Trojans?
Gary writes: "Many people have said that the lack of attacks upon Apple's operating systems and devices can be attributed to a lower market share than Microsoft Windows-based PCs. Trojans, worms, and viruses for mobile phones are nothing new, infact we have come across several instances of outbreaks affecting Symbian Smartphones as well as a few running on Windows Mobile Platform. The two platforms will converge when the iPhone is released in the US on June 29th. The release will potentially make writing malicious code for both an Apple product and a mobile device irresistible to some attackers. The Safari browser and HTML email capabilities of the device could present an ideal attack vector."
Submission + - Wubi: new Ubuntu secret weapon?
An anonymous reader writes: There is a new Ubuntu installer out there that might bring about a small revolution in the Linux world. Think about an installer that allows you to install and uninstall Linux as any other application. An installer that does not require you to burn an ISO, that does not change your partitions, that does not change your bootloader, and still gives you a normal dual-boot setup, with full hardware access. Impossible? Enter Wubi. Wubi sits between a demo and a full installation, bringing you the best of both words. It works like a real installation but it is easy and safe to install and remove like a demo. Wubi was born as an independent (GPL) project, but it will become an official Ubuntu installer in Gutsy. Caveat: it is still in beta.
Submission + - Google threatens to end Gmail service in Germany
An anonymous reader writes: According to the English edition of the "Der Spiegel" weekly, Google has threatened that it would rather shut down its Gmail service in Germany than comply with a controversial German surveillance law that would require telecommunications companies to store logs of their users's phone and internet activities for six months, including Internet details, phone call information, and text messages. While Germany's parliament has not held a vote over the proposed law yet or set a date for the vote, Google's Global Privacy councel Peter Fleischer calls the proposal a "heavy blow against the private sphere." The article continues to quote him as follows:
"Many users around the globe make use of this anonymity to defend themselves from spam, or government repression of free speech,"
[...]
""If the Web community won't trust us with handling their data with great care, we'll go down in no time." As an emergency measure, he said — rather than change the product — "we would shut off Google Mail in Germany."
Submission + - Germany bans Tom Cruise
Submission + - How to get videos from YouTube on Apple iPod? (flvsoft.com)
jumpjump writes: "Many friends ask me that Some video files that are downloaded from these online video hosting sites may be in the format of Flash Video (.flv). For whatever reasons, such as prefer to view and store the videos in mp4.wmv format, and want to play the offline video clips in portable player such as Mobile Phone,PSP and iPod,zune,or simply don't like to view it with FLV Player, then there is a need to convert the .flv video format to another format such as .avi, .mov, .wmv and .mpg. .mp4, 3GP,this is a sample of converting youtueb video to play on ipod step by step,
What is FLV?
FLV, or Flash Video, is a preferred file format that is designed for web playback, offering high rates of compression to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player (formerly known as Macromedia Flash Player) version 6, 7, 8, or 9. Yet FLV files cannot be played back directly and they must be embedded in an SWF file. The most common approach is to use an SWF file that functions as a media player with screen and playback controls. Notable users of FLV are YouTube, Google Video, Myspace, Metacafe, Dailymotion, iFilm, Music, eVideoShare, StreetFire, etc.
Note: Unlike other conversion tools, Moyea FLV to Video Converter will enable you to convert particular FLV files including On2 vp6 video FLV, Nelly Moser audio FLV into the proper video format for playback on your iPod player without the need to install extra codecs or other additional system or third party components for some functionalities.
Launch Moyea FLV to Video Converter Once Moyea FLV to Video Converter is installed, launch the converter program.
Add File Click on the "Add" button on the tool bar to import FLV files into the FLV to Video Converter and the standard file open dialog appears. Select "FLV File" in its "Files of type" combo box. Select the file you want to convert and click "Open". The file will be added into the conversion file list.
As Moyea FLV to Video Converter supports batch encoding by default, you can edit the file list by clicking the buttons upon the file list: click "Add" button to import the files you want to convert, and you can also open the import file dialog box by double-clicking the blank field of the file list; click "Del" to delete the selected files and click "Del All" to clear the file list.
At the same time, Moyea allows you to view the play-back effect of the source FLV files in the preview panel on the right by checking a specific file:
Crop the video and add watermark to the video Click on "Crop" button and you can crop the size of the video to determine what content is to be shown:
more information,you can view below link:
http://www.flvsoft.com/flv_to_ipod/ "
What is FLV?
FLV, or Flash Video, is a preferred file format that is designed for web playback, offering high rates of compression to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player (formerly known as Macromedia Flash Player) version 6, 7, 8, or 9. Yet FLV files cannot be played back directly and they must be embedded in an SWF file. The most common approach is to use an SWF file that functions as a media player with screen and playback controls. Notable users of FLV are YouTube, Google Video, Myspace, Metacafe, Dailymotion, iFilm, Music, eVideoShare, StreetFire, etc.
Note: Unlike other conversion tools, Moyea FLV to Video Converter will enable you to convert particular FLV files including On2 vp6 video FLV, Nelly Moser audio FLV into the proper video format for playback on your iPod player without the need to install extra codecs or other additional system or third party components for some functionalities.
Launch Moyea FLV to Video Converter Once Moyea FLV to Video Converter is installed, launch the converter program.
Add File Click on the "Add" button on the tool bar to import FLV files into the FLV to Video Converter and the standard file open dialog appears. Select "FLV File" in its "Files of type" combo box. Select the file you want to convert and click "Open". The file will be added into the conversion file list.
As Moyea FLV to Video Converter supports batch encoding by default, you can edit the file list by clicking the buttons upon the file list: click "Add" button to import the files you want to convert, and you can also open the import file dialog box by double-clicking the blank field of the file list; click "Del" to delete the selected files and click "Del All" to clear the file list.
At the same time, Moyea allows you to view the play-back effect of the source FLV files in the preview panel on the right by checking a specific file:
Crop the video and add watermark to the video Click on "Crop" button and you can crop the size of the video to determine what content is to be shown:
more information,you can view below link:
http://www.flvsoft.com/flv_to_ipod/ "
Submission + - Exhibition Displays, Banner Stands, Pop Up Display (vividads.com.au)
popupdisplays writes: "We offer Exhibition Displays, Banner Stands, Pop-Up Displays, Display Stands, Portable Displays, Brochure Holders, Promotional Counters, Roll-Up / Retractable Bannerstands, Display Panels, Portable Flag Poles and Banner Displays"
Submission + - Silence on the net (savenetradio.org)
javipas writes: "Today has been declared "Day of Silence" by many webcasters all around the US. This represents a formal protest against the industry initiative to increase severely the royalties that these webcasters must pay. Online radio stations services such as Pandora were affected by this measure that made this service unavailable outside the US but the danger is even more present for dozens of other services — complete list here in PDF — that could even dissapear for good. Let's hope the idea will be able to change something."
Submission + - How US tech firms place job ads no-one will apply (theinquirer.org)
m3x writes: So they can hire cheap foreign workers. US Americans are expensive. They eat more food, use more petrol and create more greenhouse gas than the rest of us. So when they go to work they need a hefty salary.
Not so Indians or Chinese, or Filipinos. Or Cubans or Iraqis come to that. You can get three or four of most of these for what you might have to pay an American. This is why tech firms are keen to ship workers into the States to get them to work for them, rather than some equally-qualified but expensive hamburger-muncher from down the road.
But immigration laws pertaining to the hiring of foreign workers in the States are tight. And firms have to prove that they can't find anyone in their back yard to do the jobs they need to fill, before casting their gaze abroad. This is why U.S. firms hire consultants to publish classified job ads in local U.S. papers, with goal of not finding any applicants. At least that's what a report on the Information Clearing House" alleges. Here, you'll find a nice little video in which immigration attorneys from a firm, Cohen & Grigsby, explain how they help employers post job ads that no-one will apply for so that the firms can then use these in evidence when helping bring in workers from abroad.
"Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, and thousands of other companies are running fake ads in Sunday newspapers across the country each week," it claims.
Submission + - MacBook Killer?
An anonymous reader writes: It looks like Samsung's new Q45 could be a real competitor to Apple's MacBook. The Samsung is finished in glossy black like the Apple, but weighs only 1.83kg compared the MacBook at 2.31kg. But when you consider that the Q45 is around the same price as the entry level MacBook and has 2GB RAM, DVD writer, PCMCIA slot and pretty much all the features that the Apple has, it begins to look very attractive. OK, so you're getting Vista instead of Tiger, but you're also getting a smaller, lighter, better featured and cheaper laptop! http://www.trustedreviews.com/notebooks/review/200 7/06/26/Samsung-Q45/p1
Is the CD Becoming Obsolete? 645
mrnomas writes "What's to blame for the declining CD sales? Is it that manufacturers are putting out more and more 'safe' (read: crap) music while independent musicians are releasing online? Is it because iTunes is now the third largest music retailer in the country? Or is it just that CDs are becoming obsolete?" Quoting: "Forbes.com [ran] an article showing that CD sales are expected to be down 20% in 2008 (slightly higher than the 15% drop initially predicted). Why such a drop? What's truly happening is a gradual shift away from physical media to downloadable formats. What this indicates, so far, is that US sales of digital music will be growing at an estimated rate of 28% in 2008, however physical sales will drop even further, resulting in a net overall decline.""
Google Calls For More Limits On Microsoft 270
teh_commodore writes "Scientific American is reporting that Google is now asking a Federal judge to extend the government's anti-trust oversight of Microsoft, specifically with regard to desktop search software. Microsoft had already agreed to modify Vista to allow rival desktop search engines, but Google says that this remedy will come too late — specifically, after (most of) the anti-trust agreement expires in November. What makes this political maneuver interesting is that Google went over the heads of the Department of Justice and US state regulators, who had found Microsoft's compromise acceptable, to appeal directly to the Federal judge overseeing the anti-trust settlement." Update: 06/26 17:20 GMT by KD : The judge is unwilling to play along with Google; she said she will likely defer to an agreement on desktop search forged between Microsoft and the plaintiffs in the case: i.e. Justice and the states.
