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KDE

Submission + - KDE 4 uses 40% less memory despite 3D eye-candy

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Pro-Linux reports that KDE 4, scheduled to be released in January 2008, consumes almost 40% less memory than KDE 3.5, despite the fact that version 4 of the Free and Open Source desktop system includes a composited window manager and a revamped menu and applet interface. KDE developer Will Stephenson showcased KDE 4's 3D eye-candy on a 256Mb laptop with 1Ghz CPU and run-of-the-mill integrated graphics, pointing out that mini-optimizations haven't even yet been started. Will this combination of resource efficiency and consumer appeal make KDE 4 the leader in the booming Linux-based ultra mobile laptop and energy efficient desktop markets?
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Terry Pratchett has early onset Alzheimer's

Submitted by JaJ_D
JaJ_D writes: According to Paul Kidby's website, Terry Pratchet has been diagonsed with early onset Alzheimer's.

From the site:

would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, which lay behind this year's phantom "stroke".

Jaj
Power

Submission + - Arctic to be ice-free within FIVE years, not 40

Submitted by OriginalArlen
OriginalArlen writes: The BBC is reporting new research into Arctic warming to be presented at the fall American Geophysical Union meeting which describes current models of arctic sea-ice response to warming as far too conservative. The work predicts that albedo feedback, together with a greater heat input from warmer ocean currents, will lead to ice-free summers as early as 2013. This would go a long way to explaining the dramatic and accelerating loss of sea-ice in the summer of 2007, which is merely the latest in a progressively widening gap between modeled and actual sea-ice loss (as well as presenting a nicely testable short-range prediction.)

Whilst sea-ice obviously doesn't raise the sea level when it melts, a similar runaway feedback that lead to significant reductions in the Greenland or Antarctica ice sheets would cause a 6-7m sea-level rise, indisputably catastrophic for human society as well as the polar bears.
Media

Submission + - w00t Becomes A Word (fastsilicon.com) 2

Submitted by
mrneutron2003
mrneutron2003 writes: "In a move that shows the fluidity of the english language as well as the questionable ways in which we use it, Merriam-Websters has named "w00t" as the Word Of The Year. We wonder whether or not this is the first time a word has been adopted into Merriam-Websters dictionary that contains numbers and letters. The Sacremento Bee reports...
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Expect cheers among hardcore online game enthusiasts when they learn Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. Or, more accurately, expect them to "w00t." "W00t," a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or triumph, topped all other terms in the Springfield-based dictionary publisher's online poll for the word that best sums up 2007. Merriam-Webster's president, John Morse, said "w00t" was an ideal choice because it blends whimsy and new technology.
http://www.fastsilicon.com/off-the-wall/w00t-becomes-a-word.html"
Media

Submission + - A&E beaming adverts directly into your head. 2

Submitted by Fantastic Lad
Fantastic Lad writes: Hear Voices? It May Be an Ad. New Yorker Alison Wilson was walking down Prince Street in SoHo last week when she heard a woman's voice right in her ear asking, "Who's there? Who's there?" She looked around to find no one in her immediate surroundings. Then the voice said, "It's not your imagination." Indeed it isn't. It's an ad for "Paranormal State," a ghost-themed series premiering on A&E this week. The billboard uses technology manufactured by Holosonic that transmits an "audio spotlight" from a rooftop speaker so that the sound is contained within your cranium.
Security

Submission + - Hackers Launch Major Attack on US Military Labs (pcworld.com)

Submitted by Bazards
Bazards writes: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140390/article.html Hackers have succeeded in breaking into the computer systems of two of the U.S.' most important science labs, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. In what a spokesperson for the Oak Ridge facility described as a "sophisticated cyber attack," it appears that intruders accessed a database of visitors to the Tennessee lab between 1990 and 2004, which included their social security numbers and dates of birth. Three thousand researchers reportedly visit the lab each year, a who's who of the science establishment in the U.S.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft now owns ISO JTC 1 (theopensourcerer.com)

Submitted by
The Open Sourcerer
The Open Sourcerer writes: "Rob Weir replied to a couple of comments to an article he wrote about the plans for maintenance of OOXML should it become an ISO standard. His comment is very insightful, quite scary but ultimately pretty accurate I think... It is a scary proposition. I don't think people understand how much Microsoft now owns JTC1 in a very real and tangible way. Absolutely owns."
Microsoft

Submission + - OOXML and Poisonous Fish (theopensourcerer.com)

Submitted by
The Open Sourcerer
The Open Sourcerer writes: "Alex Brown, the chap who has the unenviable task of convening the forthcoming BRM in February for Microsoft/ECMA's OOXML document specification, has posted a few first snippets from the initial meeting of the body called the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC34 — Document Description and Processing Languages... In his most recent blog post, covering the opening meetings in Kyoto Japan of the SC34, there are some interesting titbits. I was struck by the list of individuals resigning their posts or stepping down. It's quite a few people. I don't know if it is common to lose so many in one go, or how many they represent as a percentage of the total. But still, I found it odd that 4 senior figures all decide to go at the same time. The last one he mentioned is the now famous Martin Bryan... Let's hope that the Fugu was as well prepared as the SC34 needs to be next February."
Announcements

Submission + - Huge offshore wind power programme launched in UK

Submitted by OriginalArlen
OriginalArlen writes: The UK government has announced an ambitious plan to expand the existing, already extensive offshore wind turbine farms to an estimated 7000 units, enough to generate 20% of the UK's power needs by 2020. The newly green-friendly Conservative opposition party is also backing the scheme. Wonder what they'll make of it in Oregon...
Transportation

Submission + - Electric Cars to Help Utilities Load Balance Grid

Submitted by
Reservoir Hill
Reservoir Hill writes: "A team at the University of Delaware has created a system that enables vehicles to not only run on electricity alone, but also to generate revenue by storing and providing electricity for utilities. The technology, known as V2G, for vehicle-to-grid, lets electricity flow from the car's battery to power lines and back. When the car is in the V2G setting, the battery's charge goes up or down depending on the needs of the grid operator, which sometimes must store surplus power and other times requires extra power to respond to surges in usage. The ability of the V2G car's battery to act like a sponge provides a solution for utilities, which pay millions to generating stations that help balance the grid. Willett Kempton, who began developing the technology more than a decade ago, estimates the value for utilities could be up to $4,000 a year for the service, part of which could be paid to drivers. A car sitting there with a tank of gasoline in it, that's useless," says Kempton. "If it's a battery storing a lot of electricity and a big plug that allows moving power back and forth quickly, then it's valuable.""
Space

Submission + - Organic Building Blocks Seen in Titan's Atmosphere (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Scientists analyzing data gathered by the Cassini spacecraft have confirmed the presence of heavy negative ions in the upper regions of Titan's atmosphere. These particles may act as organic building blocks for even more complicated molecules. This discovery was completely unexpected because of the chemical composition of the atmosphere, mainly consisting of nitrogen and methane. According to the lead researcher at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, "Additional rings of carbon can build up on these ions, forming molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which may act as a basis for the earliest forms of life." The article abstract is available from Geophysical Research Letters."
Space

Submission + - First details of manned Mars mission from NASA (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by OriginalArlen
OriginalArlen writes: The BBC has a first look at NASA's initial concepts for a manned Mars mission, currently pencilled in for 2031. The main vehicle would be assembled on orbit over three or four launches of the planned Ares V heavy lift rocket. New abilities to repair, replace, and even produce replacement parts will be needed to provide enough self-sufficiency a 30 months mission, including 16 months on the surface. The presentation was apparently delivered at a meeting of the Lunar Exploration Management Group, although there's nothing on their site yet.
Power

Submission + - Nuclear battery patent and tapping oil shale (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
nanotrends
nanotrends writes: "The uranium hydride nuclear "battery" is a self-contained nuclear reactor. It is not a radioisotope thermal generator. With a good design it can achieve 50% fuel burnup instead of 0.7-2.0% for existing reactors. The company Hyperion claims that the first reactors will cost $1400 per KW (about the same as the claims for the latest conventional nuclear reactors). The patent info on the "nuclear battery" indicates how it will operate. The first target market is to help enhance recovery of oil shale, so this would address peak oil. They claim they can lower costs of insitu recovery down to 30% of the cost of using natural gas for the same purpose and no water is needed for reactor cooling. Thorium hydride could also be used. If the company is successful they would blunt peak oil. The USA could be generating several million barrels per day of oil from the oil shale fields in Colorado and the reactors could displace coal power which kills 30,000 americans each year from air pollution and 1 million people world wide. Teller tried to make a uranium hydride bomb but he could only get 200 tons of TNT equivalent out of it. Not much more than the recent russian father of all bombs."
Google

Submission + - Google locates mobile phone users with cell towers (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "Google today launched a GPS-like service for smartphones that uses cell tower ID information to track the location of mobile phone users and direct them to nearby destinations. The technology, an extension of Google Maps, "takes information broadcast from cell towers and sifts it through Google-developed algorithms to approximate a user's current location on the map," Google says. Google seems to anticipate concerns from privacy rights advocates, and has promised not to associate location data with any personally identifiable information. This new mobile version of Google Maps is available in beta."
Security

Submission + - Professor Breaks Bank Security to Prove Point

Submitted by
swehack
swehack writes: "Norweigan computer science professor Kjell Jørgen Hole was dissapointed at how his bank handled the security concerns he had. So he took matters into his own hands, and made it a project to break the security as a proof of concept. Along with his students he worked for approximately 100 hours and managed to successfully break the banks security measures, transfer money between accounts without the owner noticing and steal the identity of banking customers. Original article in Swedish."

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