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Comment DC transmission lines? (Score 3, Interesting) 183

I was wondering whether there UV flash also exist for DC transmission lines. Is there any expert around who knows that?

This is of interest as it is very difficult to build new power lines all over Europe, usually resulting in around 20 years of legal battle for a mere 30 km of power lines far away from any densely populated area. This is just slightly reduced for buried transmission lines with all their disadvantages. Thus a current idea/discussion is to hang DC power lines on existing poles for long distance transmission.

Censorship

Youtube and Facebook May Be Banned In Turkey, Again 57

Taco Cowboy writes "Istanbul (dpa) — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is considering banning YouTube and Facebook after local elections at the end of this month, according to remarks carried by local media Friday. It may, or may not be related to the criticisms arising from (not-yet verified) leaked recordings of Mr. Erdogan's involvement with corruption. 'We will not let YouTube and Facebook destroy our nation. We will take measures, including closure,' said Erdogan, who has previously made comments against social media sites. YouTube had been banned in the country for two years and was recently unblocked."
United States

BP Finds Way To Bypass US Crude Export Ban 247

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Bloomberg reports that the oil industry is pressuring President Barack Obama to end the 41-year-old ban on most crude exports but British Petroleum (BP) isn't waiting for a decision. The British oil giant has signed on to take at least 80 percent of the capacity of a new $360 million mini-refinery in Houston that will process crude just enough to escape restrictions on sales outside the country. 'It's a relatively inexpensive way around the export prohibition,' says Judith Dwarkin 'You can lightly ruffle the hydrocarbons and they are considered processed and then they aren't subject to the ban.' Amid a flood of new US oil, the demand for simple, one-step plants capable of transforming raw crude into exportable products such as propane is feeding a construction boom along the Gulf Coast. The first such mini-refinery, built for 1/10 the cost of a complex, full-scale refinery, is scheduled to open the first phase of its 100,000 barrel-a-day crude processing plant in July, The mini-refineries take advantage of the law that allows products refined from oil to be sold overseas, though not the raw crude itself. 'The international buyers of these products will likely need to refine them further, so this is basically a veiled form of condensate exports,' says Leo Mariani."
Ubuntu

Kubuntu Announces Commercial Support 59

sfcrazy writes "Kubuntu is one of those few GNULinux based distributions which brings the two leading technologies together — Ubuntu and KDE. There are quite a lot of businesses which are using this combination in their set-up. Until now there was no professional support available for Kubuntu users. To fill this gap the Kubuntu community has launched commercial support for businesses, organizations and individuals. The Kubuntu team is partnering with Emerge Open to offer this service which is called 'Kubuntu Commercial Support provided by Emerge Open'."

Comment Re:wait, what? (Score 1) 687

Well, you misunderstood. They produced 5TWh of energy in July, the month of July has 744 hours, so the average power from photovoltaics was 6.72GW. This is comparable to about 15 nuclear reactors. When you look at presentation linked in the article, you see that this drops 0.35TWh in January, i.e., an average power of 0.47GW. In Germany the price for electricity is about 3 times that of the U.S., at least partially due to the subsidies of renewables.

Comment Re:Quite a lot of problems with the paper (Score 1) 418

A major mistake in my eyes is that they only ensure that these people were in a moving vehicle, not that they were actually driving it. Think about busses or your kids talking on the phone while you're driving. Considering this and that only few people make calls while driving, it is very likely that only a small percentage of the measured data were actually people driving a car.

Graphics

Disney Algorithm Builds High-Res 3D Models From Ordinary Photos 80

Zothecula writes "Disney Research has developed an algorithm which can generate 3D computer models from 2D images in great detail, sufficient, it says, to meet the needs of video game and film makers. The technology requires multiple images to capture the scene from a variety of vantage points. The 3D model is somewhat limited in that it is only coherent within the field of view encompassed by the original images. It does not appear to fill in data"

Submission + - Canonical crowdsources to make Ubuntu smartphone called Edge (pcpro.co.uk) 1

nk497 writes: Canonical has kicked off a crowdfunding campaign to raise $32 million in 30 days to make its own smartphone, called Ubuntu Edge, that can also hook up to a monitor and be used as a PC. If it meets its funding target on Indiegogo, the Ubuntu Edge is scheduled to arrive in May 2014. To get one, backers must contribute $600 (£394) on the first day or $810 (£532) thereafter. Canonical will only make 40,000 of the devices.

Submission + - Finnish Copyright Initiative Gets 50,000 Signatures

Koookiemonster writes: The Finnish citizens' initiative site (Finnish/Swedish only) has fulfilled the required amount of signatures for the third initiative since its founding. This means that the Parliament of Finland is required to take the Common Sense in Copyright initiative into processing.

The initiative calls for removal of copyright infringement as a crime, reducing violations by private individuals to a misdemeanor.

Submission + - Bell Labs Break Record with 31Tbps via a Single 7200km Optical Fibre (ispreview.co.uk)

Mark.JUK writes: Alcatel-Lucent's research and development division, Bell Labs, has successfully broken yet another record after it used 155 lasers (each operating at different frequencies and carrying 200Gbps of data over a 50GHz frequency grid) and an enhanced version of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) to send information at a staggering speed of 31 Terabits per second over a single 7200km long optical fibre cable. Previous experiments have been faster but only over shorter distances or by using a different type of fibre optic cable entirely.

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