Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Submission + - A More Down-To-Earth Way to Bring the Internet to the Rest of the World (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Elon Musk wants to bring the internet to less-developed countries using satellites. Facebook wants to use drones. Google's betting on balloons. These crazy high-tech solutions are interesting, but are they really needed? Mark Summer doesn't think so. His company focuses on building out internet infrastructure the old fashioned way: trenching pipes, raising cell towers, and getting local governments to lease what they've already installed. "A major problem in emerging countries is that when Internet access is available, it’s often expensive. That’s due in part to a lack of competition among providers ... While the costs of terrestrial Internet connections are high, they’re relatively predictable. And the business model is proven around the world."

Submission + - NYC Counting on Begging to Fund Required K-12 Computer Science Programs

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "To ensure that every child can learn the skills required to work in New York City’s fast-growing technology sector," reports the New York Times, "Mayor Bill de Blasio will announce on Wednesday that within 10 years all of the city’s public schools will be required to offer computer science to all students. New York City, the Times adds, plans to spend $81 million over 10 years, half of which it hopes to raise from private sources. Earlier this year, it was announced that Microsoft would make Office 365 ProPlus available to all NYC students, and that Google would make its CS First program available to 100K NYC students who participate in after-school programs.

Submission + - Seeing Actual 2.4 GHz Radio Waves (hackaday.com)

Submitted by szczys
szczys writes: There was this art piece that circled the internet a few weeks ago which used a tablet to visualize WiFi and other signals and it was complete fake. It was cool, and it approximated where radio waves emanated from, but it wasn't actually measuring them for display.

Greg Charvat has built his career on Radar and other RF design. Seeing that demo he realized he could show you what actual microwaves look like. He used a radar that he built himself from coffee cans. By altering the circuit just a bit he is able to move the receiver around the room and illuminate different LEDs based on the signal traits. A long exposure photograph captures this and lets you see the radio waves. It's like a charcoal rubbing but for electromagnetic waves!

Submission + - Beyond Bitcoin: 7 Ways To Capitalize On Blockchains

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: Bitcoin’s widely trusted ledger offers intriguing possibilities for business use beyond cryptocurrency, writes InfoWorld's Peter Wayner. 'From the beginning, bitcoin has assumed a shadowy, almost outlaw mystique,' Wayner writes. 'Even the mathematics of the technology are inscrutable enough to believe the worst. The irony is that the mathematical foundations of bitcoin create a solid record of legitimate ownership that may be more ironclad against fraud than many of the systems employed by businesses today. Plus, the open, collaborative way in which bitcoin processes transactions ensures the kind of network of trust that is essential to any business agreement.'

Submission + - Chris Christie Proposes Tracking Immigrants the Way FedEx Tracks Packages (nytimes.com)

Submitted by PolygamousRanchKid
PolygamousRanchKid writes: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Saturday that if he were elected president he would combat illegal immigration by creating a system to track foreign visitors the way FedEx tracks packages.

I just spit out my coffee . . .

Mr. Christie, who is far back in the pack of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, said at a campaign event in New Hampshire that he would ask the chief executive of FedEx, Frederick W. Smith, to devise the tracking system.“At any moment, FedEx can tell you where that package is. It’s on the truck. It’s at the station. It’s on the airplane,” Mr. Christie told the crowd in Laconia, N.H. “Yet we let people come to this country with visas, and the minute they come in, we lose track of them.” He added: “We need to have a system that tracks you from the moment you come in.”

I'm sure foreign tourist will be amused when getting a bar code sticker slapped on their arm.

A FedEx spokeswoman declined to comment on Mr. Christie’s remarks.

Mr. Christie, get your lips away from the crack pipe.

Submission + - Full steam ahead for Microsoft phones after patent infringement win (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson writes: Microsoft has been cleared of patent infringement by the US International Trade Commission. The case dates back to 2007 when InterDigital Inc claimed Microsoft infringed its patents, and there were calls for a ban on the import of handsets.

InterDigital Inc has been battling in court for eight years, initially trying to claim royalties on phones made by Nokia, now transferred to Microsoft. As well as blocking the call for an import ban, the ITC stated that Microsoft did not infringe patents relating to the way mobiles make calls. In short Microsoft is in the clear and InterDigital's rights have not been violated.

Submission + - Federal Court Overturns Ruling that NSA Metadata Collection was Illegal (npr.org)

Submitted by captnjohnny1618
captnjohnny1618 writes: *Sigh* NPR is reporting that an appeals court has overturned the decision that the NSA's bulk data collection was illegal.


A three judge panel for a U.S. appeals court has thrown out a lower-court decision that sought to stop the NSA from continuing to collect metadata on phone calls made by Americans.
>br> The lower court ruling had found that the practice was unconstitutional.

They go on to clarify that due to the recent passage of new laws governing how metadata is collected, this is less of a significant point than it would have otherwise been:

In some ways, this decision is much less important now that Congress has passed a law that changes the way meta-data is collected by the government. If you remember, after a fierce battle, both houses of Congress voted in favor of a law that lets phone companies keep that database, but still allows the government to query it for specific data.

Still seems like a fairly significant decision to me: in one case a government agency was willfully and directly violating the rights of the Americans (and international citizens as well) and now it's just going to get shrugged off?

One step forward and two back...

Submission + - ISRO successfully launches satellite into geostationary orbit

Submitted by vasanth
vasanth writes: Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) on Thursday cleared all doubts on its cryogenic capabilities, successfully launching the Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D6), placing GSAT-6, a 2,117kg communication satellite in orbit.

The GSLV D-6 is the second successful consecutive launch of the GSLV series with indigenous cryogenic upper stage. ISRO had on January 5, 2014 launch GSLV D-5, after a similar attempt failed in 2010.

For the country, ISRO perfecting the cryogenic engine technology is crucial as precious foreign exchange can be saved by launching communication satellites on its own. Currently ISRO flies its heavy communication satellites by European space agency Ariane.

ISRO has already perfected it's Polar Launching Vehicle for launching lighter satellites which has decades of success stories. It has already put 45 foreign satellites of 9 nations into orbit. ISRO is to put 9 satellites in space using PSLV launcher for the United States in 2015-2016.

Submission + - U.S. Scientists Successfully 'Switch Off' Cancer Cells (nationalpost.com)

Submitted by iONiUM
iONiUM writes: From the article: "For the first time, aggressive breast, lung and bladder cancer cells have been turned back into harmless benign cells by restoring the function which prevents them from multiplying excessively and forming dangerous growths." Specifically, this is done by triggering production of the protein PLEKHA7 which in turn levels off the microRNA levels in the cells. So far this has only been done in human cells in a lab.

Submission + - NASA mulls missions to Uranus and Neptune, using the Space Launch System (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: According to a story in Astronomy Magazine, NASA is contemplating sending flagship sized space probes to the so-called “ice giants” of Uranus and Neptune. These would be probes that would orbit the two outer planets, similar to how Galileo orbited Jupiter and how Cassini currently orbits Saturn. The only time previously NASA has had a close encounter with either of these worlds was when Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986 and then Neptune in 1989. Each of these missions would happen after the Europa Clipper, a flagship-class mission scheduled for the mid-2020s

Submission + - Judge orders State Dept, FBI to expand probe on Clinton email server (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a hearing over Freedom of Information Act requests to the State Department, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said that former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn't comply with government policies. He ordered the State Department to reach out to the FBI to see if any relevant emails exist on Hillary Clinton's email server. Judge Sullivan was surprised that the State Department and FBI were not already communicating on the issue following the FBI's seizure of Clinton's email server and three thumb drives of emails. More than 300 emails are being examined for containing classified information, and dozens of the emails were "born classified" based on content. Some of those emails were forwarded outside the government. There are also clues emerging about how some of the classified information made its way onto Clinton's server. The email controversy is beginning to show up on the campaign trail, an unwelcome development for Secretary Clinton. Reporter Bob Woodward, who helped bring down President Nixon, said the scandal reminds him of the Nixon tapes. It is interesting to note that the post-Watergate reforms have helped move the investigation forward.

Submission + - Oldest message-in-a-bottle found after 108 years

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A bottle launched to sea as part of a scientific experiment in the early 20th century has been found by a couple in Germany, 108 years after it was deployed.

When the couple unfurled the note inside, they found a message in English, German and Dutch. It asked the finder to fill in some information on where and when they had found the bottle, before returning it to the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth. It said whoever did so would be rewarded with one shilling.

Communications director of the Marine Biological Association, Guy Baker, told The Daily Telegraph: "It was quite a stir when we opened that envelope, as you can imagine." Once at the association, staff recognised the bottle was one of 1,020 released into the North Sea between 1904 and 1906 as part of a project to test the strength of currents. Mr Baker told the paper: "It was a time when they were inventing ways to investigate what currents and fish did. Many of the bottles were found by fishermen trawling with deep sea nets. Others washed up on the shore, and some were never recovered. Most of the bottles were found within a relatively short time. We're talking months rather than decades."

True to their word, the association sent a shilling to the couple as the promised payment.

Slashdot Top Deals

Keep the number of passes in a compiler to a minimum. -- D. Gries

Close