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Comment Re:So they are dropping another tech (Score 1) 451

by HansWurst (#33975238) Attached to: Apple Deprecates Their JVM

Nevermind it took them two years to release Java 6 which required users to have 64bit intel boxes. So, if you were doing any sort of Java desktop work (yes, this does exist), you were stuck on Java 5.

They later started to ship Java 6 for 32 bit boxes, too. I'm running it on an early MacBook (Core Duo, 32 bit cpu).

Comment "Skygrabber", the software they speak of... (Score 1) 534

by HansWurst (#30472992) Attached to: $26 of Software Defeats American Military
...is just a dvb-s grabber, see:

http://www.skygrabber.com/en/skygrabber.php

And all it does is intercept unencrypted IP packets from satellites which use IP over dvb-s for internet connections (most of them are one-way connections, uplink via pots modem/isdn).

So this is _definitly_ _NOT_ "spying on drones", I highly doubt that the drones themselves have an dvb-s transmitter in the same frequency range as "public" communication sats. It _might_ be that some of the drone data was/is routed through the internet and therefore could be intercepted with above software _IF_ some military dudes use any of the commercial ip-via-sat-providers (or even their _unencrypted_ own), but this isn't different from normal ethernet/wifi/whatever carrier ist used - sniffing.

Oh and btw., open source terrorists get their awsome drone sniffing software for FREE!!!!1111:

http://sites.google.com/site/skynetr32/skynet.%3Ar32_index_en (in case you're to lazy to klick on the link: basically another dvb-s file sniffer, but open sauce).
Graphics

Choosing Better-Quality JPEG Images With Software? 291

Posted by timothy from the on-the-tip-of-my-script dept.
kpoole55 writes "I've been googling for an answer to a question and I'm not making much progress. The problem is image collections, and finding the better of near-duplicate images. There are many programs, free and costly, CLI or GUI oriented, for finding visually similar images — but I'm looking for a next step in the process. It's known that saving the same source image in JPEG format at different quality levels produces different images, the one at the lower quality having more JPEG artifacts. I've been trying to find a method to compare two visually similar JPEG images and select the one with the fewest JPEG artifacts (or the one with the most JPEG artifacts, either will serve.) I also suspect that this is going to be one of those 'Well, of course, how else would you do it? It's so simple.' moments."
Businesses

If You Live By Free, You Will Die By Free 251

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the give-it-away-now dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Internet entrepreneur Mark Cuban writes that the problem with companies who have built their business around Free is that the more success you have in delivering free, the more expensive it is to stay at the top. '"They will be Facebook to your Myspace, or Myspace to your Friendster or Google to your Yahoo," writes Cuban. "Someone out there with a better idea will raise a bunch of money, give it away for free, build scale and charge less to reach the audience."' Cuban says that even Google, who lives and dies by free, knows that 'at some point your Black Swan competitor will appear and they will kick your ass' and that is exactly why Google invests in everything and anything they possibly can that they believe can create another business they can depend on in the future searching for the 'next big Google thing.' Cuban says that for any company that lives by Free, their best choice is to run the company as profitably as possible, focusing only on those things that generate revenue and put cash in the bank. '"When you succeed with Free, you are going to die by Free. Your best bet is to recognize where you are in your company's lifecycle and maximize your profits rather than try to extend your stay at the top," writes Cuban. "Like every company in the free space, your lifecycle has come to its conclusion. Don't fight it. Admit it. Profit from it."'"

Comment Oblig. family guy reference (Score 1, Insightful) 225

by HansWurst (#28435555) Attached to: Watch TV On Your Satnav
Brian: "Look at all these Hummers. What kind of jerk would drive one of these?
Hummer Jerk: "Dude, this car kicks ass. And I can watch Madagaskar while I'm drivin'!" (looks to onboard tv)
Lion: "What kind of music do you like, Gloria?"
Hippo: "Hippo-Hop! Yeah baby!" (music kicks in)
Hummer Jerk: "Hahaha, those animals are so fucking funny, they wanna make me merge without looking! YEAH! RUMSFELD!"

http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l89/blackh3/?action=view&current=fg-hummer.flv
Space

Inflatable Tower Could Climb To the Edge of Space 296

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the out-of-breath dept.
MonkeyClicker writes with mention of a proposal that could see an inflatable tower helping to carry people to the edge of space without the need for rocket propulsion. This would function in place of previous space elevator designs which featured a large cable and could be completed much faster, if proponents of the project are to be believed. "To stay upright and withstand winds, full-scale structures would require gyroscopes and active stabilization systems in each module. The team modeled a 15-kilometer tower made up of 100 modules, each one 150 meters tall and 230 meters in diameter, built from inflatable tubes 2 meters across. Quine estimates it would weigh about 800,000 tonnes when pressurized — around twice the weight of the world's largest supertanker."
Google

Harsh Words From Google On Linux Development 948

Posted by timothy from the constructive-criticism dept.
jeevesbond writes "The alpha version of Google Chrome is now available for GNU/Linux. Google Chrome developer and former Firefox lead Ben Goodger has some problems with the platform though. His complaints range from the lack of a standardised UI toolkit, inconsistencies across applications, the lack of a unified and comprehensive HIG, to GTK not being a very compelling toolkit. With Adobe getting twitchy about the glibc fork and previously describing the various audio systems as welcome to the jungle, is it time to concentrate on consolidation and standardisation in GNU/Linux in general, and the desktop in particular?"
Television

How Comic Fans & Shops Are Stereotyped 387

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-represent-that-comment dept.
brumgrunt writes "Why do TV shows, such as 30 Rock, The Simpsons, Heroes, and Everybody Loves Raymond, persist in so ferevently stereotyping comic book fans and stores? Den of Geek has pulled together eight examples, with video evidence to back them up ..." Minus one point for doubling up on Malcolm in the Middle. Plus 10 points for referencing Spaced, which I hope you all have seen.
Data Storage

Surveying the World of the Biggest Server Farms 106

Posted by timothy from the don't-forget-the-various-tlas dept.
1sockchuck writes "Rackspace said this week that it is managing more than 50,000 web servers, raising the question: who else has that many? Of companies that publicly discuss their server counts, there are only a handful that are near or above the 50,000 server mark, including 1&1 Internet, The Planet, and Akamai, as well as Rackspace. The larger totals are found among companies that don't discuss how many servers they're running. The leading suspects: Google, Microsoft, Amazon and eBay."
Space

Successful Launch of ESA's Herschel and Planck 121

Posted by CmdrTaco from the round-and-round-they-go dept.
rgarbacz writes "Today at 13:12 GMT, the ESA launched successfully new and long-awaiting spacecraft: Herschel, the infrared telescope with a 3.5m mirror, and Planck, the CMB mapper. The spacecraft were carried by the Ariane-5, which lifted off from Kourou in French Guiana. They will stay in L2 to perform the research. This launch is one of the most expensive and important missions of the European Space Agency. Planck will measure the CMB with an accuracy more than 10 times better than the previous mission, WMAP. Because of this high sensitivity, both spacecraft are cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero by on-board liquid helium; staying in L2 is very helpful to maintain this state. Both spacecraft are designed to observe the Universe at its infancy: Herschel by observing the first stars and galaxies (whichever came first), and Planck by scrutinizing the first photons that were set free, making up the cosmic microwave background radiation."
Government

Hundreds of Thousands of Chinese Black-Hats 247

Posted by kdawson from the defending-against-gnats dept.
An anonymous reader sends us to Popular Science for a long article on the loose, uncoordinated bands of patriotic Chinese hackers that seem to be responsible for much of the cyber-trouble emerging from that nation. Quoting: "For years, the U.S. intelligence community worried that China's government was attacking our cyber-infrastructure. Now one man has discovered it's more than that: it's hundreds of thousands of everyday Chinese civilians. ... Jack Linchuan Qiu, a communications professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong [says:] 'Chinese hackerism is not the American "hacktivism" that wants social change. It's actually very close to the state. The Chinese distinction between the private and public domains is very small.' ... According to [James Andrew Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies], 'The government at a minimum tolerates them. Sometimes it encourages them. And sometimes it tasks them and controls them.' In the end, he says, 'it's easy for the government to turn on and hard to turn off.'"
Security

Computer Spies Breach $300B Fighter-Jet Project 330

Posted by CmdrTaco from the we're-still-number-one-at-this dept.
suraj.sun writes "Computer spies have broken into the Pentagon's $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project — the Defense Department's costliest weapons program ever — according to current and former government officials familiar with the attacks. Similar incidents have also breached the Air Force's air-traffic-control system in recent months, these people say. In the case of the fighter-jet program, the intruders were able to copy and siphon off several terabytes of data related to design and electronics systems, officials say, potentially making it easier to defend against the craft."
Operating Systems

Cinder Mobile OS Lets Users Send More Power To Slow Apps 92

Posted by timothy from the would-like-something-like-that-in-my-laptop dept.
alphadogg writes with this excerpt from Network World: "Stanford University researchers are designing an operating system from the ground up to handle the power and security requirements of mobile devices. The Cinder operating system is already working on an Arm chip, and members of the team are working on making it run on the HTC G1 handset, according to Philip Levis, a Stanford assistant professor. Levis spoke about Cinder at the Stanford Computer Forum on Tuesday. If an application isn't running as fast as the user wants, a Cinder-based phone could include a button to boost the energy allocated to that application, Levis said. Cinder also could allow users to download any code and run it safely on their phones in a 'sandbox' mode."

Vista Post-SP2 Is the Safest OS On the Planet 1010

Posted by CmdrTaco from the color-me-skeptical dept.
pkluss noted Kevin Turner, COO of Microsoft making the proclamation that "Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever built. It's also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It's the safest and most secure OS on the planet today."

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