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Cellphones

John Carmack Not Enthused About Android Marketplace 163

Posted by Soulskill from the hit-with-a-fragmentation-grenade dept.
An anonymous reader writes "During an in-depth and informative interview, Doom creator and id Software co-founder John Carmack opines on iOS game development, the economics of mobile development vs. console development, why mobile games lend themselves to more risk-taking and greater creativity, and finally, why he's not too keen on the Android Marketplace as a money-making machine. '...I'm honestly still a little scared of the support burden and the effort that it's going to take for our products, which are very graphics-intensive.'"
Moon

Microwave Map of Entire Moon Revealed 82

Posted by samzenpus from the quickest-route-mode dept.
Zothecula writes "The first complete microwave image of the Moon taken by Chinese lunar satellite Chang'E-1 has been revealed. Chang'E-1 is China's first scientific mission to explore planetary bodies beyond Earth and the on-board Lunar Microwave Radiometer has made it possible for the first time to globally map the Moon in microwave frequencies. Radar observations of the Moon are unable to provide thermal information, and microwave observations taken from Earth cannot reach the far side of the moon. So Chang'E-1's (CE-1) orbit was conducted at an altitude of 200km (124 miles) and allowed it to observe every location of the moon with a nadir view and at high spatial resolution."
Security

Submission + - Horrible Safari privacy bug (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
richi
richi writes: "If you use Safari, your browser may be leaking your private information to any website you visit. Jeremiah Grossman, the CTO of WhiteHat Security, has discovered some Very Bad News. I have some analysis and other reactions over at my Computerworld blog. The potential for spam and phishing is huge. A determined attacker might even be able to steal previously-entered customer data. There's even scope for blackmail."
Censorship

Submission + - China Censors HIV/AIDS Awareness Documentary (amnesty.org)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Amnesty International is reporting an unusual case of censorship in which Chinese police questioned HIV/AIDS workers in China and instructed them to cancel an airing of a documentary made by Aizhixing Institute of Health Education on the disease. The director of that NGO recently left China after constant police harassment. The canceled documentary was about Tian Xi, a patient who contracted HIV by blood transfusion at age 9.
Google

Submission + - Google Chrome Extension That Steals Login Details (digitizor.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a major blow to Google Chrome’s claim of being one of the safest browsers, a developer has come up with an extension that he says can steal login details of the user. After installing the extension, he says it will send the login ID and passwords of users to him through email. He says that so far his method has worked with GMail, Twitter and Facebook, among other sites.
Graphics

Submission + - Fastest Graphics Ever, Asus ARES Rips Benchmarks (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Over-the-top, killer graphics cards are always fun to play with, though they may not be all that practical. With a pair of ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPUs on a single PCB and 4GB of GDDR5 graphics memory on board, the recently released Asus ARES is one such card that can currently claim the title of being the fastest single gaming graphics card on the planet. This dual GPU infused beast rips through benchmarks besting even the likes of a Radeon HD 5970 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480, and you can even run a pair of them in CrossFire mode, if you're hell-bent on the fastest frame rates money can buy currently."
NASA

Submission + - NASA's Plutonium Supply Dwindling, ESA to Help (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: NASA's stockpile of the plutonium isotope Pu-238 is at a critical level, causing concern that there won't be enough fuel for future deep space missions. Pellets of Pu-238 are used inside radioisotope thermoelectric generators (or RTGs) to generate electricity for space probes traveling beyond the orbit of Mars — solar energy is too weak for solar arrays at these distances. Blocked by a contract dispute with Russia to supply Pu-238 and the U.S. Department of Energy that has not been granted funds to produce more of the isotope, NASA lacks enough of the radioisotope to fuel the future joint NASA-ESA mission to Europa. However, the head of the European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that they have plans to commence a new nuclear energy program to alleviate the situation.
Youtube

Submission + - Youtube adds support for 4K video (blogspot.com)

Submitted by teh31337one
teh31337one writes: "Today at the VidCon 2010 conference, youtube announced support for videos shot in 4K (a reference resolution of 4096 x 3072), meaning that now we support original video resolution from 360p all the way up to 4096p. To give some perspective on the size of 4K, the ideal screen size for a 4K video is 25 feet; IMAX movies are projected through two 2k resolution projectors."

The blog is misleading by referring to it as 4096p
Books

Submission + - Microsoft Applies for Page-Turn Animation Patent (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Ever seeking to out innovate their competition, Microsoft has applied for a patent on animating page flips in devices like the Nook or Kindle. The application summary reads "One or more pages are displayed on a touch display. A page-turning gesture directed to a displayed page is recognized. Responsive to such recognition, a virtual page turn is displayed on the touch display. The virtual page turn actively follows the page-turning gesture. The virtual page turn curls a lifted portion of the page to progressively reveal a back side of the page while progressively revealing a front side of a subsequent page. A lifted portion of the page is given an increased transparency that allows the back side of the page to be viewed through the front side of the page. A page-flipping gesture quickly flips two or more pages." Maybe you've seen this before?
Data Storage

Submission + - Dell: 90% of data is never read again (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: According to a Dell briefing given to PC Pro, 90% of company data is written once and never read again. If Dell’s observation about dead weight is right, then it could easily turn out that splitting your data between live and old, fast and slow, work-in-progress versus archive, will become the dominant way to price and specify your servers and network architectures in the future.The only remaining question will then be: why on earth did we squander so much money by not thinking this way until now?
Google

Submission + - Google found guilty of Australian privacy breech (itnews.com.au)

Submitted by schliz
schliz writes: The Australian Privacy Commissioner has found Google guilty of breaching the country's Privacy Act when it collected unsecured WiFi payload data with its Street View vehicles. While the Commissioner could not penalize the company, Google agreed to publish an apology on its Australian blog, and work more closely with her during the next three years.

Globally, Google is said to have collected some 600 GB of data transmitted over public WiFi networks. In May, the company put its high-definition Australian Street View plans on hold to audit its processes.
Movies

Submission + - Hollywood Accounting: How Harry Potter Loses Money (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Techdirt has the details on how it was possible for the last Harry Potter movie to lose $167 million while taking in nearly $1 billion in revenue. If you ever wanted to see "Hollywood Accounting" in action, take a look. The article also notes two recent court decisions that may raise questions about Hollywood's ability to continue with these kinds of tricks. The producers of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" now have to pay $267 million for its attempt to get around paying a partner through similar tricks.
Biotech

Submission + - Antibodies that prevent HIV infection (scienceblog.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists have discovered two potent human antibodies that can stop more than 90 percent of known global HIV strains from infecting human cells in the laboratory, and have demonstrated how one of these disease-fighting proteins accomplishes this feat. According to the scientists, these antibodies could be used to design improved HIV vaccines, or could be further developed to prevent or treat HIV infection.
Space

Submission + - Black hole emits a 1,000 light-year wide fireball (io9.com) 1

Submitted by
PhrostyMcByte
PhrostyMcByte writes: "12 million light-years away in the outer spiral of galaxy NGC 7793, a bubble of hot gas approximately 1,000 light-years in diameter can be found shooting out of a black hole — one of the most powerful jets of energy ever seen. The bubble has been growing for approximately 200,000 years, and is expanding at around 1,000,000 kilometers per hour."

Submission + - AI Predicts Manhole Explosions in New York City (discovery.com) 1

Submitted by reillymj
reillymj writes: Every so often, a 300-pound manhole cover in blows sky high in Gotham, followed sometimes by a column of flame. Researchers have applied machine learning algorithms to Con Edison's warren of aging electrical wires and sewage access points around Brooklyn and the Bronx (Manhattan's next). As the system learns where dangerous mixtures of sewer gas and decrepit wiring are likely to come in contact, it makes forecasts about trouble spots, including where the next explosion may occur.

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