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Portables

Dell Rugged Laptops Not Quite Tough Enough 225

Posted by timothy from the one-good-hit dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Trusted Reviews has put the new Dell XFR rugged laptop through the grinder and it hasn't fared as well as expected. Considering that these guys drove a car over a Panasonic Toughbook, they went pretty easy on the Dell, but it still couldn't take the punishment. It looks like Dell still has a way to go to steal the ball from Panasonic when it comes to all terrain computing."

Comment iTunes Media Server (Score 1) 557

by bachnit37 (#29815689) Attached to: Apple Blurs the Server Line With Mac Mini Server
Let me preface this by saying I am not an XServe genius. So my question would be... Can XServe act as an iTunes media server? Could the kids access HandBraked DVD's on the AppleTV in the basement and the AppleTV in the living room? Can I access my music in my study above the garage as well as the kitchen?

Comment $1.98 per month royalty for Sirius? (Score 4, Interesting) 507

by bachnit37 (#29469147) Attached to: RIAA's Elementary School Copyright Curriculum

My Sirius subscription expires on the 22nd and I called to renew. After reviewing their packages I selected one and as we got around to taking my card number they said... "Ok, we have you set up for the monthly plan at $12.95 plus the $1.98 artist royalty fee so you will be charged 14.93 a month."

I said not a chance am I paying a royalty fee on top of my subscription fee. You just lost a subscriber.

Comment Re:Tell them to put a sock in it. (Score 1) 426

by bachnit37 (#29292597) Attached to: Major ISPs Seek To Lower Broadband Definition

Politicians listen to the lobbyists because it is easier than doing the research themselves, and the only thing we can do is a massive grass roots effort to make things better.

This is 2009 for goodness sakes. Why can't we move all of the house of representatives back into their districts and let them telecommute? This would solve the problems of lobbyists. Can you imagine traveling to each district rather than door to door in DC? "Broadband" speeds would probably go up too. I'm just saying...
Science

Large Hadron Collider Struggling 371

Posted by kdawson from the trillion-here-a-trillion-there dept.
Writing in the NY Times, Dennis Overbye covers the birthing pangs and the prospects for CERN's Large Hadron Collider (which we have discussed numerous times). "The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections. [And] many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies. Some physicists are deserting the European project, at least temporarily, to work at a smaller, rival machine [Fermilab's Tevatron] across the ocean. ... Technicians have spent most of the last year cleaning up and inspecting thousands of splices in the collider. About 5,000 will have to be redone... Retraining magnets is costly and time consuming, experts say, and it might not be worth the wait to get all the way to the original target energy [of 7 TeV]. Many physicists say they would be perfectly happy if the collider never got above five trillion electron volts. Dr. Myers said he thought the splices as they are could handle 4 [TeV]. 'We could be doing physics at the end of November,' he said in July, before new vacuum leaks pushed the schedule back a few additional weeks. 'It's not the design energy of the machine, but it's 4 times higher than the Tevatron,' he said."
The Military

Navy Spends $33 Million For Hybrid of the High Sea 210

Posted by samzenpus from the batteries-not-included dept.
coondoggie writes "Some might call it an enormous floating Prius, but others will call it a step in the right direction: A new hybrid electric engine for US Navy ships that promises to save up to 12,000 barrels of oil a year per ship. The folks who brought you the Predator unmanned flying aircraft, General Atomics, this week got $32.7 million to develop a proof-of-concept Hybrid Electric Drive (HED) system for a full-scale demonstration on board the Navy's DDG 51 Class destroyers. DDG 51 destroyers are powered by General Electric gas turbines capable of moving the ships along at over 30 knots or about 35 mph. The General Atomics system would meld into this system and let the ship use electric power for slow-speed maneuvers. The engines would provide more power as the ship needed to go faster."

Comment 6 year old with diabetes (Score 1) 1092

by bachnit37 (#28172065) Attached to: Making a Child Locating System
I have struggled with this myself since my six year old has diabetes. He is just starting to spread his wings and wants to go play in the park with his siblings and friends. We always make sure to check his blood before he leaves but we still worry. I purchased a G1 Dev Phone this year and have written a small program that if it receives an SMS message of "Ping" from me it will auto respond with his latitude/longitude. Now I'm just waiting for some cheaper/smaller phones to be released.
Microsoft

Microsoft Rebrands Live Search As "Bing" 443

Posted by timothy from the after-sherlock-holmes'-more-obscure-brother dept.
JacobSteelsmith writes "Microsoft is attempting to re-brand its Live Search, also known as Kumo. Bing, as it's known, is another attempt by Microsoft to lure consumers away from Internet search leaders such as Google. Microsoft has posted a quarterly loss in its online advertising business, compared to Google's sales, $4.7 billion in the first quarter. According to the Live Search blog, Bing goes 'beyond the traditional search engines to help you make faster, more informed decisions' by combining a 'great search engine' with organized results. It also adds unique tools to help the user make important decisions. It is being touted as a 'decision engine.'"
Government

RIAA and BSA's Lawyers Taking Top Justice Posts 377

Posted by CmdrTaco from the one-hand-washes-the-other dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Following the appointment of RIAA's champion Donald Verrilli as associate deputy attorney general, here's a complete roundup of all the RIAA and BSA-linked lawyers comfortably seated at top posts at the Department of Justice by the new government. Not strange, since US VP Joe Biden is well known for pushing the copyright warmongers' agenda in Washington. Just in case you don't know, Verrilli is the nice man who sued the pants off Jammie Thomas."

Comment Re:Nonsense (Score 1) 555

by bachnit37 (#26735987) Attached to: Why Windows Must (and Will) Go Open Source
I am curiously excited about the Singularity project. I think it would make a lot of sense to open source it (I know it already is) as the OS and sell a Microsoft Shell that their desktop apps will only run on. Others would be free to create their own shell on top of a common OS.
Education

Summer Research Programs? 87

Posted by timothy from the self-directed dept.
aantn writes "I'm currently looking for a science-related summer program. I'm an 11th grade Israeli high school student interested in computer science and robotics. I have a high GPA and take afternoon classes in computer science and mathematics at Israel's Open University. I have several years of experience with C, Python, C#, and Java. I'm actively involved in several open source and freelance projects. Through a program at my school, I will be entering Trinity College's Fire Fighting Robot contest later this year. I enjoy writing and liberal arts, but I'm not interested in a "Learn to Program" or any other "Learn to ______" summer program. I'm looking for something that will be academically challenging and research-oriented. My top choice would be a university research program in either computer science or robotics, but I'm also looking at other science-oriented programs. Does anyone have suggestions for such programs? I'm mostly looking in Israel and the United States, but I'd love to hear about programs in other countries which accept international students. If it's relevant, I have a US citizenship."
Businesses

Less Is Moore 342

Posted by timothy from the 3-slugs-from-a-.44 dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "For years, the computer industry has made steady progress by following Moore's law, derived from an observation made in 1965 by Gordon Moore that the amount of computing power available at a particular price doubles every 18 months. The Economist reports however that in the midst of a recession, many companies would now prefer that computers get cheaper rather than more powerful, or by applying the flip side of Moore's law, do the same for less. A good example of this is virtualisation: using software to divide up a single server computer so that it can do the work of several, and is cheaper to run. Another example of 'good enough' computing is supplying 'software as a service,' via the Web, as done by Salesforce.com, NetSuite and Google, sacrificing the bells and whistles that are offered by conventional software that hardly anyone uses anyway. Even Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon: the next version of Windows is intended to do the same as the last version, Vista, but to run faster and use fewer resources. If so, it will be the first version of Windows that makes computers run faster than the previous version. That could be bad news for computer-makers, since users will be less inclined to upgrade — only proving that Moore's law has not been repealed, but that more people are taking the dividend it provides in cash, rather than processor cycles."

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