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Moon

Earth May Once Have Had Two Moons 139

Posted by samzenpus from the that's-no-moon dept.
AaronW writes "According to a story at space.com, Earth may once have had two moons. The smaller moon, estimated to be 750 miles (1200km) wide and only 4% of the mass of the larger moon, crashed into the far side of the larger moon which caused the features we see today on the moon. The surface of the far side of the moon is quite different than the side facing the earth, having a different composition and a much rougher terrain."
Star Wars Prequels

Where Jules Verne Meets Star Wars: GE's Walking Truck 57

Posted by Soulskill from the i'll-order-a-dozen dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This July 4th weekend, millions of Americans will head to the air-conditioned confines of their local multiplex to take in Harry Potter, Captain America and other summer blockbusters. A military relic that foreshadowed a sci-fi vehicle featured in perhaps the most popular summer movie of all time – Star Wars – is on exhibit at the U.S. Army Transportation Musem at Fort Eustis: GE's Pedipulator, or 'Walking Truck,' developed for the U.S. Army in the mid-'60s. GE's quadroped was first imagined and lumbered through its testing paces in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, starting in 1962, 15 years before George Lucas's AT-AT walkers debuted on the big screen."
Microsoft

Nokia Has a Billion Reasons To Love WP7 318

Posted by Soulskill from the attempting-to-buy-mindshare dept.
theodp writes "A report from Bloomberg notes it ain't easy, or cheap, to outbid Google. Microsoft has reportedly agreed to pay Nokia more than $1 billion to 'promote and develop' Windows Phone devices under the agreement between the companies. Bloomberg says the agreement for the payment was 'part of a campaign by Microsoft to keep Nokia from choosing Google's Android operating system.'"
Android

Google Says Honeycomb Will Not Come To Smartphones 193

Posted by timothy from the xda-devs-need-some-love dept.
tekgoblin writes "Google has officially announced that Honeycomb will not be coming to Android based smartphones. Android 3.0 Honeycomb was specifically made for Tablets according to a Google spokesperson. Although, certain features that are present on Honeycomb will become available over time on Android smartphones. Google has not offered any information to what features will be ported over specifically." On the bright side, Honeycomb will come with disk-encryption capabilities built in.
Databases

Cassandra 0.7 Can Pack 2 Billion Columns Into a Row 235

Posted by timothy from the but-only-if-they're-really-thin dept.
angry tapir writes "The cadre of volunteer developers behind the Cassandra distributed database have released the latest version of their open source software, able to hold up to 2 billion columns per row. The newly installed Large Row Support feature of Cassandra version 0.7 allows the database to hold up to 2 billion columns per row. Previous versions had no set upper limit, though the maximum amount of material that could be held in a single row was approximately 2GB. This upper limit has been eliminated."
Image

Measuring the Speed of Light With Valentine's Day Chocolate 126

Posted by samzenpus from the speed-of-the-sound-of-loneliness dept.
Cytotoxic writes "What to do with all of those leftover Valentine's Day chocolates? — a common problem for the Slashdot crowd. The folks over at Wired magazine have an answer for you in a nice article showing how to measure the speed of light with a microwave and some chocolate. A simple yet surprisingly accurate method that can be used to introduce the scientific method to children and others in need of a scientific education."
The Internet

Is Google Planning To Fibre Britain? 184

Posted by timothy from the you're-fibred! dept.
Barence writes with this excerpt from PC Pro: "Google has emerged as a surprise contender to invest in Britain's fibre broadband network. The search giant yesterday announced plans to build a gigabit fibre broadband network in the US. The test network will see Google deliver fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) connections to up to half a million US homes. The move raises the possibility that Google is behind the Conservative Party's ambitious plans to deliver nationwide 100Mbits/sec connections by 2017. Parliamentary sources have told PC Pro that the Tories' plans were based on foreign investment in the UK broadband network."
Science

Jellyfish Swimming Is Mixing the Oceans 47

Posted by samzenpus from the jellyfish-effect dept.
eviltangerine writes "A new article from LiveScience suggests that marine creatures, such as the jellyfish, may contribute as much to ocean mixing as wind and tides. Wired is also covering the story and includes a video of the jellyfish in action. From the article, 'The mere act of swimming implies that some water travels with the swimmer,' said CalTech engineer Kakani Katija, co-author of the study in Nature Wednesday. 'Drift applies to all animals, to anything with a body.' No word yet on when the jellyfish blender is to debut."

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