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AU Government To Build "Unhackable" Netbooks 501

Posted by kdawson on Sunday September 27, 2009 @08:09AM from the smells-like-a-challenge dept.

bennyboy64 writes "In what may be one of the largest roll-outs yet of Microsoft's new Windows 7 Operating System, Australia's Federal Government decided to give 240,000 Lenovo IdeaPad S10e netbooks to Year 9-12 students. Officials are calling them 'unhackable.' iTnews reports that the laptops come armed with an enterprise version of the Windows 7 OS, Microsoft Office, the Adobe CS4 creative suite, Apple iTunes, and content geared specifically to students. New South Wales Department of Education CIO Stephen Wilson said that schools were 'the most hostile environment you can roll computers into.' While the netbooks are loaded with many hundreds of dollars worth of software, 2GB of RAM, and a 6-hour battery, the cost to the NSW Department of Education is under $435 (US) a unit. Wilson praised Windows' new OS: 'There was no way we could do any of this on XP,' he said. 'Windows 7 nailed it for us.' At the physical layer, each netbook is password-protected and embedded with tracking software that is embedded at the BIOS level of the machine. If a netbook were to be stolen or sold, the Department of Education is able to remotely disable the device over the network. Each netbook is also fitted with a passive RFID chip which will enable the netbooks to be identified 'even if they were dropped in a bathtub.' The Department of Education also uses the AppLocker functionality within Windows 7 to dictate which applications can be installed."

Mysterious Sound Waves Can Destroy Rockets 193

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday April 10, 2008 @11:12PM from the scientists-get-the-best-toys dept.

Ponca City, We love you writes "Scientists believe that powerful and unstable sound waves, created by energy supplied by the combustion process, were the cause of rocket failures in several US and Russian rockets. They have also observed these mysterious oscillations in other propulsion and power-generating systems such as missiles and gas turbines. Now, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a liquid rocket engine simulator and imaging techniques to help demystify the cause of these explosive sound waves and bring scientists a little closer to being able to understand and prevent them. The team was able to clearly demonstrate that the phenomenon manifests itself in the form of spinning acoustic waves that gain destructive power as they rotate around the rocket's combustion chamber at a rate of 5,000 revolutions per second. Researchers developed a low-pressure combustor to simulate larger rocket engines then used a very-high-speed camera with fiber optic probes to observe the formation and behavior of excited spinning sound waves within the engine. 'This is a very troublesome phenomenon in rockets,' said Professor Ben Zinn. 'These spinning acoustic oscillations destroy engines without anyone fully understanding how these waves are formed. Visualizing this phenomenon brings us a step closer to understanding it.'"

Submission + - The 10 "Inconvienient Truths" of File Shar

Submitted by

54mc

on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @10:15AM

54mc writes: "The IFPI, an international recording industry organization, has released a list of Ten "Inconvenient Truths" of file sharing. Though the group has a vested interest, it's still an interesting read as it tears apart some of the most common arguments in favor of file sharing. Ars Technica follows up with a more thorough explanation of some of the points."

Comment It's about shrinking (Score 1) 273

by fdup on Sunday January 28, 2001 @09:51PM (#477469) Attached to: Is Linus Killing Linux?

The other important thing is the word "grow" that the article mentions. What do you mean grow??? If you want the kernel to have a certain feature then DO IT! It's not Linus's responsibility to ensure that what other people want in the kernel is there.

The real need is not to add extra functionality to the kernel, but rather to simplify it to the level of a LEAN AND MEAN micro-kernel (QNX-style). This will have benefits in both directions:

For embedded applications: The ability to fit the beast on smaller flash
For all flashing-singing-and-dancing desktop use: Adding bleeding-edge drivers or functionality without bringing down the kernel
For scientific number crunching: Maximum cluster performance without unneccesary overheads
For corporate servers: Super-high reliability for specific tasks

This way, even real-time Linux becomes easier to hack together!

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