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Robotics

Submission + - Robots make the coins go round downunder (computerworld.com.au)

inkslinger77 writes: "Computerworld has a cool slideshow of a Kuka Titan robot and a bunch of AGVs managing the circulation of coins at the Australian Mint. There's also a lengthier article where the head of the project talks about the main reason robots were employed. One of the reasons being that they radically reduce OH&S risk: "We are finding that the AGVs are much safer and more reliable. Robots are never affected by having a bad night with the baby and falling asleep at the wheel. They are extremely accurate and they always do the same task in the same way.""
Programming

Submission + - Martin Odersky: Scala could be the web 2.0 darling (computerworld.com.au)

inkslinger77 writes: "Scala looks like it is becoming the web 2.0 darling, popular with Twitter and LinkedIn developers but also heavily utilized in the corporate space. Martin Odersky speaks in detail about the language in this interview. He talks about why it could become the language of choice for social networking platforms, particularly after doing well in the acid test of being used by sites like Twitter and LinkedIn. "Twitter has been able to sustain phenomenal growth, and it seems with more stability than what they had before the switch, so I think that's a good testament to Scala," he said."
Government

Submission + - Austria to pull out of CERN (google.com)

andre.david writes: From AFP: "Austria is pulling out of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), Science Minister Johannes Hahn announced Thursday, citing budget concerns.
The 20-million-euro (26.9-million-dollar) yearly membership in CERN [...] makes up 70 percent of the money available in Austria for participation in international institutes and could be better used to fund other European projects, he said.
Hahn said he hoped Austria could find "a new kind of cooperation" with CERN and described Vienna's withdrawal from the project as a "pause", noting that some 30 states were already working together with the Geneva-based centre without being members.
The newly-available funds will now allow Austria to take part in new European projects, boost its participation in old ones as well as help the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the country's main organisation funding research."
Austrian particle physicists are not happy with this. From HEPHY, the Austrian Institute for High Energy Physics: "All of a surprise Johannes Hahn [...] announced that he wants to terminate the Austrian membership at CERN [...]. This [would] affect spin-off projects like the planned cancer treatment center MedAustron [...] which is dependent on collaborating with CERN [...]. Strangely enough this intention just arrives at a time where scientists are about to harvest the fruits of LHC [...]."
Will other countries follow suit?

Education

23,000 Linux PCs For Filipino Schools 142

Da Massive writes "Speaking at the linux.conf.au event in Melbourne, Australia, independent open source consultant Ricardo Gonzalez has told of how he has helped bring 23,000 Linux PCs to over 1000 schools in the Philippines: 'Ministers in the Filipino government now understand Linux can do so much for so little outlay.'" The slow process of educating a government that knew only Microsoft is especially well described in this piece.
The Internet

Lawyer Puts $10k Bounty on Blogger's Identity 286

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Raymond Niro of Niro Scavone Haller & Niro is fighting back against criticism from the Patent Troll Tracker blog by offering a $10,000 bounty for the identity of the person behind it. He thinks the blogger might work for Microsoft, Intel, or has connections to a 'serial infringer' and that could 'color' what they say."
Space

Latest Earth-Crossing Asteroid Passes by Tonight 69

jc42 writes "Astronomers have been looking at the first images of asteroid 2007 TU24, the 250-meter asteroid that will pass 540,000 km from the Earth at 8:33 UTC (3:30 EST) Tuesday morning. So get your telescopes out; it's a 10th-magnitude object. Or just hold your breath as the time approaches. It might be sobering to consider that it was just discovered last October, and we know about maybe half of the objects like this in Earth-crossing orbits."
Supercomputing

Submission + - students power supercomputer with bicycles (computerworld.com.au) 1

inkslinger77 writes: "A team of ten MIT students powered a supercomputer for twenty minutes by pedalling bicycles. They duly claimed the world record for human-powered computing (HPC). They powered a SiCortex SC648 supercomputer with a Linux cluster of 648 CPUs and almost 1TB of main memory in a single cabinet. The system is low-powered and draws 1,200 watts without needing special power supplies or cooling..."
IBM

Submission + - IBM sues company selling fake, flammable batteries (computerworld.com.au)

Bergkamp10 writes: A Computerworld article reporting that IBM is suing Shentech for selling laptop batteries that catch on fire and sport allegedly fake IBM logos. IBM apparently followed up on a claim by a customer that an "IBM" laptop battery bought at Shentech caught on fire and damaged his laptop. The customer reported the problem to Lenovo (who license Big Blue's trademark) who subsequently ordered 12 batteries from Shentech and found them all to be fakes. IBM is asking for US$1 million in damages for each dodgy battery sold.
Google

Submission + - MySQL to get injection of Google code (computerworld.com.au)

inkslinger77 writes: "MySQL has laid out its software road map through 2009, including some code contributed by Google and security improvements that are due in MySQL 7.0... Google is secretive about the distributed architecture underlying its services, but it's known to be one of MySQL's biggest users, running hundreds or even thousands of its databases worldwide."
Digital

Submission + - Study says DRM violates privacy law (idg.com.au)

inkslinger77 writes: "Digital rights management (DRM) technology used in MP3s, DVDs, and most consumer software may be violating Canadian privacy laws, according to a new report. The report investigated DRM systems used in 16 different digital products and services including Apple's iTunes Music Store, Microsoft's Office Visio, and Symantec's North SystemWorks 2006. Fewer said the biggest concern stemming from this lack of disclosure came from the amount of third-party companies and marketers found linked with the DRM systems."
Security

Submission + - Hacker publishes notorious Apple Wi-Fi attack (computerworld.com.au)

inkslinger77 writes: "More than a year after claiming to have found a way to take over a Macintosh computer using a flaw in the system's wireless card, David Maynor has finally published details of his exploit. Maynor had been under a nondisclosure agreement, which had previously prevented him from publishing details of the hack, but the NDA is over now and by going public with the information, Maynor hopes to help other Apple researchers with new documentation on things like Wi-Fi debugging and the Mac OS X kernel core dumping facility."
Robotics

Submission + - Mars rovers return to exploration (computerworld.com.au)

inkslinger77 writes: "The two Mars rovers that have been carefully conserving critical power supplies since June, when the summer dust-storm season began on the red planet, are now springing back to work as the storms subside. Typically, the solar panels on each rover produce about 700 watt-hours of electricity per day — enough to light a 100-watt bulb for seven hours, according to NASA. But this year's dust storms reduced that to as little as 128 watt hours per day. When daily power generation is down to less than 400 watt-hours, the rovers suspend their driving on the planet and stop using their robotic arms, cameras and other instruments. But they are back in action now!"
Power

Submission + - Power Wi-Fi using the sun, says startup (computerworld.com.au)

inkslinger77 writes: "A small US startup has announced technology for running Wi-Fi routers in remote places using only the power of the sun. Among the first round of products from Solis Energy is the Solar Power Plant, touted as being capable of supplying 12, 24 and 48 Volts DC for use in stand-alone applications such as surveillance cameras and outdoor Wi-Fi."

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