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Businesses

Sears To Convert Old Auto Centers Into National Chain of Data Centers 167

1sockchuck writes "Sears plans to convert dozens of Sears Auto Center stores into a national chain of server farms, saying it wants to be "the McDonald's or Starbucks of data centers." The strategy is an evolution of Sears Holdings' previously announced plan to turn old Sears and Kmart stores into IT centers. Instead, it will focus on the more than 700 Sears Auto Centers, which include many stand-alone cement buildings on mall perimeters. Ubiquity Critical Environments, the data center arm of Sears, will team with Schneider Electric to turn these sites into data centers. They'll use repeatable modular designs to add power and cooling infrastructure, targeting at least 23 smaller cities where there currently aren't many options for IT outsourcing."

Comment Finally, the savior of the PC (Score 1) 54

With all the fancy touch enabled UIs floating around on tablets and phones, the PC can finally make a similar evolutionary advancement. Touch screens on the desktop or a laptop are annoying to reach for, but a device sitting in the keyboard is even closer at hand than a mouse. Windows 8 doesn't seem so silly now.
Space

New Paper Offers Additional Reasoning for Fermi's Paradox 774

KentuckyFC writes "If the universe is teeming with advanced civilizations capable of communicating over interstellar distances, then surely we ought to have seen them by now. That's the gist of a paradoxical line of reasoning put forward by the physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950. The so-called Fermi Paradox has haunted SETI researchers ever since. Not least because if the number of intelligent civilizations capable of communication in our galaxy is greater than 1, then we should eventually hear from them. Now one astrophysicist says this thinking fails to take into account the limit to how far a signal from ET can travel before it becomes too faint to hear. Factor that in and everything changes. Assuming the average communicating civilization has a lifetime of 1,000 years, ten times longer than Earth has been broadcasting, and has a signal horizon of 1,000 light-years, you need a minimum of over 300 communicating civilizations in the Milky Way to ensure that you'll see one of them. Any less than that and the chances are that they'll live out their days entirely ignorant of each other's existence. Paradox solved, right?"
Privacy

Submission + - Police objecting to tickets from red-light cameras

caffiend666 writes: "According to this Dallas Morning New article, any "...Dallas police officer in a marked squad car who is captured on the city's cameras running a red light will have to pay the $75 fine if the incident doesn't comply with state law... Many police officers are angry about the proposed policy. The prevailing belief among officers has been that they can run red lights as they see fit." How is this a case for or against governments relying on un-biased automated systems? Or, should anyone be able to control who is recorded on camera and who is held accountable?"
Networking

Journal Journal: Anyone know of a cheap dedicated hosting company? 2

My current hosting company wants to put their prices up. I currently have a Mac Mini running OpenBSD colocated with them. I am looking to move, and have the following minimum needs:
  • 1GHz CPU,
  • 512MB of RAM,
  • 1IP,
  • 50GB/month of transfer,
  • OpenBSD or FreeBSD.
Role Playing (Games)

The Platinum Age of CRPGs 112

Matt Barton writes "I've just posted my third (and final) installment on CRPG history at GamaSutra: The Platinum and Modern Ages. This article covers the many classics released between 1994 and 2004, including Fallout, Planescape: Torment, Ultima Underworld, and of course Baldur's Gate, Diablo, and The Elder Scrolls. It also discusses why WoW and other MMORPGs aren't descended from these CRPGs (but rather MUDs). The Platinum Age produced the finest CRPGs ever made — but the future of the stand-alone, single-player CRPG looks grim."

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