Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
IBM

IBM's Patent-Pending Traffic Lights Stop Car Engines 423

Posted by Soulskill from the even-red-lights-are-going-green dept.
theodp writes "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't let your engine idle. The USPTO has just published IBM's patent application for a 'System and Method for Controlling Vehicle Engine Running State at Busy Intersections for Increased Fuel Consumption Efficiency.' Here's how Big Blue explains the invention: 'The present disclosure is directed to a method for managing engines in response to a traffic signal. The method may comprise establishing communications with participating vehicles; responding to a stop status indicated by the traffic signal, further comprising: receiving a position data from each participating vehicles; determining a queue of participating vehicles stopped at the traffic signal; determining a remaining duration of the stop status; sending a stop-engine notification to the list of participating vehicles stopped at the traffic signal when the remaining duration is greater than a threshold of time; responding to a proceed status indicated by the traffic signal, further comprising: sending a start-engine notification to a first vehicle in the queue; calculating an optimal time for an engine of a second vehicle in the queue to start; and sending the start-engine notification to the second vehicle at the optimal time.' IBM notes that 'traffic signals may include, but are not limited to, traffic lights at intersections, railway crossing signals, or other devices for indicating correct moments to stop and to proceed.'"
Space

X-37B Found By Amateur Sky Watchers 109

Posted by Soulskill from the eye-in-the-sky dept.
otter42 writes "It seems that X-37B couldn't stay hidden forever. Launched a few weeks ago, The Flying Twinkie disappeared shortly after separation. Now it has been found in an orbit that takes it as far north as 40 degrees latitude. No additional information has been found about the spacecraft's capabilities or purpose, except for a US Air Force statement that the satellite has no space-weapons purpose. The X-37B is intended to fly for 9 months at a time, opening the door to possible space longevity experiments in addition to its spying tasks."
Security

Submission + - Leaning Tower of Pisa Secure for 300 More Years

Submitted by
Ponca City, We Love You
Ponca City, We Love You writes: "Medieval architects only got as far as the third floor of the tower of Pisa before it began to lean in 1178 and by 1990 it had tilted more than four meters off its true vertical, with conservationists estimating that the entire 14,500-ton structure would collapse "some time between 2030 and 2040." Now the Leaning Tower of Pisa has been stabilized and declared safe for at least another three centuries after it was anchored to cables and lead counterweights while 70 tons of soil was removed from the north side — away from the lean — and cement was injected into the ground to relieve the pressure. The tilt has now returned to where it was in the early 19th century and architects say there was never any intention to straighten the 56m tower, only to stop it sinking further. Nicholas Shrady, author "Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa" says that the tower was destined to tilt from the outset because of the decision to build the tower "on what is essentially a former bog" and that the tower has previously come close to collapsing in 1838, 1934, and 1995. Although Galileo Galilei is said to have dropped cannon balls from the tower in a gravity experiment, Shrady says the myth is the "result of the overripe imagination of Galileo's secretary and first biographer, Vincenzo Viviani.""

Comment Send outside the firewall? Via UPS (Score 1) 542

by jgt10 (#23507268) Attached to: How Would You Prefer To Send Sensitive Data?
If I don't trust sending something via email, why would I trust ANY kind of electronic transport?

By the time any VPN, PGP, or other encryption method is worked out a flash drive or CD or DVD with the data could be FedEx to the consultant.

Many years ago the pithy comment was "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon loaded with tapes."

Today it might be "Don't underestimate the bandwidth of a minivan loaded with DVDs."

JGT
The Courts

Submission + - SPAM: First Caller-ID spoofers spanked

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The first telemarketers charged with transmitting false Caller IDs (a process known as caller ID spoofing) to consumers were fined and barred from continuing their schemes by a New Jersey District Court judge. Under the terms of a court order announced by the Federal Trade Commission today, two individuals and one corporate defendant have been barred from violating the agency's Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) and its Do Not Call (DNC) requirements arising from a telemarketing scheme designed to sell mortgage loans, refinancing services, and other products to U.S. consumers. They were also found liable for $530,000 in damages. In addition to charging the defendants with calling consumers on the National DNC Registry and failing to pay for access to the list, the case was the first brought by the Commission alleging the transmission of phony caller ID information or none at all. Under the DNC provisions of the TSR telemarketers are required to transmit accurate caller ID information so consumers who do not want to be called in the future can contact them and tell them so. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Software

The Inside Story on Norway's Yes to OOXML 254

Posted by timothy from the distracted-by-short-skirt-during-brief-summer dept.
Steve Pepper writes "The former Chairman of the Norwegian ISO committee, who resigned two weeks ago in protest against his country's vote of Yes to OOXML, tells the inside story of how the decision was reached: how a single bureaucrat from Standards Norway sidelined the overwhelming majority of Norwegian technical experts and changed Norway's vote from No to Yes. The story is so surreal it's hard to believe." It's as depressing as it is brief.
Space

Submission + - Private Efforts Fill Gaps in Earth's NEO Defenses

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Until very recently, the devastating 1908 explosion of a space rock over the isolated Tunguska region of Siberia was thought to be a once-in-a-millennium event but new simulations by Mark Boslough at Sandia National Laboratories suggest the Tunguska object was much smaller than previously believed and since smaller near-Earth objects (NEOs) are more common than larger ones, the implication is that the gap between such impacts may be centuries rather than millennia. In 2005, the US Congress directed NASA to catalog 90 percent of potentially hazardous NEOs greater than 140 meters in diameter by the year 2020 but NASA has yet to allot funds to the project. Increasingly, coordinated private efforts are working to fill the gap in Earth's NEO defenses. Earlier this year, Bill Gates and Charles Simonyi donated a combined $30 million to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), keeping it on track for first light in 2014. LSST will survey the entire visible sky deeply in multiple colors every week with its three-billion pixel digital camera, probing the mysteries of Dark Matter and Dark Energy and by opening a movie-like window on objects that change or move, the LSST will also detect and catalog NEOs."
The Media

Wikileaks Sidesteps Publishing Public PGP Key 96

Posted by timothy from the these-things-take-time dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Repeated requests toward the Wikileaks staff regarding their use of PGP have gone unanswered. The current public PGP key posted has been expired since November 2nd, 2007. A response on their PGP talk page notes that the 'SSL based mail submission system' will be the secure online method of document submission. At the current time, there is no method to safely encrypt any postal communications with Wikileaks or verify that any given communication actually originated from a Wikileaks staff member." Doubtless there are some complicating factors here -- but what is the best way to keep a confidentiality-centric site like Wikileaks trustworthy?
Supercomputing

Submission + - SPAM: Self-healing ceramics for nuclear safety

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) researchers have used supercomputers to simulate how common ceramics could repair themselves after radiation-induced damages. This is an important discovery because 'materials that can resist radiation damage are needed to expand the use of nuclear energy.' These ceramics, which are able to handle high-radiation doses, could improve the durability of nuclear power plants. They also might help to solve the problem of nuclear waste storage. But read more for additional references about how this research could improve nuclear safety."
Windows

Gartner Analysts Warn That Windows Is Collapsing 868

Posted by Soulskill from the the-sky-is-falling-if-you-have-enough-ram dept.
spacefiddle writes "Computerworld has an article about a presentation from Gartner analysts in Las Vegas claiming that Windows is 'collapsing', and that Microsoft 'must make radical changes to the operating system or risk becoming a has-been.' Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald provided an analysis of what went wrong with Vista, and what they feel Microsoft can and must do to correct its problems. Larry Dignan of ZDNet has his own take, and while he agrees, he suggests that the downfall of Windows will be slow and drawn-out. As an interesting tangent to this, there's also a story from a few days prior about Ubuntu replacing Windows for a school's library kiosks, getting good performance out of older hardware. '[Network administrator Daniel] Stefyn said he was "pleasantly surprised" to discover that the Kubuntu desktops ran some applications faster with Linux than when they ran on Windows. An additional benefit of Windows' departure from student library terminals saw the students cease 'hacking the setup to install and play games or trash the operating system.'"
Earth

Submission + - Subway Cars get Second Life as Artificial Reef

Submitted by
Pickens
Pickens writes: "Hundreds of retired New York City subway cars are being sunk sixteen nautical miles off Delaware's Indian River Inlet and about 80 feet underwater, continuing the transformation of a barren stretch of ocean floor into a bountiful oasis, carpeted in sea grasses, walled thick with blue mussels and sponges, and teeming with black sea bass and tautog. "They're basically luxury condominiums for fish," says Jeff Tinsman, artificial reef program manager for the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. Subway cars are roomy enough to invite certain fish, too heavy to shift easily in storms and durable enough to avoid throwing off debris for decades. Tinsman particularly favors the newer subway cars with stainless steel on the outside to create reefs. "We call these the DeLoreans of the deep," he said. But success comes at a price because other states, seeing Delaware's successes, have started competing for the subway cars, which New York City provides free. "The secret is out, I guess," said Michael G. Zacchea, the MTA official in charge of getting rid of New York City's old subway cars."
Security

US Cyber Command Reveals Plans To Hit Back At Cyber Threats 95

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the shoot-first-ask-questions-later dept.
CNet News.com is reporting that the Air Force's Cyber Command has just as much interest in offense as defense. "Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER), a US military unit set up in September 2007 to fight in cyberspace, is due to become fully operational in the autumn under the aegis of the US Eighth Air Force. Lieutenant general Robert J. Elder Jr., who commands the Eighth Air Force's Barksdale base, told ZDNet.co.uk at the Cyber Warfare Conference 2008 that Air Force is interested in developing its capabilities to attack enemy forces as well as defend critical national infrastructure. "
Businesses

Creative Backs Down on Vista Driver Debacle 228

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the three-black-eyes-and-a-bloody-nose dept.
In the wake of last week's driver debacle, Creative has finally decided to back down for PR purposes. Modder Daniel_K, author of the offending Vista drivers, has had his posts on the Creative forums reinstated. According to Creative the move was to avoid infringing on other company's IP. "Daniel_K is incensed by Creative. 'They publicly threatened me, just to show their arrogance,' he told El Reg by email. He told us that Creative contacted him on a chat session. 'They were sarcastic, ironic and asked me if I wanted something from them, as if I were expecting something,' he wrote. 'It was my protest against them and would like to see how far it would go.'"
Real Time Strategy (Games)

Submission + - WOW sues Creator of Fighting Bot

Submitted by
Ponca City, We Love You
Ponca City, We Love You writes: "Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, are suing Michael Donnelly, the creator of the MMO Glider program, which performs key tasks in the game automatically, such as fighting. Blizzard says the software bot infringes the company's copyright and potentially damages the game. "Blizzard's designs expectations are frustrated, and resources are allocated unevenly, when bots are introduced into the WoW universe, because bots spend far more time in-game than an ordinary player would and consume resources the entire time," Blizzard wrote in its legal submission to the court. More than 100,000 copies of the tool have been sold while more than 10 million people around the world play Warcraft. Donnelly says his tool does not infringe Blizzard's copyright because no "copy" of the Warcraft game client software is ever made. The two parties are now awaiting a summary judgment in the case."
Robotics

Submission + - SPAM: The world's biggest subsea robot

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "According to a newspaper of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, companies installing subsea cables for telecommunications companies and pipelines for the oil industry have now a new tool, the UT-1 Ultra Trencher which is the world's biggest subsea robot. This beauty weighs 60 tons (in the air) and has a length of 7.8 meters, a width of 7.8 meters and a height of 5.6 meters. In fact, it has the dimensions of a small house but is more expensive, carrying a price tag of about £10 millions. It can move at a speed of 2 to 3 knots under the sea. And it can trench pipelines with a 1-meter diameter in deep waters of up to 1,500 meters. But read more for additional details, including a picture showing what the UT-1 Ultra Trencher looks like."

Slashdot Top Deals

Work expands to fill the time available. -- Cyril Northcote Parkinson, "The Economist", 1955

Close