mklprc - Slashdot User

China's New Military Space Stations Coming Soon 345

Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 10, 2009 @11:17AM from the aloha-up-there dept.

WindBourne writes "China will be launching 2 new space stations this next year. One is for their civil program (as run by the military), while the second is openly for the military. It appears that there will be multiples of the military version to be launched in 2010, and that they are developing the same US Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) that was canceled in 1969. In addition, it appears that China is accelerating their timelines on a number of the earlier space announcements."

Dell's Rugged Laptop Doesn't Quite Pass 4-Foot Drop Test 113

Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 10, 2009 @10:49AM from the pretty-toughbook dept.

narramissic writes "Dell's new Latitude E6400 XFR laptop is designed to withstand drops, dust and high pressure water spray. The company claims the laptop, which is intended for military use, can withstand rain and wind gusts of up 70 mph, and can work in temperatures from -20 to 145 degrees Fahrenheit. It can also work for an hour at an altitude of 15,000 feet and is designed to withstand drops of around 4 feet (48 inches) when not operating and 36 inches when operational. The LCD screen floats a little bit within the LCD cover so it can take impacts and shock, said Jeremy Bolen, a Dell spokesman. But watch as the laptop that Dell used to show these features wasn't able to withstand the rough treatment that was part of the company's demonstration."

FFmpeg Finally Releases Long-Awaited Version 0.5 176

Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 10, 2009 @10:30AM from the unsung-software-heroes dept.

An anonymous reader writes "After many years of release-free development, FFmpeg, the most widely used audio and video codec library, has finally returned to a regular release schedule with the long-awaited version 0.5. While the list of changes is far too long to list here, some high-profile improvements include the reverse-engineering of all Real video formats, WMV9/VC-1 support, AAC decoding, and of course vast performance improvements across the board. To commemorate the 'lively' discussions predating the release, 0.5 is codenamed 'half-way to world domination A.K.A. the belligerent blue bike shed.' The new version can be downloaded from the official website." As another reader points out, FFmpeg is what makes some open source multimedia apps (like MPlayer, Xine, VLC and Kdenlive) so versatile.

Comment Re:Repeatable? (Score 1) 177

by mklprc on Saturday October 20, 2007 @04:00PM (#21057531) Attached to: Long-lived Mars Rovers to Keep on Roving

Nobody has mentioned it, but I think the reason that they work so well (one reason, anyway), is there is not a shred of Microsoft code anywhere in their systems. If there were, I would not be the only one surprised, and M$ would be trumpeting it in their ads. Imagine: Now Vista Professional for Rover. Simply upload and reboot.

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