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Programming

Submission + - Stroustrup Reflects on 25 Years of C++ (wired.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Today roughly marks C++'s first release 25 years ago when about six years of Bjarne Stroustrop's life came to fruition in the now pervasive replacement language for C. It achieved ISO standardization in 1998 and its creator regularly receives accolades. Wired's short interview contains some nice anecdotes including 'If I had thought of it and had some marketing sense every computer and just about any gadget would have had a little ‘C++ Inside’ sticker on it' and 'I’ll just note that I consider the idea of one language, one programming tool, as the one and only best tool for everyone and for every problem infantile. If someone claims to have the perfect language he is either a fool or a salesman or both.' There's some surprising revelations in here too as his portable computer runs Windows.

Submission + - Florida Town Builds Data Center in Water Tank (computerworld.com)

Submitted by miller60
miller60 writes: The Florida town of Altamonte Springs has converted an old water storage tank into a new data center. The decommissioned tank previously held up to 770,000 gallons of water, but its 18-inch thick walls provided a hurricane-proof home for the town's IT gear, which had to be relocated three times in 2004 to ride out major storms. The Altamonte Springs facility is the latest example of data centers in strange places, including chapels, shopping malls, cargo ships, old particle accelerators and caves.

Submission + - Bittorrent to Replace Standard Downloads?

Submitted by
Max Sayre
Max Sayre writes: "Have you ever tried to download an operating system update only to have it fail and have to start all over? What about patches for your favorite games? World of Warcraft already uses Bittorrent technology as a way to distribute large amounts of content at a lower cost to the company and faster speeds to all of their clients. Torrents are totally in these days. So why haven't they replaced the standard downloading options built into any major OS? No more anxious waiting as download speeds begin to drop... 95% done and you can update all of those servers, 96% or play your current gaming addiction, only to have the connection drop, download die, or power go out. Who knows? Companies like Opera are including the downloading of torrents in their products already and extensions have been written for Firefox to download torrents in-browser. Every day Bittorrent traffic is growing. So why do we insist on prolonging user suffering with these failed downloads? In many countries bandwidth is still at a premium and capped usage limits apply to everyone. Replacing the standard 'download' function in all the major operating systems with default torrenting functionality would see an end to a plague some feel are a punishment worse than death. Failed downloads would no longer be a risk where bandwidth is scarce.

Sites like OpenBittorrent already exist and DHT doesn't even require a tracker. So why isn't everyone doing it? Is it finally time to see all downloads replaced with Bittorrent?"
Space

Submission + - Air Force sets date to fly Mach-6 scramjet (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: The US Air Force said it was looking to launch its 14-foot long X-51A Waverider on its first hypersonic flight test attempt May 25. The unmanned X-51A is expected to fly autonomously for five minutes, after being released from a B-52 Stratofortress off the southern coast of California. The Waverider is powered by a supersonic combustion scramjet engine, and will accelerate to about Mach 6 as it climbs to nearly 70,000 feet. Once flying the X-51 will transmit vast amounts of data to ground stations about the flight, then splash down into the Pacific. There are no plans to recover the flight test vehicle, one of four built, the Air Force stated.
Idle

Submission + - Sea lions, dolphins trained to foil terrorism (stuff.co.nz)

Submitted by pinkstuff
pinkstuff writes:

A Navy seal — actually a sea lion — took less than a minute to find a fake mine under a pier near San Francisco's AT&T Park. A dolphin quickly located a terrorist lurking in the black water before another sea lion, using a device carried in its mouth, cuffed the pretend saboteur's ankle so authorities could reel him in.

Queue the 'frickin lasers' jokes...
Hardware

Submission + - 13 Open Source Hardware Companies Make $1 Million+ (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by kkleiner
kkleiner writes: Selling products whose design anyone can access, edit, or use on their own is pretty crazy. It’s also good business. At the annual hacker conference Foo Camp East this year, Phillip Torrone and Limor Fried from Adafruit Industries gave a rapid fire five minute presentation on thirteen companies with million dollar revenues or more from open source hardware. While this business model is counter-intuitive for those used to our patent and copyright loving system, Torrone and Fried estimate that the industry will reach a billion dollars by 2015.

Comment Not really that big of a deal (Score 1) 554

by ssentinull (#32096952) Attached to: RFID Checks Student Attendance in Arizona

I don't know if any of you actually took time to read the article, but it doesn't say anywhere that the professors have to use it to take attendance. They said it was collected and the professors could decide to use the data - maybe some will use it for attendance, and maybe some won't. However, I think it's safe to say that having the new technology is not going to make the professors switch their idea about attendance, it just makes it more convenient for those who already take attendance.

At Georgia Tech, for some classes we had PRS systems, which were RF audience polling machines, and each student's was registered to their GT ID number. The professor then 'took attendance' by checking to see if the PRS registered with your ID number answered atleast one question. Most people found out that you could take someone else's PRS to class, and what a lot of people did - a group of friends would switch off who would bring the 5 PRS's to class. We also have RFID cards which make things much easier around campus, from getting into buildings to signing in at career fairs. And honestly, I'd rather have those for attendance classes, have them just scan my RFID ID card rather than buying a $50 answering machine - and it would be easier for people to skip class honestly - putting an extra card in your pocket is easier than answering a question on finicky hardware, or listening for someone else's name.

Summary: It's something which makes something tedious easier and quicker, RFID cards have many other helpful uses on campus, and for the paranoid types you can wear your aluminum foil hats and carry your aluminum foil wallets.
Idle

Submission + - Over 65 Year Old Magazine Story On Hitler (makeahistory.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Back in 1938, the British magazine Homes and Gardens ran a rather fascinating feature on Adolf Hitler's mountain home... "A handsome Bavarian chalet 2000 feet up on the Obersalzburg amid pinewoods and cherry orchards... barely ten miles from Mozart's own medieval Salzburg.". The story was a major coup in those darkening days leading up to World War and gave Europe an almost unprecedented look into a small slice of Hitler's private home life.
Idle

Submission + - Norway Builds the World's Most Humane Prison (time.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: By the time the trumpets sound, the candles have been lit and the salmon platters garnished. Harald V, King of Norway, enters the room, and 200 guests stand to greet him. Then a chorus of 30 men and women, each wearing a blue police uniform, launches into a spirited rendition of "We Are the World." This isn't cabaret night at Oslo's Royal Palace. It's a gala to inaugurate Halden Fengsel, Norway's newest prison.

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