Comment Re:Motivation? (Score 1) 773
Is he still holding stock in Yahoo! from their buying his ownership in broadcast.com?
Submission + - U Delaware breaks solar power efficiency record (renewableenergyaccess.com) 1
mdsolar writes: "Renewable Energy Access is reporting that a consortium led by researchers at the University of Delaware has achieved 42.8% efficiency with a silicon solar cell. The method uses lower concentration (factor of 20 magnification) than the previous record holder Boeing-Spectrolab made cell (40.7% efficiency) so that it may have a broader range of applications since tolerances for pointing the device will be larger. They are now partnering with DuPont to build engineering and manufacturing prototypes under DARPA's Very High Efficiency Solar Cell program which supports work towards achieving 50% efficiency. It is expected that these cells can help improve the military battery logistics pipeline, providing "soldiers with more power at reduced weight." They expect to be in production in 2010. On a roof, such cells would require less than half the surface area to produce the same amount of power as today's standard solar panels. This might leave room for panels to power plugin hybrids for cases where roof area is too limited to do this with standard panels."
Perpetual Energy Machine Getting Lots of Attention 965
Many users have written to tell us about a magnetic machine promising "infinite clean energy". Engadget has the first picture of the device and is reporting that the announcement (along with a short video) of this supposed device will be released later tonight. "CEO Sean McCarthy tells SilconRepublic how it works. Namely, the time variance in magnetic fields allows the Orbo platform to 'consistently produce power, going against the law of conservation of energy which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed.' He goes on to say 'It's too good to be true but it is true. It will have such an impact on everything we do. The only analogy I can give is if you had absolute proof that God wasn't real.'" In my experience if something seems too good to be true it generally is. I wouldn't get your hopes up.
Submission + - Table Top USP Lasers Slice, Dice, and So Much More
UltravioletLED writes: A company in Petaluma, California has developed highly programmable desktop lasers. The same device that is used in a hospital could also be used to turn any metal surface black by simply changing the software. The technology once filled a large room at DARPA until Raydiance scientists made it into a compact, tabletop unit. Schuler (The CEO) said he hopes it will replace just about any cutting device you can think of, from a big metal saw to a precise surgical blade...Now that it's a little bigger than a breadbox, researchers want to use them to kill tumors, identify friend or foe during combat, and even remove tattoos.Femtosecond lasers for eye surgery have been around for years now, but these new lasers are far smaller and promise to have much greater versatility.
Submission + - Giant Dinosaur Bird Discovered (bbc.co.uk)
Cyclist110 writes: The BBC has the story of the discovery, in Inner Mongolia, of a Dinosaur bird twice the size of a man and weighing in at over 3000 lbs. From the article: "Chinese researchers uncovered the fossilised remains of the flightless giant in the Erlian basin in Inner Mongolia. The researchers had originally thought they had found the bones of a tyrannosaur — the group of dinosaurs to which T. rex belongs — due to their large size."
Sure hope the Creation Museum has some PlayDough left over.
Sure hope the Creation Museum has some PlayDough left over.
Submission + - IPv6 flaw could greatly amplify DDoS attacks
tygerstripes writes: The Register has a story about the discovery of a flaw in part of the IPv6 specification which has experts scrambling to have the feature removed, or at least disabled by default. From the article:
Paul Vixie, president of the Internet Systems Consortium, described the fault bluntly. "It can be exploited by any greedy Estonian teenager with a $300 Linux machine."The specification, known as the Type 0 Routing Header (RH0), allows computers to tell IPv6 routers to send data by a specific route. Originally envisioned as a way to let mobile users to retain a single IP for their devices... RH0 support allows attackers to amplify denial-of-service attacks on IPv6 infrastructure by a factor of at least 80.
Submission + - EU approves new, stricter anti-piracy directive
A Pirate writes: "The European Parliament has voted for the new report submitted by Italian parliament member Nicola Zingaretti that criminalize even attempts to infringe on copyrights. Even if the new directive excludes end-users from the law it still criminalize sites like YouTube and practically all P2P services, even the developers of these services. The exceptions beside the end-users' personal use, includes studies and research. While the European Parliament apparently describes the new directive as a an attempt to harmonize the copyright laws of the European Countries others have been describing it as a lobby directive."
Submission + - Microsoft offers Vista upgrade pricing to all
SlinkySausage writes: "With a vague whif of desperation, Microsoft is offering anyone who downloaded one of the betas or release candidates of Vista upgrade pricing for the full version. The 'special' deal is a sweetener for the fact that the betas will start expiring and becoming non-functional from May 31st. APC Magazine in Australia writes: "Windows Vista is starting to look like those Persian rug stores which are always having a 'closing down' sale. 'Full' prices are set laughably high only to make you think you're getting an amazing discount, because no-one pays the marked price. All stock has been slashed, save $$$, why pay more?"
Feed Amazon flows into digital music sales (theregister.com)
As it announces doubled Q1 profits
Online retailer Amazon looks set to take on Apple in the downloadable music market, with plans to launch its own iTunes rival.
Journal Journal: Resolution to impeach VP Cheney submitted 1202
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH, 10th district) has submitted a resolution to impeach VP Dick Cheney (HR 333) on charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors". The charges were submitted on 24 April 2007. Congressman Kucinich has posted his supporting documents online, including a brief summary of the impeachment procedure.
Feed Review: SimplyMEPIS Linux 6.5 (slashdot.org)
A few weeks ago, MEPIS released SimplyMEPIS 6.5. The latest version of the Ubuntu-based desktop distribution offers a number of interesting new features, including a 64-bit release and Beryl for 3-D desktop effects. After spending a fair amount of...
Feed Ohio University Says No File Sharing Allowed (techdirt.com)
While some universities have fought back against RIAA complaints about their students using file sharing for making unauthorized copies of content, it appears that Ohio University is going to the opposite extreme. Slashdot points out that the university has announced that all P2P file sharing is banned as of this coming Friday. The university gives a variety of reasons for it and seems to bounce back and forth between rationales. It may be because file sharing could overwhelm network resources, though they give no indication that current file sharing systems have actually been a problem -- just that it could be a problem. Then they claim that file sharing could transmit bad stuff like viruses and spyware. Of course, so can email and the web, but the university doesn't appear to be banning the use of either of those things. Then, finally, the university brings up the real reason for the ban. Apparently, staff at the university are sick of dealing with those new prelitigation letters from the RIAA. Rather than following in the footsteps of the University of Nebraska and sending the RIAA a bill for time wasted, Ohio University has decided it's best to just ban P2P apps altogether. Of course, while they have a "partial list" of banned apps, the description is so vague, it's unclear what might get you kicked off the university network. Something like Skype is P2P and uses up bandwidth -- so based on some of the university's reasoning, it too should be banned. It's a sad statement of the times that an institution designed for educating and learning about new things would decide to completely shut off any use of powerful technologies that have plenty of perfectly legitimate uses just because some backwards industry group can't figure out how to change its outdated business models.
Submission + - Interview - James Gosling, father of Java
Minaloush writes: Interesting Q&A with Sun's James Gosling on silicon.com. The father of Java field questions on the GPL, security, the role of Java in the enterprise — and even reveals his — albeit limited — views on Windows Vista ("I tend to stay away from Microsoft [software] because it tends to be so toxic").
From the article:
If you come up with a good software development tool, that makes life easier for the developers and they can get their job done quicker, then the first thing the manager says is 'oh you've got free time on your hands. Do this extra thing'.
From the article:
If you come up with a good software development tool, that makes life easier for the developers and they can get their job done quicker, then the first thing the manager says is 'oh you've got free time on your hands. Do this extra thing'.
Submission + - Magnetic trunk could collect Moon dust
Matthew Sparkes writes: "Astronauts living on the Moon will need lots of water, oxygen and other resources that can be extracted from the lunar soil. Collecting this in a mechanical way could throw up lots of dust that could harm equipment and astronauts health, as well as ruining the view. The answer may be to create a flexible tube with magnetic coils spaced at regular intervals along its length that could suck up the iron-heavy dust. The research was presented on Thursday at the Lunar and Planetary Society Conference in Houston, Texas. Another study suggests burying lunar habitats with packaged moon dust could help regulate their temperature. On the airless Moon, the surface bakes to over 100 Celsius during the day and plunges to a frigid -150 C at night."
Submission + - eSATA Connectors
buffalocheese writes: eSATA Connectors
Since the introduction of the Serial ATA 1.0a specification in 2002, many manufacturers have introduced PCI and CardBus cards with both internal and external SATA connections.
At first these internal and external connectors were completely identical, but later, external connectors started to appear which were still fully compatible with the internal sockets but featured added extra screening for external use.
With the introduction of the SATA II specification in mid 2004 a new external SATA connector was defined. These new external (eSATA) connectors are not compatible with the original internal SATA connection.
Currently there are add-on cards and drive housings available which feature both types of SATA connection for external use. Gradually the older types will disappear and all new SATA cards will feature the eSATA connector for external drive connections.
http://www.lindy.com/uk/tips/uk/eSATA_Connectors/i ndex.php
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Little known fact about Middle Earth: The Hobbits had a very sophisticated computer network! It was a Tolkien Ring...
