Comment Missing Option (Score 0) 273
What happened to Ohm's law?
Journal Journal: Queen's Brian May Finally Completes Astrophysics PhD 4
Imperial College astrophysics grad student Brian May is about to defend his thesis Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud after a hiatus of several decades to play guitar with Queen. He finished collecting his final data at the Canary Islands observatory this week.
Submission + - Deep packet inspection meets Net neutrality, CALEA (arstechnica.com)
EncryptKeeper writes: Ars Technica has a in-depth (an disturbing) feature on deep packet inspection. ISPs are starting to turn to deep packet inspection to monitor their network, and more troubling, look at how they can use it to shape, block, monitor, and prioritize traffic. 'The "deep" in deep packet inspection refers to the fact that these boxes don't simply look at the header information as packets pass through them. Rather, they move beyond the IP and TCP header information to look at the payload of the packet. The goal is to identify the applications being used on the network, but some of these devices can go much further; those from a company like Narus, for instance, can look inside all traffic from a specific IP address, pick out the HTTP traffic, then drill even further down to capture only traffic headed to and from Gmail, and can even reassemble emails as they are typed out by the user.'
Submission + - Dell Asking ATI for Better Linux Drivers (phoronix.com)
Open Source IT writes: "According to a presentation at Ubuntu Live 2007, Dell is working on getting better ATI drivers for Linux for use in its Linux offerings. While it is not known whether the end product will end up as open source, with big businesses like Google and Dell now behind the push for better Linux graphics drivers, hopefully ATI will make the smart business decision and give customers what they want."
Submission + - UK rejects lengthening of copyright (yahoo.com)
timrichardson writes: The British Government has rejected extending copyright for sound recordings. This is an important development in the face of trends to extend copyright duration, although it leaves British copyright protection for music recordings at a shorter duration than for written works. The decision was despite fierce lobbying from the large British music industry. The music industry will now lobby direct to the European Commission, but without the support of the national government, its position is significantly weakened. British copyright for music recordings therefore remains at 50 years after the death of the artist, in contrast to 95 years in the US and 70 years in Australia.
Submission + - New/Old Form of Nanomechanical Computing Proposed (bbc.co.uk)
eldavojohn writes: "The BBC is reporting on a newly proposed type of nanomechanical computer that mimics J. H. Müller & Charles Babbage's work on mechanical computational devices — just on a much smaller level. The paper is published today in the New Journal of Physics and cites three reasons to build a nanocomputer with nanomechanical transistors over bipolar junction transistors or field effect transistors: "(i) mechanical elements are more robust to electromagnetic shocks than current dynamic random access memory (DRAM) based purely on complimentary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, (ii) the power dissipated can be orders of magnitude below CMOS and (iii) the operating temperature of such an NMC can be an order of magnitude above that of conventional CMOS." Perhaps the future of computing (the Difference Engine) has been sitting in a museum right under our noses for well over a hundred years?"
Submission + - Court convicts Skype for breaching GPL
terber writes: In Munich a German court once again upheld the GPL2 and convicted Skype (based in Luxembourg) of violating GPL by selling the Linux-based VoIP phone "SMCWSKP 100" without proper source code access. Skype later on added a flyer to the phones with an URL where to obtain the sources, but the court found this insufficient as this was in breach of GPL section 3. Plaintiff was once again Netfilter developer Harald Welte, who runs http://gpl-violations.org/. The decision is currently only available in German at http://www.ifross.de./ News source (German): www.golem.de/0707/53684.html
Submission + - DNS Forgery Pharming Attack Information (net-security.org)
Monley writes: Help Net Security is running a story about a severe flaw in BIND's implementation which allows fraudsters to efficiently predict generated random numbers without the need to control the route between the user and the DNS server. Using this vulnerability fraudsters can remotely forge DNS responses and direct users to fraudulent websites. The fraudulent website can steal the user's sign-in credentials or tamper with the user's communication with the website. The flaw has been discovered by security researcher and Trusteer's CTO, Amit Klein.
Submission + - Boeing gets contract for truck-mounted lasers guns (theregister.com) 1
bl8n8r writes: "Boeing has announced a contract with the United State's Army to develop laser cannons which are to be mounted atop trucks for the purpose shooting down incoming artillery, rockets, mortars or bombs. The High Energy Laser Technology Demonstrator (HELTD) project actually shoots stuff instead of just painting a mark on a target for other guidance systems. The intent is for shooting enemy projectiles out of the sky before they can reach their target, but I presume it could have other uses too."
Submission + - Replacing Silicone with Pencil Graphite
Late-Eight writes: "A key discovery at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could help advance the role of graphene as a possible heir to copper and silicon in nanoelectronics. Researchers believe graphene's extremely efficient conductive properties can be exploited for use in nanoelectronics.
Graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon, eluded scientists for years but was finally made in the laboratory in 2004 with the help of everyday, store-bough items. This research is an important first step, For developing a way to mass produce metallic graphene that could one day replace copper as the primary interconnect material on nearly all computer chips."
Graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon, eluded scientists for years but was finally made in the laboratory in 2004 with the help of everyday, store-bough items. This research is an important first step, For developing a way to mass produce metallic graphene that could one day replace copper as the primary interconnect material on nearly all computer chips."
Submission + - Redhat reaping fallout from Novell/MSFT deal? (eweek.com)
Ho Kooshy Fly writes: It seems that at least one ISV has seen the rise of Redhat over Novell users to be quite prominent as of late... is this a backlash to the patent deal?
'From March to May, for example, the rate of new members joining the Alfresco community rose by more than 130 percent month-on-month," he said. "The number of those new users with Red Hat Linux nearly tripled over that period, while the number of Novell SUSE Linux users remained relatively static...'
Journal Journal: How to find IT consulting clients? 1
I'm trying to start my own computer support/IT consulting business, specializing in small and medium business clients (from the sounds of it, home users are just too much trouble).
My problem is, how do I find clients? I've gone out and handed out business cards, I've mentioned
what I'm doing to everyone I can think of, and tried networking groups in my area, but so far I've
had no response.
So, what do people recommend for finding targeted business clients that would be in need of my service
Submission + - RIAA v. Santangelo default judgment vacated
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "It was reported last week that at the July 13th status conference in Elektra v. Santangelo II, the default judgment taken by the RIAA against Patti Santangelo's daughter, Michelle, was vacated by Judge Stephen C. Robinson. This has now been confirmed in papers filed by the RIAA's lawyers in which they indicated that the Judge vacated the default judgment because he prefers cases to be decided on their merits, rather than by default (pdf). The papers sought $513 in attorneys fees for (a) procuring the default judgment and (b) preparing judgment enforcement documents. Patti Santangelo is the first RIAA defendant known to have moved to dismiss the RIAA complaint. After two years of litigation, the RIAA dropped its case against Patti Santangelo, leaving open only the question of whether the RIAA will be ordered to pay her attorneys fees."
Feed Engadget: Envelope-free ATMs popping up soon (engadget.com)
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
With all the chicanery that's been going on with ATMs of late, it looks like the machines are finally getting back at the humans. In a move that's already confusing creatures of habit, envelope-free ATMs are starting to pop up in highly-trafficked areas, and as the name implies, they require that your deposits not be stuffed into an envelope beforehand. Diebold, NCR, and, Wincor Nixdorf (among others) are beginning to roll out these newfangled machines, which cost some 20-percent more than typical ATMs and sport specialized scanners that can detect how much cash you're actually inserting as you slide your check / bills into its theoretical mouth. The biggest boon here is the drop in processing costs to banks, while customers are likely to be pleased with instant receipts and nearly-instant access to the fundage. 'Course, we're just counting down the days until yet another ATM trickster figures out how to convert a Hershey's wrapper into a $20 bill.[Image courtesy of ABC]
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Submission + - Cheap Solar Cells that can be Painted on Plastic (sciencedaily.com)
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets. According to the lead researcher, "Someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap the finished product on a wall, roof or billboard to create their own power stations." The team combined carbon nanotubes with tiny carbon buckyballs (fullerenes) to form snake-like structures. Add sunlight to excite the polymers, and the buckyballs will grab the electrons. The article abstract is available through the Journal of Materials Chemistry, with an illustration of the technology."
Slashdot Top Deals
Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, work till we die. -- C.S. Lewis
