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Sat, November 17, 2007 11:53:06 PMFrom:
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Subject:
[Slashdot] Stories for 2007-11-18
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Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* Robots Assimilate Into Cockroach Society
* Google, Sun Headed for Showdown Over Android
* Judge Orders RIAA to Show Cause in DC Case
* Aqua Teen Art 'Terrorist' Describes His Ordeal
* People Believe NASA Funded As Well As US Military
* C# Memory Leak Torpedoed Princeton's DARPA Chances
* Microsoft's Plan to Be King of All Media
* Overclocking the AMD Spider
* EarthLink Says No Future for Municipal Wi-Fi
* NASA Wins Nanotechnology Award
* Shake a Secure Bluetooth Connection
* Hushmail Passing PGP Keys to the US Government
* Terabit-Per-Second Class Connections over FTTH
* Two Companies Now Offering Personal Gene Sequencing
* Vista at Risk of Being Bypassed by Businesses
* Which E-Commerce System Will Fail This Season?
* Sun to Create Underground Japanese Datacenter
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| Robots Assimilate Into Cockroach Society |
| from the good-to-see-the-robots-making-new-friends dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Friday November 16, @20:33 (Robotics) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/16/227204 |
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[0]sufijazz writes "Scientists have gotten tiny robots to not only
[1]integrate into cockroach society but also control it. 'This experiment
in bug peer pressure combined entomology, robotics and the study of ways
that complex and even intelligent patterns can arise from simple
behavior. Animal behavior research shows that swarms working together can
prosper where individuals might fail, and robotics researchers have been
experimenting with simple robots that, together, act a little like a
swarm.' The BBC also has a [2]video story on this."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/16/227204
Links:
0. http://www.diffen.com/
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/science/16roach.html
2. http://www.yahoo.com/s/737858
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Google, Sun Headed for Showdown Over Android |
| from the immovable-object-vs.-nuclear-furnace dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Friday November 16, @22:21 (Communications) |
| http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/0223204 |
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[0]narramissic writes "There may be [1]trouble brewing between Google and
Sun. Google has written its own virtual machine for Android, 'most likely
as a way to get around licensing issues with Sun.' If Google used any of
Sun's intellectual property to build Dalvik, Sun could sue Google for
patent infringement. But here's where it gets interesting - Sun is a
vocal advocate for open source and it would 'hardly appease the open
source community to sue Google over an open source software stack.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/0223204
Links:
0. http://www.itworld.com/
1. http://wireless.itworld.com/4269/071116googlesun/page_1.html
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| Judge Orders RIAA to Show Cause in DC Case |
| from the and-all-the-other-little-cases-as-well dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Saturday November 17, @00:29 (The Courts) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/0229238 |
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[0]NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's '[1]bumpy ride' in its 'ex
parte' litigation campaign against college students just got a whole lot
bumpier. After reading [2]the motion to quash filed by a George
Washington University student, the Judge took it upon herself to issue an
[3]order to show cause. The order now requires the plaintiffs to show
cause, no later than November 29th, why the ex parte order she'd signed
at the RIAA's request should not be vacated. She's also requested
information showing why her ruling should not be applicable not only to
John Doe #3, but to all the other John Does as well. p2pnet called this a
'[4]potentially huge setback' for the recording companies."
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/0229238
Links:
0. http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/
1. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/14/1654230&tid=123
2. http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/11/gwu-student-fights-back-makes-motion-to.html
3. http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2007/11/judge-orders-riaa-to-show-cause-why-ex.html
4. http://p2pnet.net/story/14026
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Aqua Teen Art 'Terrorist' Describes His Ordeal |
| from the funny-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Saturday November 17, @02:28 (Government) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/0545223 |
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[0]destinyland writes "Boston police arrested artist 'Zebbler' for
installing L.E.D. devices that promoted Aqua Teen Hunger Force (after
[1]police mistook them for bombs). He's finally shared [2]the real
behind-the-scenes story about his arrest and release. He describes his
interrogation ('My interrogator gave me nothing but carrots to eat') and
remembers a surreal exchange with a police officer. ('My daughter is a
huge fan of you ... So, did you really mean to blow up Boston?') Now his
latest project is a cool high-definition/surround sound installation for
an event called RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA."
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/0545223
Links:
0. http://www.destinyland.org/
1. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/31/2314214&tid=129
2. http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/11/15/catching-up-with-an-aqua-teen-terrorist/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| People Believe NASA Funded As Well As US Military |
| from the nasa-engineers-crying-into-their-keyboards-right-now dep|
| posted by Zonk on Saturday November 17, @04:35 (Space) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/0549234 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]QuantumG writes "An essay on the Space Review site is reporting that a
just-completed study indicates [1]the average citizen has no idea how
much funding NASA gets. Respondents generally estimated NASA's allocation
of the national budget to be approximately 24% (it's actually closer to
0.58%) and the Department of Defense budget to be approximately 33% (it's
actually closer to 21%). In other words, respondents believed NASA's
budget approaches that of the Department of Defense, which receives
almost 38 times more money. Once informed of the actual allocations, they
were almost uniformly surprised. One of the more vocal participants
exclaimed, 'No wonder we haven't gone anywhere!'"
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/0549234
Links:
0. mailto:qg@biodome.org
1. http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1000/1
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| C# Memory Leak Torpedoed Princeton's DARPA Chances |
| from the omg-a-tumbleweed dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Saturday November 17, @05:22 (Programming) |
| http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/0552247 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
nil0lab writes "In a case of 20/20 hindsight, Princeton DARPA Grand
Challenge team member Bryan Cattle [0]reflects on how their code failed
to forget obstacles it had passed. It was written in Microsoft's C#,
which isn't supposed to let you have memory leaks. 'We kept noticing that
the computer would begin to bog down after extended periods of driving.
This problem was pernicious because it only showed up after 40 minutes to
an hour of driving around and collecting obstacles. The computer
performance would just gradually slow down until the car just simply
stopped responding, usually with the gas pedal down, and would just drive
off into the bush until we pulled the plug. We looked through the code on
paper, literally line by line, and just couldn't for the life of us
imagine what the problem was.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/0552247
Links:
0. http://www.codeproject.com/showcase/IfOnlyWedUsedANTSProfiler.asp
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Microsoft's Plan to Be King of All Media |
| from the it's-good-to-be-the-king dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Saturday November 17, @06:15 (Music) |
| http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/063221 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "Saul Hansell from the New York Times spoke
with Microsoft's J. Allard, formerly of the Xbox games division and now
in charge of their push on Apple's captive audience with the Zune. Allard
lays out [0]Microsoft's media battle plan, highlighting their longterm
goals for expanding beyond games and software. 'This service will at some
point add more options for video and mobile phones, Mr. Allard said,
without offering details. Actually, Microsoft has been quite successful
selling video downloads and online movie rentals through the Xbox Live
service already. This seems a bit too much like the initial plan for MSN.
This new network would be the switchboard through which all entertainment
content and communication flows. Pretty much everything else in the
technology world now is revolving around open systems where the Internet,
and some simple standards, are in the middle.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/063221
Links:
0. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/j-allard-microsofts-plan-to-be-king-of-all-media/index.html?ex=1353042000&en=396cf0a745348a59&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Overclocking the AMD Spider |
| from the one-fast-arachnid dept. |
| posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday November 17, @08:42 (Hardware Ha|
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/1214259 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "AMD has released two videos that show an
[0]overview of the new AMD Spider platform and [1]how easy it is to
overclock it with a single tool. The AMD Spider is based on AMD Phenom
processors, the newly released ATI Radeon HD 3800 series discrete
graphics and AMD 7-Series chipsets."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/1214259
Links:
0. http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm/4083
1. http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm/4094
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| EarthLink Says No Future for Municipal Wi-Fi |
| from the well-not-with-that-attitude dept. |
| posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday November 17, @09:38 (Wireless Ne|
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/1220228 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Glenn Fleishman writes "EarthLink [0]dropped its final bombshell on
city-wide Wi-Fi, saying that it wouldn't put more money in and was
talking to their current deployed cities about the future. The company
had won bids in dozens of cities, and then backed out of the majority of
them before building or finalizing contracts a few months ago. The
remaining towns they were building out, like New Orleans, Anaheim, and
Philadelphia, will ostensibly be turned off unless local officials come
up with scratch or a plan of their own. EarthLink pioneered the model of
free-for-fee networks, where there would be no cost or upfront commitment
from cities, and EarthLink would charge for network access. Apparently,
you can't make money that way."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/1220228
Links:
0. http://wifinetnews.com/archives/008052.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NASA Wins Nanotechnology Award |
| from the good-show dept. |
| posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday November 17, @10:53 (NASA) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/1225259 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Roland Piquepaille writes "NASA is rarely associated with
nanotechnologies. But one of its researchers working at the NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center just received a Nanotech Briefs Nano 50 award
for [1]a manufacturing process for high-quality carbon nanotubes (CNTs).
Because of its ability to produce bundles of CNTs without using a metal
catalyst, this method is simpler, safer, and cheaper than current ones.
The CNTs produced by this process are also purer and well suited for
medical applications."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/1225259
Links:
0. http://www.primidi.com/2007/11/15.html
1. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/nanotube.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Shake a Secure Bluetooth Connection |
| from the trembling-with-anticipation dept. |
| posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday November 17, @11:48 (Cellphones)|
| http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/1231254 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
heilbron writes "The Austrian researcher Rene Mayrhofer of the British
Lancaster university and his colleague Hans Gellersen developed a
technology to simplify a secured wireless connection of mobile devices.
With the so-called shake-to-connect technology an authenticated Bluetooth
connection between two mobile phones is established by rhythmic shaking.
Integrated oscillation sensors, contained in some mobile phone models,
form the basis. The two researchers sketched out a prototype, which is
intended for Nokia mobile phones. [0]An example is documented in this
YouTube video clip. If two mobile phones are shaken together, the
software in both devices registers the same shaking frequency and
authenticates the radio link. [1]The principle is summed up in a four
page PDF document."
Discuss this story at:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/1231254
Links:
0. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktJC0S4_X58
1. http://eis.comp.lancs.ac.uk/fileadmin/eis/publication/2007-ShakeImp.pdf
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Hushmail Passing PGP Keys to the US Government |
| from the this-would-be-nonoptimal dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Saturday November 17, @13:28 (Security) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/1823225 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]teknopurge writes "Apparently Hushmail has been [1]providing
information to law enforcement behind the backs of their clients. Billed
as secure email because of their use of PGP, Hushmail has been turning
over private keys of users to the authorities on request. 'DEA agents
received three CDs which contained decrypted emails for the targets of
the investigation that had been decrypted as part of a mutual legal
assistance treaty between the United States and Canada. The news will be
embarrassing to the company, which has made much of its ability to ensure
that emails are not read by the authorities, including the FBI's
Carnivore email monitoring software.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/1823225
Links:
0. http://utropicmedia.net/
1. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/65213,hushmail-turns-out-to-be-anything-but.aspx
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Terabit-Per-Second Class Connections over FTTH |
| from the makes-for-great-gaming dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Saturday November 17, @14:23 (The Internet) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/1913237 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Big Fat Dave writes "Thanks to research from Japan's Tohoku University,
an article at Tech.co.uk wonders if someday the megabit and gigabit
classes of net connections will join kilobits in the 'antique tech' bin.
By doing some advanced mathematics and 'tweaking' existing network
protocols, researchers may be able to enable standard fiber-optic cables
[0]to carry data at hundreds of terabits per second. 'At that speed, full
movies could be downloaded almost instantaneously in their hundreds. At
the heart of the development is a technique already used in some digital
TV tuners and wireless data connections called quadrature amplitude
modulation (QAM). One glance at the Wikipedia explanation shows that it's
no easy science, but the basics of QAM in this scenario require a stable
wavelength for data transmission. As the radio spectrum provides this,
QAM-based methods work fine for some wireless protocols, however the
nature of the optical spectrum means this has not been the case for
fibre-optic cables ... until now.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/1913237
Links:
0. http://www.tech.co.uk/computing/internet-and-broadband/news/terabit-class-data-pipes-movies-in-an-instant?articleid=1920847255
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Two Companies Now Offering Personal Gene Sequencing |
| from the sequencing-for-fun-and-profit dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Saturday November 17, @15:34 (Biotech) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/1947210 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
corded writes "Yesterday, deCODE genetics [0]announced the launch of
their $985 personal genotyping product, [1]deCODEme ([2]video), beating
their competitors to market. Perhaps not coincidentally, [3]23andMe's
website is suddenly much more informative today, and the [4]New York
Times features a preview of 23andMe's $999 offering. deCODEme and 23andMe
will scan about a million and 600,000 sites across the genome,
respectively and assess your risk for common diseases, along with
providing information about ancestry, physical traits, and the ability to
compare genes with friends and family."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/1947210
Links:
0. http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2007/11/16/the-first-personal-genomic-sequencing-test-offered-for-985/
1. http://www.decodeme.com/
2. http://www.decode.com/Webcast/
3. https://www.23andme.com/ourservice/
4. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/us/17dna.html?em&ex=1195448400&en=fe4b35576c951d6a&ei=5087%0A
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Vista at Risk of Being Bypassed by Businesses |
| from the zoom-vroom-woosh dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Saturday November 17, @16:30 (Windows) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/1959214 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]narramissic writes "With Windows 7 [1]due in late 2009 or 2010,
[2]many businesses may choose to wait it out rather than make the switch
to Vista. According to some analysts, Vista uptake at this point really
depends on how good Vista SP1 (due in Q1, 2008) is. If it doesn't smooth
over all the problems, companies are much more likely to stick with XP.
And that holds especially true for those businesses that follow the
every-other-release rule." Note for Microsoft: Allow us to natively
disable trackpads.
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/1959214
Links:
0. http://www.itworld.com/
1. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/21/1725233&tid=109
2. http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2218/071115vistaskip/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Which E-Commerce System Will Fail This Season? |
| from the big-of-a-dire-prediction dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Saturday November 17, @17:21 (Christmas Cheer) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/218240 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Esther Schindler writes "Every year, there's some retailer whose
e-commerce or supply chain fails. And it's a big deal, since the holiday
shopping season can make or break their year. The IT challenge
encompasses everything from server scalability to supply chain management
to search engine optimization to database cajoling to business
integration to... well, come to think of it, just about everything. To
explore this, CIO.com has a big package of articles examining "Black
Friday" and its implications, entitled [1]E-Commerce and Supply Chain
Systems Gird for Black Friday. Topics covered include [2]online shopping
and [3]holiday IT failures. Despite all this?€?and at least ten years of
industry experience in e-commerce sales?€?we all just know that someone
will make yet another big mistake. I wonder who it'll be this year?"
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/218240
Links:
0. mailto:esther@bitranch.com
1. http://www.cio.com/article/156050
2. http://www.cio.com/article/155800
3. http://www.cio.com/article/155051
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Sun to Create Underground Japanese Datacenter |
| from the only-problem-is-the-view dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Saturday November 17, @18:39 (Sun Microsystems)|
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/17/2115211 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Kurtz'sKompund writes with word of a Sun project in Japan, one that's
taking a somewhat non-standard approach to data center construction. To
save on power, heating, and water costs, the consortium is going to be
[0]building their center in an abandoned coal mine. The outpost will be
created by lowering [1]Blackbox systems into the ground; estimates on
savings run to $9 million annually in electricity alone.
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/11/17/2115211
Links:
0. http://www.techworld.com/green-it/news/index.cfm?newsID=10667
1. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/17/135214&tid=102
Copyright 1997-2006 OSTG. All rights reserved.
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