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Networking

Half of All Data Centers Understaffed 211

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they-just-need-one-uriah dept.
alphadogg writes "Fifty percent of IT executives say their data centers are understaffed, and companies are still looking for more ways to cut costs, according to Symantec's latest 'State of the Data Center' report. Sixteen percent of survey respondents said their data centers are extremely understaffed, and another 34% called their data centers somewhat understaffed. At the same time, data centers are becoming more complex and harder to manage, with more applications, data and increasingly demanding service-level agreements. 'Data center complexity has led to a lot of staffing challenges,' says Sean Derrington, director of storage management and high availability at Symantec."
Biotech

Robot Invented To Crawl Through Veins 99

Posted by timothy from the oh-no-not-creepy dept.
Slatterz writes "Scientists from Israel's Technion University have unveiled a tiny robot, made using Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology, purportedly able to crawl through a person's veins in order to diagnose and potentially treat artery blockage and cancer. The little robot — with a diameter of just one millimeter — has neither engine nor onboard controls, instead being propelled forward by a magnetic field wielded on it from outside the patient's body."
Hardware Hacking

Engineering Students Build Robotic Foosball Players 59

Posted by Soulskill from the taking-over-the-world-one-table-at-a-time dept.
Andre writes "As their final-year project, an eight-man team of fourth-year electrical and computer-engineering students at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, constructed a robot-controlled, motor-and-actuator foosball table capable of playing against human opponents in a two-on-two fashion; one mechanical player controls two defensive rods (goalies and full-backs) and the other controls two offensive rods (half-backs and forwards). They considered the computers 'medium-skilled' players in that they were very competitive against beginners and fairly competitive against intermediates."
United States

35 Articles of Impeachment Introduced Against Bush 1657

Posted by kdawson from the high-crimes-and-misdemeanors dept.
vsync64 writes "Last night, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) spent 4 hours reading into the Congressional Record 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush. Interestingly, those articles (63-page PDF via Coral CDN) include not just complaints about signing statements and the war in Iraq, but also charges that the President "Sp[ied] on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment,' 'Direct[ed] Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens,' and 'Tamper[ed] with Free and Fair Elections.' These are issues near and dear to the hearts of many here, so it's worth discussing. What little mainstream media coverage there is tends to be brief (USA Today, CBS News, UPI, AP, Reuters)." The (Democratic) House leadership has said that the idea of impeachment is "off the table." The Judiciary Committee has not acted on articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney introduced by Kucinich a year ago.

Comment Re:Hate Speech? (Score 1) 818

by MrYotsuya (#23364038) Attached to: Author Faces Canadian Tribunal For Hate Speech

There, I'm now a hater. And I'll defend my right to hate anybody I get a hankering to hate to the death.. although as a non-pacifist I'll vastly prefer the death of the other guy if it comes to violence. Of course, being a friend of Liberty I'll also defend your right to hate me right back.... just as long as it's just words in the arena of ideas. So long as the factions are just waving signs in the street it's all just a 'frank exchange of ideas.'
You really are an idiot, aren't you? The laws are intended to be applied people who incite hatred against a group of people. Yet you conflate that it's about not being able to hate people individually.

To reiterate, the laws have no beef with you hating a guy because you think he's a jerk, it's another thing to spread hatred about a group because of something they can't help, like race.
It's funny. Laugh.

Celebrity AD&D Character Sheets 194

Posted by CmdrTaco from the kinda-funny dept.
GnomeIllusionist writes "In their continuing tribute to Gary Gygax, Wired has created character sheets for nine celebrities. Apparently, Stephen Hawking can do 10D6 radiation damage to his enemies and Rick Astley is a 20th-Level bard. Steve Jobs' black turtleneck is actually magical armor with +6 against edged attacks." Most of them are kinda cheesy and obvious- I wonder if you can do better.
Privacy

ISPs Using "Deep Packet Inspection" On 100,000 Users 309

Posted by CmdrTaco from the something-to-think-about dept.
dstates writes "The Washington Post is reporting that some Internet Service Providers (ISP) have been using deep-packet inspection to spy on the communications of more than 100,000 US customers. Deep packet inspection allows the ISP to read the content of communications including every Web page visited, every e-mail sent and every search entered, in short every click and keystroke that comes down the line. The companies involved assert that customers' privacy is protected because no personally identifying details are released, but they make money from advertisers who use the information to target their online pitches. Deep packet inspection is a significant expansion over tools like cookies in the ability to track a user. Critics liken it to a phone company listening in on conversations."
Microsoft

Windows 7 in the Next Year? 385

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the also-duke-nukem-forever dept.
Microsoft's efforts to get businesses to adopt Vista may come to a screeching halt now that Bill Gates has announced "Sometime in the next year or so we will have a new version", referring to Windows 7, the next expected version of the company's flagship desktop operating system.With a new version available soon, many organizations may decide to wait and see if they can avoid the pain of a Vista rollout altogether.
The Internet

Bell Wants to Dump Third-Party ISP's Entirely 227

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the taking-their-cable-and-going-home dept.
phorm writes "Not only is Bell interfering with third-party traffic, but — according to CBC — they want third-party ISP and phone carriers off their network entirely. Bell is lobbying to have lease-conditions on their networks removed, stating that enough competition exists that they should not longer be required to lease infrastructure to third-parties. Perhaps throttling is just the beginning?"
Supercomputing

Matrix-Like VR Coming in the Near Future? 249

Posted by Zonk from the can't-see-anything-bad-happening-there. dept.
Anonymongoose writes "A researcher at Brookhaven National Lab reckons it could be just a few years before computers can pass through the uncanny valley. The article refers to this as a 'Graphics Turing Test': 'a computer can be considered intelligent if it can create an artificial world capable of fooling a person into believing it is the real thing.' Michael McGuigan has been performing some interesting experiments using Brookhaven's Blue Gene/L supercomputer and has shown that it can produce realistic lighting effects in real time. McGuigan's original research paper (pdf) is available online."
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA 'making available' theory rejected in Barker (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In a 25-page decision (pdf) which has been awaited for two years in Elektra v. Barker, Judge Kenneth M. Karas has rejected the RIAA's "making available" theory and its "authorization" theory, but sustained the sufficiency of the complaint's allegations of "distribution" and "downloading", and also gave the RIAA 30 days to cure the defects in its complaint by filing a new complaint. The judge left it open for the RIAA to allege that defendant made an "offer to distribute", and that the offer was for "the purpose of further distribution", which, the judge held, would be actionable."

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Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. -- Ambrose Bierce

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