RobertB-DC - Slashdot User

Submission + - Mars Phoenix Ovens Destined to Fail (nature.com)

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RobertB-DC

on Friday December 12, 2008 @11:41AM

RobertB-DC writes: "The Phoenix mission to Mars' frigid polar regions was going to be tricky from the start, with only a few weeks to perform as much science as possible. Success depended on everything working right. But one of the mission's most frustrating glitches, the stuck doors on the TEGA ovens, could have been prevented with basic quality control on Earth. Nature is reporting that bad brackets were replaced by the manufacturer... with identically bad brackets. The Planetary Society blog sums it up succinctly: 'Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch.'"

Submission + - CueCat Patent Granted, Finally (dallasobserver.com)

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RobertB-DC

on Thursday October 30, 2008 @12:23PM

RobertB-DC writes: "Who could forget the :CueCat, the amazing device that would bring "convergence" between the real world and the online marketing Utopia of the late '90s? Belo, the Dallas-based newspaper and TV conglomerate, spent millions of dollars on the project, only to be ridiculed from the start and eventually becoming a sort of poster kitty for the Dot-Com Bust. Well, the device's inventor and chief cheerleader, J. Jovan Philyaw, didn't forget. His patent application, in progress since 1998, has finally been granted. The story comes from a Dallas alternative weekly, since the local Belo paper is still smarting from its $40-million-dollar black eye."

Submission + - Web-based Anonymizer Discontinued

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RobertB-DC

on Wednesday July 18, 2007 @06:21PM

RobertB-DC writes: "With no fanfare, and apparently no outcry from the privacy community, Anonymizer Inc. discontinued its web-based Private Surfing service effective June 20, 2007. No reason was given, either on the Anonymizer web site or on founder Lance Cottrell's privacy blog. Private Surfing customers are now required to download a anonymizing client that handles all TCP traffic, but the program is Windows-only (with Vista support still a work-in-progress). And of course it's closed-source, which means it has few advantages over several other alternatives."

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