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The Internet

MS Publishes Papers For a Modern, Secure Browser 296

Posted by Soulskill from the new-and-different dept.
V!NCENT writes with an excerpt from a new publication by Microsoft: "As web sites evolved into dynamic web applications composing content from various web sites, browsers have become multi-principal operating environments with resources shared among mutually distrusting web site principals. Nevertheless, no existing browsers, including new architectures like IE 8, Google Chrome, and OP, have a multi-principal operating system construction that gives a browser-based OS the exclusive control to manage the protection of all system resources among web site principals. In this paper, we introduce Gazelle, a secure web browser constructed as a multi-principal OS. Gazelle's Browser Kernel is an operating system that exclusively manages resource protection and sharing across web site principals." Here's the full research paper (PDF).
Communications

Twisted Radio Beams Could Untangle the Airwaves 183

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the only-the-flying-spaghetti-monster-would-know-for-sure dept.
Urchin writes "The radio frequency spectrum available for wireless communication is becoming increasingly crowded thanks to new wireless technology. A solution to the shrinking space might be to put a spin on radio beams during their transmission, to produce a twisted beam, according to Swedish physicists. In theory, huge amounts of data could be sent in the pitch of the twist, which is distinct from the amplitude and frequency of radio waves — the features used at the moment to send information."
Networking

Researchers Apply P2P Principles To Car Traffic 111

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the traffic-eagle-eye dept.
alphadogg writes to tell us that lessons learned from peer-to-peer networks are being applied to traffic systems in order to prevent jams. "Their Autonet plan would center around ad hoc networks of vehicles and roadside monitoring posts supported by 802.11 technology (the prototype uses 11b). The vehicles would essentially be the 'clients' in such a system and feature graphical user interfaces to pass along information to drivers. They're building the system to be able to handle data on thousands of traffic incidents and road conditions."
Privacy

Blu-ray Update Sent To User Via Credit Card Records 526

Posted by CmdrTaco from the allright-that's-just-plain-scary dept.
wmoyes writes "Back in September I ran into a Best Buy store to buy a Samsung BD-P2550 Blu-ray player. I didn't give the clerk my name, telephone number, or address, just my debit card. The player has sat happily in my living room without ever being networked or registered. Today I was shocked to find a package waiting for me at home from Best Buy — inside was a firmware update CD for the player. I used to think Windows Update was scary, but Samsung's update service tracked me to my house using the mag stripe from my bank card. Has this happened to any other Blu-ray owners?" Or is there a simpler explanation?
Robotics

FIRST Robotics Competition Announced 73

Posted by kdawson from the harsh-mistress dept.
Z80xxc! writes "FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) has officially announced the 2009 FIRST Robotics Competition. This competition, started by inventor Dean Kamen, encourages high-school students to design and build robots to compete with and against other FRC teams. The competition overview video is available from NASA. This year's competition is called 'Lunacy.' The game consists of a series of 135-second face-offs during which the student-designed robots must pick up 9-inch game balls and deposit them in trailers hitched to the opposing teams' robots. The game field is coated with regolith, a slick polymer material, and special wheels are used to create a low-traction interaction with the crater's surface. Together, these combine to simulate the one-sixth gravity on the surface of the moon. For any readers who are interested in participating, FRC teams can always use more adult mentors."
Data Storage

Researchers Create Graphite Memory 10 Atoms Thick 135

Posted by timothy from the comes-with-convenient-pink-rectangular-prism dept.
CWmike writes "Researchers at Rice University have demonstrated a new data storage medium made out of a layer of graphite only 10 atoms thick. The technology could potentially provide many times the capacity of current flash memory and withstand temperatures of 200 degrees Celsius and radiation that would make solid-state disk memory disintegrate. 'Though we grow it from the vapor phase, this material [graphene] is just like graphite in a pencil. You slide these right off the end of your pencil onto paper. If you were to place Scotch tape over it and pull up, you can sometimes pull up as small as one sheet of graphene. It is a little under 1 nanometer thick,' Professor James Tour said."
Programming

Would You Add Easter Eggs To Software Produced At Work? 747

Posted by Soulskill from the throw-in-a-flight-sim dept.
Mr. Leinad writes "Do you add Easter Eggs to the software that is produced at the office? I mean, if you have complete control over the final product, do you spice it up with that little personal touch, which, as unlikely as it is that anyone will see, carries with it an 'I was here' signature? I've just finished the development of a large software product, and I have a couple of days left to try to add my own personal Easter Egg code, but given that the software is quite professional, I don't know if I should. What do you think? Should we developers sign our creations?"
Supercomputing

E=mc^2 Verified In Quantum Chromodynamic Calculation 268

Posted by kdawson from the tee-shirts-were-right-all-along dept.
chirishnique and other readers sent in a story in AFP about a heroic supercomputer computation that has verified Einstein's most famous equation at the level of subatomic particles for the first time. "A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms. ... [T]he mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five per cent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 per cent? The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons. ... [E]nergy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905." Update: 11/21 15:50 GMT by KD : New Scientist has a slightly more technical look at the accomplishment.

Comment Probably "Olof Palme" @ ~700 000 (Score 5, Informative) 643

by chicoryn (#22063062) Attached to: Pirate Bay Gets a 4,000-Page Complaint

The second biggest murder case required 1500, how much did the biggest require?
The biggest would probably be the Olof Palme assassination which remains unsolved and have been under investigation since 1986. Current page count of the investigation is approximately 700 000 based on the wikipedia article.
Censorship

Censoring a Number 1046

Posted by kdawson from the you-can't-copyright-that dept.
Rudd-O writes "Months after successful discovery of the HD-DVD processing key, an unprecedented campaign of censorship, in the form of DMCA takedown notices by the MPAA, has hit the Net. For example Spooky Action at a Distance was killed. More disturbingly, my story got Dugg twice, with the second wave hitting 15,500 votes, and today I found out it had simply disappeared from Digg. How long until the long arm of the MPAA gets to my own site (run in Ecuador) and the rest of them holding the processing key? How long will we let rampant censorship go on, in the name of economic interest?" How long before the magic 16-hex-pairs number shows up in a comment here?
Software

Submission + - Open Office - what's the downside?

Submitted by
cclangi
cclangi writes: "Hi. I'm a current MSOffice user. I run a small business as a consultant (mining). I've read about Open Office and all the good things about it, but what about the downside? As a small business owner and semi-literate in things computer-ese (as a user, not as a developer or administrator), what support limitations are there for Open Office. I'm particularly interested in/concerned with compatability of software for reports, spreadsheets and database apps that I might need to send to/receive from clients, etc. As I've said, I've read the good stuff, and "how easy it is", but what are things I need to be aware of before considering switching completely to Open Office. Comments and experiences would be welcomed. Regards, Chris"
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - PS3 Owners To Simulate Gene Folding

Submitted by
fistfullast33l
fistfullast33l writes: "According to IGN UK, the next version of Playstation firmware will include a joint venture from Stanford University and Sony called Folding@Home. Similar to the infamous SETI@Home project, Folding@Home will be an idle application that participates in a simulation that "aims to map the way that genes change shape (or 'fold'), so they can be studied by scientists and, potentially, cure illnesses such as Parkinson's or a variety of cancers." The application will download a "work unit" that it will unravel to completion, update Stanford's servers, and then download the next unit and continue. The console will not be able to do any work while Folding@Home is running. Will the heat generated by the PS3 during this process help offset the inevitable increase in my utility bill from running the console all day?"
Linux Business

Submission + - Which Embedded Linux Distribution?

Submitted by Abhikhurana
Abhikhurana writes: I work for a company which designs a variety of video surveillance devices (such as MPEG4 video servers). Traditionally, these products have been based on proprietory OSs such as Nucleus and VxWorks. Now we are redesigning a few of our products and I am trying to convince my company to go down the Linux route. Understandably, our management is quite sceptical about that and so I was asked by our CTO to recommend a few RTOSs which have mature Networking stacks and which work well on ARM platform. I know that there are many embedded linux based distributions out there. There are commerical ones such as Montavista, LynuxWorks, free ones such as uclinux, muLinux and some Linux like distros such as Ecos, but which is the most stable and best community supported embedded Linux distribution out there?

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