http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl News for nerds, stuff that matters en-us Copyright 1997-2009, Geeknet, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2009-12-17T23:03:05+00:00 Geeknet, Inc. help@slashdot.org Technology hourly 1 1970-01-01T00:00+00:00 http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicslashdot.gif http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl //slashdot.org/submission/1132926/Gravity-explained-as-not-a-force?from=rss The Dutch theoretical physicist Erik Verlinde proposed a remarkable simple theory which explains gravity as a statistical phenomenon resulting from different concentrations of information in empty spaces between masses. If it holds the magnitude of this new theory is of the same order as Einstein's introduction of the relativity theory and would result in a rewrite of all secondary education physics books. 'Gravity is not a fundamental force. It emergences from a deeper microscopic reality' he stated in a newspaper article (Dutch, Google translated). Simple Newtonian laws like the law of motion (F=m*a) can be easily derived from the new theory. So far his colleagues have stated to be intrigued rather than sceptic. The implications for other theories such as the unification theory are enormous. sciencewatcher 2009-12-12T22:51:17+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1132934/DIY-book-scanner?from=rss Daniel Reetz did not want to lug around heavy textbooks, so he built a book scanner to create digital copies. azoblue 2009-12-12T23:06:47+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1135488/BBC-Lowers-HDTV-bitrate-users-notice?from=rss According to an article on the bbc website, BBC HD lowered the bitrate of their broadcasts by almost 50% and are surprised that users noticed. From the article: "The replacement encoders work at a bitrate of 9.7Mbps (megabits per second), while their predecessors worked at 16Mbps, the standard for other broadcasters". The BBC claims "We did extensive testing on the new encoders which showed that they could produce pictures at the same or even better quality than the old encoders..." I got a good laugh off of this, but is it really possible to get better quality from a lower bitrate? aws910 2009-12-17T00:21:50+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1131864/Russia-confirms-failed-missile-launch?from=rss According to this article over at BarentsObserver, the giant spiral seen on the sky over Norway wednesday morning local time, has been confirmed to be be the result of a failed Russian missile launch. Russia now confirms that "...the missile was launched from submerged position in the White Sea by the nuclear submarine "Dmitri Donskoy". Studies of the telemetric data from the launch show that the two first stages of the missile functioned as they should, and that a technical malfunctioning occured during the third stage.."There is also and article on this over at The Daily Mail. Ch_Omega 2009-12-11T01:03:14+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1132942/How-to-get-back-at-the-noisy-nextdoor-neighbor?from=rss After a long time with that annoying downstairs neighbor playing too loud music, I've been contemplating HOW to deal with it, being a teenager AND a female — you know the drill — asking nicely is NOT an option, teenagers usually get angry because you should NOT tell them what to do etc...so I came up with a quite devious way to solve the issue, and the trick is fighting fire with fire, for once :)Here's how I did it:I made a small low-frequency microphone amplifier, hot glued an electret microphone to the floor, and made sure there were no leaks around the microphone (to avoid audio-feedback). I connected this to an active subwoofer (this is a subwoofer that has an power amplifier built in, typically the thing you have in your average surround amplifier, and placed the subwoofer in the room next door to the mike (to avoid feedback!). Now — it's very important to disconnect any surround speakers as you ONLY want the BASS to distribute into the structure of the building itself, this makes it IMPOSSIBLE to locate the sound from YOUR flat, and the penetrating middle-tones that comes from your noisy neighbors stereo — will reveal that it is YOUR NEIGHBOR that plays the loud music.It worked flawlessly, the entire building shook with the sound of the neighbors stereo, and the teenager had to turn down the sound several times due to multiple complaints from the ENTIRE neighborhood.Revenge is SOO sweet ;) MindPrison 2009-12-13T00:01:47+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1132684/ARM-powered-laptops-to-increase-Linux-market-share?from=rss Last April, Microsoft would argue that it controlled the netbook OS market for those sold in certain specific Microsoft-friendly US retail stores, while ABI Research claims that Linux actually has 35% of the worldwide netbook market, and that its market-share is growing. At the recent Netbook World Summit in Paris France, Aaron J. Seigo, Community leader at the KDE Foundation and Arnaud Laprévote, CTO Chief Technology Officer at Mandriva Linux give us their estimation in this Youtube video for next year's Linux market-share in the consumer Laptop market. Their estimation is that Linux will dominate in ARM powered Laptops and that those may take over a significant share of the overall Laptop market by their significantly cheaper prices (as low as $80), longer battery life (as long as 20-40 hours on a small battery using the Pixel Qi screens), as well as lower size and weight. Running some of the Chromium OS builds for ARM available shortly, having a full browser experience on those cheaper and better ARM powered Linux laptops could make it a significant mass market success to shake up the Intel and Microsoft consumer PC/Laptop monopoly in its boots. Charbax 2009-12-12T07:33:25+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1132492/Music-while-programming?from=rss In our cublicle-ville, we have programmers intermixed with accounting, customer support and marketing. As a programmer, it is our habit to put on our headphones and listen to our portable music players to drown out all of the noise from everyone else. The boss recently sent an email just to the programmers demanding that we do not use our music players at work because he thinks it distracts us from our jobs and causes us to make mistakes. Of course we've explained to him that the prattle from the other people is much much more distracting but he insists his policy is the right one. What is the /. community's experience with music at work for programmers? BubbaDoom 2009-12-11T22:44:27+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1134760/Judge-orders-permanent-injunction-against-Psystar?from=rss It appears to be the end of the road for infamous Mac-clone maker Psystar, as a federal judge has issued a permanent injunction against the company, banning it from selling its OS X-based hardware products, following November's ruling that Psystar was guilty of copyright infringement under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Specifically, Judge William Alsup's ruling prevents Psystar from "copying, selling, offering to sell, distributing or creating derivative works of Mac OS X without authorization from Apple; circumventing any technological measure that effectively controls access Mac OS X; or doing anything to circumvent the rights held by Apple under the Copyright Act with respect to Mac OS X". The ruling does not include Psystar's Rebel EFI software, which (in theory) allows users to boot OS X onto any computer, but Alsup said that too would be unlikely to stand up in court if Apple decides to make a formal challenge. AdmiralXyz 2009-12-16T01:49:09+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1133114/Facebook-Founders-Pictures-Go-Public?from=rss In a not-uncommon development for the social-networking leader, Facebook's recently released privacy controls are leaving the company a bit red-faced. As a result of a new policy that by default makes users' profiles, photos and friends lists available on the web, almost 300 personal photos of founder Mark Zuckerberg became publicly available, a development that had gossip sites like Gawker yukking it up.related story jamie 2009-12-13T14:22:23+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1135446/Russians-Claim-More-Climate-Data-Was-Manipulated?from=rss On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) claimed that the Hadley Center for Climate Change had probably tampered with Russian-climate data. The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations. The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley CRU survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century. DustyShadow 2009-12-16T22:27:24+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1133104/Secret-Copyright-Treaty-Timeline-Shows-Global-DMCA?from=rss Michael Geist, a leading critic of the ACTA secret copyright treaty, has produced a new interactive timeline that traces its development. The timeline includes links to leaked documents, videos, and public interest group letters that should increasing concern with a deal that could lead to a global three-strikes and you're out policy. Anonymous Coward 2009-12-13T14:06:07+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1134018/22-million-missing-Bush-emails-found?from=rss Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush and the Obama administration is searching for dozens more days' worth of potentially lost e-mail from the Bush years, according to two groups that filed suit over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system. The article goes on to describe to say the tally of missing e-mails, the additional searches and the settlement are the latest development in a political controversy that stemmed from the Bush White House's failure to install a properly working electronic record keeping system. Earlier /. had a discussion on the Obama White House opposing the lawsuit that lead to this discovery. ctmurray 2009-12-15T04:29:38+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1133066/Microsoft-Encroaching-on-Spanish-Schools-Again?from=rss Microsoft had lost the single Windows booting option in school computers in Spain some time ago. But now they are getting back: The Spanish Government announced in a surprising move that an agreement with Microsoft has been signed to give out laptops to primary schoolchildren next year. Anonymous Coward 2009-12-13T10:49:27+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1132930/MySpaceImeem-Deal-Leaves-Artists-Unpaid?from=rss Independent artists who sold their music through imeem’s Snocap music storefronts on MySpace and other sites won’t be paid what’s owed even after MySpace Music’s acquisition of imeem. azoblue 2009-12-12T22:56:10+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1133012/Microsoft-eOpen-site-down-for-nearly-a-week-so-far?from=rss Since last Monday, Dec. 7th, the Microsoft eOpen license website has been mostly "Down for Maintenance".When we do not see this message, we still do not see most of the normal functionality.As this is Microsoft's main channel for managing and installing licenses for products such as Server, and fo open License products for business,this makes the company effectively "closed for business" !Attempts to connect to: https://eopen.microsoft.com/Are redirected to:https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/servicecenter/sitemaintenance.htmlFor those who wish to activate Microsoft Business Solutions software need to obtain Software Registration keys,and these also can not be obtained, as the site:http://www.microsoft.com/BusinessSolutions/MBSRegistrationdoes not resolve, instead one gets a Microsoft Search page when we attempt to go to the Registration Keys site!Telephone calls to their support numbers for the licensing program yield either busy signals, or a message saying one should "call back later!! mauriceh 2009-12-13T06:27:30+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1135686/Mozilla-Firefox-Mobile-will-kill-app-stores?from=rss Mozilla claims that its new Firefox Mobile browser could be the beginning of the end for the hugely popular app stores created by Apple and its ilk. Mozilla claims Firefox Mobile will have the fastest Javascript engine of any mobile browser, and that will allow developers to write apps once for the web, instead of multiple versions for the different mobile platforms. "As developers get more frustrated with quality assurance, the amount of handsets they have to buy, whether their security updates will get past the iPhone approval process... I think they'll move to the web," Mozilla's mobile VP, Jay Sullivan, told PC Pro. "In the interim period, apps will be very successful. Over time, the web will win because it always does." Barence 2009-12-17T08:12:28+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1131904/ATampTs-Net-neutrality-doublethink?from=rss George Orwell would be proud of AT&T, as Bill Snyder explains in this blog, for saying it supports Net neutrality when in fact it is working actively to scuttle proposed FCC rules that would clearly ban discriminatory practices against different types of data, such as video streaming or VoIP. It's also trying to get government subsidies to build a substandard broadband network for the underserved areas of the U.S. If it and its carrier partners win, "Internet freedom" will mean freedom for carriers to be the 21st century's robber barons. GMGruman 2009-12-11T03:12:30+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1133082/Hollywood-Sets-10-Billion-Box-Office-Record?from=rss Claims by the MPAA that illegal downloads are killing the industry and causing billions in losses are once again being shredded. In 2009, the leading Hollywood studios made more films and generated more revenue than ever before, and for the first time in history the domestic box office grosses will surpass $10 billion. kamikazearun 2009-12-13T12:42:09+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1134800/New-Zealand-Re-introduces-3-Strikes-Law?from=rss The New Zealand government has reintroduced a newly rewritten addition to the Copyright Act which will allow rights' holders to send copyright notices to ISPs, and force them to pass them on to account holders. Section 92A of the Copyright Act will allow rights holders to take people who they have identified as infrigners more than three times to be heard in front of the Copyright Tribunal. This law will allow the Copyright Tribunal to hand down either a $15,000 fine or six months internet disconnection. The law specifies that the account holder himself is responsible for what is downloaded via the account, and doesn't make allowances for identifying the actual copyright infringer if there are multiple computers tied to an account. Anonymous Coward 2009-12-16T04:21:44+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1132308/Mars-Express-captures-Phobos-and-Deimos?from=rss The Mars Express Orbiter captured a very cool movie of Phobos and Deimos on Nov 5. Besides the "wow factor", the images will be used to refine the moons' orbits. The orbiter has also captured high resolution images of Phobos back in July."The images were acquired with the Super Resolution Channel (SRC) of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). The camera took 130 images of the moons on 5 November at 9:14 CET in a span of 1.5 minutes at intervals of 1s, speeding up to 0.5-s intervals toward the end. The image resolution is 110 m/pixel for Phobos and 240 m/pixel for Deimos — Deimos was more than twice as far from the camera. " westtxfun 2009-12-11T16:35:55+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1132528/White-House-Plans-Open-Access-for-Research?from=rss Currently, the National Institutes of Health require that research funded by its grants be made available to the public online at no charge within 12 months of publication. Now the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President is launching a “Public Access Policy Forum” to determine whether this policy should be extended to other science agencies and, if so, how it should be implemented. "The NIH model has a variety of features that can be evaluated, and there are other ways to offer the public enhanced access to peer-reviewed scholarly publications," OSTP says in the request for information. "The best models may [be] influenced by agency mission, the culture and rate of scientific development of the discipline, funding to develop archival capabilities, and research funding mechanisms." The OSTP will conduct an interactive, online discussion that will focus on three major questions: Should this policy be extended to other science agencies and, if so, how it should be implemented? In what format should the data be submitted in order to make it easy to search and retrieve information? What are the best mechanisms to ensure compliance? "It's very encouraging to see the Obama Administration focus on ensuring public access to the results of taxpayer-funded research as a key way to maximize our collective investment in science," says Heather Joseph, executive director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition pickens 2009-12-12T00:51:03+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1131898/Microsoft-expands-exFAT-multimedia-licensing?from=rss Microsoft Thursday announced a broadening of its licensing program around its exFAT file system, which is designed to handle large multimedia files. Microsoft hopes companies making devices such as cameras and smartphones, will adopt the Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) technology to support the sharing of audio and video files. The technology is available on Windows 7, Vista SP1, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Embedded CE. alphadogg 2009-12-11T02:45:39+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1133216/Office-2003-Bug-Locks-Owners-Out?from=rss A Microsoft Office 2003 bug is locking people out of their own files, specifically those protected with Microsoft's Rights Management Service. Microsoft has a TechNet bulletin on the issue with a fix. It looks like they screwed up and let a certificate expire. There's no information on when the replacement certificate will expire, though, or what will happen then. Anonymous Coward 2009-12-13T21:47:47+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1133432/Is-console-gaming-dying?from=rss PC gamers love to obsess over whether PC gaming is dying, but bit-tech thinks it's time to look at the other side and examine if console gaming is really as secure as publishers would have us believe. All three console manufacturers suffered from the recession — this year, Sony announced its first net loss in 14 years; a stunning ¥989.9bn, which includes record losses of ¥58.5bn in its gaming sector. Microsoft also announced its first loss since it went public in 1986 in the second quarter of this financial year, with a $31 million US loss coming straight from the Entertainment and Devices division – i.e those responsible for the Xbox 360. Not even Nintendo has escaped the financial plague either, with sales of the Wii dropping by 67 percent in the US, 60 percent in Japan and 47 percent in the rest of the world. In addition to reduced profitability, casual games and the rise of the iPhone further suggest the current model is on its last legs. mr_sifter 2009-12-14T08:16:26+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1133312/Amazon-Introduces-Bidding-for-EC2-Compute-Time?from=rss It seems Amazon is introducing the concept of bidding for CPU time on EC2. They call these "Spot Instances" and as far as I can tell, the only documentation on it exists in the help content of the Amazon Web Console. ryanvm 2009-12-14T04:48:55+00:00