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Showing posts from December, 2006

Script.aculo.us: How to easily AJAX your site

Script.aculo.us is a tiny (140KB) javascript framework that gives you the power of effects, several dynamic data components, and all you need to know is a little bit about HTML and how to read. If you already have your own website, it is not hard to do. Follow these steps to AJAX up your site in no time... read more  |  digg story

Linux claimed to be running on Zune

With Linux running on iPods for a few years now, it would seem that it was only a matter of time before someone got a version of the operating system up and running on Microsoft's Zune, especially given the fact that the player's Freescale iMX31L processor can already handle the OS. Well, according to one fearless warranty-voiding individual, that prospect is now at least one step closer to reality. In a post on ZuneBoards, "Mys Videl" claims that he's managed to get Linux on Zune "partway working," currently only able to be booted while synced and with limited capabilities. While Videl's not willing to let the secret loose just yet (or even provide pics of it in action for that matter) he is promising to release it as open source when its finished, and open it up to beta testing before that. Exactly when that might happen, he isn't saying. read more  |  digg story

NASA: Manufacturing the Moon

"We don't have enough real moondust to go around," says Larry Taylor, director of Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. To run all the tests, "we need to make a well-qualified lunar simulant." And not just a few bags will do. "We need tons of it..." read more  |  digg story

Fuel Cell powered laptops run for a month

The dock can power a laptop eight hours a day, five days a week for a month. Apparently the boffins are working on a miniature version which can power a laptop for more than 15 hours "on a coffee cup's worth of fuel". Although it is not clear how much fuel there is in a cup of coffee. read more  |  digg story

Computer's Heat May Unmask Anonymized PCs

Wired is carrying a story about a method developed by security researchers to identify computers hiding behind anonymity services . From the article: 'His victim is the Onion Router, or "Tor" — a sophisticated privacy system that lets users surf the web anonymously. Tor encrypts a user's traffic, and bounces it through multiple servers, so the final destination doesn't know where it came from. Murdoch set up a Tor network at Cambridge to test his technique, which works like this: If an attacker wants to learn the IP address of a hidden server on the Tor network, he'll suddenly request something difficult or intensive from that server. The added load will cause it to warm up. "When a crystal is manufactured, it has a clock skew, and it's different for each crystal (throughout its) lifetime," explains Steven J. Murdoch, a Cambridge University researcher who discussed his work at the Chaos Communications Congress on Thursday. - [Via Slashdot.org ]

Race to the Moon for Nuclear Fuel

NASA's proposed 2024 moon base will be a steppingstone to Mars, but it may also be a mining outpost. The moon is an abundant source of helium-3, a potent fuel for next-generation nuclear reactors. Trouble is, China, India and Russia have their eyes on it too. read more  |  digg story

Prince Harry is going to War in Iraq

rince Harry is to be sent to Iraq next year as a troop commander and is likely to patrol the hazardous border with Iran, defence sources have disclosed.he third in line to the throne will join the Army's 1st Mechanised Brigade, which will be deployed to Basra in May 2007. read more  |  digg story

50 Things We Know Now (That We Didn't Know This Time Last Year) 2006 Edition

Via TBO.com 1. U.S. life expectancy in 2005 inched up to a record high of 77.9 years. 2. The part of the brain that regulates reasoning, impulse control and judgment is still under construction during puberty and doesn't shift into autopilot until about age 25. 3. Blue light fends off drowsiness in the middle of the night, which could be useful to people who work at night. 4. The 8-foot-long tooth emerging from the head of the narwhal whale is actually a type of sensor that detects changes in water temperature, pressure and particle gradients. 5. U.S. Protestant "megachurches" - defined as having a weekly attendance of at least 2,000 - doubled in five years to more than 1,200 and are among the nation's fastest-growing faith groups. 6. Cheese consumption in the United States is expected to grow by 50 percent between now and 2013. 7. At 68.1 percent, the United States ranks eighth among countries that have access to and use the Internet. The largest percentage of

UN-believable: Sexual misconduct by U.N. peacekeepers

Children raped. Girls forced to trade sex for food. Women assaulted at gunpoint. Is this the behavior one would expect from the United Nations peacekeeping missions? Since the 1990s, the U.N. peacekeeping missions have been plagued with sexual misconduct scandals. According to The Washington Post, it first started in Cambodia with U.N. peacekeepers sexually abusing young girls. At that time, the U.N. dismissed the claims with a careless attitude--as if it were inevitable to occur. Meanwhile, the abuses continued and a culture of silence developed. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, 30 percent of the people who visited brothels were U.N. or NATO staff. In fact, the U.N. police operated brothels there and trafficked people.(1) In Liberia, U.N. peacekeepers had sex with young girls, some as young as 12 years old. A trade would consist of giving the girl $10 or some food. Many of the staff visited the brothels in their U.N. vehicles. In the Congo, the alleged cases of sexual exploitation include c

Xbox 360 VS. PS3: Graphics Comparison

You'd think that the PS3 versions would be exactly the same or slightly better than the Xbox 360 versions, since many of these games appeared on the 360 months ago, but it seems like developers didn't use the extra time to polish up the graphics for the PS3. We found that the 360 actually had better graphics in the majority of the games compared. read more  |  digg story

Microsoft launches XNA Game Studio Express

Today Microsoft officially announced the release of the XNA Game Studio Express and XNA Creators Club. The program allows anyone with a Windows XP-based PC to create and develop their own games. The software is based on Visual C# 2005 Express Edition and Microsoft .NET Compact. According to the release, the XNA Creators Club, available on Xbox Live Marketplace for a $49 four-month subscription or a $99 yearly subscription, gives Xbox 360 owners access to "thousands of game assets from Microsoft and key supporters such as Turbo Squid Inc., as well as white papers, specialized starter kits, samples and technical product support." read more  |  digg story

IBM touts Flash-killer

IBM has built a prototype storage device with two partners that they claim is 500 times faster than Flash. It uses less than half the power of Flash memory and can be built in ultra-thin form factors most likely unavailable to Flash. In short, a Flash-killer and potentially the answer for a universal memory type for mobile devices. Infineon spin-off Qimonda, and flash memory company Macronix will show the device at an IEEE conference in San Francisco this week. It uses a new germanium-antimony (GeSc) semi-conductor alloy in a device with a 3nm by 20nm cross-section - far smaller than today's flash and one predicted to be achieved in 2015 using Moore's Law extrapolations of chip component size. Dr TC Chen, an IBM Research VP, said: "Many expect flash memory to encounter significant scaling limitations in the near future. Today we unveil a new phase-change memory material that has high performance even in an extremely small volume." Most Flash memory used today has a &