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Comments: 138 +-   Giving Touch-Screen Buttons Depth and Height With Pneumatics on Tuesday November 24, @11:14AM

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 24, @11:14AM
from the wait-for-pneumatic-spam dept.
inputdev
blee37 writes "Researchers at Carnegie Mellon demonstrate 'popping out' touch screen buttons to become physical buttons using pneumatics. The idea is to combine the dynamic reconfigurability of touch screen buttons with the tactile feedback of real buttons. The technology could be applied where tactile feedback is currently lacking, such as in car navigation systems, ATMs, or cell phones."
Read More... 138 comments story

Comments: 1 +-   Gakken Arduino Clone Spotted At Tokyo MAKE Meeting 04 on Tuesday November 24, @09:20AM

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 24, @09:20AM
from the ubiquity-is-everywhere dept.
hardhack
Modellismo writes "During the Tokyo MAKE:Meeting 04 Gakken displayed the prototype of the Japanino (Arduino clone). It will be released next spring in the Otona no Kagaku (in Japanese it means 'Science toys for adults') magazine series with a Persistence of Vision plastic Toy with color LEDs. The price tag will be less than 3500 yen (ca$35) and it will make the Japanese Arduino scene the biggest in the world in a couple of months, as the magazine will probably sell what the original Arduino sold worldwide in the last years."
Read More... 1 comments story

Comments: 107 +-   Solar-Powered Plane Makes Runway Debut on Tuesday November 24, @02:52AM

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 24, @02:52AM
from the endless-summer dept.
transportation
MikeChino writes "The much-hyped Solar Impulse airplane just completed its first runway test, paving the way for a 20-to-25-day trip around the world next year. Conceived by Bertrand Piccard, the single-pilot plane successfully used its four solar powered motors to taxi around the runway. If all goes according to plan the plane will be able to fly day and night without fuel, signaling a bright future for solar-powered flight."
Read More... 107 comments story

Comments: 250 +-   Apple vs. Microsoft Multi-Touch Mouse Comparison on Monday November 23, @10:53AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday November 23, @10:53AM
from the touch-me-baby dept.
inputdev
blee37 writes "This is a side-by-side comparison of the Apple and Microsoft multi-touch mice. It includes video demonstrations of using the mice in applications, first-person shooters and 3D manipulation. It also has new photos of the internals of all the mice."
Read More... 250 comments story

Comments: 81 +-   Australia's CSIRO To Launch CPU-GPU Supercomputer on Monday November 23, @04:40AM

Posted by timothy on Monday November 23, @04:40AM
from the ready-for-duke-nuken-forever dept.
supercomputing
bennyboy64 contributes this excerpt from CRN Australia: "The CSIRO will this week launch a new supercomputer which uses a cluster of GPUs [pictures] to gain a processing capacity that competes with supercomputers over twice its size. The supercomputer is one of the world's first to combine traditional CPUs with the more powerful GPUs. It features 100 Intel Xeon CPU chips and 50 Tesla GPU chips, connected to an 80 Terabyte Hitachi Data Systems network attached storage unit. CSIRO science applications have already seen 10-100x speedups on NVIDIA GPUs."
Read More... 81 comments story

Comments: 70 +-   Modded UX490 UMPC Shows Off Years of Community Development on Monday November 23, @01:27AM

Posted by timothy on Monday November 23, @01:27AM
from the soldered-on-a-new-warranty-too dept.
handheld
An anonymous reader writes "The community at www.MicroPCTalk.com have spent the last few years devising all sorts of mods and tweaks for the Sony VAIO UX-series UMPC. Now they've thrown nearly all of their major breakthroughs into one machine. Using the latest UX model (UX490) as the base, the original SSD has been swapped for a speedy 128GB SSD, the CPU has been unsoldered from the mobo and replaced with a Core 2 Duo U7700 (making this probably the smallest computer to use said CPU). The original EDGE module has been removed, and carefully put in its place is an E169 Huawei terminal which provides up to 7.2mbps 3G (HSDPA), voice and texting. On top of this, the unit quad-boots Mac OS X, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP (and the Huawei terminal works under Mac OS X as well)."
Read More... 70 comments story

Comments: 160 +-   Colossus 3.5-in SSD Combines Quad Controllers on Sunday November 22, @01:12PM

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday November 22, @01:12PM
from the going-for-the-gusto dept.
storage
Vigile writes "The new Colossus SSD comes in capacities starting at 256GB and going all the way up to 1TB in a standard 3.5-in hard drive form factor. This larger size was required because the drive actually integrates not one but four Indilinx SSD controllers and three total RAID controllers in a nested RAID-0 array. All of this goodness combines to create an incredibly fast drive that beats most other options in terms of write speeds and is competitive in read tests as well. Using some custom 'garbage collection' firmware, the drive works around the fact that TRIM commands aren't supported in RAID configurations to maintain high speeds through the life of the SSD."
Read More... 160 comments story

Comments: 83 +-   UAVs Go Green With Fuel-Cell Powered "Ion Tiger" on Sunday November 22, @01:23AM

Posted by timothy on Sunday November 22, @01:23AM
from the kinder-and-gentler-and-more-dangerous dept.
power
Hugh Pickens writes "Increasingly, the military is deploying unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, as eyes in the sky to scan the ground for targets and threats, especially for missions that are too dangerous for manned aircraft. Now Live Science reports that a new robotic spy plane called 'Ion Tiger' will harness alternative energy to make it more covert and longer lasting than battery-powered or engine-powered UAVs. A 550-watt, 0.75 horsepower hydrogen fuel cell will power the Ion Tiger with four times the efficiency of a comparable internal combustion engine and seven times the energy of the equivalent weight of batteries. When Ion Tiger took flight in October, it exceeded any demonstration of electrically powered flight so far, flying 23 hours and 17 minutes. 'And it carried a 5 lbs. payload to boot — enough to carry, say, a day-and-night camera,' says researcher Karen Swider-Lyons, head of the alternative energy section at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. 'No one has come close to flying 24 hours with a significant payload before.' Another big advantage is the Ion Tiger's reduced noise, heat and emissions. 'Think about lawnmowers or chainsaws — they're really loud,' says Swider-Lyons. 'It's hard to spy on people when they know you're there, so you had to fly them at high altitudes to keep them from being heard.'"
Read More... 83 comments story

Comments: 277 +-   Berkeley Engineers Have Some Bad News About Air Cars on Saturday November 21, @02:31PM

Posted by timothy on Saturday November 21, @02:31PM
from the puff-the-magic-dragon-was-involved dept.
transportation
cheeks5965 writes "We've argued before over compressed air vehicles, a.k.a. air cars. Air cars are an enchanting idea, providing mobility with zero fuel consumption or environmental impacts. The NYTimes' Green Inc. blog reports that the reality is less rosy. New research from UC Berkeley and ICF International puts a period at the end of the discussion, showing that compressed air is a very poor fuel, storing less than 1% of the energy in gasoline; air cars won't get you far, with a range of just 29 miles in typical city driving; and despite appearing green the vehicles are worse for the environment, with twice the carbon footprint as gasoline vehicles, from producing the electricity used to compress the air. Given these barriers, manufacturer claims should definitely be taken with a grain of salt."
Read More... 277 comments story

Comments: 617 +-   Response To California's Large-Screen TV Regulation on Friday November 20, @10:55AM

Posted by kdawson on Friday November 20, @10:55AM
from the i-want-my-i-want-my dept.
earth
An anonymous reader writes "It's great that unelected bureaucrats in California are clamoring to save energy, but when they target your big-screen TVs for elimination, consumers and manufacturers are apt to declare war. CEDIA and the CEA are up in arms over this. Audioholics has an interesting response that involves setting the TVs in 'SCAM' mode to meet the energy criteria technically without having to add additional cost or increase costs to consumers. 'In this mode, the display brightness/contrast settings would be set a few clicks to the right of zero, audio would be disabled and backlighting would be set to minimum. The power consumption should be measured in this mode much like an A/V receiver power consumption is measured with one channel driven at full rated power and the other channels at 1/8th power.' This is an example of an impending train wreck of unintended consequences, and many are grabbing the popcorn and pulling up chairs to watch."
Read More... 617 comments story

Comments: 314 +-   Intel Says Brain Implants Could Control Computers By 2020 on Thursday November 19, @06:12PM

Posted by timothy on Thursday November 19, @06:12PM
from the phalanges-are-fine-thanks dept.
biotech
Lucas123 writes "Scientists at Intel are working on developing sensors that would be implanted in a person's head in order to harness brain waves that could then be used to control computers, televisions, cell phones and other electronic equipment. Intel has already used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) machines to determine that blood flow changes in specific areas of the brain based on what word or image someone is thinking of. People tend to show the same brain patterns for similar thoughts. 'Eventually people may be willing to be more committed ... to brain implants. Imagine being able to surf the Web with the power of your thoughts.' said Intel research scientist Dean Pomerleau."
Read More... 314 comments story

Comments: 303 +-   Synchronize Data Between Linux, OS X, and Windows? on Thursday November 19, @04:30PM

Posted by timothy on Thursday November 19, @04:30PM
from the please-be-more-specific dept.
storage
aaaaaaargh! writes "I'm using a laptop with Ubuntu 8.04 for work, a netbook with Ubuntu 9.10 when I'm outside, Mac OS X 10.5 for hobby projects, and Windows XP for gaming. For backups, I'm currently using Jungle Disk and Apple's Time Machine, and I use a local svn repository for my work data. Now I need to frequently exchange and synchronize OpenOffice and Latex files and source code in various cross-platform programming languages between one machine and another. Options range from putting everything online (but Jungle Disk disks seem to be too slow for anything else than backup), storing my data on external media like USB sticks or SD cards, or working with copies by synchronizing folders over the network. I don't want to give my data away to some server outside without strong encryption (controlled by me, including the source code) and external media like USB sticks are a bit too fragile according to my taste. The solution should be reliable, relatively failsafe, as simple as possible, and allow me to continue to use Jungle Disk for backup. So what would you recommend?"
Read More... 303 comments story

Comments: 267 +-   Building a 32-Bit, One-Instruction Computer on Thursday November 19, @02:12PM

Posted by timothy on Thursday November 19, @02:12PM
from the some-things-weren't-meant-for-post-its dept.
programming
Hugh Pickens writes "The advantages of RISC are well known — simplifying the CPU core by reducing the complexity of the instruction set allows faster speeds, more registers, and pipelining to provide the appearance of single-cycle execution. Al Williams writes in Dr Dobbs about taking RISC to its logical conclusion by designing a functional computer called One-Der with only a single simple instruction — a 32-bit Transfer Triggered Architecture (TTA) CPU that operates at roughly 10 MIPS. 'When I tell this story in person, people are usually squirming with the inevitable question: What's the one instruction?' writes Williams. 'It turns out there's several ways to construct a single instruction CPU, but the method I had stumbled on does everything via a move instruction (hence the name, "Transfer Triggered Architecture").' The CPU is implemented on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device and the prototype works on a 'Spartan 3 Starter Board' with an XS3C1000 device available from Digilent that has the equivalent of about 1,000,000 logic gates, costing between $100 and $200. 'Applications that can benefit from custom instruction in hardware — things like digital signal processing, for example — are ideal for One-Der since you can implement parts of your algorithm in hardware and then easily integrate those parts with the CPU.'"
Read More... 267 comments story

Comments: 297 +-   Smart Grid Could Pose Threat To Privacy on Wednesday November 18, @08:26PM

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 18, @08:26PM
from the lets-take-a-look dept.
power
Presto Vivace writes "Brian Krebs of the Washington Post reports on a study jointly released Tuesday by the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner and the Future of Privacy Forum. It seems that in the process of collecting all that feedback about energy use, utility companies will inevitably collect a great deal of information about us. From the article: 'Instead of measuring energy use at the end of each billing period, smart meters will provide this information at much shorter intervals, the report notes. Even if electricity use is not recorded minute by minute, or at the appliance level, information may be gleaned from ongoing monitoring of electricity consumption such as the approximate number of occupants, when they are present, as well as when they are awake or asleep. For many, this will resonate as a "sanctity of the home" issue, where such intimate details of daily life should not be accessible.'"
Read More... 297 comments story

Comments: 327 +-   Chicago's Camera Network Is Everywhere on Wednesday November 18, @06:04PM

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 18, @06:04PM
from the oh-it's-just-you-big-brother dept.
privacy
DesScorp writes "Over the past few years, the City of Chicago has installed video cameras all over the city. Now the Wall Street Journal reports that the city has not only installed its own cameras for law enforcement purposes, but with the aid of IBM, has built a network that possibly links thousands of video surveillance cameras all over Chicago. Possibly, because the city refuses to confirm just how many cameras are in the network. Critics say that Chicago is becoming the city of Big Brother. 'The city links the 1,500 cameras that police have placed in trouble spots with thousands more—police won't say how many—that have been installed by other government agencies and the private sector in city buses, businesses, public schools, subway stations, housing projects and elsewhere. Even home owners can contribute camera feeds. Rajiv Shah, an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who has studied the issue, estimates that 15,000 cameras have been connected in what the city calls Operation Virtual Shield, its fiber-optic video-network loop.' There are so many camera feeds coming in that police and officials can't monitor them all, but when alerted to a situation, can zoom in on the area affected. The ACLU has requested a total number of video feeds and cameras, but as of yet, this information has not been supplied."
Read More... 327 comments story

Comments: 85 +-   Hackers Broke Into Brazil Power Grid Operator's Website Last Thursday on Tuesday November 17, @06:41PM

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 17, @06:41PM
from the wolf-no-really-this-time-i-mean-it dept.
security
An anonymous reader writes "A week ago, 60 Minutes had a story (we picked it up too) claiming that hackers had caused power outages in Brazil. While this assertion is now believed to be in error, hackers were inspired by the story actually to do what was claimed. Last Thursday, they broke into ONS, the operator of the grid (Google translation; Portuguese original). DarkReading has specific details on the SQL injection vulnerabilities the hackers probably used."
Read More... 85 comments story

Comments: 135 +-   Cooling Bags Could Cut Server Cooling Costs By 93% on Tuesday November 17, @11:13AM

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 17, @11:13AM
from the or-other-exact-number dept.
storage
judgecorp writes "UK company Iceotope has launched liquid-cooling technology which it says surpasses what can be done with water or air-cooling and can cut data centre cooling costs by up to 93 percent. Announced at Supercomputing 2009 in Portland, Oregon, the 'modular Liquid-Immersion Cooled Server' technology wraps each server in a cool-bag-like device, which cools components inside a server, rather than cooling the whole data centre, or even a traditional 'hot aisle.' Earlier this year, IBM predicted that in ten years all data centre servers might be water-cooled." Adds reader 1sockchuck, "The Hot Aisle has additional photos and diagrams of the new system."
Read More... 135 comments story

Comments: 581 +-   CERN Physicist Warns About Uranium Shortage on Tuesday November 17, @10:24AM

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 17, @10:24AM
from the switch-to-geraniums dept.
earth
eldavojohn writes "Uranium mines provide us with 40,000 tons of uranium each year. Sounds like that ought to be enough for anyone, but it comes up about 25,000 tons short of what we consume yearly in our nuclear power plants. The difference is made up by stockpiles, reprocessed fuel and re-enriched uranium — which should be completely used up by 2013. And the problem with just opening more uranium mines is that nobody really knows where to go for the next big uranium lode. Dr. Michael Dittmar has been warning us for some time about the coming shortage (PDF) and has recently uploaded a four-part comprehensive report on the future of nuclear energy and how socioeconomic change is exacerbating the effect this coming shortage will have on our power consumption. Although not quite on par with zombie apocalypse, Dr. Dittmar's final conclusions paint a dire picture, stating that options like large-scale commercial fission breeder reactors are not an option by 2013 and 'no matter how far into the future we may look, nuclear fusion as an energy source is even less probable than large-scale breeder reactors, for the accumulated knowledge on this subject is already sufficient to say that commercial fusion power will never become a reality.'"
Read More... 581 comments story

Comments: 123 +-   Optical Mice Used To Detect Counterfeit Coins on Monday November 16, @05:00PM

Posted by timothy on Monday November 16, @05:00PM
from the is-there-anything-optical-mice-can't-do? dept.
hardhack
JimXugle writes "El Mundo reports that Spanish researchers at The University of Lleida have used a modified optical mouse to detect counterfeit €2 coins (Original article, in Spanish) with a success rate comparable to that of an expert trained to do so. Details are to be published freely in the journal Sensors."
Read More... 123 comments story

Comments: 110 +-   Fusion-io IoXtreme's Consumer-Class PCIe SSD — Impressive Throughput on Monday November 16, @04:40PM

Posted by timothy on Monday November 16, @04:40PM
from the annoying-use-of-the-word-play dept.
storage
MojoKid writes "When Fusion-io's first ioDrive product hit the market, it was claimed to be a 'disruptive technology' by some industry analysts, with the potential to set the storage industry on its ear. Of course the first version of the ioDrive was an enterprise-class product that showed the significant potential of PCI Express direct-attached SSD storage, but its cost was such that the mainstream market couldn't possibly justify it, no matter what the upside performance looked like. Then we heard of Fusion-io's more consumer-targeted play, the ioXtreme, that was announced this past summer. Fusion-io has only very recently released these new, lower cost cards to market. The first-ever full performance review of the product over at HotHardware shows the half-height PCI Express X4 cards are capable of a robust 800MB/sec read bandwidth and about 300MB/sec of write bandwidth. The cards particularly excel versus a standard SSD at random read/write requests and even perform relatively well with small block transfers."
Read More... 110 comments story
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