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SMS 4x More Expensive Than Data From Hubble
via Slashdot by CmdrTaco on May 11, 2008
paradoxSpirit writes "Physorg has a paper comparing the cost of text messaging versus the cost of getting data from Hubble Space Telescope. From the article: 'The maximum size for a text message is 160 characters, which takes 140 bytes because there are only 7 bits per character in the text messaging system, and we assume the average price for a text message is 5p. There are 1,048,576 bytes...
Shared by: Mehrdad, badpazzword, pmfa, Matticus, John,
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Vatican Says Alien Life Plausible
via Slashdot by timothy on May 13, 2008
An anonymous reader writes "According to BBC, the director of the Vatican Observatory stated in an article titled 'Aliens Are My Brother' that intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space. 'The search for forms of extraterrestrial life does not contradict belief in God. — Just as there are multiple forms of life on earth, so there could exist intelligent beings in...
Shared by: Cary, Franzel, BIGODE, Keenan, Tomo,
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Using Magnets To Turn Off the Brain's Speech Center
via Slashdot by Soulskill on May 17, 2008
An editor for the Telegraph, Roger Highfield, recently volunteered to allow a UK researcher to shut off the speech center of his brain with a high-powered magnetic pulse. Regular speech is controlled by a section of the brain called Broca's area. Once the precise location is determined in the subject, a magnetic pulse can temporarily disrupt speech without impairing other cognitive functions....
Shared by: Mehrdad, Keenan, Yerameyahu, Cary, Hezy,
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New 'Phlashing' Attack Sabotages Hardware
via Slashdot by timothy on May 19, 2008
yahoi writes "A new type of denial-of-service attack, called permanent denial-of-service (PDOS), damages a system so badly that it requires replacement or reinstallation of hardware. A researcher has discovered how to abuse firmware update mechanisms with what he calls 'phlashing' — a type of remote PDOS attack."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Shared by: LuisManson, badpazzword, Tomo, SKFox, Alex,
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Amusement Park Bans PDAs and Smartphones
via Slashdot by kdawson on May 24, 2008
Ant writes in with news that an amusement park in the UK is trying out a ban on smartphones and PDAs, with the intent to enable families actually to have fun together. The press release says that from May 25 to June 1, adults found using a PDA will be asked to drop it off at a "PDA Drop Off Zone" — no word on what happens if they refuse. But both the Sun and BoingBoing, which picked up their...
Shared by: Harper, Jean, Justin Yost, Matticus, Mathieu,
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U.S. Plan for 'Thinking Machines' Repository
via Slashdot by samzenpus on May 27, 2008
An anonymous reader writes "Information scientists organized by the U.S.'s NIST say they will create a "concept bank" that programmers can use to build thinking machines that reason about complex problems at the frontiers of knowledge — from advanced manufacturing to biomedicine. The agreement by ontologists — experts in word meanings and in using appropriate words to build actionable...
Shared by: Tomo, Sean McBride, Harper, Leo K, Ben Shoemate,
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Microsoft Acknowledges Open Source As a Bigger Threat Than Google
via Slashdot by Soulskill on May 29, 2008
ruphus13 takes us to ZDNet for an analysis of comments by Microsoft's Chief Software Architect, Ray Ozzie, about how open source is "much more potentially disruptive" to Microsoft's business strategy than Google. Ozzie also spoke about the future of Microsoft's search technology, which will develop with or without Yahoo. There is a related interview at OStatic with several Microsoft...
Shared by: Mehrdad, Matticus, Alex, TO-Double-D, WindPower,
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Pringles Can Designer Dies, Buried In a Pringles Can
via Slashdot by kdawson on May 31, 2008
n3hat sends along an item from the Cincinnati Enquirer: "Dr. Fredric J. Baur was so proud of having designed the container for Pringles... that he asked his family to bury him in one. His children honored his request. Part of his remains was buried in a Pringles can — along with a regular urn containing the rest... Dr. Baur, a retired organic chemist and food storage technician who specialized...
Shared by: Cary, Abhishek, Leo K, npike, Jamin,
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goosh, the Unofficial Google Shell
via Slashdot by kdawson on June 01, 2008
ohxten writes "Stefan Grothkopp has come up with a pretty neat tool called goosh. It's essentially a browser-oriented, shell-like interface that allows you to quickly search Google (and images and news) and Wikipedia and get information in a text-only format. This is quite possibly the coolest thing I've seen in a good while."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Shared by: Sean McBride, SKFox, mario r, Antonio Ortiz, Wyctim,
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Machine Prints 3D Copies Of Itself
via Slashdot by samzenpus on June 04, 2008
TaeKwonDood writes "Automated machines have been around for decades. They have basically been dumb devices that do simple assembly tasks. But RepRap takes that a step further because, instead of assembling pre-fabricated parts, it creates 3-D objects by printing them — squirting molten plastic in layers — and then building them up as the plastic solidifies. It works on coat hooks, door...
Shared by: Stephen, Jeffrey, Daniel M., Rizzn, psvensson,
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