Slashdot Mirror
Domain: bbc.co.uk
Stories and comments across the archive that link to bbc.co.uk.
Stories · 4,568
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Biometric ID Cards Trialled in Glasgow
StuWho writes "The Register is reporting a trial of Biometric ID Cards in Glasgow, Scotland. The trial is one of several tests prior to the implimentation of a universal UK ID card. It also carries reports of how you can evade the sensors by doing something as simple as crying. 'It costs the UK 1.3 billion a year, and facilitates organised crime, illegal immigration, benefit fraud, illegal working and terrorism,' Home Office Minister Des Browne said. He then said that the ID card would fix all this, but did not say how. It's not only in the US where governments are using the excuse of terrorism to infringe on civil liberties." -
Calculate When You Are Most Awake
cjellibebi writes "Scientists have devised a formula that works out what times of the day you are most tired. Using their website, you can work out your alertness profile for any given day. It is also discussed on this BBC News article." -
Beagle 2 Failure Analyzed
InsomniaCity writes "An inquiry into the loss of the Beagle 2 Mars probe in December will criticize the management of the project and the testing of the lander, says the BBC. Following the loss, the European Space Agency (Esa) and the British National Space Centre established a Commission of Inquiry, that are now recommending 19 things we need to remember for the future, from project management and fund raising, to high altitude testing of the parachute system. The commission, however, did not pinpoint any particular technical failure." -
Nanobacteria Discovered?
mfh writes "The BBC is reporting that a new form of life has been discovered, nanobacteria, which was previously only theorized by Finnish researchers Kajander and Ciftcioglu. A team lead by Dr John Lieske of the Mayo Clinic claims they have found irrefutable evidence of the existence of nanobacteria, which is likely responsible for a plethora of illnesses." -
New Epoch in History of the Earth
exp(pi*sqrt(163)) writes "According to the BBC News, for the first time in over a century geologists have decided to add a new name for a period in the timeline of the planet earth. From now on, the time from 600 million years ago to 542 million years ago is to be known as the Ediacarian Period. Geologists now see this period, just before the first shelled animals appeared, as important enough to deserve recognition in its own right. This will also help to reduce the confusion caused by the myriad of names that have been used for this period up to now." -
E3 Wrapup Documented
mindless4210 writes "The new Nokia N-Gage, shown at E3, looks promising, but Nokia better be prepared to compete with Sony and Nintendo. Nokia is betting the N-Gage's wireless communication abilities will set it apart and allow multiplayer gaming to move away from computers and living-room consoles and into consumers' pockets." Reader harikiri writes "According to the BBC, the much-maligned Infinium Labs has showcased their Phantom console at E3. Apparently Infinium have made agreements with AMD and Nvidia to provide the processor and graphics controller. The specs seem very respectable: a 2.5GHz AMD processor, 256MB RAM and a 40GB HDD." Reader Ipingforpong writes "E3, probably the most well known video game trade show was assaulted by the U.S. Army in a promotion for America's Army. Soldiers rappelled out of a real Blackhawk helicopter with real rifles and rushed the show." -
Microsoft Blames Anti-trust Legal Fees for Price Increases
jm.one writes "BBC news has an article about the Californian anti-trust case and points out that Microsoft tells users would suffer from this: 'Somebody ends up paying for this,' said Microsoft attorney Robert Rosenfeld. 'These large fee awards get passed on to consumers.' Do they really understand why there are laws?" -
Indian Voting Machines Compared with Diebold
Hanuman_Ji writes "The Indian general elections, 2004 is now complete - and the result is an upset. As reported earlier, this election was conducted entirely through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). This article gives a nice overview of the machines used in this process and also adds a comparison with the Diebold machines. More information is also available at the equipment manufacturer's website." -
Library at Alexandria Discovered?
dustmote writes "According to the BBC, a Polish-Egyptian team believes they may have discovered the Library at Alexandria, including ancient lecture halls or auditoria, in the Bruchion region of the city. It's said by some that the burning of the library set civilization back as much as a thousand years." -
How Prevalent are Bogus Degrees?
Paul Townend asks: "The BBC are reporting that a US government investigation has found that 28 top federal employees possess bogus college degrees (usually based on 'life experience'), and the phenomenon may be much bigger. Have Slashdot readers come across or worked with people with such degrees? Does it give them an advantage? What happens when they're discovered?" -
A Moment Of Reckoning for Cassini
No_Weak_Heart writes "The NASA/ESA Cassini-Huygens probe has caught sight of Titan and is now returning images that 'rival anything scientists have seen before - and that includes images from the Hubble telescope.' See more detailed images at the mission homepage." -
Emotional Bonding with Space Probes
bfwebster writes "Space.com has a story on the scientists and technicians working on the Mars rovers, Spirit and Oppotunity--and how they will react when the rovers finally break down, go silent, or otherwise die. Of course, humans becoming emotionally involved with hardware is high on the list of overused science fiction cliches (see I.14), and humans were naming (and anthropomorphizing) their cars long before they started doing it to their computers. Some argue that anthropomorphic design can ease end-user acceptance [PDF], with some interesting results among toys for children. On the other hand, when software manufacturers try to give our computers some 'personality', we tend to vehemently react against it--witness Microsoft's attempts with the much-loathed Bob and Clippy. And when our personal computers are aged or ailing or simply misbehaving, we usually are more than happy to put them out of our misery. So in the case of Spirit and Opportunity, the issue may be the large investment of time, money, and professional credibility in having two semi-autonomous rovers 100 million miles away function correctly. Best quote from the Space.com story: when Spirit, early into its mission, shut down for reasons then unknown, the Spirit mission manager happened to get a phone call from her husband. He asked her how her day had been, and she said, 'Well...I think I'm personally responsible for the loss of a $400 million national asset.' Doncha hate it when that happens?" -
Perfect Digital Skin
ILMfan writes "BBC Technology is describing a new graphics algorithm for creating perfect virtual skin. This technique by graphics wizard Henrik Jensen (the guy who invented photon mapping) is already being used in movies (it was used on Gollum in Lord of the Rings, and it will be used in the soon-to-be-released van Helsing movie). And perhaps more exciting is that several game companies are planning on using it for their next generation games. So John Carmack are you listening? Any chance this can be included in DOOM3? Of course there are endless other opportunities for virtual humans with perfect skin :-)" -
Estonia Embraces Wi-Fi Wireless Internet Access
securitas writes "BBC Technology's Clark Boyd reports on one man's efforts to make free 802.11 Wi-Fi wireless Internet access ubiquitous in Estonia. An estimated two-thirds of Estonia is now covered by wireless hotspots according to Veljo Haamer, who convinced Estonia's major oil companies, Neste and Statoil, to install free hotspots at gas stations. Two-thirds of Estonia's approximately 280 public hotspots are free to use, all of which are marked with signs. But Haamer still wardrives for dead-spots and next plans to get free wireless access to public parks and green spaces. Last year Slashdot covered Estonia's legislation declaring Internet access a human right." -
Missing Matter... Still Missing
squidfrog writes "Nature.com, PhysicsWeb, and the BBC all report on the latest results from the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search. 'The most powerful search yet for the Universe's missing matter has come up empty handed, contradicting an earlier study that claimed to have seen new particles.' 'A favoured theory is that the dark matter consists of Wimps (weakly interacting massive particles) about a thousand times more massive than a proton, one of the particles found in an atom's nucleus... on the rare occasions a Wimp strikes an ordinary atom, the effect should be noticeable.' 'Writing in the Physical Review Letters, the team says that while a detection has yet to occur, there is now a better idea of how much dark matter must exist.' They 'hope to improve the sensitivity of the experiment by another factor of 20 over the next few years.' What's 20 times 0? And don't tell me zero!" -
Sasser Worm Disruption Growing
thebra writes "Yet another virus is causing problems with Internet Explorer. "Sasser, unlike a virus which travels through e-mails and attachments, spreads directly from the internet."A removal tool can be found here." -
Third Largest Supercomputer... at Weta Digital
Designadrug writes "This story at the BBC details how the worlds third largest supercomputer (conditions apply) lives at Weta Digital - the company that provided CGI effects for The Lord of the Rings movies. The article also goes on to discuss the 500 TeraBytes of data generated for the films and how the epic Battle of Pelennor Fields almost defeated the film itself." -
Growing Teeth with Stem Cell Technology
davidoff404 writes "Lost a tooth lately? Well, a natural cure may be at hand. The BBC is reporting on a grant awarded to researchers at King's College, London, which they say will allow them to develop a technique for growing natural replacement teeth. Using recently developed techniques, stem cells can be programmed to develop into teeth, and then inserted into the gap in a patient's jaw. According to the BBC, the research has already been successfully performed on mice, and clinical trials on humans should begin within two years." -
Growing Teeth with Stem Cell Technology
davidoff404 writes "Lost a tooth lately? Well, a natural cure may be at hand. The BBC is reporting on a grant awarded to researchers at King's College, London, which they say will allow them to develop a technique for growing natural replacement teeth. Using recently developed techniques, stem cells can be programmed to develop into teeth, and then inserted into the gap in a patient's jaw. According to the BBC, the research has already been successfully performed on mice, and clinical trials on humans should begin within two years." -
Simpsons Pay Dispute Settled
ackthpt writes "Simpsons voice actors were receiving $125,000 per episode and considering how wildly profitable the show is for FOX, in syndication and merchandising, the actors felt they should get a bigger piece of the pie. The strike is settled with a 4 year contract for the actors, though FOX is mum about further details, so the show will go on. For a bit more on this see this article on BBC News or The Gate." -
Dirac: BBC Open Source Video Codec
NickFitz writes "Need To Know this week has a piece about Dirac, a BBC R&D project to produce a video codec, which has been released as an Open Source project. From BBCi: 'Dirac is a general-purpose video codec aimed at resolutions from QCIF (180x144) to HDTV (1920x1080) progressive or interlaced... Our algorithm seems to give a two-fold reduction in bit rate over MPEG-2 for high definition video (e.g. 1920x1080 pixels), its original target application. It has been further developed to optimise it for internet streaming resolutions.'" -
Robocones
Anonymous Meoward writes "Researchers at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln have come up with robotic traffic barrels ('bollards', for our British readers) that can be repositioned by remote control, thus minimizing a road worker's time in harm's way. Apparently, the barrels can be grouped and positioned by an autonomous 'shepherd' unit, that is also smart enough to also remove an errant barrel from its herd. The barrels themselves are about as intelligent as.. well, orange barrels. Okay, let's cue the more obvious jokes..." Reader zombieflesheater submitted this previous attempt to mobilize road furniture. -
Thermoacoustic Cooler Means Green-Friendly Icecream
MuddyRiverDoc writes "National Public Radio aired a story describing ice cream manufacturer Ben & Jerry's sponsored development of a thermoacoustic refrigeration technology, which uses helium gas subjected to ultra-loud 173 db sound to chill an ice cream cooler. The NPR interview and pictures of the Penn State researchers who did the development is available. There is also a brief description of the technique at the Penn State Live site and at the BBC, and an over-cute Ben & Jerry's broadband presentation, Sounds Cool!, that does however provide a useful diagram. Thermoacoustic refrigeration has been a focus of research for more than a decade at Purdue and elsewhere, and has reportedly flown on the Space Shuttle, but this prototype is reportedly the first that demonstrates the size, efficiency, and quiet operation that promises successful commercial introduction. Cool Sound Industries, Inc. is reportedly exclusively licensed for this thermoacoustic technology." -
Algorithms To Reassemble Ancient Map of Rome
MattJ writes "The BBC reports on a Stanford project to reconstruct pieces of an ancient, detailed, 60' by 43' 'map of Rome carved into stone slabs about AD 210 but later broken into fragments.' ... So complicated is the jumble of parts that for decades the map pieces have been referred to as 'the biggest jigsaw in the world.' Researchers developed algorithms to assemble the 3D fragments of the map, and have had some success." -
Sony Hit by Drop in PS2 Sales
sdw3u writes "Falling sales of PlayStations contribute to a 23% drop in profits at the Japanese tech giant, while rival firms see profits surge." Perhaps it may be time for Sony to lower prices again, which has helped fuel another console's sales. They've also reported a 40% drop in game sales to accompany the drop in console sales. According to the article, they don't see things changing for the better anytime soon, though, and are now focusing on development of their PSP handheld system. Update: 04/27 16:08 GMT by S : A GameGossip news story has more info from Sony's conference call, noting "Sony cited expected lowered production shipments for both PlayStation 2 (from 20 million to 14 million) and PSOne (from 3 million to 1 million)... total software shipments this year (including PS2 and PSOne together) were at 254 million, ahead of its 250 million estimates." -
Laser Vision Offers New Insights
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Laser Vision Offers New Insights
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D&D Is 30
mainframemouse writes "For those who have not seen the Beeb article, Dungeons and Dragons is 30 years old. After many years of role-playing is wonderful to see the mother of all RPG's given respect and mention in the national press. There's even a note about the false accusations of the 80's." And for the record - flanking & attacks of opportunity in 3/3.5 Edition still irritate me. Combine a familiar with Master Tactician and some rogue levels, and you're off to the races. -
People Feel Loyalty To Computers
stoobthealien writes "According to BBC News researchers have discovered that people have loyalty to specific computers because of a tendancy to associate "human attributes to them" - and I thought it was just me that speaks to my PC...." -
Biometric ID Cards Ready For Trial In UK
0ctal writes "Looks like us lucky Brits are getting ID cards no matter what... A 10,000 user trial starts next week. There's been a fair amount of debate on this recently, and it's been coming for some time, but live trials are sooner than expected. The trial is set up to evaluate three competing biometric products. Qinetiq, quoted by the story, are a government backed company set up to use MoD tech in civilian apps." -
Does A Good Game Make A Good Movie Idea?
Brakz0rz writes "Here's a BBCi article by Daniel Etherington with an overview on how videogames translate onto the big screen. I can't say I've been impressed by any such effort so far. The article touches on John Woo's upcoming Metroid adaptation. Etherington writes, "One of these days, someone has just got to make a decent video game movie. How about Peter Jackson doing Zelda? Now that would be promising." I would enjoy that more than the games franchised from the LOTR trilogy." -
iPod Mini Hits The 'Sweet Spot'?
Tooky writes "The BBC is reporting on a survey carried out by Jupiter Research which found that most consumers were only storing about 1000 songs on their portable MP3 players, claiming that ' The finding seems to be borne out by the demand for Apple's Mini iPod'." According to the piece: "Jupiter said digital music players with capacities of 5,000 songs will provide too much space for most people. It added that consumers rate other features as highly as the ability to store all the songs held on their PC." -
UK Releases Global Warming Report
ben_ writes "The UK Government's Foresight Project, tasked with visualizing the future, has published a hard-hitting report on the flooding consequences of global warming. The story's also on the BBC." -
A Mouse With Two Mothers
jabberjaw writes "Both the BBC and Nature are reporting that scientists at Tokyo University of Agriculture have used two sets of chromosomes belonging to a female mouse to create what are essentially fatherless mice. The process by which this was accomplished (parthenogenesis) does not naturally occur in mammals. The mouse used lacked a gene known as H19 which in turn activated the Igf2 which allowed this process to occur." -
Intelligent Road Studs
Copley writes "The BBC have a short story about 'intelligent' cat's eyes (reflective road studs). I remember reading about the principle of these years ago. It seems that they've reached the real-world trial stage. The whole concept is pretty cool - the studs monitor weather and traffic speeds and change their colour accordingly. As you drive along, rather than see your own headlights reflected, you see a line of active lights indicating what you can expect ahead of you: stationary traffic, ice, etc. As I recall, one idea proposed was for your own car to leave a trail of lights behind it, the length of which related to your speed. The trail thus indicated the 'danger-you-are-too-close-you-moron' zone behind you. Drivers could then avoid driving within another car's trail. Neat idea, but I somehow doubt even the most technical of safety systems is ever going to change the driving habits of some of the brain-dead, tail-gating idiots I often have to share the roads with... Perhaps intelligent road studs with assault weaponry to take out bad drivers would be more useful!" -
India Starts All-Electronic National Elections
fantomas writes "Forget the problems of e-voting in a state in some middling sized western country as recently reported by Slashdot. The world's largest democracy is about to go to the polling stations and vote for a new government using all-electronic voting systems. Will it work? Will the USA follow if all goes to plan? Can any readers from India comment on how it seems to be going?" -
Giving Up Passwords For Chocolate
RonnyJ writes "The BBC is reporting that, according to a recent survey, more than 70% of people would willingly give up their computer password in exchange for as little as a bar of chocolate. Over a third of the people surveyed even gave out their password without having to be bribed, and most indicated that they were fed up with having to use passwords." -
'Einstein Probe' Delayed
isorox writes "The BBC is reporting that a NASA satellite designed to test frame dragging, predicted by the theory of relativity, has been delayed for 24 hours because mission control couldn't verify the correct software had been loaded. The probe was proposed 35 years ago, but has never had the funding until now. The question remains is what happens if Frame Dragging isn't observed - will the experiment be wrong (in other words there's no point to it), or will we get faster-than-light ships for Christmas?" -
Brain Chip Approved For Paralysis Research
dalillama writes "The BBC is reporting that tests are underway for the clinical trials of the "Brain Gate" computer chip, placed in the brains of paralysis patients. They hope the chips will map out nerve impulses which are sent to limbs, so that they can then be translated into computer code and sent to future artificial limbs. " Thanks to Robert Brooks for pointing out this closely related piece. -
SimChurch
Roland Piquepaille writes "It's Sunday and some of you might go to a church. But starting on May 11, and for a duration of three months, you'll be able to go to a virtual church. Only the building, with its altar and pews, will be virtual. The preacher, congregation and prayers will be real, according to this BBC News article, 'Glimpse inside the virtual church.' This experiment is launched by a Christian website, Ship of Fools, and will be named Church of Fools. Even with such a foolish name, the virtual church project has been approved by the church hierarchy. This overview contains other details and references about the Church of Fools project." -
Gard On Tomb Raider, Galleon, Delays
Thanks to The UK Independent for its article-based interview with Confounding Factor's Toby Gard, best known as the creator of Tomb Raider while at Core Design. The article discusses the genesis of Lara Croft, with Gard arguing: "I thought that what was interesting about her was she was this unattainable, austere, dangerous sort of person." Of the hideously delayed Galleon, finally due out this summer, the article suggests: "It's not too silly an exaggeration to say that, in the computer-games industry, Galleon is the equivalent of Donna Tartt's The Little Friend or the Stone Roses's The Second Coming", and Gard clarifies his impressions of the game's intriguing influences: "I wanted to have a visual language that was quite comic book... I realised the Ray Harryhausen Sinbad films were the way to go." -
Academics Take On Government Net Censorship
Anonymous Brave Guy writes "There's an interesting article from the BBC today about a group of academics at the University of Toronto who are working to investigate and break down government-imposed censorship of the Internet. Are they defending human rights, or simply trying to impose their own beliefs on people from other cultures? Incidentally, one of their people was responsible for the previous Slashdot discussion of 'five fundamental problems with open source'." -
The Average PC is Infested with Spyware
WoodenRobot writes "This article claims that Earthlink have discovered that the average user's PC has 28 spyware programs on it. More details can be found on Earthlink's spyware auditing page." Compare to a university study. The FTC is hosting a Spyware Workshop. -
Take Me Home, I'm Drunk
Nereus writes "The BBC News is reporting on an interesting new software product developed by three undergraduates at the University of Aberdeen [and the Universities of Hull and Sheffield]. The University Leisure and Lifestyle Manager (ULL) is the ultimate student companion, helping in all aspects of life; from choosing text books, to getting home from the pub after a few too many. Hopefully it won't put an end to the traditional student pastime of waking up on a park bench after a night out, with a traffic cone on your head..." -
Take Me Home, I'm Drunk
Nereus writes "The BBC News is reporting on an interesting new software product developed by three undergraduates at the University of Aberdeen [and the Universities of Hull and Sheffield]. The University Leisure and Lifestyle Manager (ULL) is the ultimate student companion, helping in all aspects of life; from choosing text books, to getting home from the pub after a few too many. Hopefully it won't put an end to the traditional student pastime of waking up on a park bench after a night out, with a traffic cone on your head..." -
Projectionists Using Night Vision Goggles in Theaters
sam0ht writes "Los Angeles police arrested Ruben Centero Moreno, 34, after the projectionist used night vision goggles to spot his video camera in a showing of The Alamo. He has been charged under the new California anti-camcorder law, and could face up to 1 year in jail if convicted. The BBC reports that 'The MPAA has established a nationwide telephone hotline for cinema employees to report violations, and studios and cinemas are also investing in metal detectors and night-vision goggles'. Motion Picture Ass. Head Jack Valenti said he hoped it would 'send a clear signal such crimes will not be tolerated'. Clearly, the 'War on Copyright Violation' is following the successful strategy used for the War on Drugs, with significant resources of technology and police time mobilised to send violators to jail for a long time. Soon, copied films will be as rare as students lighting up a joint after their exams." The lesson is clear: stay out of movie theaters and you won't get arrested. -
Sir Tim Berners-Lee Lauded For Web Efforts
crem_d_genes writes "The first Millenium Technology Prize to be given by the Finnish Technology Award Foundation has been awarded to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the 'Father of the Web', for his work in creating the hypertext program that would come to change the way in which scientists, and later the general public would access data over the internet. The rest is history." -
Sir Tim Berners-Lee Lauded For Web Efforts
crem_d_genes writes "The first Millenium Technology Prize to be given by the Finnish Technology Award Foundation has been awarded to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the 'Father of the Web', for his work in creating the hypertext program that would come to change the way in which scientists, and later the general public would access data over the internet. The rest is history." -
BBC To Air First Televised Sperm Race
weekendwarrior1980 writes "BBC 3, a digital TV channel in the UK, is televising a race involving the sperm of presenters Dr Mike Leahy and Zeron Gibson. The sperm race will be part of the educational Lab Rats series. Gibson is a comedian and Leahy is a scientist. The network considers this a 'creative risk' but wants to reach out to an audience that avoids educational shows. The show will be broadcasted on April 15th at 2330 BST. Future shows will examine sleep deprivation and centrifugal force." -
P2P News Syndication?
Buggernut writes "According to an article at BBC, news may be the next major item to be passed around through P2P networks, thereby escaping the grasp of the censors' attempts to control the spread of forbidden information."