Slashdot Mirror

vikingpower writes "Today, I decided to acquire a refurbished Sun Fire V1280 server, with 8 CPUs. The machine will soon or may already belong to a certain history of computing. This project is not about high-performance computing, much more about lovingly dusting off and maintaining a piece of hardware considered quirky by 2013 standards. And Now the question creeps to mind: what software would Slashdotters run on such a beast, once it is upgraded to 12 procs and, say, 24 GiB of RAM ?"

fsck! writes "My office recently installed a pair of huge plasma TVs to display some metrics and graphs. They only update every 15 minutes or so, and I couldn't help but wonder, why can't this be E-Ink? I searched all over the place but couldn't find anything bigger than 9.5" (Amazon's Kindle DX). I want a >30" E-Ink picture frame with USB or WiFi. Can the Slashdot community find anything greener than these energy sucking plasma TVs that seem to be everywhere?"

New submitter adycarter writes "Steve Perlman, the man responsilbe for QuickTime and WebTV, has recently launched OnLive Desktop which now offers a 'plus' service enabling iPad users to use Flash, Microsoft Office and the ability to use a Gigabit-speed version of Internet Explorer. The service runs on the same basic technology as their game streaming service in that you're using your iPad as client to access a machine located in the cloud."

Sooner Boomer writes "ComputerWorld has an article about the Stuxnet worm, which was apparently designed to steal industrial secrets and disrupt operations at industrial plants, according to Siemens. 'Stuxnet has infected systems in the UK, North America and Korea, however the largest number of infections, by far, have been in Iran. Once installed on a PC, Stuxnet uses Siemens' default passwords to seek out and try to gain access to systems that run the WinCC and PCS 7 programs — so-called PLC (programmable logic controller) programs that are used to manage large-scale industrial systems on factory floors and in military installations and chemical and power plants.' If the worm were to be used to disrupt systems at any of those locations, the results could be devastating."

vikingpower writes "LOFAR, the LOw Frequency ARray radio telescope, under construction in the north of the Netherlands, saw its first pulsars (English translation of Dutch original) — through coupling it with radio telescopes in Germany and France. LOFAR is sensitive to wavelengths as long as seven meters, and will be inaugurated on June 12 of this year."

vikingpower writes "Built in reaction to a major flood that killed 1,800 in the '50s, the Dutch system of dikes, sluices, surge barriers, and dams has been dubbed 'one of the seven wonders of the modern world' by the American Society of Engineers. Now there are proposals to use the system differently, e.g. as tidal power plants, by punching holes in them. Any civil engineer's mouth will probably be watering when thinking of the mega-projects this could give rise to."

scumm writes "This year's Turing Prize has been awarded to Charles Thacker, whom they describe as (among other things) the 'creator of the first modern personal computer.' From the ACM's announcement: 'ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery today named Charles P. Thacker the winner of the 2009 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his pioneering design and realization of the Alto, the first modern personal computer, and the prototype for networked personal computers. Thacker's design, which he built while at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), reflected a new vision of a self-sufficient, networked computer on every desk, equipped with innovations that are standard in today's models. Thacker was also cited for his contributions to the Ethernet local area network, which enables multiple computers to communicate and share resources, as well as the first multiprocessor workstation, and the prototype for today's most used tablet PC, with its capabilities for direct user interaction.' For further reading, the Wall Street Journal has an article providing more background about Mr. Thacker and the Turing Prize. In the spirit of full disclosure, the submitter feels compelled to point out that this Mr. Thacker is his uncle, and that he thinks this is really cool."

bheer writes "A zero-day attack on IE was used to carry out the cyber attack on Google and others that's been getting so much ink recently, reports The Register, quoting McAfee's CTO. While the web (and security) community has pointed out the problems with IE's many security flaws (and its sluggish update cycle) in the past, IE shows no sign of vanishing from the corporate landscape."

After this weekend's report of a dangerous flaw in IE (which Microsoft confirmed today), intrudere points out an exclusive report in The Register on a new hole in IE8 that could allow an attacker to pull off cross-site scripting attacks on Web sites that ought, by rights, to be safe from XSS. This is according to two anonymous sources, who told El Reg that Microsoft had been notified of the vulnerability a few months ago.

Isaac-Lew sends word of an article in the Washington Post reporting that on June 12 the FCC will hold a hearing regarding cellphone early termination fees. The Commission may look at early termination fees for TV and Internet service as well. The wireless carriers are taking a Bre'r Rabbit approach toward possible FCC regulation of early termination fees — the FCC's intervention would pre-empt a number of class-action lawsuits going forward against Verizon, Sprint, and others. These suits, stemming from state regulations, could cost the carriers billions. "...the carriers have renewed a lobbying effort in recent weeks to persuade the FCC on a legal definition that would stave off the state lawsuits on cancellation fees. On May 6, 2008, Verizon Wireless chief executive Lowell McAdam and the company's chief lobbyist, Tom Tauke, met with [FCC Chairman] Martin, urging him to adopt a federal policy, according to FCC records."

unixluv writes to tell us that another ISP is testing web content filtering and content substitution software. One example sees a system message that is pre-pended to an existing web page. While it seems innocent enough, is this the wave of the future? Will your ISP censor or alter your web experience at will? There have been many instances of content filtering lately and it seems to be a popular idea on the other side of the fence.

k1980pc writes "In a nice twist to the recent discussion on Slashdot, PC World editor Harry McCracken has returned to the magazine. In turn, Colin Crawford has been removed as PC World's CEO, where 'he will be responsible for driving IDG's online strategy and initiatives in support of our web-centric business focus' ... safely out of the way of the magazine editors. McCracken was pleased to return to his position: 'I'm thrilled to be back with the PC World team. IDG is a company I've loved working for over the past 16 years, and one with a remarkable history of enabling editors to serve our customers--the millions of people who depend on our content online and in print.'"

ndogg writes "This story is all wet. Paulo Blikstein at MIT has created a water computer. The one boolean logic gate he created functions as a half-adder (i.e. both XOR and AND). He then proceeded to create a four bit adder."

cultrhetor writes "The New York Times reports that the communist government in the Indian state of Kerala is trying to remove Microsoft from its public institutions, as part of a campaign against monopolistic corporations. From the article: 'schools and public offices across the state are being encouraged to install free software systems instead of purchasing Microsoft's Windows programs. "It is well-known that Microsoft wants to have a monopoly in the field of computer technology. Naturally, being a democratic and progressive government, we want to encourage the spread of free software," M. A. Baby, the state's education minister, said by telephone.' The government is not banning Microsoft, but it is actively encouraging all 12,500 public schools in the state to install Linux."

rfunches writes "The Associated Press and the New York Times are now reporting that Atlantis will not launch Sunday. The delay will 'give engineers more time to determine whether one of the most powerful lightning strikes ever at a Kennedy Space Center launch pad caused any problems. The lightning Friday didn't hit the shuttle — it struck a wire attached to a tower used to protect the spacecraft from such strikes at the launch pad — but it created a lightning field around the vehicle, NASA managers said. The launch, planned for Sunday, now won't happen until at least Monday.'"

Spaceman40 wrote to mention a post up on Joystiq about a beautiful next-gen FPS called Project Offset. From the article: "Doom 3 engine? Was nice knowing you. UT? Old news. Source? Over there. We'll call you if we need you. You can all stand back, though. There's a new king on the way to town. Project Offset is a new first person shooter, and the developer is showing off what their new graphics engine can do. The movies are not pre-rendered. The developer says they're all real time...The demo looks amazing! Videos are available at the official site.'"

bhima asks: "Recently I have inherited an embedded project which developed and maintained by a recently acquired company. The 'technology transfer' consisted of me traveling to their facility for two weeks of special high intensity training and returning with a couple of hard drive, equivalent DVD-ROMS, 200 kilograms of paper and a stack of tape backups. These contain a lot of interesting and important data but it is in every conceivable format: hundreds of megabytes of Outlook PST files, Adobe PageMaker & Illustrator (4 different versions for Mac & PC), Gerber files, Microsoft Office files (every version ever), Visio Files, Tiffs, Jpegs, AutoDesk Files, Pro-E files. To top it all off they used no concurrent versioning system for their firmware so I have hundreds of tar.gz files that are snapshots of code, plus the resultant binary record for version represented by the tar file. We have a student translating all of the CAD data to our system, but that's only part of the story. Is there an easy way to get the firmware in to CVS or subversion? What's the best way to organize all of this data so that it's actually usable?"

FuzzyBad-Mofo writes "On 8/24/2004, I took the plunge and bought a Rio Karma digital music player. My needs were simple: Decent storage capacity, Linux friendly, and Ogg Vorbis compatible. The Karma has a generous 20 GB capacity, decent battery life, is OS-agnostic, and plays a wide variety of file formats, including Ogg." Read on for the rest of FuzzyBad-Mofo's review.

Despite living in an urban area, I had a little trouble tracking down a retailer with the Karma in stock. Best Buy was sold out, but Circuit City had them (for full price, boo hiss). I was impressed with the solid feel of the device, and promptly started setting it up. Since I currently only have Linux machines at home, the included software was useless. Fortunately, the Karma also includes Ethernet connectivity through the docking cradle. In minutes the cradle was connected to my Linksys router and a static IP assigned using the Karma's joystick interface (not fun).

Once this was done, I connected via web browser to the Karma's IP address and was greeted with a nice splash page, and a couple of links to download the Java-based transfer software and to visit Rio's Karma page. I initially had trouble with the transfer software, but eventually found the developer's site on the internet; he has improved the software greatly from the version that ships with the Karma.

The docking cradle also has stereo line-level RCA ports, which is nice for integration with a home stereo. I ended up buying a 20' CAT-5 cable to give my Karma a permanent home next to the stereo. It's pretty wonderful to select 4 hours of random music for the evening, and not have to worry about changing CDs. Later, I also bought an RF adapter for use in the car, which works by broadcasting on an FM frequency you simply tune into.

The Karma is not bad to walk around with either. It is a little bulky, and I would prefer a narrower body, but it fits ok in a loose-fitting pants or jacket pocket. As with any hard-drive based player, jogging/running/biking with it is probably not a good idea.

Lockups: the Karma has taken a lot of flak for locking up, and I can't say that it's not justified. The player has locked once when I was loading music on it, in which case I simply reset with a bent paper clip and it was good to go. However, several days ago I was walking with it, attempted to change songs midstride, and it locked hard. Since I was on my way to work with no paperclip in sight (and the unit won't turn off when it locks up), the hard drive spun and seeked for 40 minutes until I got in the office. At that point, the unit was warm to the touch and had drained half the battery. After reset, the unit would not power up properly. Going into rescue mode showed that it was having trouble reading the disk. (crap!) After reading some message boards where others have experienced similar problems, I decided that I had little to lose and smacked it flat down on the desk. The Karma made a little grinding noise and booted up! It has worked perfectly since then, but I'm somewhat concerned about my purchase. Rio only offers a three-month warranty by default, so I would recommend going with an extended warranty if you decide to purchase a Karma.

Scary lockups aside, this has been a great little player. I believe it is Rio's first HDD-based player, and I'm looking forward to seeing future revisions of the Karma.

Thanks to FuzzyBad-MoFo for the review!