Slashdot Mirror

SternisheFan sends news of researchers who encoded an MP3, a PDF, a JPG, and a TXT file into DNA, along with another file that explains the encoding. The researchers estimate the storage density of this technique at 2.2 petabytes per gram (abstract). "We knew we needed to make a code using only short strings of DNA, and to do it in such a way that creating a run of the same letter would be impossible. So we figured, let's break up the code into lots of overlapping fragments going in both directions, with indexing information showing where each fragment belongs in the overall code, and make a coding scheme that doesn't allow repeats. That way, you would have to have the same error on four different fragments for it to fail – and that would be very rare," said one of the study's authors. "We've created a code that's error tolerant using a molecular form we know will last in the right conditions for 10 000 years, or possibly longer," said another.

SternisheFan notes that scientists at Cambridge University have found four-stranded DNA in human cells for the first time. "If you've ever studied genetics in school or college, you'll know that the structure of DNA is a double helix. You likely know that DNA carries all of our genetic code. While traditionally we think of only double helix DNA, scientists from Cambridge University in England have made an interesting discovery. According to the researchers, a quadruple helix is also present in some cells and is believed to relate to cancer in some ways. According to the researchers, controlling these quadruple helix structures could provide new ways to fight cancer. The scientists believe the quadruple helix may form when the cell has a certain genotype or operates in a certain dysfunctional state. Scientists have been able to produce quadruple helix material in test tubes for years. The material produced is called the G-quadruplex. The G refers to guanine, which is one of the base pairs that hold DNA together. The new research performed at the University is believed to be the first to firmly pinpoint quadruple helix in human cells."

SternisheFan sends this quote from an article at MIT's Technology Review: "In the event that a giant asteroid is headed toward Earth, you’d better hope that it’s blindingly white. A pale asteroid would reflect sunlight — and over time, this bouncing of photons off its surface could create enough of a force to push the asteroid off its course. How might one encourage such a deflection? The answer, according to an MIT graduate student: with a volley or two of space-launched paintballs. Sung Wook Paek, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, says if timed just right, pellets full of paint powder, launched in two rounds from a spacecraft at relatively close distance, would cover the front and back of an asteroid, more than doubling its reflectivity, or albedo. The initial force from the pellets would bump an asteroid off course; over time, the sun’s photons would deflect the asteroid even more."

SternisheFan points out an article at Wired arguing that game consoles and the business model that sustained them are now "obsolete." Quoting: "Years from now, 225 million devices will almost certainly be seen as the point at which the console business peaked. Gamers are going elsewhere for their fix. The console’s time at the top of the heap is drawing to an end, and these machines won’t survive without radical change. ... Consoles used to do everything best, but those strengths are now being wiped away. Unlike PC games, which may require finicky custom settings, consoles 'just work,' fans have long pointed out. Well, so does the iPad. Consoles are cheaper than PCs? Not when you factor in the growing disparity in game prices. Consoles have all the good content? Well, if you want Nintendo- or Sony-exclusive games, you’ll need to buy their hardware. But for many gamers, Angry Birds is becoming more attractive than Mario.

SternisheFan writes "My Android phone (an unrooted OptimusV running 2.2.2) and my Android tablet (Arnova 7g3 running 4.1) have been subjected to hacking via either 'forced Bluetooth attack' or through the Wi-Fi signals in the home where I currently rent a room. I got an Android phone at the start of this year after my 'feature phone' was force Bluetooth hacked hoping for better security, yet I still have major security issues. For instance, my Optimus's Wi-Fi again shows an error, although I am sure that a hack is causing this since when I reset the device when it's out of range from this home's signal the Wi-Fi works fine. And now the tablet (as of recently) can't access this home's open Wi-Fi, though it works fine when at other outside hot-spots. So, my question is: Are there any good (free?) security apps out there that would actually prevent this from occurring? It's not like I'm doing nefarious things on the internet, I just want to keep it private."

SternisheFan writes with this snippet from gizmodo: "The Associated Press reports that smartphone robberies now account for nearly half of all robberies in San Francisco, as well as an impressive 40 percent here in New York City. And the numbers aren't just high, they're getting higher fast. In Los Angeles, smartphone robberies are up 27 percent from last year, with no signs of slowing down. The thefts come in all varieties as well. Victims have reported having their phones—iPhones in particular (surprise!)—yanked out of their hands while talking, snatched just as public transit reaches a stop, or even taken at gunpoint." When I was relieved at gunpoint of my (very, very dumb) phone a few years ago in Philadelphia (very, very dumb), it made for a lousy evening. Have you been robbed (or accosted) like this? If so, where?

SternisheFan sends this quote from ZDNet: "Mozilla has opened its Firefox Marketplace, with Android device owners and developers getting the first access to the browser's app store. The access arrived on Thursday, in the release of the latest 'Aurora' build of Firefox for Android. Aurora is meant for developers and early adopters, as it is the test stream of Mozilla's browser. The storefront lets people find and install web applications delivered via the browser, and gives developers a place to publicize their apps. 'We're hoping that Aurora users, our awesome early adopters, will go experience the Firefox Marketplace on their Android phones and let us know what they think,' Mozilla Labs engineering manager Bill Walker said in a blog post. 'Our goal is to collect as much real-life feedback as possible about the Marketplace's design, usability, performance, reliability, and content.' ... Mozilla said it expects to follow with a Marketplace for the Firefox browser beta and Firefox OS launches next year."

Gaygirlie writes "Ars Technica has posted an interesting article about new findings regarding quantum physics and photosynthesis. Their excerpt for the article: 'Physicists have found the strongest evidence yet of quantum effects fueling photosynthesis. Multiple experiments in recent years have suggested as much, but it has been hard to be sure. Quantum effects were clearly present in the light-harvesting antenna proteins of plant cells, but their precise role in processing incoming photons remained unclear.' Here's a little background info for those unaware of what coherence and quantum coherence are."

yuhong writes "The NY Times has an interview with Sergey Brin on Google and China. A few quotes from it: 'Mr. Brin lived in the Soviet Union until he was nearly 6 years old, and he said the experience of living under a totalitarian system that censored political speech influenced his thinking — and Google's policy. "It has definitely shaped my views, and some of my company's views," he said.' Yes, business is personal, especially these days."

ozmanjusri writes "Dell has tripled the charge to upgrade Vista PCs to XP. Under current licensing 'downgrade' agreements, system builders can install XP Pro instead of Vista Business or Vista Ultimate; however, Dell has opted for a surcharge of $150 over the price of Vista for the older but more popular XP Professional operating system. Rob Enderle says the downgrade fees could potentially be disastrous for Microsoft: 'The fix for this should be to focus like lasers on demand generation for Vista but instead Microsoft is focusing aggressively on financial penalties," says Enderle. 'Forcing customers to go someplace they don't want to go by raising prices is a Christmas present for Apple and those that are positioning Linux on the desktop.'"

ozmanjusri writes "Online market share of the dominant Windows operating system has taken its biggest monthly fall in years to drop below 90%, according to Net Applications Inc. Computerworld reports that Microsoft's flagship product has been steadily losing ground to Mac OS X and Linux, and is at its lowest ebb in the market since 1995. 'Mac OS X... [ended] the month at 8.9%. November was the third month running that Apple's operating system remained above 8%.' The stats show that while some customers are 'upgrading' from XP to Vista, many are jumping ship to Apple, while Linux is also steadily gaining ground. A Net Applications executive suggests the slide may be caused by many of the same factors that caused the fall in Internet Explorer use. 'The more home users who are online, using Macs and Firefox and Safari, the more those shares go up,' he said. November has more weekend days, as well Thanksgiving in the US, a result that emphasizes the importance of corporate sales to Microsoft."

ruheling writes "From yesterday's New York Times: ' What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?' In many US universities, over the past decade, there has been deliberate effort to integrate and encourage women and girls to get more involved in the 'hard' sciences, engineering, and math. However, instead of the proportion of women to men increasing, in Computer Science the opposite is actually true. Specifically, in 2001-2, only 28 percent of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women. Now many computer science departments report that women now make up less than 10 percent of the newest undergraduates. What's going on here, folks?"

FiReaNGeL writes "Scientists have discovered that venom from a West Indian tarantula has been shown to cause pain by exciting the same nerve cells in mice that sense high temperatures and the hot, spicy ingredient in chili peppers. The findings demonstrate that some plants and animals have evolved the same molecular strategy to deter predators — triggering pain by activating a specific receptor on sensory nerves. The research provides new tools to understand how these pain- and heat-sensing neurons work, and to help develop drugs that ease persistent pain."

FiReaNGeL writes "Researchers at the University of New South Wales are developing new coatings they hope will be used for self-cleaning surfaces in hospitals and the home. It's made of a special nanoparticle coating that absorbs ultraviolet light below a certain wavelength and gives the particles an oxidizing quality stronger than any commercial bleach. Say goodbye to tedious bathroom cleaning!"

Apostata writes "As reported by the CBC, 'Salmon researchers working on the Brooks Peninsula [British Columbia] were shocked last November when an octopus attacked their expensive and sensitive equipment.' Apparently it was caught on video, but no word on when/where it will be available. Apparently this is the first documented attack." Obviously the start of something bigger.

r0wan asks: "I'm currently working as a Microsoft Systems Administrator. Through a series of bungled management decisions, have found myself responsible for a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory network, that I know nothing about (the person who was sent for training was: not the Microsoft point person, as I was; and left the company, soon after the domain upgrade). It doesn't look as though training will be forthcoming, and I've just been moved from the lab, where I was training myself while simultaneously handling the domain. I've got the MCSA/MCSE Training Kit, but recently I've found numerous errors, so many that I was sent a free Press Kit book, for submitting all of the errors I had found. Between management's reluctance to shell out for training, and being moved from the lab, I'm getting the distinct sense that training is something I'm expected to take care of, on my own time. Is this the de-facto standard within IT, and for all jobs within IT? If so, how do you Slashdot readers keep up with your continuing education, while still maintaining a personal life? Is it naive to try to leave my work at work?" "I'm especially interested in hearing from the Slashdot readers of the female persuasion, as I have a husband, a dog, and a household to keep up with (no kids by choice, but I wouldn't have the time to take care of them, even if I wanted to). I also have the added responsibility of being the primary breadwinner. My free time is valuable in that it allows me to take care of that which I can't during the day (grocery shopping, dog responsibilities, cleaning, etc), and decompress/de-stress in order to prepare for the next day's work. I like tinkering with computers and learning new stuff, but I fear that if I'm expected train myself, outside of work, I may need to consider a different career.

Thanks in advance for the input."

H_Fisher writes "Scientists in Florida have grown mature brain cells in the laboratory, a scientific first. The Independent reports that "[...]they were able to produce virtually unlimited quantities of brain cells, which could revolutionise transplant medicine as well as leading to new drugs to stimulate the regrowth of damaged nerves." This could be a milestone in the treatment of Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's, and many other illnesses and injuries."

IllogicalStudent writes "An article on canoe discusses how the Canadian government is moving to counter worries surrounding Canadian citizens' privacy being compromised by the United States' Patriot act. Apparently the FBI currently has the right, through Patriot, to search documents which may contain Canadian information sent to US firms carrying out work under contract. Thankfully, privacy still means something up here."

chronicon writes "Knowing Knoppix is a beginner-friendly, 134 page freely downloadable book (released under the GNU Free Documentation License in PDF format) designed to familiarize new users with the Knoppix LiveCD distribution, GNU/Linux in general, and (as listed first on the description) Windows disaster recovery using Knoppix."

Quantum Skyline writes "Most of us are running on a newer Pentium 4/Athlon 64 box with lots of RAM and a 7200 RPM drive and a uber-sweet graphics card that pushes 100 FPS in Doom 3. Our parents are probably running an old Athlon 700 with half the RAM and a Rage128 videocard, and some think that's overkill while the parents think its not enough. Why debate this? DevHardware has an opinion piece on 'leaner computing' and the author thinks that less might be more." This reminds me of a modern desktop system I saw sitting in a store, running Windows XP just so that it could connect via a terminal to another server and run the store's application. It would seem that even an old VT100 would have sufficed, but someone was able to sell the store a full blown PC.

webster1 writes with a followup to a recent Ask Slashdot question. "An AP news story just released says that Dance Dance Revolution is becoming the weight-loss routine of choice for many young gamers. One quote says '"At first I was playing it for fun, but when you see results you're like, Yeah!" said Matt Keene, a 19-year-old from Charleston, South Carolina, who used to weigh more than 350 pounds and wear pants with a 48-inch waist.' It's for grown-ups too. Even Jason Enos, product manager at Konami Digital Entertainment-America, which distributes the game in the U.S., has lost 30 pounds playing the game. There's even a site for DDR wieght loss fans: www.getupmove.com - My wife and I have been playing for months now with this goal in mind, though we aren't yet seeing these results." (A post from a few months ago talks about getupmove and gives some calorie-burn specifics.)

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."

wolrahnaes writes "There is an article up on mini-itx.com explaining how to fit a fully functional PC based on a VIA M10000 EPIA board in to a Windows XP box. The author even explains how he then fit it in to a Red Hat box and used a sensor to tell the bootloader which OS to run based on which box it is in."

anakin876 writes "The unofficial Star Wars-oriented mod Galactic Conquest for Battlefield 1942 has finally released a new version (0.2) today, which includes 8 maps and 40 vehicles. Check out http://www.galactic-conquest.net/ for mirrors. Tonight the Empire Falls!" Not to be confused with a similar official product, Star Wars: Battlefront, there's a large number of screenshots showcasing this unofficial BF1942 mod, which we've previously reported on

Howzer writes "In breaking news from behind the Great Firewall of China, an online gamer is suing JC Entertainment to force them to restore all of his Redmoon 'biological weapons' (his words) and compensate him for emotional damage. Some heavy hitters are lining up on both sides, as it appears the gamer has already had at least one day in court and may have several more. Now, this isn't the world's first by any means, but it's China's first, and China's fledgeling legal system often favours the little guy against big, faceless multinationals, especially when the law isn't clear. And if he wins, it will certainly put a dent in the fastest growing online gaming market on the planet." We've previously covered the early stages of this lawsuit.

descil writes "In addition to the Reovirus story posted earlier, Health Central reports that nanoscopic gold-coated beads can be used to kill cancerous cells, while leaving other tissues undamaged. The researchers tested their technique on human breast cancer cells and on cancerous tumors grown on mice. In each case, the combination of nanoshells and near-infrared light caused irreversible heat damage to tumor cells while leaving surrounding tissue unharmed."

captain igor writes "CNN is reporting that researchers at Caltech and CERN successfully send 1.1 Terabytes of data at a rate of 5.44 Gbps. This is around 20,000 times faster than your typical home broadband connection and almost doubles the previous record. "

captain igor writes "According to this story on Wired News, a new company launched by researchers from Stanford has come up with a way to layer a silicon network of tiny tubes on top of a microprocessor. The system then uses a solid-state motor (no moving parts!) to pipe cold water through the silicon network. According to the article, this system can handle 1000 watts (yes, a kilowatt) per square centimeter."

wumarkus420 writes "In response to recent lawsuits filed by DirecTV against purchasers of smartcard equipment, the EFF and Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society have announced a new site devoted to the legal fight against DirecTV's aggressions. Hopefully, this new site will provide innocent consumers that have been threatened under the veil of the DMCA with professional legal advice and information."

Bueller_007 writes "CNET is carrying an article about a new (albeit simplistic) method used to hack alphanumeric Windows passwords in a matter of seconds, rather than minutes. To blame is a 'weakness in Microsoft's method of encoding passwords.' According to the authors, the same method, when used on Mac OS X, Unix and Linux boxes, however, could require either 4,096 times more memory or 4,096 times longer." A few more details: Mister.de writes "As an example we have implemented an attack on MS-Windows password hashes. Using 1.4GB of data (two CD-ROMs) we can crack 99.9% of all alphanumerical passwords hashes (2 37 ) in 13.6 seconds whereas it takes 101 seconds with the current approach using distinguished points. We show that the gain could be even much higher depending on the parameters used. This was found at the Cryptography and Security Laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)."

Siriaan writes "DE Technologies, a company based in Montreal, has hit a number of web retailers in the U.S., New Zealand and Singapore with patent infringement claims covering such things as purchase histories and online currency conversion. A small wooden model kit firm my company does business with is amongst those hit; they received a demand for a US$10,000 'signing fee' and then 1.5 percent of all transactions ongoing. "

SolemnDragon writes "CNN.com is offering up an article about the new corn-based plastic-like product being used at Wild Oats Natural Markets. The product looks like plastic, works like plastic... and then turns into compost. Dubbed the 'corn-tainer,' it's being used to serve foods, etc. Available only in the Pacific Northwest stores (of course) or you can make your own at home. And here's more info on Bio-plastic from MSU." Our older story.

zymano writes "zdnet has this article about bandwidth hogging p2p." I'm sure we'll see more rate limiting in the future and per-gig charges. The article says 60% of ISPs bandwidth is P2P, and that seems high to me, but not unrealistic. Besides, since most broadband is pretty seriously hamstringed in the upstream department, I'm not sure where they can go with this.

tsu doh nimh writes "A clutch of privacy groups are accusing Amazon of violating federal kids's privacy rules, according to this Washingtonpost.com story."

tsu doh nimh writes "A former executive for banner ad giant DoubleClick has been selected to be the first ever privacy czar for the Department of Homeland Security, says this Washingtonpost.com story." Just leaves you speechless ....

Henry V .009 writes "Salon.com is appealing to the community for help. They haven't been able to pay the rent since December. To date, they've lost about $80 million dollars. A cause of rejoicing for some. But their many readers are understandably sorry to see them in such desperate straits. Personally I hope they stick around, I think they are one of the best sources of independant journalism on the web--even if I happen to agree with less than 10% of what they have to say. I also think that it would be a shame for them to close now that they've finally created an advertising scheme that has a snowball's chance in hell of working on the web. I can actually recall some of the adverts I've seen on Salon--what other web site can you say that about? Salon says that if they get another 50,000 subscriptions (they currently have 50,000) they'll break even for the year." In the old role-playing game "Paranoia", there was a nice quote about what would happen when the player characters (who had never been outside of their enclosed city complex) made an attempt to swim in water over their heads: "delaying drowning".

silvaran writes "We've had several Microsoft posts, and here's another, from CNet News. The team behind the XBox port of Linux is seeking a digital signature from Microsoft to approve the XBox Linux project. This would allow it to run on an unmodified XBox. According to the article, "Microsoft will be eligible to apply for an award under this scheme if they approve Xbox Linux as a normal Xbox program."

Saige writes "Nuclear waste has been a contentious issue, recently culminating with fights in the government over Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a proposed storage site. Well, perhaps there's a better way to deal with nuclear waste -by using it in nuclear reactors. A nuclear scientist at the University of Maryland, has come up with CAESAR, a reactor that runs not on the standard U-235, but on U-238. U-238 makes up most of the fuel rods in current reactors, but doesn't contribute to the reaction, and ends up currently as waste." The Yahoo! story linked from this article doesn't seem to open, but here's a story at The Economist.

Warrior-GS writes "The final part of the Future of PC Gaming is up at GameSpy. This one deals with the future of user-created games and talks to developers and mod makers, as well as identifying tools that can assist them. There is also a Q&A with Warren Spector on where he thinks PC gaming is headed in the next several years." John Scabadone points to a "nice article featuring an update on the state of the handheld gaming industry along with a roundtable of some of the premier developers." Read on below for several more gaming updates, too.

pandrew writes "Square has openly admitted to doing something people have been asking for for many years now: a sequel! Though not what most people have asked for (i.e. Final Fantasy 7) this is still a very big step in the Final Fantasy line, since no game in the series has ever had a follow up with a connecting storyline."

k-hell writes "The Mother of All Games, Scorched Earth has been updated to allow for playing on Internet. Rendered in OpenGL, Scorched 3D now features a 3D island environment and LAN and Internet play. See screenshots here. You can download a Windows binary package and/or Windows source package here. At the same time, you should also grab the excellent server browser The All-Seeing Eye."

Lucifer writes "'Sega announced a list of new Sega AGES game titles for PlayStation 2, remakes of their classic Master System, Mega Drive/Genesis, Saturn titles. Each game will retail for 2500 yen, and the first four titles are scheduled to release in Japan in summer 2003.' 15 years later and I'm going to start playing Phantasy Star again! ;-)"

Finally, bredroll writes "Attention fellow Geeks! Ever wanted to live 100ft underground in a ex British gov't nuclear bunker for three days and do nothing but geek at extreme levels and play LAN games? Well, we can help, This year's event includes food and bunks as well,

In-Bunker Events

• Battle Royale (Robot Wars-type event)
• Underground Noise Fest (see site)
• High-speed switched LAN
• Various LAN game tournaments
• NTK will be there
• + more ....

Users of all systems welcome, Linux, BSD, Windows, Mac, anything, the more diverse the better. The bunker is located in Essex (UK) near the town of Brentwood. Details about booking places and prices are on our site."

spooje would like to get to the core of the following issue: "Since a new Rochester DVD only store, Global DVD, just opened up with a large Asian section I decided to rent several. When I got home and popped one in my Mac (Sawtooth G4 running Mac OS X 10.2) it brought up a dialog box telling me the DVD was region 3. I could switch to region 3 mode, but I could only do this 4 more times. Since my DVD-RAM drive is supposed to be all region does anyone know of a workaround or patch for the Apple DVD player, or maybe even another DVD player for Mac OS X?" If this question sounds familiar, then it might be because, last week, Ask Slashdot ran a similar article, which focused on a Windows utility which did this.

EyesWideOpen writes "This article at Salon discusses the ways in which AOL is trying to stay afloat, with the release of version 8.0 of it's software, in a time when AOL (which recently merged with Time Warner) has had a string of bad press -- falling stock prices, SEC investigation, etc. -- attached to it's name. One of my favorite quotes from the article says of AOL: ''It was never really an Internet company. AOL was based on the idea that people needed to live in a halfway house while they became accustomed to the Net.'...If folks can get a better, faster, cheaper online experience by ditching AOL, they'll do it in a heartbeat.'"

Slashback tonight brings you several updates and amplifications on everything from Java in phones and a GPS system in Europe, to the future of Internet audio streaming and (related) near-unbelievable proposed tariffs on nearly anything that will hold data (in Canada). Read on below for the details.

The man is not often wrong. Doc Searls writes: "I wrote a piece piece at the Linux Journal site that you might want to check out. The very first comment is 'This needs to be Slashdotted.' I agree. And not because I'm looking for attention. I want to *call* attention to the CARP Report, which will kill Webcasting with fees. It's a big deal, and I don't see anybody else talking about it. Yet. And we need to."

Would you say that these are more 'puppies," "babies," or "mommas"? Vladimir Vuksan writes: "There are already hundreds of so called Java midlets that will presumably execute on these Nokia puppies or any other Java enabled browser. Check out http://midlet.org/jsp/index.jsp"

Too bad I can't get the entire Economist free just by reading the ads. FortKnox writes: "ZDNet is running a story about generic "Ad-Free Subscription Services" being used on the internet today. The review of these services is from the 'Ad Space Buyer' and how marketing execs are not keen on the idea. Something interesting to read, seeing Slashdot is testing the services."

How about a countersuit for strong-arm tactics? iosphere writes "According to an article on Wired, the judge in BT's case issued a ruling that questions whether or not the technology that was patented is really analogous to todays definition of a hyperlink. She questions how the patent, which was written with only a single computer terminal in mind, can apply to the internet as we know it now."

Update: 03/15 00:31 GMT by T : arget writes with a few more data points: "An article at News.com suggests that Prodigy has won a TKO in the first round. Another story at ZDNet is more neutral, but quotes an expert saying that prior art will 'come back to haunt BT's efforts.' Both articles agree that motions for summary judgement and probably a ruling will come soon."

Portable Monopoly kylus writes "Roughly a month after it was last mentioned here, the Gameboy Advance light project over at Portable Monopoly takes another step closer to fruition. While the official release date is in May, the group will begin accepting preorders on Friday, March 15th for the $35 light kit, which has been officially named 'Afterburner.' In addition to this news, they've provided some video captures of the product in action."

Remember, as reader Vito puts it, that's Portable Monopoly's warranty-voiding, solder-requiring, tech-support-suiciding Gameboy Advance internal lighting kit. :) Your own risk, et cetera.

This goes beyond disputes about how to spell "meter." meehawl writes with an update on the European Union's plans for a GPS workalike system, which we had previously reported had been scrapped.

"So after the Pentagon removed GPS's Selective Availability, the maximum GPS accuracy is typically within 10 to 20 meters. Differential GPS can reduce this to minute levels, very useful for calling in airstrikes and pinpointing installations, and so on.

So it's probably no surprise that the the European Union's plans to build their own GPS system, the Galileo Project, met such stern resistance from the U.S., with Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz asking EU defence ministers not to go ahead, saying it could complicate US satellite-assisted warfare and furthermore could be more easily used by anti-US military forces.

The EU has has now rejected the latest message from the U.S., a State Department exhortation to forgo development. Interestingly, the latest rebuff was framed as an anti-monopoly stance, that competition in satellite navigation would be good for business.

Apparently, Osama is responsible for this latest rebirth of the European space industry.

Perhaps more worryingly, in a related development a UK company was awarded the "Skynet 5" military communications system contract. Don't these people watch movies at all?"

The principle of the thing. Boone^ writes "It's been well covered, but The Tech Report has written a nice little article going through the finer points of the proposed levy and why there should be more people than just Canadians lobbying against it."

Perhaps some more apprentices will emerge from the woodwork? pynchin writes "Kyle Sallee, creator of Sorcerer GNU Linux has just announced on #sorcerer that he will no longer be involved with SGL. Some disgruntled SGL users forked the distro a few days ago -- see www.lunar-penguin.com for details."

Jens Lönn writes: "Magnetic fields above sunspot 9653 erupted yesterday (Oct. 9th at 1110 UT) and hurled a full-halo coronal mass ejection toward Earth. The expanding cloud, which speed away from the Sun traveling approximately 1000 km/s, could strike our planet's magnetosphere as soon as Thursday, Oct. 11th. Sky watchers, especially those living above geomagnetic latitude 50 degrees, should remain alert for Northern Lights during the nights ahead. The best time to spot auroras is usually around local midnight. Note: This is not an alert for a geomagnetic storm, it's just an alert for those who wants to watch great auroras at night."

Jens Lönn writes: "The annual Giacobinid meteor shower (also known as the Draconids) peaks on October 9th and 10th. Most years the shower produces no more than a few shooting stars per hour for northern sky watchers. But there have been some impressive Giacobinid outbursts - most recently in 1998 where the maximum rate was over 500 per hour. The shower's parent comet is far away, so this year's display will probably be modest. You can see the comets orbit simulated here."

Jens Lönn writes: "The delayed Launch of the Kodiak Star is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 29 (.pdf article). This is the first launch into Earth orbit from Kodiak Island. There is a three-hour launch window extending from 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. The effect of the solar flare activity that forced launched cancellation earlier this week is being monitored. The weather forecast for Saturday is favorable for a launch attempt with approximately a 15% chance of weather criteria violation. However, after solar flare activity was factored in, the chance of not meeting the criteria is 60%. Launch coverage on NASA Television and NASA TV on the Web will begin at 8 p.m. EDT. So make sure you're seated, cuz now were gonna light those kick-ass engines and go out into space." Michael noted that this is the first launch from Alaska; one of the four science experiments on board will be the reflective Starshine 3, with mirrors ground and polished by students all over the world. Cross fingers for favorable launch.

Thermodyne writes: "The sequel of the game that helped invent the fps is being developed and the first of the screenshots have been released here. The game is based on the Quake 3 engine, but seems to stray away from the original intent of the first game." I can't begin to count the number of hours I lost in wolf3d ... course, I hope it does stray from the original game: who wants to run around shooting dogs and finding hidden switches for 30 levels? The lighting in some of those screenshots is super impressive. (check out that flame thrower). Sadly, I think my fps days are past me. I played The Sims for the first time last week. What an amazing game.