Slashdot Mirror

packeteer writes: "Huge multi-part article on CNET news about electronic terrorism. The article has some interesting scenarios about posible types of attacks. It also has some good info about whats being done to prevent attacks as well as some info about media-hype that's put on 'hackers'. Good read."

hettb writes "How often do you clean your keyboard and surrounding work area? A recent study (also discussed here) found that computer workstations harbour 400 times more health threatening bacteria than the average toilet seat. If you're anything like me, spending most of both professional and personal time in front of your computer, this is sobering news. "

Self Bias Resistor writes: "According to an article in New Scientist, an antifreeze protein naturally produced by Antarctic fish has been synthesised by U.S. researchers at the University of California. Apparently, this discovery could have a wide variety of applications such as frost-resistant concrete, as well as making the storage of human organs and frozen food easier."

Anonymous Coward was the first one to write with this tidbit: "Napster is now refusing connections to anyone not running its 2.0 beta 10.3 client. Of course, this stops anyone from using a client not published by Napster. The error message that the Napster server gives you is: "::: server / You must upgrade your client at http://www.napster.com ::: error / You must upgrade your client at http://www.napster.com " The Napster website says: "Beta 10.3 incorporates new file identification technology", and nothing else regarding the matter that I can find. I know most people are using OpenNap and other file sharing services now, but I still like to connect to Napster to get lesser-known (and not banned yet) songs."

nerdygeek writes "According to this article from the BBC, NASA chief Daniel Goldin has predicted there will be astronauts on Mars by 2020. We've heard things like this before, but not as strongly worded, especially when he speaks of robots and people heading for other stars."

nerdygeek writes: "The BBC are reporting the first successful, self-contained Bionic Hand. They've made them small enough for children but they plan to upgrade to adult sizes. It's especially good for young kids since they can adapt and learn to control it very quickly. I thought these kind of things must have been about for ages, but apparently not. I just wonder if they make a Steve Austin style noise when they're used ?" Five kids have the hands so far, about which the article has this to say: "The unit is operated by signals from the brain. The user sends a signal to move a muscle in the forearm, and electrodes detect this and pass the message on to the motors."

Jason Peacock asks: "Say you have a house set up with multi-room sound already (speakers in each room, central multi-zone tuner, control panels in each room) and it's also wired for a computer network. You'd like to add the ability to play different MP3's in each room. First thoughts are to install a server, put a sound card in for each zone, connect these to the zone tuners, then get some software that can play multiple MP3s, outputting them to different sound cards. Or just run multiple instances of an mp3 player, each instance configured for a different sound card. What's the best way to control this using remote terminals (Win2k boxes) in the house? Final challenge: can this be done with Win2k on the MP3 serving box? I'm interested in hearing both solutions (Linux & Windows)." If computers will be running in each zone, why not have an MP3 player on each which can take control of its speakers and play MP3s streamed from the central server (each zone would have its own port). This shouldn't be too difficult to implement and should work with any combination of operating systems that support streaming servers and clients. Anyone else have other solutions?

mike sollanych writes: "Is there any sort of job in the world for someone who's really interested in computer history? I love it, myself, but I'm just approaching the end of high school, and it's time to make some life decisions. So, is there any place in the industry for a computer historian?" How about it? Many businesses and government agencies employ company historians to record activities which might otherwise get overlooked as mundane. What skills would a most benefit a computer historian, and where are such people needed? Does such a job exist in any but the largest of companies now? Tell us what you think.

hypo writes "According to a recent ZDNet article, IBM is developing a technique called "V-Groove", that allows the channel lengths of transistors on chips to be 10 nanometers (0.01 micron) and below. Currently, most companies use a 0.18 micron or 180 nanometer process. This is certainly a giant leap. The only caveat is that IBM is not planning to use this in large chips (i.e., processors) for 10 to 15 years. However, this is still quite revolutionary because most people thought that a 0.02 process would be the fundamental minimum. This all shows that Moore's law can perhaps hold true in the future. This article also discusses Carbon Nanotubes, which might research market faster than experts had previously thought."