http://blogs.computerworld.com/a_cool_prediction_that_actually_came_true
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Here's how it will work: early next year, the company will publish the
technical standards needed to connect to the Verizon network. It will
also host a conference with device developers to learn more about their
needs and to help with any problems that arise. Verizon has also
dropped another $20 million into its certification lab, and any device
maker who wants to connect to Verizon's network will first need to be
certified for proper network connectivity procedures. Nothing else will
be checked.
All applications, operating systems, and runtime environments are
supported so long as the devices connect properly to Verizon's CDMA
network (they can make use of either the company's cellular and PCS
bandwidth). The fee for certification of devices will be "surprisingly
reasonable," we're told, and the program will be open to anyone. One
Verizon exec went so far as to say that if someone builds a device in
their basement on a breadboard, Verizon will test it and activate it.
Smaller players will definitely be able to get in on the action,
something that hasn't previously been possible.
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“Pull” Material Flow –
Using OrderFetch, the shipping department sets the agenda
for the building, allowing you to pull work from picking and
reserve as needed for specific trucks.
Real-Time Truck Loading – Because
every order is mobile, it moves only when required and to
the right place. The dock door opens, the orders arrive, and
the truck leaves, reducing variability in truck loading times.
items in parallel, eliminating system bottlenecks caused by
a single point of failure.
Mobile Infrastructure – All Kiva equipment
is mobile and modular, making it easy to expand or reconfigure
the shipping area. Unlike conveyor-based sorters, output can
be expanded without disrupting operations.
Integration – OrderFetch integrates
seamlessly with Kiva ItemFetch™ split-case picking and
Kiva CaseFetch™ pallet-moving systems, creating one
seamless operation in the building.
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In the 40 years that humans have been traveling into space, the
suits they wear have changed very little. The bulky, gas-pressurized
outfits give astronauts a bubble of protection, but their significant
mass and the pressure itself severely limit mobility.
Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems at MIT, wants to change that.
Newman
is working on a sleek, advanced suit designed to allow superior
mobility when humans eventually reach Mars or return to the moon. Her
spandex and nylon BioSuit is not your grandfather's spacesuit--think
more Spiderman, less John Glenn.
Traditional bulky spacesuits
"do not afford the mobility and locomotion capability that astronauts
need for partial gravity exploration missions. We really must design
for greater mobility and enhanced human and robotic capability," Newman
says.
Newman, her colleague Jeff Hoffman, her students and a
local design firm, Trotti and Associates, have been working on the
project for about seven years. Their prototypes are not yet ready for
space travel, but demonstrate what they're trying to achieve--a
lightweight, skintight suit that will allow astronauts to become truly
mobile lunar and Mars explorers.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/biosuit-0716.html
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The complete archive of renowned American science-fiction
writer Robert Heinlein will be made available online, thanks to an
unusual partnership of the University of California-Santa Cruz and the
Heinlein Prize Trust.
Heinlein, who lived in Santa Cruz for two decades, was one of the grand
masters of science fiction. He became a pop icon in the 1960s with the
publication of "Stranger In A Strange Land," one of the most successful
science-fiction novels ever published. He died in 1988.
The entire contents of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Archive -
housed in the UC-Santa Cruz Library's Special Collections since 1968 -
have been scanned in an effort to preserve the contents digitally while
making the collection easily available to both academics and the
general public. The digitization project was the brainchild of Art
Dula, director of the Heinlein Prize Trust.
The first collection released includes 106,000 pages, consisting of
Heinlein's complete manuscripts - including files of all his published
works, notes, research, early drafts and edits of manuscripts. The
documents offer a window into Heinlein's creative process and provide
background and context for his work.
Other collections soon to be added to the online archive will feature
Robert and Virginia Heinlein's business and personal correspondence,
scrapbooks, photo albums, and unpublished works, including
communications with Heinlein's editor and agent.
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PITTSBURGH - It was a serious contribution to the electronic lexicon.
:-)
Twenty-five
years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman says,
he was the first to use three keystrokes — a colon followed by a
hyphen and a parenthesis — as a horizontal "smiley face" in a
computer message.
To
mark the anniversary Wednesday, Fahlman and his colleagues are starting
an annual student contest for innovation in technology-assisted,
person-to-person communication. The Smiley Award, sponsored by Yahoo
Inc., carries a $500 cash prize.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20829611/
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PARIS, France (AP) -- A kilogram just isn't what it used to be.
Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures with the reference kilogram.
The 118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is
mysteriously losing weight -- if ever so slightly. Physicist Richard
Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres,
southwest of Paris, says the reference kilo appears to have lost 50
micrograms compared with the average of dozens of copies.
"The
mystery is that they were all made of the same material, and many were
made at the same time and kept under the same conditions, and yet the
masses among them are slowly drifting apart," he said. "We don't really
have a good hypothesis for it."
The kilogram's uncertainty could
affect even countries that don't use the metric system -- it is the
ultimate weight standard for the U.S. customary system, where it equals
2.2 pounds. For scientists, the inconstant metric constant is a
nuisance, threatening calculation of things like electricity generation.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/12/shrinking.kilogram.ap/index.html
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FOR years they were on the fringe of science. But now a Scottish
father and son's obsession with the health-giving properties of green
coffee beans is set to help women suffering the misery of hair loss -
and earn them a multi-million-pound fortune.
Scientists Bill and Iain Forbes have been carrying out experiments
on raw coffee beans after discovering they had properties which could
stop women's hair from thinning, a problem which affects 50% of women
by the time they are 50.
Now,
after signing a "six-figure" contract with the major high street
chemist Boots, the duo's product is expected to become a major seller
when it hits the shelves next month.
Last week, Boots unveiled its Expert Hair Loss Treatment Spray for
Women, which is said to improve the thickness of each individual hair
and has been shown in trials to significantly increase hair growth.
“I thought it was a plant for old ladies to make soap,” he said.
But now that a plant called jatropha is being hailed by scientists and
policy makers as a potentially ideal source of biofuel, a plant that
can grow in marginal soil or beside food crops, that does not require a
lot of fertilizer and yields many times as much biofuel per acre
planted as corn and many other potential biofuels. By planting a row of
jatropha for every seven rows of regular crops, Mr. Banani could double
his income on the field in the first year and lose none of his usual
yield from his field.
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Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe
and colleagues at the University's Centre for Astrobiology have long
argued the case for panspermia - the theory that life began inside
comets and then spread to habitable planets across the galaxy. A recent
BBC Horizon documentary traced the development of the theory.
Now
the team claims that findings from space probes sent to investigate
passing comets reveal how the first organisms could have formed.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070814093819.htm
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In the 40 years that humans have been traveling into space, the
suits they wear have changed very little. The bulky, gas-pressurized
outfits give astronauts a bubble of protection, but their significant
mass and the pressure itself severely limit mobility.
Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems at MIT, wants to change that.
Newman
is working on a sleek, advanced suit designed to allow superior
mobility when humans eventually reach Mars or return to the moon. Her
spandex and nylon BioSuit is not your grandfather's spacesuit--think
more Spiderman, less John Glenn.
Traditional bulky spacesuits
"do not afford the mobility and locomotion capability that astronauts
need for partial gravity exploration missions. We really must design
for greater mobility and enhanced human and robotic capability," Newman
says.
Newman, her colleague Jeff Hoffman, her students and a
local design firm, Trotti and Associates, have been working on the
project for about seven years. Their prototypes are not yet ready for
space travel, but demonstrate what they're trying to achieve--a
lightweight, skintight suit that will allow astronauts to become truly
mobile lunar and Mars explorers.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/biosuit-0716.html
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Anyone can get the Web on their cellphone these days. But now it
seems Google is interested in so much more than that. It has reportedly
approached the Federal Communications Commission recently about
obtaining wireless spectrum, the base upon which mobile-phone networks
are built, in the U.S. agency's next auction.
Never mind the
potential buyout of Bell Canada Inc. or Apple Inc.'s much-hyped
introduction of the iPhone yesterday, there's a much larger,
game-changing force in telecommunications lurking just around the
corner.
Search engine giant Google Inc. has been putting together
a massive cable network to provide customers around the world with
telecommunications services ranging from broadband Internet to home and
mobile phones.
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The
researchers used a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) for their
cutting tool, which works by manoeuvring a sharp metal tip close to an
object, applying a small voltage, and measuring the trickle of
electrons that flow between the two.
The team first used their STM to locate a methylaminocarbyne (CNHCH3) molecule that was fixed to a platinum surface.
Then
they turned up the voltage, increasing the flow of electrons. That was
enough to break one bond – between the molecule's nitrogen and
hydrogen atom – but not to disturb any of the other bonds,
leaving a molecule of methylisocyanide (CNCH3).
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12161-molecular-surgery-snips-off-a-single-atom.html
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A US company is taking plastics recycling to another level – turning them back into the oil they were made from, and gas.
All
that is needed, claims Global Resource Corporation (GRC), is a finely
tuned microwave and – hey presto! – a mix of materials that
were made from oil can be reduced back to oil and combustible gas (and
a few leftovers).
Key
to GRC’s process is a machine that uses 1200 different
frequencies within the microwave range, which act on specific
hydrocarbon materials. As the material is zapped at the appropriate
wavelength, part of the hydrocarbons that make up the plastic and
rubber in the material are broken down into diesel oil and combustible
gas.
GRC's
machine is called the Hawk-10. Its smaller incarnations look just like
an industrial microwave with bits of machinery attached to it. Larger
versions resemble a concrete mixer.
"Anything
that has a hydrocarbon base will be affected by our process," says
Jerry Meddick, director of business development at GRC, based in New
Jersey. "We release those hydrocarbon molecules from the material and
it then becomes gas and oil."
Whatever does not have a hydrocarbon base is left behind, minus any water it contained as this gets evaporated in the microwave.
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12141-giant-microwave-turns-plastic-back-to-oil.html
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The signature doesn't come from studying the shape of the 68 million-year-old dinosaur's fossilized bones, but from analyzing the organic material found inside those bones. It's not DNA — despite what you've seen in movies like "Jurassic Park," that genetic material couldn't be recovered. But researchers say it's the next-best thing: collagen proteins that were isolated using techniques on the very edge of what's possible today.
Those techniques, detailed in Friday's issue of the journal Science, could open up "a new window into an entirely new approach" for paleontology, one expert told MSNBC.com. What's more, researchers say the methods are already being incorporated into improved tools for detecting present-day diseases.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18075420/from/RS.5/
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Astronomers have detected water in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system for the first time.
The finding, to be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal,
confirms previous theories that say water vapor should be present in
the atmospheres of nearly all the known extrasolar planets. Even hot Jupiters, gaseous planets that orbit closer to their stars than Mercury to our Sun, are thought to have water.
The discovery, announced today, means one of the most crucial elements for life as we know it can exist around planets orbiting other stars.
“We know that water vapor exists in the
atmospheres of one extrasolar planet and there is good reason to
believe that other extrasolar planets contain water vapor,” said
Travis Barman, an astronomer at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona who
made the discovery.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070410_water_exoplanet.html
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The Washington Post got world class violinist Josh Bell to play his Stradivarius at a subway stop to see how commuters would react. Turns out they didn’t react much.
In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua Bell played,
seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in
the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most
of them on the run—for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the
1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few
even turning to look.
“At a music hall, I’ll
get upset if someone coughs or if someone’s cellphone goes off.
But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate
any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when
someone threw in a dollar instead of change.” This is from a man
whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/364-subway-stradivarius
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Windows is inherently harder to secure than Linux. There I said it. The simple truth.
Many millions of words have been written and said on this topic. I have a couple of pictures. The basic argument goes like this. In its long evolution, Windows has grown so complicated that it is harder to secure. Well these images make the point very well. Both images are a complete map of the system calls that occur when a web server serves up a single page of html with a single picture. The same page and picture. A system call is an opportunity to address memory. A hacker investigates each memory access to see if it is vulnerable to a buffer overflow attack. The developer must do QA on each of these entry points. The more system calls, the greater potential for vulnerability, the more effort needed to create secure applications.
The first picture is of the system calls that occur on a Linux server running Apache.
This second image is of a Windows Server running IIS.
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