US Plans To Bulldoze 50 Shrinking Cities

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 18, @02:45PM
from the out-of-the-rubble-and-into-the-future dept.

usa

chrb writes"Two days ago Slashdot discussed broke counties grinding their tarmac roads into gravel. Now the Telegraph reveals plans to raze huge sections of at least 50 US cities to the ground. The resulting smaller cities will be more economical to run, and the recovered land will be returned to nature."

Montana City Requires Workers' Internet Accounts

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 18, @02:17PM
from the are-you-know-or-have-you-ever-been dept.

privacy

government

social

usa

justinlindh writes"Bozeman, Montana is now requiring all applicants for city jobs to furnish Internet account information for 'background checking.' A portion of the application reads, "Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.' The article goes on to mention, 'There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords.'"

Carnegie Researchers Say Geotech Can't Cure Ocean Acidification

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 18, @01:34PM
from the take-it-with-a-ton-of-salt dept.

earth

science

CarnegieScience writes"Plans to stop global warming by 'geoengineering' the planet by putting aerosols in the atmosphere to block sunlight are controversial, to say the least. Scientists are now pointing out that even if it keeps the planet cool, it will do almost nothing to stop another major problem — ocean acidification. The ocean will keep on absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (making carbonic acid) and the water's pH will get too low for corals and other marine life to secrete skeletons. So this is another strike against a quick fix of our climate problems."

Swedish Court Says IP Numbers Privacy Protected

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday June 18, @08:49AM
from the then-how-can-i-ping-you dept.

privacy

oh2 writes"The highest applicable Swedish court, Regeringsrätten, has ruled that IP numbers are protected (in Swedish) since they can be traced to individuals. This means that only government agencies are allowed to track and store IP adresses, leaving 'anti-piracy' advocates with no legal way to find possible copyright infringers."Update: 06/18 14:42 GMT by KD : The original linked article had been pulled due to factual errors and a new artcle has been posted (link replaced above). Here is aGoogle translation. The new article makes clear that the ruling does not affect the anti-piracy efforts of rightsholders.

Babyglow temperature sensing clothing: because you're dumber than your newborn

by Thomas Ricker, posted Jun 18th 2009 at 6:38AM

The most gullible shopper on the planet has to be the first time parent. Well meaning consumers who at their core are scared senseless. Chris Ebejer knows this and has developed a line of Babyglow clothing for newborns meant to communicate changes in your baby's temperature -- the fabric turns white above 37-C or 98.6-F. Ebejer claims to have spent 6 years and more than a million dollars to perfect the fabric -- sure, even though similar, if not exactly the same tech has been around in novelty-Tees for the last 20 years. How much does a single bodysuit cost? Try £20 or about $33 per. Are you really going to trust this man with your treasure, be it carbon or gold?

Weather Balloons To Provide Broadband In Africa

Posted by timothy on Wednesday June 17, @02:48PM
from the how-about-the-rural-united-states-too dept.

internet

wireless

it

An anonymous reader writes"Two African entrepreneurs have secured exclusive access to market near-space technology — developed by Space Data, an American telecommunications company — throughout Africa. The technology raises hydrogen-filled weather balloons to 80,000 — 100,000 feet, which individuals contact via modems. The balloons, in turn, serve as satellite substitutes which can connect Africans to broadband Internet. 'Network operation centers are located close to a fiber optic cable — say, in Lagos or Accra — and a signal is sent back and forth to the [balloon] in near space,' says one of the entrepreneurs, Timothy Anyasi. The technology will also allow mobile phone operators to offer wireless modems to customers."

NASA To Trigger Massive Explosion On the Moon In Search of Ice

Posted by timothy on Tuesday June 16, @12:13PM
from the smashing-darling-smashing dept.

moon

nasa

science

Hugh Pickens writes"NASA is preparing to launch the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, which will fly a Centaur rocket booster into the moon, triggering a six-mile-high explosion that scientists hope will confirm whether water is frozen in the perpetual darkness of craters near the moon's south pole. If the spacecraft launches on schedule at 12:51 p.m. Wednesday, it will hit the moon in the early morning hours of October 8 after an 86-day Lunar Gravity-Assist, Lunar Return Orbit that will allow the spacecraft time to complete its two-month commissioning phase and conduct nearly a month of science data collection of polar crater measurements before colliding with the moon just 10 minutes behind the Centaur."(Continues, below.)

"The cloud from the Centaur rocket booster will kick up 350 metric tons of debris that should spread six miles above the surface of the moon, hitting the sunlight and making it visible to amateur astronomers across North America. Over the final four minutes of its existence, as LCROSS follows the same terminal trajectory as the Centaur, the spacecraft will train its instruments and cameras on the debris cloud, searching it for the chemical signature of water. Previous spacecraft and ground-based instruments have detected signs of hydrogen near the moon's poles, andscientists are split over whether that is from ice that could have arrived through the impact of comets or by other means. Despite all the serious scientific talk about hydrogen signatures and lunar regolith, flying a rocket booster into the moon at 5,600 mph to trigger a massive explosion is just flat-out cool. 'We're certainly going to be making a big splash,' says Kimberly Ennico, the LCROSS payload scientist. 'We're going to see something, but I don't know what to expect. I know on the night of the impact, I'll be running on adrenaline.'"

• nasa

• science
• moon

• story

Windows 7 Licensing a "Disaster" For XP Shops

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday June 16, @03:22PM
from the punished-for-cautious-waiting dept.

windows

money

snydeq writes"Enterprise licensing for Windows 7 could cause major headaches and add more cost to the Windows 7 migration effort, InfoWorld reports. Under the proposed license, businesses that purchase PCs with Windows 7 pre-installed within six months of the Oct. 23 launch date will be able to downgrade those systems to XP, and later upgrade back to Windows 7 when ready to migrate users. PCs bought after April 22, 2010, however, can only be downgraded to Vista — no help for XP-based organizations, which would be wise to wait 12 to 18 months before adopting Windows 7, so that they can test hardware and software compatibility and ensure their vendors' Windows 7 support meets their needs. XP shops that chose not to install Vista will have to either rush their migration process or spend extra to enroll in Microsoft's Software Assurance program, which allows them to install any OS version — for about $90 per year per PC."

TomTom's Homer Simpson voice skin is just like the real thing, without the Duff's

by Joseph L. Flatley, posted Jun 16th 2009 at 10:38AM

Well, let's be frank. The Knight Rider GPS, while brilliant, is a bit of a stretch. Isn't it a little sad to be living out your boyhood fantasies of excitement and danger vicariously, behind the wheel of your '92 Buick Roadmaster station wagon? On the other hand, perhaps you're ready to put away your childhood dreams and hit the road in a manner more befitting your average schlub. The official Homer Simpson voice skin for the TomTom GPS features the voice of the iconic cartoon dad, including such gems as "Take the third right. We might find an ice cream truck! Mmm...ice cream." Psyched? We bet you are. Priced at $12.95 -- check out an audio sample after the break, and then hit the read link to pick it up it for yourself.

[Via Pocket-lint]

Ocean Currents Proposed As Cause of Magnetic Field

Posted by kdawson on Sunday June 14, @06:03PM
from the round-and-round-and-round-in-the-circle-game dept.

earth

science

pjt33 notes a recently published paper proposing that ocean currents could account for Earth's magnetic field. The wrteup appears on the Institute of Physics site; the IOP is co-owner, with the German Physical Society, of the open-access journal in which the paper appears. This reader adds, "The currently predominant theory is that the cause of Earth's magnetic field is molten iron flowing in the outer core. There is at present no direct evidence for either theory.""Professor Gregory Ryskin from the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University in Illinois, US, has defied the long-standing convention by applying equations from magnetohydrodynamics to our oceans' salt water (which conducts electricity) and found that the long-term changes (the secular variation) in the Earth's main magnetic field are possibly induced by our oceans' circulation."

Supermarket generates piezoelectric power in parking lot

by Joseph L. Flatley, posted Jun 15th 2009 at 10:46AM

Remember that piezoelectric road prototype we saw late last year? Looks like someone (besides us) thought it was a good idea. According to The Daily Mail, a Sainsbury's supermarket in Gloucester, UK (you've never been there), has installed kinetic plates in the parking lot that use the weight of shopper's cars to pump a series of hydraulic pipes, which in turn drive a generator. The system is said to generate up to 30kw of green energy an hour -- or enough to power the store's checkouts. And if that weren't enough, the store is also harvesting rainwater and heating it (during the summer, at least) with solar panels. The next in this store's "eco-friendly evolution?" Might we suggest Soylent in the deli? We hear the "green" stuff is particularly good.

[Via Green Launches]

• READ

Administration Wants To Scale Back Real ID Law

Posted by kdawson on Monday June 15, @08:02AM
from the square-root-of-minus-identity dept.

privacy

government

usa

The Washington Post is running a story on the Obama Administration's attempt to get a scaled-back version of Bush's Real ID program passed and implemented. We've been discussing the Real ID program from its earliest days up through the states' resistance to its "unfunded mandate.""Yielding to a rebellion by states that refused to pay for it, the Obama administration is moving to scale back a federal law passed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that was designed to tighten security requirements for driver's licenses... Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants to repeal and replace the controversial, $4 billion domestic security initiative known as Real ID... The new proposal, called Pass ID, would be cheaper, less rigorous, and partly funded by federal grants, according to draft legislation that Napolitano's Senate allies plan to introduce as early as tomorrow. ...the Bush administration struggled to implement the 2005 [Real ID] law, delaying the program repeatedly as states called it an unfunded mandate and privacy advocates warned it would create a de facto national ID."

Scientists Wonder What Fingerprints Are For

Posted by kdawson on Sunday June 14, @08:09AM
from the whorls-and-ridges dept.

medicine

science

Hugh Pickens writes"The BBC reports that scientists say they have disproved the theory that fingerprints improve grip by increasing friction between people's fingers and the surface they are holding. Dr Roland Ennos designed a machine which enabled him to measure the amount of friction generated by a fingerprint when it was in contact with an acrylic glass at varying levels of pressure. The results showed that friction levels increased by a much smaller amount than had been anticipated, debunking the hypothesis that fingerprints provide an improved grip. Ennos believes that fingerprints may have evolved to grip onto rough surfaces, like tree bark; the ridges may allow our skin to stretch and deform more easily, protecting it from damage; or they may allow water trapped between our finger pads and the surface to drain away and improve surface contact in wet conditions. Other researchers have suggested that the ridges could increase our fingerpads' touch sensitivity."

Reviving American Chestnut Trees May Mitigate Climate Change

ScienceDaily (June 15, 2009) — A Purdue University study shows that introducing a new hybrid of the American chestnut tree would not only bring back the all-but-extinct species, but also put a dent in the amount of carbon in the Earth's atmosphere.

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