TippingPoint has announced hacking Pwn2Own 2011 competition held in March 9-11 in Vancouver, Canada.
Sponsors this year include Google. The company offers a cash prize of $ 20,000 available, which is to find a benefit in Chrome
Friday, February 4, 2011
Hacker Contest: Google will pay $ 20,000 Chrome Sandbox Exploit
TippingPoint has announced hacking Pwn2Own 2011 competition held in March 9-11 in Vancouver, Canada.
Sponsors this year include Google. The company offers a cash prize of $ 20,000 available, which is to find a benefit in Chrome
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
New step in radio astronomy
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| Multiple antennas of the LWA-1 station of the Long Wavelength Array in central New Mexico, photographed at sunset. Each antenna stands about 1.5 meters (5 feet) high and about 2.7 meters (9 feet) across the base |
An innovative new radio telescope array under construction in central New Mexico will eventually harness the power of more than 13,000 antennas and provide a fresh eye to the sky. The antennas, which resemble droopy ceiling fans, form the Long Wavelength Array, designed to survey the sky from horizon to horizon over a wide range of frequencies.
The University of New Mexico leads the project, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., provides the advanced digital electronic systems, which represent a major component of the observatory.
The first station in the Long Wavelength Array, with 256 antennas, is scheduled to start surveying the sky by this summer. When complete, the Long Wavelength Array will consist of 53 stations, with a total of 13,000 antennas strategically placed in an area nearly 400 kilometers (248 miles) in diameter. The antennas will provide sensitive, high-resolution images of a region of the sky hundreds of times larger than the full moon. These images could reveal radio waves coming from planets outside our solar system, and thus would turn out to be a new way to detect these worlds. In addition to planets, the telescope will pick up a host of other cosmic phenomena.
"We'll be looking for the occasional celestial flash," said Joseph Lazio, a radio astronomer at JPL. "These flashes can be anything from explosions on surfaces of nearby stars, deaths of distant stars, exploding black holes, or even perhaps transmissions by other civilizations." JPL scientists are working with multi-institutional teams to explore this new area of astronomy. Lazio is lead author of an article reporting scientific results from the Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array, a precursor to the new array, in the December 2010 issue of Astronomical Journal.
The new Long Wavelength Array will operate in the radio-frequency range of 20 to 80 megahertz, corresponding to wavelengths of 15 meters to 3.8 meters (49.2 feet to 12.5 feet). These frequencies represent one of the last and most poorly explored regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
In recent years, a few factors have triggered revived interest in radio astronomy at these frequencies. The cost and technology required to build these low-frequency antennas has improved significantly. Also, advances in computing have made the demands of image processing more attainable. The combination of cost-effective hardware and technology gives scientists the ability to return to these wavelengths and obtain a much better view of the universe.
The predecessor Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array was also in New Mexico. It was successful in identifying radio flashes, but all of them came from non-astronomy targets -- either the sun, or meteors reflecting TV signals high in Earth's atmosphere. Nonetheless, its findings indicate how future searches using the Long Wavelength Array technology might lead to new discoveries.
Radio astronomy was born at frequencies below 100 megahertz and developed from there. The discoveries and innovations at this frequency range helped pave the way for modern astronomy. Perhaps one of the most important contributions made in radio astronomy was by a young graduate student at New Hall (since renamed Murray Edwards College) of the University of Cambridge, U.K. Jocelyn Bell discovered the first hints of radio pulsars in 1967, a finding that was later awarded a Nobel Prize. Pulsars are neutron stars that beam radio waves in a manner similar to a lighthouse beacon.
Long before Bell's discovery, astronomers believed that neutron stars, remnants of certain types of supernova explosions, might exist. At the time, however, the prediction was that these cosmic objects would be far too faint to be detected. When Bell went looking for something else, she stumbled upon neutron stars that were in fact pulsing with radio waves -- the pulsars. Today about 2,000 pulsars are known, but within the past decade, a number of discoveries have hinted that the radio sky might be far more dynamic than suggested by just pulsars.
"Because nature is more clever than we are, it's quite possible that we will discover something we haven't thought of," said Lazio.
More information on the Long Wavelength Array is online at: http://lwa.unm.edu .
The Long Wavelength Array project is led by the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M., and includes the Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M., the United States Naval Research Laboratories, Washington, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The California Institute of Technology manages JPL for NASA.
Massive storm punches U.S.
Major automakers shut down plants in six Midwestern states and Ontario, and were just a fraction of the commerce that felt the storm's wrath.
Grain and livestock movement were also paralyzed in many areas. Wheat prices rose on worries that extreme cold that will follow the storm could damage crops. Citrus growers in south Texas also feared extensive damage from a hard freeze.
The storm, touching some 30 states and a third of the U.S. population, stretched from New Mexico to Maine as it moved toward the northeast where an ice storm wreaked havoc on New York City's morning commuters.
Chicago was set to get its biggest snowfall in more than 40 years. Some 20 inches of snow was forecast to pile up by late Wednesday. Snowfalls of a foot or more were recorded from Oklahoma City to Kansas City and Indianapolis.
The website flightaware.com, which tracks airline cancellation information, said more than 5,200 flights had been canceled in the United States so far Wednesday. That followed thousands of flight cancellations Tuesday.
"We're totally out of Chicago today; 920 cancellations in and out," said American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith. Power was out for more than 375,000 customers from Texas to New England, and into Canada.
Treacherous ice, rather than deep snow, hit New York City. The heavily used commuter rail service between New Jersey and New York was suspended due to ice buildup on the overhead power lines, authorities said. Public transportation in other major cities, including Boston, was also disrupted.
But Wall Street trading was not impacted by the storm as exchanges opened on time and many traders worked from home. Equities trading volume through midday was in line with an average to slightly below-average day.
The huge two-day storm delivered its strongest punch to the Midwest, dumping as much as three inches of snow an hour on Chicago during most of the night along with winds of up to 40 miles per hour.
CBOT's open-outcry trade opening was delayed by 30 minutes from the normal time of 9:30 a.m. (1530 GMT), but Globex electronic trading opened on time at 9:30 a.m., said Chris Grams, of the world's largest futures exchange, the CME Group in Chicago.
Chicago's two major airports canceled a combined 2,000 flights, the city's Department of Aviation said.
Among the storm-affected businesses, large and small, Abbott Laboratories, a major pharmaceutical company, closed its headquarters north of Chicago Wednesday.
Major interstate highways in the Plains and Midwest were closed and a state of emergency was declared across the area.
Major railroads, including Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Norfolk Southern, which transport commodities across the United States, said snow and ice was slowing them down.
Space telescope spots odd new solar system
The discovery, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, is mystifying astronomers for the time being and illustrates just how much variety is possible in the universe.
The team at NASA and a range of universities has named the system Kepler-11, after the orbiting Kepler space telescope that spotted it.
"One of the most striking features about the Kepler-11 system is how close the orbits of the planets are to one another," they wrote in their report.
The star resembles Earth's own sun. But five of the planets orbiting it are packed into a space equivalent to the distance between Mercury and Venus in our own solar system.
And they are bigger and puffier than the rocky inner planets of our solar system, Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury, the scientists said. However, they are some of the smallest exoplanets -- planets outside our solar system -- ever seen.
"They are much more closely packed ... than any other planetary systems known, including our own," said Jack Lissauer, a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California.
"It is clear that such planets need not resemble the Earth in any way," Jonathan Fortney of the University of California, Santa Cruz, added in a telephone briefing.
"The low-mass planets in the Kepler-11 system appear to be more like small Neptunes than giant Earths." Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus are the giant gassy planets on the outer reaches of our solar system.
Astronomers have now found more than 500 exoplanets. Most are giant, because they are so far away that only the biggest are detectable. But researchers are certain there are Earthlike planets out there.
Fortney believes Kepler can eventually find them, if the telescope designed to find Earth-like planets orbiting other stars can orbit Earth long enough to collect the data.
"If it goes past its three-year mission -- six, eight, 10 years -- then we might get enough data," he said.
No telescope is powerful enough to directly visualize a planet orbiting another star. Instead, scientists use indirect means to find them.
Kepler measures the light coming from a star. A planet passing in front of the star as it orbits will dim this light just slightly. The researchers can them compute the planet's size and how quickly it is orbiting from this information.
In this case, the flickering light suggests a system of at least six planets, spinning rapidly around the star. One is orbiting farther out that the other five but they all appear to be made mostly of gas and orbiting in a very flat, circular plane.
OpenID: The Web’s Most Successful Failure
First 37Signals announced it would drop support for OpenID. Then Microsoft’s Dare Obasanjo called OpenID a failure (along with XML and AtomPub). Former Facebooker Yishan Wong’s scathing (and sometimes wrong) rant calling OpenID a failure is one of the more popular answers on Quora.
But if OpenID is a failure, it’s one of the web’s most successful failures.
OpenID is available on more than 50,000 websites. There are over a billion OpenID enabled URLs on the web thanks to providers like Google, Yahoo and AOL. Yet, for most people, trying to log in to every website using OpenID remains a difficult task, which means that while thousands of websites support it, hardly anyone uses OpenID.
OpenID promised to solve two problems. First, it would offer an easy way to log in to any website without needing to create a new account. And, second, it would enable you to have a consistant identity across the entire web. This worked well with the limited audience of bloggers and tech-savvy users that were part of the original vision.
But then as the vision of OpenID grew to encompass, well, everything, it became bogged down in the details. Despite widespread support, there is no uniform user experience. Every site that supports OpenID does it slightly differently, which only further confuses the majority of people.
The main reason no one uses OpenID is because Facebook Connect does the same thing and does it better. Everyone knows what Facebook is and it’s much easier to understand that Facebook is handling your identity than some vague, unrecognized thing called OpenID. That’s why, despite the impressive sounding billion URLs and 50,000 sites supporting OpenID, it pales next to Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect has been around less than half the time of OpenID and yet it’s been adopted by some 250,000 websites, is available to the hundreds of millions of Facebook users and has the advantage of Facebook’s brand familiarity.
Facebook also added a key ingredient that helped drive other sites to adopt Facebook Connect — sharing user data. One of the reasons more sites support Facebook Connect is that they get a piece of the user pie.
Web publishers never warmed to OpenID since it allows a user to log in to a website and leave a comment on a story, a blog post or a photo while essentially remaining anonymous to the publisher. That anonymous aspect has made OpenID less attractive to publishers who want to collect more data about their readers or interact with them — whether that means following them on Twitter, connecting with them on Facebook or sending them e-mail.
The OpenID Connect proposal aims to solve this shortcoming by using OAuth to allow publishers to request more information from a user when they log in using OpenID. But so far there has been very little support for OpenID Connect. Facebook Connect is still far more popular.
However, not everyone wants to tie their website’s login structure to a single company like Facebook. If 37Signals is the poster child for OpenID failure, Stack Overflow is the poster child for its success. The popular programming Q&A site abandoned traditional username/password based accounts in favor of OpenID and declared the experience a resounding success.
Government sites are also looking to use OpenID rather than tie themselves to Facebook. And the Obama administration has announced plans for an Internet identity system that sounds a lot like OpenID, though the exact details have yet to be revealed.
Eventually OpenID will likely disappear from the web, not because it was a failure, but because identity will be managed in other ways. Mozilla is hard at work putting identity in the browser. It’s not hard to envision Firefox managing your OpenID credentials for you, just as it does today with your passwords. In that sense OpenID may end up like RSS (another tool routinely declared dead), invisibly powering features behind the scenes, essential, but unnoticed. Eventually online identity may even come full circle and move back into the real world — chips in your phone, tokens that generate random codes or biometric devices.
The legacy of OpenID may well be that it was ahead of its time, but that hardly makes it a failure.
U.S. Satellite Shows Winter Megastorm Painting White
A NASA photograph of the Midwest megastorm gives profound visual truth to what it means for a snowstorm to blanket the United States.
The image was captured from space Jan. 31 by the GOES 13 satellite, which regularly photographs the Eastern half of the planet from a geosynchronous altitude of about 22,000 miles.
Cold air from the north is diving southward and colliding with moist tropical air, covering one-third of the United States in clouds. The storm is expected to flow east and depart New England on Wednesday night.
Forecasters expect the storm will break snowfall records in the Great Plains and central Midwest. In the East, it may deliver ice storms that could cause $1 billion in damage. It’s the latest in a string of storms fitting a pattern predicted by climate scientists. Rising temperatures allow air to hold more moisture, loading storm systems with precipitation that’s ultimately dumped back on Earth.
Image: NOAA/NASA GOES Project (hi-res)
Via NASA.gov
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Egyptian government orders Al Jazeera shutdown
"Al Jazeera sees this as an act designed to stifle and repress the freedom of reporting by the network and its journalists," the network said. "In this time of deep turmoil and unrest in Egyptian society it is imperative that voices from all sides be heard; the closing of our bureau by the Egyptian government is aimed at censoring and silencing the voices of the Egyptian people."
by cnn
Google: We’ll Show Proof Microsoft Copied Us
Google is firing back at Microsoft in today’s search engine “copygate.”
A couple of hours ago the blog SearchEngineLand voiced Google’s complaints that Microsoft appears to be watching interactions between Google and ordinary users, and plugging them into the algorithms of its Bing search engine.
The method Google used to prove it is ingenious: It matched random strings of letter (one is “ygyuutluu huhhihhhu” ) with a random wordpress blog. A few weeks later, they’d plug that string into the Bing search box and — what ho! — a link to the same Wordpress page.
Microsoft has responded with a statement (here on ZNet) that they do not copy. The statement does include a little wiggle, though, stating that it uses results from “opt-in programs like the toolbar (that) help us with clickstream data.”
If true, Microsoft’s behavior probably isn’t illegal — people often agree to be observed when they use a toolbar — and the outcome of the request and is probably a public event, which doesn’t investigate the inner workings of Google search.
As Silicon Valley’s vaunted “thought leadership” seal of excellence goes, however — fail.
Bad timing too — Bing is the host of a search conference in San Francisco (presented by Big Think — you can see it streaming live here. Matt Cutts, a director of search quality at Google will be onstage with Harry Shum, Microsoft’s VP of core search. Awkward, if you’re looking to gain that though leadership.
Matt is around showing people with screen shots showing the weird words and “separated at birth” results. “They show up every two or three weeks,” he says. “We figure that’s how long their release cycle is.”
I’ll update from the faceoff.
UPDATE: I wouldn’t discount there are great engineers working at Microsoft, says Shum. “We found a new form of spam or click fraud” from Microsoft — wishes they’d left Microsoft know before going public. Chuckles in the room.
Cutts- “We saw Google results in a lot of queries…results from Google users is showing up in a lot of Bing.
Shum: Are you saying Google owns the data?” (like I said, they’re saying it’s public behavior, just more data.) Says everyone does this.
Cutts: “I want to categorically deny that Google does this.”
- Shum: “Users are willing to share the data” we collectively use the data to improve the results. Then a shot at Google using 20 engineers to find this — not sure where that was going.
- Conversation goes to diversity in search, with Rich Skrenta of Blekko chiming in. Figures something like one million spam pages are created every hour.
- Shum: Google, as an industry leader, should be responsible for so much spam we’ve seen. “You have this responsibility to share in a transparent way.” Counterpunch! Sort of.
- Cutts: Adsense is the program that gets the blame, we’d have spam without it…(isn’t Google making millions off those ads?) Google is taking the position that we’re concerned about long term loyalty. …we take action regardless of whether you’re taking Google ads.
Brazil: Ceara paying to much to bring José Celso Martinez Corrêa
Public investment of $ 627,000 to bring the director José Celso Martinez Corrêa and the series "Dionysia" for Fortress caused controversy among artists of Ceara.
Money invested in four days of presentation exceed the $ 500,000 that the theater industry receives each year from the Ceara state government via the announcement of incentives, according to the Secretariat of Culture of the State.
"We are not against Zé Celso here. But it is an amount out of our reality," the actor said Carri Costa, Cia Cearense mischief.
Carri opened the discussion to manifest itself in an open letter that reverberated on the Internet.
Some artists, like himself, did not attend the presentations, which occurred last week."I'm in mourning and protest," said Edson Candid, Group Pictures.
The actor and theater director José Celso Martinez Corrêa, presenting the series "Dionysia" in Sao Paulo
The boycott was not unanimity among artists of the state. "I went to see the show and it was packed. There was no hostility to the group," said actor and director Richard William.
Actor-director Marcelo Drummond, the workshop also said the protest was not felt in parts.
"I think that instead of speaking against the workshop, they were demonstrating in favor of their own culture."
The Bureau of Culture said that $ 200,000 used to take the workshop was invested by the folder and the rest was released by the State Treasury for the commemoration of the centenary of José de Alencar Theater, where performances took place.
The department also said that the encouragement of culture in the state is also done in other ways.
New Year's Eve party in the city, a concert of Caetano Veloso also caused controversy.The city spent $ 714,000, including salary, 19 apartments and 20 for the team tickets.
The presentation, however, was made in the style "guitar and stool," without the band.The city contends that the money was spent not only with the cachet of the artist, but also with the logistics of the show.
Money invested in four days of presentation exceed the $ 500,000 that the theater industry receives each year from the Ceara state government via the announcement of incentives, according to the Secretariat of Culture of the State.
"We are not against Zé Celso here. But it is an amount out of our reality," the actor said Carri Costa, Cia Cearense mischief.
Carri opened the discussion to manifest itself in an open letter that reverberated on the Internet.
Some artists, like himself, did not attend the presentations, which occurred last week."I'm in mourning and protest," said Edson Candid, Group Pictures.
The actor and theater director José Celso Martinez Corrêa, presenting the series "Dionysia" in Sao Paulo
The boycott was not unanimity among artists of the state. "I went to see the show and it was packed. There was no hostility to the group," said actor and director Richard William.
Actor-director Marcelo Drummond, the workshop also said the protest was not felt in parts.
"I think that instead of speaking against the workshop, they were demonstrating in favor of their own culture."
The Bureau of Culture said that $ 200,000 used to take the workshop was invested by the folder and the rest was released by the State Treasury for the commemoration of the centenary of José de Alencar Theater, where performances took place.
The department also said that the encouragement of culture in the state is also done in other ways.
New Year's Eve party in the city, a concert of Caetano Veloso also caused controversy.The city spent $ 714,000, including salary, 19 apartments and 20 for the team tickets.
The presentation, however, was made in the style "guitar and stool," without the band.The city contends that the money was spent not only with the cachet of the artist, but also with the logistics of the show.
Wish you to succeed everything you really want in this month..
I had a little work do do today, and I almost forgot to wish us for a new month, wishing. Wishing is a good thing.. Some cultures have customs in which people are encouraged to "make a wish", such as blowing out the candles on a birthday cake, seeing a shooting star at night, tossing a coin into a wishing well or fountain or breaking the wishbone of a cooked turkey. Many believe such wishes can only come true if you keep them a secret from other people. Others, on the other hand, believe that wishes come true only if you tell them to someone else.foto via
Pay Pal full of good people
Really what makes a company being good and have a good name..I'm 100% convinced that it's not only the product they are selling and how beautiful is the environment surrounding them.
Link
A volcano in southern Japan - which featured in a James Bond film - has erupted again, damaging homes in surrounding towns
Residents watch as Shinmoe Peak continues to pump out volcanic ash
After the latest eruption at Shinmoe Peak, the Japan Meteorological Agency has extended the exclusion zone around the crater to 4km (2.4 miles).
Experts fear lava could now spill out of the crater as pressure increases from within the the volcano's lava dome, leading to further blasts.
A 92-year-old woman suffered cuts to her face and hands caused by flying glass from shattered windows.
A gym becomes a temporary evacuation centre in Takaharu
Over 400 residents in the town of Takaharu, located at the foot of volcano Shinmoe Peak, have been forced to stay overnight at temporary evacuation centres.
Shinmoe Peak is part of the Kirishima mountain range and featured in the 1967 James Bond movie You Only Live Twice.
In April last year, the eruption of the Eyjafjoell volcano in Iceland threw up a huge ash plume into international airspace disrupting 100,000 flights.
Mumbai Workers Find Gold From WWII Ship
Gold bars from a wrecked Second World War British cargo ship have been discovered by Indian workers at a dock in Mumbai.
Workers are continuing to dredge the site of the British wreck for the remaining gold
The precious cargo was discovered by a team digging a new dock at the port according to local reports.
Mumbai police officer Quaisar Khalid said: "The contractors have told us about having found gold and the bars belonging to the lot that had sunk with (the) Fort Stikine."
The two bars weighed 100g and 50g (3.5oz and 1.75oz).
The SS Fort Stikine exploded after a fire broke out in its hold while at Victoria Docks in the city port then known as Bombay on April 14, 1944.
Hundreds were killed in the explosions and subsequent blaze which raged for days and also destroyed many other ships that were docked at the time.
The Fort Stikine went up quickly as it was still fully laden with munitions and cotton bales - as well as an estimated £2m-worth of gold.
The bullion was intended to help boost Indian exchange rates that had been heavily hit by the war.
Some of the Fort Stikine's glittering haul was discovered and returned to the British government 30 years ago, but the rest has lain undiscovered, until now.
Singapore spends $100,000 on iPad pilot program for schools
Student Chloe Chen remarks on how convenient learning with the iPad is:
Teachers can just tell us to go a website, and we can immediately go and do our work.One of the school deans, a part of the program, notes how well the iPad works with the school’s curriculum:
The iPad was chosen because it complemented a new method of teaching under which students are given more freedom to learn themselves, instead of relying solely on the teacher in traditional classrooms.Schools adopting iPads as a core class material is not a new concept. Earlier this month we reported that the state of New York ordered more than 2000 iPads for distribution within their school systems. It would be interesting to see what apps these schools are loading on to the iPads for the students. Maybe iWork? Let us know in the comments if your school or place of work is adopting the iPad too.
iOS adoption accelerates over the holidays, passes 2% globally
Interesting graphic today from NetApplications. It seems that holiday boost that usually adds some oomph to iOS numbers has pushed market share up dramatically in some places, particularly wealthy societies of the West and Hong Kong/Singapore/Australia.
At this rate, it won’t be long until iOS passes MacOS, if it hasn’t already in some places.
British airports now beaming holographic security agents.
They've brought you presidential election coverage and promoted worldwide access to PCs, and now they're telling you to take off your belt and throw out your hairspray. Starting today, London Luton and Manchester airports will beam in images of holographic agents to prep passengers for the security line. Holly and Graham -- you heard right -- and Manchester's Julie and John are meant to cut queues, as well as human inconsistency. According to Luton's Glyn Jones, "Holly and Graham are not going to have a hangover; they're not going to have a row with their partner the night before." Just what we need: an army of holographic squares taking our jobs and making us all look a drunken mess in comparison. Thanks, technology.
Update: So it appears these aren't traditional holograms -- they're actually huge sheets of glass that are cut out in the shape of people, with the projection beamed on them. It's the same tech that Gorillaz use on stage, made by a company called Musion. Check out another video where the camera moves around the side.
Update: So it appears these aren't traditional holograms -- they're actually huge sheets of glass that are cut out in the shape of people, with the projection beamed on them. It's the same tech that Gorillaz use on stage, made by a company called Musion. Check out another video where the camera moves around the side.
Massive Camera Catches First X-Ray Pictures of Lightning
If there is one inconvertible truth about scientists, it is that they are inherently curious. Even though they have known for ages that lightning emits radiation, the scientific community wasn’t happy with that knowledge until they could see it for themselves. That’s why graduate student Meagan Schaal, a graduate student working at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne under lightning researcher Joseph Dwyer, developed a camera fast enough to catch X-rays coming off of a lightning strike. The lightning was artificially triggered in December 2010 by launching little rockets with wires attached to them into thunderstorms. The wires helped steer the lightning in the camera’s field of view.
The camera itself is a feat of engineering: it’s a 1,500-pound beast that captures ten million images per second just to get a good shot of the ultra-fast lightning strikes. The camera is roughly the size and shape of a refrigerator and houses an X-ray detector. The box is lead-lined to protect the X-ray detector from stray radiation. As strange as the camera is, it worked like a charm: the first X-ray pictures of lightning are incredible. They show a large concentration of X-rays at the head of the bolt and the radiation tapers off to almost non-existent at the tail.
Solar chared roads prevent from snow..
Think the asphalt in the ground can't be high tech? Think again. If an associate professor of environmental engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute gets his way, snow-covered roads and abandoned cars left in snowpocalypses could be a thing of the past.
Professor Rajib Mallick's idea is to have "pipes that are filled with freeze-resistant fluids embedded in pavement, which will be heated by the sun and stored in an insulated chamber." When a blizzard drops from the sky, the heated fluid would be discharged, melting any snow that would blanket the roads. Mallick estimates the project would cost about $12,500 for every 164-feet of pipe and should be able to recoup its costs after six months.
Mallick's plan is an ambitious one, but one that would definitely prevent entire cities from nearly shutting down (like New York City) from snowfall. In addition to the snow-melting goodness, the heating fluid could also be used to create electricity for nearby buildings. Sounds like the embedded roads would even be beneficial during the sunnier seasons.
There's no reason for these roads not to be built. The only matter is how can Mallick get the funding to pull it all off.
Food is now huffable
Le Whaf is a device invented by a guy at Harvard that takes specially prepared liquid food and vaporizes it. The vapor gets captured in the weird bowl thing in the picture above, and then you can huff it through a glass straw. Laura Powell from the Daily Mail took a few whafs of a lemon tart and describes the experience thusly:
At first, my mouth feels warm and dry; then, as the droplets in the smoke settle, I can make out the particular flavours. The lemon tart is zingy and fresh. Next, a whaf of tarte tatin fills my mouth with caramel... Best of all, each breath (or 'whaf') contains hardly any calories -- so you can have as much as you like without gaining weight.'Hardly any calories' means that 10 minutes of whaffing is only good for about 200 calories, so it might be a good way of enjoying potentially excessive amounts of dessert without paying for it as long as you don't care about texture. Apparently, you can liquefy just about any type of food or drink and get this machine to vaporize it, and its inventor wants to see 'whaf buffets' where you and your straw wander from bowl to bowl, sucking up smoke.
Look for individual Le Whaf units to go on sale this fall for about $135.
Filthy Places for Antibiotics
Testing antibiotics (Credit: CDC/Don Stalons)
Bacteria continue to acquire resistance to antibiotics at a terrifying rate, and pharmaceutical makers have far too few possibilities for effectiveness new replacements in development. So, up to a point, it’s good news this week that at least a couple more novel candidates have turned up—in some of the least sanitary, least likely places one might imagine. I’ll keep my enthusiasm under wraps for reasons I’ll discuss presently, but first: where are these new leads for antibiotics coming from?
In the brains of cockroaches and locusts
At the Society for General Microbiology meeting at the University of Nottingham, Simon Lee reported that his group at the university’s School of Veterinary Medicine and Science had isolated proteins with powerful antibiotic properties from the brains of insects.
The researchers discovered nine different chemicals in the brains of locusts and cockroaches, which all had anti microbial properties strong enough to kill 90% of MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) while not harming human cells.
“A kill rate of 90% is very very high, and I diluted the substance down so there was only a minute amount there. Conventional antibiotics reduce the number of the bacteria and let your immune system cope with the rest. So to get something with such a high kill rate that is so potent at such a low dose is very promising”
Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin is one of the great tales of a medical breakthrough drawn from nature. While growing cultures of staphylococci, he noticed that one dish was contaminated with a mold that had killed all the bacteria adjacent to it. The mold, Fleming learned, had a natural capacity to clear away bacteria by lysing their cell walls. And so the age of antibiotics began.
American cockroach (Credit: Colin Ybarra)
The rationale for the researchers choosing to look inside insect pests for antibiotics seems to be that because cockroaches can thrive in filthy environments, they must have ways to protect themselves against lethal infections. The Nottingham researchers are certainly not the first to have that insight. Insects do have astonishingly sophisticated innate immune systems that are built around antimicrobial compounds; they lack an adaptive immune system, like ours, that manufacture antibodies and lymphocytes against specific invaders.
But why would these antibiotic proteins only be found in the cockroaches’ nervous systems and not their other tissues, which are of course equally subject to infection?
“They must have some sort of defense against micro organisms. We think their nervous system needs to be continuously protected because if the nervous system goes down the insect dies. But they can suffer damage to their peripheral structures without dying,” he told BBC News.
Well… maybe. Given that cockroaches can technically survive without heads (and brains) for weeks and yet removing other parts of their body can significantly impair their learned behaviors (according to Scientific American), I’m not convinced it’s open and shut that they need their nervous systems uniquely more than other tissues. Still, that’s almost beside the point: if these compounds hold real promise as antibiotic drugs, we’ll take them.
LG Teases Optimus 3D for Mobile World Congress
Small Foot snow shoes for Big-Foot grip
But, even despite our adulation for the frosty precipitation, we're practical enough to realise that snow can cause problems - and no more so than the fact that it has the ability to make us fall arse-over-tit on a regular basis.
So that's where these bad boys will come in handy - the Small Foot snow shows from AnyExit.
Boasting to be the world's smallest snow shoes, the Small Foot shoes are "inflatable, compact, light, secure and with innovative construction".
They can be packed away into a pocket-sized bag (you wouldn't want to walk around in doors with them on, after all) that also has space for the pump you'll need to inflate them.
Once pumped, these blow-up sneakers will keep you above the snow, like a walking hover-craft, rather than sinking down and getting wet toes.
There are no price details as of yet (apart from "a fair price") but you can go see the Small Foot shoes for yourself over in Munich at the ISPO Brand New expo between 6 and 9 February.
Hyundai launches Korea’s first eco-friendly CNG hybrid bus- Blue-City
Hyundai unveiled Korea’s first CNG hybrid bus, Blue-City, demonstrating its technological leadership in the field of eco-friendly vehicles. Blue-City, fully developed in Korea, is Hyundai’s latest eco-friendly model that delivers better fuel efficiency with lower emissions by using a CNG engine and an electric motor. The hybrid bus is equipped with a G-CNG Engine that offers 177kW (240ps) and a 6-speed automated manual transmission, while its 60kW (82ps) highly-efficient electric motor and 3.8kWh lithium-polymer battery enable safe driving and efficient charging. Despite cutting down the total number of fuel tanks to five from seven (total capacity of 770ℓ), Blue-City can still operate 340km on a single charge, which is equivalent to the existing CNG bus.
GPS-enabled DSC-HX100V + more!
Sony today unveiled two new 16.2-megapixel Cyber-shot digital still cameras that offer Full HD video shooting capability at the touch of a dedicated movie button. The Sony DSC-HX100V and DSC-HX9V Cyber-shot cameras are Sony’s first compact digital still cameras to include a 27mm Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonar T lens with 30x optical zoom and a 24mm Sony G lens with 16x optical zoom (respectively) combined with full HD (1920 x 1080/60p) video capability. 
Another Cyber-shot camera first, the 16.2-megapixel Exmor R back-illuminated CMOS sensor inside both cameras supports a brand-new Intelligent Sweep Panorama HR (High Resolution) mode. The Cyber-shot DSC-HX100V camera also features a manual control ring that can be assigned as desired to adjust focus or zoom.
Another Cyber-shot camera first, the 16.2-megapixel Exmor R back-illuminated CMOS sensor inside both cameras supports a brand-new Intelligent Sweep Panorama HR (High Resolution) mode. The Cyber-shot DSC-HX100V camera also features a manual control ring that can be assigned as desired to adjust focus or zoom. 
With the high-speed auto focus feature, Sony DSC-HX100V and DSC-HX9V Cyber-shot cameras provide a smarter way to focus with DSLR-like speed. High-speed autofocus locks onto subjects in as little as 0.1 seconds, letting you grab the most fleeting photo moments with ease. View image In addition to speed, Sony DSC-HX100V and DSC-HX9V Cyber-shot cameras GPS/Compass function makes them ideal for travel and holidays. The cameras and a range of accessories will be available in April. The Sony DSC-HX100V and DSC-HX9V cameras will be available in black and will cost about $450 and $350, respectively. 
Active Storage Announces ActiveSAN Xserve Replacement today.
Active Storage has announced ActiveSAN, a high-performance metadata controller appliance for Xsan and StorNext networks.
ActiveSAN is a server-based appliance that incorporates 'stunning' Active Storage product design and the rock-solid performance and reliability of an Intel Nehalem server platform, in a 1U rack form factor. ActiveSAN utilizes the proven Linux operating system and the Quantum StorNext SAN file system. It features an Active Storage-designed user interface and management suite for phenomenal ease of use in deployment and management of the operating system and StorNext.
ActiveSAN will be demonstrated at the NAB 2011 convention in April, with delivery of systems in the second quarter of 2011. Pricing and configurations have not yet been set.
Another Earth
Another Earth is the only sci-fi type film that was accepted into the Sundance Film Festival this year, and it really wasn’t even a full on sci-fi film. It was a dramatic story that we’ve seen several times before, but this one had an interesting little sci-fi backdrop to it, which just added another layer to the film. That backdrop includes another earth.
The story follows a character named Rhoda Williams. At the beginning of the film she is accepted into MIT to study astrophysics, but she never gets there. On the same night that a new Earth like planet is discovered, she is driving home from a party drunk, and while looking at the new blue planet she smashes head first into a car killing a pregnant wife, a child, and putting the father/husband John into a coma. After four years of being in prison Rhoda is released. Her dreams of going to MIT are gone, the new Earth that was discovered four year prior is still being studied, and the space program is looking to send people to it. Rhoda gets a job as a janitor at the local high school, and one day she sets out on a journey to find John so she could apologize to him for killing his family. Once she’s face to face with him she chickens out and makes up a lie. She ends up cleaning his house, and they form a relationship with each other that breaths life back into their souls. As far as this other Earth is concerned, we learn bits and pieces about it as the movie goes on, and it’s revealed that it’s a mirror image of our own planet which includes mirror images of ourselves that are living the same life and same experiences that we are. It’s quite an interesting concept. There comes a point in the story where John and Rhoda are confronted with a decision with the opportunity to travel to Earth 2. One main thing I didn't buy in on was where did the new Earth Come from. It's explained that it was knocked off its hidden orbit and emerged from behind the Sun.
First time feature film director Mike Cahill did a good job created the film which stars William Mapother and Brit Marling, who both gave decent performances. The movie got mixed reviews up at the film festival, but I thought it was actually pretty good. There are some deep philosophical questions that are brought up in the movie, and it definitely gives you something to think about.
I would have liked to see the film focus more on the new Earth. That was an element of the film I feel I didn’t get enough information on. I think the filmmaker should have taken the film into full sci-fi mode, but he didn't, it seemed more passive. The ending of the film was pretty cool though. I won’t spoil anything for you, but there’s a little thought that has to go into it so you can figure out what it means.
The movie wasn’t great, and I probably wouldn’t pay to see it in theaters. This is something I would probably wait to watch on Instant Netflix. But it’s worth your time to check out when you can.
Here’s the synopsis for the film:
Rhoda Williams, a bright young woman recently accepted into MIT's astrophysics program, aspires to explore the cosmos. John Burroughs, a brilliant composer, has just reached the pinnacle of his profession, and is about to have a second child with his loving wife. On the eve of the discovery of a duplicate Earth, tragedy strikes, and the lives of these strangers become irrevocably intertwined. Estranged from the world and the selves they once knew, the two outsiders begin an unlikely love affair, which reawakens them to life. But when one of them is presented with the opportunity to travel to the other Earth and embrace an alternative reality, which new life will they choose?
