Not content with having them only print, copy, collate, and staple, Xerox is adding a new trick to its photocopiers that promises to give teachers more time with their students. Custom software will actually let a school’s photocopier not only grade papers , but also keep tabs on which students are struggling in certain subjects. Read more…
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Xerox’s New Grading Copiers Will Finally Make Scantron Obsolete
Windell at Evil Mad Scientist Labs has dredged up an amazing project book from the Internet Archive: How to Build a Working Digital Computer (1967) (by Edward Alcosser, James P. Phillips, and Allen M. Wolk) contains a full set of instructions for building a working computer out of paperclips and various bits and bobs from the local hardware store. You can even use paperclips for switches (though, as Windell notes, “Arrays of paperclip logic gates can get pretty big, pretty fast.”) The instructions include a read-only drum memory for storing the computer program (much like a player piano roll), made from a juice can, with read heads made from bent paper clips. A separate manually-operated “core” memory (made of paper-clip switches) is used for storing data. So can this “paper clip” computer actually built, and if so, would it work? Apparently yes, on both counts. Cleveland youngsters Mark Rosenstein and Kenny Antonelli built one named “ Emmerack ” in 1972 (albeit substituting Radio Shack slide switches for most of the paper clips), and another was built in 1975 by the Wickenburg High School Math Club in Arizona. And, at least one modern build has been completed, as you can see on YouTube . How to Build a Working Digital Computer… out of paperclips ( via O’Reilly Radar )
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HOWTO build a working digital computer out of paperclips (and stuff)
hypnosec tipped us to news that India is rolling out a new intrusive monitoring system, using the authority of a 2000 telecom law. Quoting The Times of India: “However, Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court advocate specialising in cyberlaw, said the government has given itself unprecedented powers to monitor private Internet records of citizens. ‘This system is capable of abuse,’ he said. The Central Monitoring System, being set up by the Centre for Development of Telematics, plugs into telecom gear and gives central and state investigative agencies a single point of access to call records, text messages, and emails as well as the geographical location of individuals.” Privacy advocates are worried about abuse, partially because India has no effective privacy legislation, and the “…Indian government under PM Manmohan Singh has taken an increasingly uncompromising stance when it comes to online freedoms, with the stated aim usually to preserve social order and national security or fight ‘harmful’ defamation.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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India Rolls Out Central Monitoring System To Snoop On All Communications
Ballmer and Co. have just laid out what changes Office Web Apps will see over the next year and beyond, and it’s honing in on social features and more. Sure, the productivity suite already has collaborative document editing, but Microsoft is vowing to include real-time collaboration á la Google Drive , where users can see who’s currently working on a document while changes appear on the fly. The PowerPoint Web App is already packing the revamped experience, and the Office team promises that the real-time co-authoring will become faster as time goes on. The OS titan also says it’ll incorporate a range of other improvements, including simplified file management, shortening launch times and even a find and replace feature for the Word Web App. In addition to the tweaks, Microsoft revealed that Android tablets will finally be able to access its online suite of tools, as it’ll begin supporting the mobile Chrome browser . The firm’s given itself the loose timetable of “over the next year and beyond” for the feature rollout, so avid users should sit tight for now. Filed under: Software , Microsoft Comments Source: Office 365 Blog (Microsoft)
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Microsoft Office Web Apps to receive real-time collaboration, Android support
In a major milestone, a powerful organization of mental health researchers has said it will not be using the new, fifth edition of the Diagnostical and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) , a handbook that has virtually defined the field of psychiatry in the United States for decades. Here’s what this means. Read more…
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Traditional psychological diagnoses are going out of style
An anonymous reader writes “BitTorrent has come up with a new way to sell music. It’s called BitTorrent Bundle, and it puts the music store alongside the torrent. At last, someone has come up with a way to turn all us entitled, lawless downloaders into paying customers. BitTorrent thinks of BitTorrent Bundle as a sort of 21st century band flyer. Post a torrent with a handful of live tracks from your latest tour, Bundle it with a store that lets your groupies buy the full album.” Put simply, the idea is that bands publish a basic torrent with a few songs as a teaser. When users download that .torrent file from BitTorrent.com, they’re shown a page asking for something — money, an email address, or social media interaction — in exchange for the rest of the album (or other bonus content). If they comply, they get a different .torrent file. It’s not intended as a guard against piracy, but as a way to link up content creators with the torrenters who are actually willing to pay. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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BitTorrent Bundle Puts a Music Store Inside Torrents
German start-up Nanoscribe is commercialized a 3D “micro printer” that uses a near-infrared laser to print tiny structures with features as small as 30 nanometers. (A human hair is roughly 50,000 – 100,000 nanometers wide.) The device uses an infra-red laser beam moving in three dimensions to solidify a light-sensitive material into the desired shape. The additive manufacturing system, much faster than existing technology, could be used to “print” the components of medical devices, electromechanical systems, and, er, robot models that would fit on the head of a pin. ” Micro 3-D Printer Creates Tiny Structures in Seconds ” (Technology Review, thanks Anthony Townsend !)
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Microscale 3D printer
judgecorp writes “BT Retail has started testing Carrier Grade NAT (CGNAT) with its customer. CGNAT is a controversial practice, in which IP addresses are shared between customers, limiting what customers can do on the open Internet. Although CGNAT goes against the Internet’s original end-to-end principles, ISPs say they are forced to use it because IPv4 addresses are running out, and IPv6 is not widely implemented. BT’s subsidiary PlusNet has already carried out CGNAT trials, and now BT is trying it on “Option 1″ customers who pay for low Internet usage.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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BT Begins Customer Tests of Carrier Grade NAT
Microsoft has confirmed that “Windows Blue,” the code name for the next version of (or major update to) Windows, will arrive later this year. It’ll include changes based on feedback from the launch of Windows 8 (possibly the return of the Start Button), and requested by users. The Verge has the full story . Read more…
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Microsoft has confirmed that “Windows Blue,” the code name for the next version of (or major update
A Cray XC30-AC server rack. Cray Cray, the company that built the world’s fastest supercomputer, is bringing its next generation of supercomputer technology to regular ol’ business customers with systems starting at just $500,000. The new XC30-AC systems announced today range in price from $500,000 to roughly $3 million, providing speeds of 22 to 176 teraflops. That’s just a fraction of the speed of the aforementioned world’s fastest supercomputer, the $60 million Titan , which clocks in at 17.59 petaflops. (A teraflop represents a thousand billion floating point operations per second, while a petaflop is a million billion operations per second.) But in fact, the processors and interconnect used in XC30-AC is a step up from those used to build Titan. The technology Cray is selling to smaller customers today could someday be used to build supercomputers even faster than Titan. Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Cray brings top supercomputer tech to businesses for a mere $500,000