Tag: journal

ISS Could Be Fitted With Lasers To Shoot Down Space Junk

An anonymous reader writes Japan’s Riken research institute has suggested a new idea for dealing with space junk. They say a fiber optic laser mounted onto the International Space Station could blast debris out of the sky. From the article: “To combat the increasingly dense layer of dead satellites and miscellaneous space debris that are enshrouding our planet, no idea — nets, lassos, even ballistic gas clouds — seems too far-fetched to avoid. Now, an international team of researchers led by Japan’s Riken research institute has put forward what may be the most ambitious plan to date. They propose blasting an estimated 3, 000 tons of space junk out of orbit with a fiber optic laser mounted on the International Space Station.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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ISS Could Be Fitted With Lasers To Shoot Down Space Junk

Facebook Working To Weed Out Fake Likes

jfruh writes In the early days of brands on Facebook, it was crucial for companies to garner as many “likes” as possible to boost their image, and that led to some unethical businesses selling likes that came from fake accounts. Now Facebook is informing brands that they’re working to root out fake likes, leaving like counts lower but realer. Now if only I could get my relatives to stop clicking on pictures that say they like puppies and are against cancer. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Facebook Working To Weed Out Fake Likes

Utilities Battle Homeowners Over Solar Power

HughPickens.com writes Diane Cardwell reports in the NYT that many utilities are trying desperately to stem the rise of solar power, either by reducing incentives, adding steep fees or effectively pushing home solar companies out of the market. The economic threat has electric companies on edge. Over all, demand for electricity is softening while home solar is rapidly spreading across the country. There are now about 600, 000 installed systems, and the number is expected to reach 3.3 million by 2020, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. In Hawaii, the current battle began in 2013, when Hawaiian Electric started barring installations of residential solar systems in certain areas. It was an abrupt move — a panicked one, critics say — made after the utility became alarmed by the technical and financial challenges of all those homes suddenly making their own electricity. “Hawaii is a postcard from the future, ” says Adam Browning, executive director of Vote Solar, a policy and advocacy group based in California. But utilities say that solar-generated electricity flowing out of houses and into a power grid designed to carry it in the other direction has caused unanticipated voltage fluctuations that can overload circuits, burn lines and lead to brownouts or blackouts. “At every different moment, we have to make sure that the amount of power we generate is equal to the amount of energy being used, and if we don’t keep that balance things go unstable, ” says Colton Ching, vice president for energy delivery at Hawaiian Electric, pointing to the illuminated graphs and diagrams tracking energy production from wind and solar farms, as well as coal-fueled generators in the utility’s main control room. But the rooftop systems are “essentially invisible to us, ” says Ching, “because they sit behind a customer’s meter and we don’t have a means to directly measure them.” The utility wants to cut roughly in half the amount it pays customers for solar electricity they send back to the grid. “Hawaii’s case is not isolated, ” says Massoud Amin. “When we push year-on-year 30 to 40 percent growth in this market, with the number of installations doubling, quickly — every two years or so — there’s going to be problems.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Utilities Battle Homeowners Over Solar Power

How Uber Surge Pricing Really Works

minstrelmike writes with this analysis from Nicholas Diakopoulos of the Washington Post: At the core of Uber’s wild success and market valuation of over $41 billion is its data and algorithmically fueled approach to matching supply and demand for cars. It’s classic economics, supposedly….but is Uber’s surge pricing algorithm really doing what they claim? Do surge prices really get more cars on the road? My analysis suggests that rather than motivating a fresh supply of drivers, surge pricing instead re-distributes drivers already on the road. Adds minstrelmike: The writer goes on to analyze 4 weeks of pricing info from 5 areas in D.C. and plotted prices versus wait times. “Price surging can work in any of three ways: by reducing demand for cars (less people want a car for a higher price), by creating new supply (providing an incentive for new drivers to hit the roads), or by shifting supply (drivers) to areas of higher demand.” It moves current drivers from one side of town to the other. It does not put new drivers on the road. It can’t because the prices change every 3-5 minutes.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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How Uber Surge Pricing Really Works

Cyanogen Partners With Microsoft To Replace Google Apps

Unknown Lamer writes: Microsoft and Cyanogen Inc have announced a partnership to bring Microsoft applications to Cyanogen OS. “Under the partnership, Cyanogen will integrate and distribute Microsoft’s consumer apps and services across core categories, including productivity, messaging, utilities, and cloud-based services. As part of this collaboration, Microsoft will create native integrations on Cyanogen OS, enabling a powerful new class of experiences.” Ars Technica comments, “If Cyanogen really wants to ship a Googleless Android, it will need to provide alternatives to Google’s services, and this Microsoft deal is a small start. Microsoft can provide alternatives for Search (Bing), Google Drive (OneDrive and Office), and Gmail (Outlook). The real missing pieces are alternatives to Google Play, Google Maps, and Google Play Services.” Rather than distribute more proprietary services, how about ownCloud for Drive, K-9 Mail for Gmail, OsmAnd for Maps, and F-Droid for an app store? Mozilla and DuckDuckGo provide Free Software search providers for Android, too. With Google neglecting the Android Open Source Project and Cyanogen partnering with Microsoft, the future for Free Software Android as anything but a shell for proprietary software looks bleak. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Cyanogen Partners With Microsoft To Replace Google Apps

Denver TSA Screeners Manipulated System In Order To Grope Men’s Genitals

McGruber writes: The CBS affiliate in Denver reports: “Two Transportation Security Administration screeners at Denver International Airport have been fired after they were discovered manipulating passenger screening systems to allow a male TSA employee to fondle the genital areas of attractive male passengers.” According to law enforcement reports obtained during the CBS4 investigation, a male TSA screener told a female colleague in 2014 that he “gropes” male passengers who come through the screening area at DIA. “He related that when a male he finds attractive comes to be screened by the scanning machine he will alert another TSA screener to indicate to the scanning computer that the party being screened is a female. When the screener does this, the scanning machine will indicate an anomaly in the genital area and this allows (the male TSA screener) to conduct a pat-down search of that area.” Although the TSA learned of the accusation on Nov. 18, 2014 via an anonymous tip from one of the agency’s own employees, reports show that it would be nearly three months before anything was done.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Denver TSA Screeners Manipulated System In Order To Grope Men’s Genitals

Linux 4.0 Kernel Released

An anonymous reader writes “The Linux 4.0 kernel has been released. Linux 4.0 brings many features including live patching, Radeon DisplayPort Audio, RadeonSI fan control improvements, new OverlayFS functionality, Intel Quark SoC support, and a heck of a lot more. Linus’s release announcement reads in part: “So I decided to release 4.0 as per the normal schedule, because there really weren’t any known issues, and while I’ll be traveling during the end of the upcoming week due to a college visit, I’m hoping that won’t affect the merge window very much. We’ll see. Linux 4.0 was a pretty small release both in linux-next and in final size, although obviously ‘small’ is all relative. It’s still over 10k non-merge commits. But we’ve definitely had bigger releases (and judging by linux-next v4.1 is going to be one of the bigger ones).” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Linux 4.0 Kernel Released

Microsoft Creates a Docker-Like Container For Windows

angry tapir writes Hoping to build on the success of Docker-based Linux containers, Microsoft has developed a container technology to run on its Windows Server operating system. The Windows Server Container can be used to package an application so it can be easily moved across different servers. It uses a similar approach to Docker’s, in that all the containers running on a single server all share the same operating system kernel, making them smaller and more responsive than standard virtual machines. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Creates a Docker-Like Container For Windows

ESA Rebukes EFF’s Request To Exempt Abandoned Games From Some DMCA Rules

eldavojohn writes It’s 2015 and the EFF is still submitting requests to alter or exempt certain applications of the draconian DMCA. One such request concerns abandoned games that utilized or required online servers for matchmaking or play (PDF warning) and the attempts taken to archive those games. A given examples is Madden ’09, which had its servers shut down a mere one and a half years after release. Another is Gamespy and the EA & Nintendo titles that were not migrated to other servers. I’m sure everyone can come up with a once cherished game that required online play that is now abandoned and lost to the ages. While the EFF is asking for exemptions for museums and archivists, the ESA appears to take the stance that it’s hacking and all hacking is bad. In prior comments (PDF warning), the ESA has called reverse engineering a proprietary game protocol “a classic wolf in sheep’s clothing” as if allowing this evil hacking will loose Sodom & Gomorrah upon the industry. Fellow gamers, these years now that feel like the golden age of online gaming will be the dark ages of games as historians of the future try to recreate what online play was like now for many titles. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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ESA Rebukes EFF’s Request To Exempt Abandoned Games From Some DMCA Rules

Windows 10 Successor Codenamed ‘Redstone,’ Targeting 2016 Launch

MojoKid writes: Windows 10 isn’t even out the door yet, so what better time than now to talk about its successor? Believe it or not, there’s a fair bit of information on it floating around already, including its codename: “Redstone.” Following in the footsteps of ‘Blue’ and ‘Threshold’, Redstone is an obvious tie-in to Microsoft’s purchase of Minecraft, which it snagged from Mojang last year. Redstone is an integral material in the game, used to create simple items like a map or compass as well as logic gates for building electronic devices, like a calculator or automatic doors. The really important news is that we could see Windows Redstone sometime in 2016. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows 10 Successor Codenamed ‘Redstone,’ Targeting 2016 Launch