If you want to squeeze every last ounce of processing power out of your new computer or aging system, overclocking is a great—if slightly nerve-racking—option. Here are some simple guidelines for safely overclocking your processor. Read more…
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A Beginner’s Introduction to Overclocking Your Intel Processor
An anonymous reader writes “The Telegraph reports, ‘Britain’s spies are to be given a “licence to speed” for the first time, under changes to motoring laws. While James Bond would no doubt have scorned such niceties, officers in MI5 and MI6 are currently required to obey the rules of the road, even when national security is under threat. Now Robert Goodwill, the transport minister, intends to add the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service to the group of agencies with permission to break the speed limit.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
dcblogs writes “The technology industry has been coasting along on steady, predictable performance gains, as laid out by Moore’s law. But stability and predictability are also the ingredients of complacency and inertia. At this stage, Moore’s Law may be more analogous to golden handcuffs than to innovation. With its end in sight, systems makers and governments are being challenged to come up with new materials and architectures. The European Commission has written of a need for ‘radical innovation in many computing technologies.’ The U.S. National Science Foundation, in a recent budget request, said technologies such as carbon nanotube digital circuits will likely be needed, or perhaps molecular-based approaches, including biologically inspired systems. The slowdown in Moore’s Law has already hit high-performance computing. Marc Snir, director of the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at the Argonne National Laboratory, outlined in a series of slides the problem of going below 7nm on chips, and the lack of alternative technologies.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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End of Moore’s Law Forcing Radical Innovation
cold fjord writes “Bexar Country in Texas has opened a new $2.3 million library called BiblioTech. It doesn’t have physical books, only computers and e-reader tablets. It is the first bookless public library system in the U.S. The library opened in an area without nearby bookstores, and is receiving considerable attention. It has drawn visitors from around the U.S. and overseas that are studying the concept for their own use. It appears that the library will have more than 100, 000 visitors by year’s end. Going without physical books has been cost effective from an architecture standpoint, since the building doesn’t have to support the weight of books and bookshelves. A new, smaller library in a nearby town cost $1 million more than Bexar Country’s new library. So far there doesn’t appear to be a problem with returning checked out e-readers. A new state law in Texas defines the failure to return library books as theft.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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First US Public Library With No Paper Books Opens In Texas
An anonymous reader writes “The U.S. Postal Service is conducting a pilot test of mobile point of sale technology in 50 facilities, using a modified iPod device and printers. During the holiday season, the 50 facilities testing mPOS processed more than 102, 000 transactions using the technology.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Postal Service Starting To Use Mobile Point of Sale Tech
First time accepted submitter ultranova writes with news of a new phase in trials for an HIV vaccine. From the article: “Some 1, 000 patients throughout France and Switzerland will take part on the trials, with the first phase involving hundreds of HIV sufferers. Participant numbers will increase as the program progresses. … According to Reijonen, the GTU technology developed by FIT Biotech is also suitable for use as a preventive HIV vaccine, however, he says that such a drug is still ten years away.The central idea behind HIV vaccine development is the use of genetic immunization. Genes are introduced into the body in order to generate a controlled immune response against HIV. Gene Transport Unit (or GTU) technology refers to FIT Biotech’s patented method by which genes can be safely introduced into the body.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Finnish HIV Vaccine Testing To Begin
Discovered in 2009 by the MEarth project, researchers now have strong evidence that GJ 1214 b has an atmosphere “But now a team of astronomers led by UChicago’s Laura Kreidberg and Jacob Bean have detected clear evidence of clouds in the atmosphere of GJ 1214b from data collected with the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble observations used 96 hours of telescope time spread over 11 months. This was the largest Hubble program ever devoted to studying a single exoplanet. … The first spectra, which were obtained by Bean in 2010 using a ground-based telescope, suggested that the planet’s atmosphere either was predominantly water vapor or hydrogen-dominated with high-altitude clouds. … More precise Hubble observations made in 2012 and 2013 allowed the team to distinguish between these two scenarios. … The best explanation for the new data is that there are high-altitude clouds in the atmosphere of the planet, though their composition is unknown. Models of super-Earth atmospheres predict clouds could be made out of potassium chloride or zinc sulfide at the scorching temperatures of 450 degrees Fahrenheit found on GJ 1214b.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Researchers Confirm Exoplanet Has Clouds Using Hubble Telescope
jones_supa writes “At the mammoth Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in early January, it is expected that multiple computer makers will unveil systems that simultaneously run two different operating systems, both Windows and Android, two different analysts said recently. The new devices will introduce a new marketing buzzword called PC Plus, explained Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies. ‘A PC Plus machine will run Windows 8.1 but will also run Android apps as well’, Bajarin wrote recently for Time. ‘They are doing this through software emulation. I’m not sure what kind of performance you can expect, but this is their way to try and bring more touch-based apps to the Windows ecosystem.’ Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, suggests that PC Plus could get millions of consumers more comfortable with Android on PCs. ‘Just imagine for a second what happens when Android gets an improved large-screen experience. This should scare the heck out of Microsoft.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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PC Plus Packs Windows and Android Into Same Machine
theodp writes “Over at The Atlantic, Taylor Clark’s epic Jesse Willms, the Dark Lord of the Internet tells the tale of how one of the most notorious alleged hustlers in the history of e-commerce made a fortune on the Web. ‘Accusing Willms of being a scammer, ‘ Clark writes, ‘does him a disservice; what he accomplished elicits something close to awe, even among his critics.’ The classic themes Willms’ company employed in ‘sponsored’ links for products that included colon cleansers, teeth whiteners, and acai supplements, Clark reports, included dubious scientific claims and fake articles (‘farticles’); implied endorsements from celebrities and TV networks; incredible ‘testimonials”; manipulative plays on insecurities (‘You wouldn’t have to worry about being the ‘fat bridesmaid’ at your sister’s wedding!’); and ‘iron-clad’ guarantees that ‘free trials’ of the products were absolutely ‘risk free.’ But beneath his promises of a ‘free trial, ‘ the FTC alleged, Willms buried an assortment of charges in the fine print of his terms and conditions. After the 14-day trial period for each product, customers automatically became enrolled in monthly subscription plans, for up to $80 a month. ‘The product was never the point, ‘ explained an FTC attorney. ‘The point was to get as many hits on each credit card as you could.’ Despite a publicized $359 million settlement with the FTC, Jesse Willms is doing just fine financially-and he has a new yellow Lamborghini to prove it. After settling his tax debts, Willms surrendered his assets of just $991, 000 to get the financial judgment suspended. Willms has left diet products behind and pivoted into information services. ‘As of November, ‘ Clark notes, ‘if you searched vehicle history on Google, Yahoo, or Bing, ads for Willms’s sites were among the first things you would see.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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How the Dark Lord of the Internet Made His Fortunes
mikejuk writes “A recent paper by Dr Rob Jenkins of the Department of Psychology at York University (UK) has managed to prove that you can get useful images of faces from the reflections in eyes. It really is as simple as zooming in. The catch is that the experiments were done with a 39 mega pixel camera — even so the actual final images were low resolution. In the experiment a number of people were photographed with a ‘bystander’ in a position so that a reflection of their face would be captured in the eye. The resulting extracted image of the reflection in the eye was only 27×36 and then rescaled using bicubic interpolation to 400×240 or bigger and enhanced using standard PhotoShop operations to normalize the contrast and brightness. Test subjects were able to match faces using the low resolution images but the important result was that if the subject knew the person in the photo then recognition went up to 90% with false positives down at 10%. So the next time you appear in a photo consider the fact that a simple procedure might reveal who you are with.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.