SlashNOT

Matthew writes: Space Ship One, the brainchild of Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites privately financed spacecraft development company, has soared above the reach of Earth’s Atmosphere into sub-orbital space.

Unlike Spartan NASA spacecraft piloted by astronauts, private spacecraft are not subject to the strict military inspired procedures and function-over-form designs that guide the development of government space vehicles.

Pilot Mike Mellville took a moment away from his cruise into space to address reporters from the cockpit. Resplendit in a Leopard skin sport jacket and sipping a Martini, Mike spoke of the day when passengers would be able to share in the mahogany paneled and shag carpeted finery aboard SpaceShipOne, which just one week earlier had been pimped out by West Coast Customs and featured on MTV’s Pimp My Ride .

“Yeah Baby. These are Crazy times! Just Crazy! Check this out [at which point he spins the martini glass slowly in space and then slurps up the globules of cocktail]. That’s the bomb Baby! Oh, and look—the control monitors play video poker! You Cats have to do this! Oh, and check it out— there’s no drug laws in space players! [at which point he fires up a blunt and takes a long drag]. That’s one small drag for a man, one giant hit for mankind right there. Yeah, it’s so mellow up here, with the stars, and the moon. Oh, and check out this killer moon roof they put in…”

Hayden writes:

Security software developer Kaspersky Labs has reported the world’s first cellular phone virus. An international group, calling themselves 29A, have claimed responsibility for the virus in an effort to show “that people will always exploit security holes for fame.”

While said to be largely benign, many groups fear that this potential to exploit cellular phones might lead to an increases of unauthorized Subscriber Trunk Dialing, otherwise known as STD calls. Others are concerned that Cabir will jump the species gap and inscribe the word ‘Caribe’ on human cells, though experts label it ‘unlikely’.

matthew writes: The Online Chapel of the Church of Fools, a Methodist ministry for those worried enough about heaven to think about going to church but too lazy to actually do it, has been excommunicating members of it’s on-line congregation for logging in using profane names or for predatory sexual chat.

Despite the problems, pastor Stephen Goddard does not believe that the sanctity of the eChurch has been violated, althought the eChurch has removed a “shout it from the pulpit” feature that broadcast messages to everyone logged in.

Matthew, Jim McKeeth, and Glen Richards writes: Following on the heels of the commercially stalled IP over Avian Carrier (AC/IP) and based on Sony’s new 25GB Paper format, the IETF has released a request-for-comments (RFC) on the proposed “PA/IP” format. The RFC is backed by Sony, HP, and Hammermill.

The format specifies devices that convert digital information into hardcopy on paper (essentially an HP LaserJet with the duplexing and fold/staple option tray). The paper is printed using Sony’s Blu-Ray format, and are then folded into an aerodynamic shape and launched using low-pressure air towards the vicinity of the target receiver, which captures the flying paper, unfolds it, and inserts it into a Sony Blu-Ray drive for decoding.

At maximum throughput of one launch every 5 seconds, the transfer rate is well over 5GB/sec, outperforming both Gigabit Ethernet and FiberChannel at distances of nearly 15 feet in controlled environments. The IETF is actively seeking ways to improve the distance limitations, but does not expect them to be a serious barrier for early adopters.

The transmitter/receiver pair costs about US25,000 per node initially, but costs are expected to drop to the commercially viable US650 per node when mass production begins.

Matthew writes: Well, it had to happen sportsfans. Yours truly built my first watercooled PC today. O’course, it’s got all the trick metal you’d expect, like a 2.8 liter Pentium 4 HT, 2 gigs of dual overhead RAM spinning at 800MHz, and independent front and rear RAID 1 SATA disks (250GB, o’course).

But what you didn’t expect (’cept I told you) was the water cooling. That’s right, this baby is liquid filled, with a radiator right out front and center and three fans pulling a big 0.5 cubic feet of atmosphere per second past its gleaming aluminum fins. Watercooling might not be here now, but it’s the future baby, and here’s why: This stuff is just getting hotter all the time, and we’re driving past the mile marker in the road where aircooling gives out like a thirty year old Volkswagen in Mexico City, whatever that means.

It must o’ took Earl n’ me about sixteen hours to get this baby spinning, which is pretty long considering I can field strip a Pentium III in about 20 minutes. It was awful hard to frost those brand new 250GB disks with the heat conducting foam—went against nature, if you ask me–but that was child’s play compared to getting the hoses for the processor, chipsets, and both drives hooked up in serial to the radiator. We thought we had her, but when we filled the reservoir and fired that puppy up, something sprung a leak. Turns out antifreeze is conductive, and motherboards don’t like it. So, after a new motherboard, a few more hose clamps, and some bondo, we were ready to try again. This time, she spun up nice and dry.

The front panel indicator shows all systems cool at a low five degrees above ambient. And besides that fact that we had to take E.J. (Earl Junior) to the hospital for ingesting antifreeze that he thought was Mountain Dew, everything went well. But I hope nothing ever breaks, ’cause I have no idea how to drain this thing to disconnect parts without watering down the motherboard again. But hey, when do PCs ever break, right?

So that’s the future folks. Hope you like it!

Matthew writes: Sony Corporation has announced a major breakthrough in reducing the cost of information distribution and long- term information storage.

Based on Sony’s optical high-density optical storage platform, the new technology involves the storage of information using a specific system of printed marks on fibrous pulped wood.

“This new technology will be a dramatic enabler in the sciences, arts, and in government. Imagine being able to store information on a medium so inexpensive that it could be easily reproduced and widely distributed. The ability to permanently retain volumes of information for indefinite periods also has uses in the education and business markets.”

According to Sony, individual “pages” of information can be bound together into “volumes” which in sum can contain nearly any amount of information. Sony is currently exploring the potential market for selling pre-printed volumes of information directly to consumers.

Matthew writes: A recent market review of existing cell phones has revealed that every cell phone model is hobbled by one or more engineering tradeoffs.

The effect of these tradeoffs are varied—-some lack color screens or cameras, others have poor battery performance, and still others have poor reception or lack multiple band compatibility. For example, the Motorola V60 series is renowned for its long battery life, but it provides only such pedestrian features as making and receiving phone calls. The Kyocera Smartphone, on the other hand, has a camera and a Palm PDA built in, but is hobbled by its large size and poor battery life.

“It’s disappointing to see manufacturers releasing phones that they know are hobbled by tradeoffs. It’s as if they deliberately don’t want to make the perfect cell phone,” Says industry outsider Eric Harris. “I’m no engineer, but it doesn’t take much talent to figure out what people want: A phone that easily fits in your pocket and includes voice recognition and speech synthesis for texting, a 2.0 megapixel or better camera, broadband speed, Bluetooth, a PDA, and a week or so of talk time between charges. If I was the CEO of Motorola or Nokia, we’d be kicking ass.”

Mearzuh writes: Well, it’s official, folks: your cellphone is not there just for talking anymore. With the recent innovative (and annoyative) cellphone designs that include cameras, TV, and now even live radio, your cell is not what it used to be anymore. What is next?

A recent conference of the heads of the cellular industry has produced more “great” ideas that could appear on your cellphone in the near future. Here are some that we have gathered.

Philips has proposed adding Dolby Digital 6.1 surround sound system with portable speakers that are to be worn around your head. The system includes a 50 Watt subwoofer that would allow you and others to bounce to the tight beats you would have downloaded instead of using the usual boring rings.

Tired of the old and boring LCD display? The industry will soon offer 2″ widescreen HDTV plasma cellphones with integrated micro disc DVD player. Are you a businessman that presents a lot? No worries! A built in DLP projector will be available at an additional cost.

The ultimate cellphone unit will cost an estimated 10,000, but you may get a 20 discount if you choose to sign a two year contract with most service providers.

Matthew writes: In a gracious speech in Wisconsin this morning, Intel has conceded the 64-bit race to AMD, admitting that there was no way that consumers were actually going to wait for its Itanium line of 64-bit processors to become competitively fast or popular.

“We ran a good race. We ran a hard race. I’m exceptionally proud of the team that we put together. But the results are in, and it’s clear that the momentum is behind AMD and their Opteron.”

“What we’ve got to remember is that this race isn’t about the Itanium vs. the Opteron vs. the G5, it’s about 64-bits vs. 32. That’s why we’re proud to jump on the AMD bandwagon and put our support behind the Opteron 64-bit extensions to the x86 architecture. I want everyone who donated their time to watching our campaign, who wished for an Itanium future, to put their support behind Opteron now. We’ve got to unseat the incumbent 32-bit designs if we’re going to move into the future of computing, and it’s more important to move forward with the 64-bit front-runner than it is to split hairs about which architecture would have been superior. Yes, Itanium was a great design and it would have been nice if things could have gone that way, but it just wasn’t compatible with the software of too much of the buying public. Opteron is bringing software compatibility into the future.”

Matthew writes: A San Diego man reports that he has accidentally discovered a “battle mode” that is automatically engaged whenever two Roomba’s are in the same room.

“My wife bought the second Roomba so she could do two rooms at once. At first, it was no problem: The alpha Roomba cleaned the living room, and the beta Roomba cleaned the kitchen.”

“Then one day she left the infra-red virtual wall off, and the beta Roomba ventured right into alpha Roomba territory. What ensued was horrifying. They both immediately entered a spiral scan around one another, in an ever-widening circle until they bumped. The alpha Roomba grabbed the beta Roomba’s spin brush in its beater bar and pulled it off. The beta then immediately did a double reverse, spun around, and slammed into the alpha Roomba’s power button, shutting it off. The beta then sounded the “finished” victory cadence.”

SlashNOT labs investigated the issue and found that iRobot, makers of the Roomba and various battlefield robots for the department of defense, uses the same firmware in all of their robots. Home users are advised never to allow two Roombas into close proximity with one another until iRobot releases a firmware update.