Oleg's Big Party

Kilogram Poses Weighty Problem

Wired News: “Like its six basic-units-of-measurement siblings before it — including the meter — the kilogram may be moving toward a new definition based on a universal constant. The kilogram has long been understood to equal the mass of its prototype.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 10:46 PM / Comments (1)

42nd Mersenne Prime Confirmed

Eric W. Weisstein reports for MathWorld Headline News: “The new Mersenne prime is 2^25,964,951 - 1 = 1221646300…7077247 (where the ellipses indicate that several million intervening digits have being omited for conciseness) and has a whopping total of 7,816,230 decimal digits. It is therefore not only the largest known Mersenne prime, but also the largest known prime of any kind.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 07:46 PM / Comments (0)

Astronomers claim first 'dark galaxy' find

Stuart Clark of NewScientist reports: “Strong evidence for a massive galaxy totally devoid of stars has been found in the Virgo cluster, about 50 million light years away from Earth. If the existence of this “dark galaxy” is confirmed, it will vindicate the favoured theory of how galaxies form - and will present fresh puzzles to solve.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 08:47 PM / Comments (0)

Google movies: now playing

Google Blog: “If you love movies, you know which films these phrases refer to. Now, thanks to our new movie feature, Google web search knows too. Just in time for the Oscars, we’ve created a new ‘movie:’ operator that enables you to find movie-related information faster and more easily, whether you’re looking for titles or actors, director or genre, famous lines or obscure plot details.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 07:16 PM / Comments (0)

Apple Releases New iPods, Cuts Prices

Associated Press: “The price of the 4-gigabyte iPod mini was cut $50 to $199. A new 6-gigabyte version will sell for $249… The 60-gigabyte “iPod photo,” first introduced in October, which can display photos on its small color screen or when connected to a TV set, was cut from $599 to $449. A new 30-gigabyte model for $349 replaces a 40-gigabyte version for $499.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 05:06 PM / Comments (0)

Thieves steal built-in swimming pool

KTRE 9: “A Norwegian family’s swimming pool wasn’t just bolted down, it was in the ground — but that didn’t keep it from being stolen. When the family visited their mountain cabin over the weekend, they discovered a big hole in place of the swimming pool that had been installed 20 years ago. The pool — 16 feet in diameter — and all of its equipment had been uprooted and stolen.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 11:53 AM / Comments (0)

Pentium 4 600 officially launches

Ars Technica: “The 600 series sports a modified Prescott core, and doubles the Pentium 4 500’s L2 cache size to 2MB. As we’ve stated repeatedly, this kind of tweak is really about wringing a tiny bit of performance out of an otherwise dead-end architecture.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 08:27 PM / Comments (0)

Mathematical trick counters wireless fraud

Will Knight of NewScientist reports: “Wireless computer networks could be secured against fraud and identity theft using a novel cryptographic protocol designed to keep passwords safe from prying eyes.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 10:01 AM / Comments (0)

Moon measurements might explain away dark energy

Will Knight of NewScientist reports: “Plans to trace the Moon’s orbit with extraordinary new accuracy could reveal kinks in Einstein’s theory of gravity and help explain the mysterious accelerating expansion of the universe, says a US researcher.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 12:52 PM / Comments (0)

The Brightest Blast

Sky and Telescope: “On December 27, 2004, more than a dozen spacecraft recorded the brightest event from outside the solar system ever observed in the history of astronomy. The spacecraft, which included Earth-orbiting satellites as well as interplanetary probes such as Cassini, Mars Odyssey, and Ulysses, picked up a powerful burst of gamma rays and X-rays from one of the most exotic beasts in the galactic zoo: a magnetar. These bizarre objects are neutron stars possessing magnetic fields a million billion times more powerful than Earth’s field, or some 1,000 times greater that those of normal neutron stars.”

Posted by Arash Joushaghani, 07:58 PM / Comments (0)

Experts: Global Warming Is Real

From Wired News Technology: “New computer models that look at ocean temperatures instead of the atmosphere show the clearest signal yet that global warming is well underway, said Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. His team used millions of temperature readings made by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to calculate steady ocean warming. The debate over whether or not there is a global warming signal is now over, at least for rational people, he said.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 05:17 PM / Comments (0)

Google denies PHP search?

Nitesh Dhanjani writes for O’Reilly Developer Blogs: “Google won’t let you look beyond the first 10 results if you request it to find URLs that point to PHP resources. This is most likely Google’s response to recent worms that have been using Google to look for vulnerable versions of PHP code.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 05:16 PM / Comments (0)

42nd Mersenne Prime (Probably) Discovered

Eric W. Weisstein reports for MathWorld Headline News: “A new Mersenne number has been flagged as prime and reported to the project’s server. If verified, this would be the 42nd known Mersenne prime, as well as the largest prime number known of any kind.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 04:58 PM / Comments (0)

A parent's primer to computer slang

Mircosoft teaches parents the intricacies of leetspeek: “While it’s important to respect your children’s privacy, understanding what your teenager’s online slang means and how to decipher it is important as you help guide their online experience.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 10:57 PM / Comments (0)

Math skills evolved independent of language

NewScientist: “Noam Chomsky’s theory that the evolution of language provided the portal to all higher thought has taken another knock. A study of people with language difficulties suggests that mathematical skill evolved independently.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 06:06 PM / Comments (0)

Hide Your iPod, Here Comes Bill

Wired News: “To the growing frustration and annoyance of Microsoft’s management, Apple Computer’s iPod is wildly popular among Microsoft’s workers… 16,000 iPod users among the 25,000 who work at or near Microsoft’s corporate campus… So popular is the iPod, executives are increasingly sending out memos frowning on its use.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 04:13 PM / Comments (0)

Intel unveils silicon laser

From C|net news: “Intel has devised a laser out of silicon, the latest in a series of steps that could take the expense and pain out of optical communication. [The] company has created a chip containing eight continuous Raman lasers by using fairly standard silicon processes rather than the somewhat expensive materials and processes required for making lasers today.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 08:21 PM / Comments (0)

Life on Mars?

Space.com: “A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 06:45 PM / Comments (0)

Just how exciting is it?

Rowan Hooper, Wired News: “What thrills us depends on our personal hopes, fears, loves and desires. But now a British designer, working with a computer scientist, is creating a machine that can measure the experience of thrill. The hope is to create an industry-standard measure that can be used to gauge thrilling experiences, and, ultimately, dynamically modify such experiences in real time.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 05:38 PM / Comments (0)

Napster To Go DRM workarounds posted online

Peter Cohen writes for the Playlist Magazine: Less than two weeks after Napster’s new Napster To Go subscription service launched, information on how to defeat the system’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) encoding has been posted online.

Related article(s): Napster to Go away soon? (Ashlee Vance for The Register).

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:17 PM / Comments (0)

MS: we are not blackmailing Denmark

Lucy Sherriff for The Register: “Microsoft has denied reports that it told Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen it would pull Microsoft jobs out of Denmark if the government continued to oppose the European directive on Computer Implemented Inventions (CII).”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 09:08 PM / Comments (0)

Win IE 7.0 on the way

Not that it matters, but Microsoft is actually committed on doing something: “At RSA Conference 2005, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announces Internet Explorer 7.0, designed to add new levels of security to Windows XP Service Pack 2. Feb. 15, 2005, San Francisco.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 04:22 PM / Comments (0)

Xbox 2 coming October?

Games Industry: “You’ll be able to buy the next generation Xbox […] Eurogamer has learnt that the specific timing for the machine’s roll-out is late October or early November, and merely weeks after the US launch.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 08:44 PM / Comments (0)

Never say die: Live Forever

From Wired News Technology: “As part of his daily routine, Kurzweil ingests 250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea. He also periodically tracks 40 to 50 fitness indicators, down to his ‘tactile sensitivity.’ Adjustments are made as needed.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 05:06 PM / Comments (0)

Can This Black Box See Into the Future?

Red Nova: “The machine apparently sensed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre four hours before they happened - but in the fevered mood of conspiracy theories of the time, the claims were swiftly knocked back by sceptics. But last December, it also appeared to forewarn of the Asian tsunami just before the deep sea earthquake that precipitated the epic tragedy.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 11:26 AM / Comments (0)

Attack of the Metal-Eating Plants

From Wired News Technology: “Genetically modified plants may be the green solution for cleaning up contaminated soils.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 11:29 PM / Comments (0)

Get real about interoperability, Mr. Gates

Reported on The Register: Hakon Lie, CTO of Opera Software “welcomes Gates’ new-found enthusiasm for interoperability, but in the following response to Gates, has just a few suggestions about what Microsoft might do to actually achieve it.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 08:33 PM / Comments (0)

Google to host Wikipedia?

From the Wikimedia page: “Google Inc. has made a proposal to host some of the content of the Wikimedia projects. The terms of the offer are currently being discussed by the board. The developer committee has been informed of some of the details via email. A private IRC meeting with Google is planned for March, 2005. Please note that this agreement does not mean there is any requirement for us to include advertising on the site.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 12:22 PM / Comments (0)

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing

Alex Navarro reports for GameSpot: “Not only is it almost completely broken and blatantly unfinished in nearly every way, but even if it weren’t, there’s so little of an actual game to be found here that it would still be terrible.”

Posted by Oleg Ivrii, 08:10 PM / Comments (0)