A collection of stories tagged 'electronics' from Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/ Copyright 2006 RoomforMilk.com. RoomforMilk is not affiliated with Slashdot.org. Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:41:20 EST Researchers at the University of Maryland say they have discovered a material to replace lead, a potential environmental hazard, in electronics products. The material, bismuth samarium ferrite (BSFO), was found by researchers in the university's A. James Clark School of Engineering. It can be used in products such as biomedical imaging devices and inkjet printers, and if implemented commercially could keep lead out of landfills and the ecosystem, they say. While manufacturers have developed replacements for lead in many products, until now no commercial replacement existed for lead zirconate titanate (PZT) — the material of choice for transducers, actuators, sensors and microelectromechanical systems used in common electronic devices, the university says."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26279 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/31O5_HSdA-E/article.pl Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:05:01 EST A startup company based in Vancouver has developed a new kind of generator that could harvest much more energy from the wind. The design could not only lower the cost of wind turbines but increase their power output by 50 percent to as much as 100 percent, in some locations. Normally, when wind speeds drop, a turbine's engine becomes less efficient. The new engine, from ExRo Technologies, runs efficiently over a wider range of conditions. The design replaces a mechanical transmission with what amounts to an electronic one. Magnets attached to a rotating shaft create a current, but individual coils can be turned on and off electronically at different wind speeds." The company will begin field-testing a small, 5KW wind turbine by early next year.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26235 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/D5x9yABuAlE/article.pl Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:05:06 EST schwit1 sends along an Ars Technica report covering the release of documents obtained under the FOIA suggesting that the Justice Department may have been evading privacy laws in their use of "triggerfish" technology. Triggerfish are cell-tower spoofing devices that induce cell phones to give up their location and other identifying information, without recourse to any cell carrier. "Courts in recent years have been raising the evidentiary bar law enforcement agents must meet in order to obtain historical cell phone records that reveal information about a target's location. But documents obtained by civil liberties groups under a Freedom of Information Act request suggest that 'triggerfish' technology can be used to pinpoint cell phones without involving cell phone providers at all. The Justice Department's electronic surveillance manual explicitly suggests that triggerfish may be used to avoid restrictions in statutes like CALEA that bar the use of pen register or trap-and-trace devices..." The article does mention that the Patriot Act contains language that should require a court order to deploy triggerfish, whereas prior to 2001 "the statutory language governing pen register or trap-and-trace orders did not appear to cover location tracking technology."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26220 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/xiakBSvFspg/article.pl Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:05:01 EST Ostracus writes with news of another contender for a next-gen device suitable for displaying a newspaper page. It's very thin but weighs a bit more than a Kindle. "Plastic Logic, a spin-off company from the Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory, has recently released its design of a future electronic newspaper reader. This lightweight plastic screen copies the appearance, but not the feel, of a printed newspaper. This electronic paper technology was pioneered by the E-Ink Corporation and is used in the current generation Sony eReader and Amazon.com's Kindle. Plastic Logic's device, yet to be named, has a highly legible black-and-white display and a screen more than twice as large compared to current versions available on the market."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26183 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/7WyboqNGM-g/article.pl Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:05:01 EST WillDraven is just one of many who writes to tell us that Circuit City, the United States' 2nd largest consumer electronics retailer, has filed for bankruptcy under chapter 11. This news comes as no surprise as the company has been in financial trouble, recently announcing that it will be closing over one fifth of its stores and laying off 17% of its U.S. employees in the process. 'Larger rival Best Buy, which is based in Minneapolis, has said it might take over stores that distressed rivals close. Yet a flood of discounted merchandise from liquidating Circuit City stores could hurt Best Buy during this holiday shopping season, said Jefferies & Co analyst Dan Binder.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26082 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/oQUQxdPpriA/article.pl Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:05:16 EST Voting works only if you believe your vote gets counted accurately. The 2008 US elections have avoided many well-known problems of the 2004 and 2000 elections, but many problems remain. O'Reilly News interviewed Dr. Barbara Simons, advisor to the Federal Election Assistance Commission, to review electronic voting in the 2008 US elections, discussing the physical security of storing and maintaining election machines, the move from electronic back to paper ballots, and why open source voting machines don't necessarily solve problems of bugs, backdoors, and audits."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26036 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/i-y3tkmiuEo/article.pl Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:05:01 EST The US Army is ramping up the development of technology right out of the X-Files; 'making science fiction into reality' as Dr. John Parmentola — Director of their Research and Laboratory Management — puts it. The list of things currently in the works is amazing: regenerating body parts on 'nano-scaffolding,' telepathy through electronic impulses in the scalp, and self-aware virtual photorealistic soldiers that can be deployed in the battlefield through 'quantum ghost imaging.' To test these they want to use them into a massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft or Eve online."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25995 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/YCRDAp6cdfc/article.pl Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:05:03 EST The US Army is ramping up the development of technology right out of the X-Files, "making science fiction into reality" as Dr. John Parmentola--Director of their Research and Laboratory Management--puts it. The list of things currently in the works is amazing: regenerating body parts on "nano-scaffolding", telepathy through electronic impulses in the scalp, and self-aware virtual photorealistic soldiers that can be deployed in the battlefield through "quantum ghost imaging". To test these they want to use them into a massively multi-player online games like World of Warcraft or Eve online."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25993 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/8qdNTYOt-h8/article.pl Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:05:05 EST Diebold Inc. and its subsidiary, Premier Election Solutions, is using Ghostscript in its electronic election systems even though Diebold and PES 'have not been granted a license to modify, copy, or distribute any of Artifex's copyrighted works,' Artifex claims in court papers filed late last month in US District Court for Northern California. The gs-devel list first brought up the possible GPL violation a year ago."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25969 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/7PvCPCA6_UE/article.pl Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:05:20 EST Apple plans to get into the business of designing microprocessors for handheld devices, according to legal papers that are part of a dispute between IBM and one of its top technology executives. IBM is suing Power chip expert Mark Papermaster for allegedly violating a non-compete agreement and accepting a job at Apple. In court papers, IBM claims Apple wants Papermaster 'to design microprocessors for incorporation in a variety of electronic devices, including handheld devices.' The suit, according Infoweek, also notes that Apple earlier this year bought out P.A. Semi. IBM thinks it knows why."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25902 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/V5jx0JO6PD8/article.pl Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:05:02 EDT According to a story in the Washington Post, 'Maryland and Virginia are going old school after Tuesday's election. Maryland will scrap its $65 million electronic system and go back to paper ballots in time for the 2010 midterm elections. In Virginia, localities are moving to paper after the General Assembly voted last year to phase out electronic voting machines as they wear out. "The battle for the hearts and minds of voters on whether electronic systems are good or bad has been lost," Brace said. The academics and computer scientists who said they were unreliable "have won that battle."'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25881 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/cXAjJu3nTRk/article.pl Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:05:02 EDT According to the Optical Society of America, U.S. researchers have been able to create a practical optical fiber with a silicon core. As they were able to use the same commercial methods that are used to develop all-glass fibers, this might pave the way for future silicon fibers as viable alternatives to glass fibers. The scientists note that this should help increase efficiency and decrease power consumption in computers and other systems that integrate photonic and electronic devices. Here is a good summary by the lead researcher: 'In the past, we've needed one structure to process light and another to carry it. With a silicon fiber, for the first time, we have the ability to greatly enhance the functionality in one fiber.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25852 http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/tOcS8v5IXbc/article.pl Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:05:36 EDT According to the Optical Society of America, U.S. researchers have been able to create a practical optical fiber with a silicon core. As they were able to use the same commercial methods that are used to develop all-glass fibers, this might pave the way for future silicon fibers as viable alternatives to glass fibers. The scientists note that this should help increase efficiency and decrease power consumption in computers and other systems that integrate photonic and electronic devices. Here is a good summary by the lead researcher: 'In the past, we've needed one structure to process light and another to carry it. With a silicon fiber, for the first time, we have the ability to greatly enhance the functionality in one fiber.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25844 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/tOcS8v5IXbc/article.pl Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:05:03 EDT Finland piloted a fully electronic voting system in municipal elections last weekend. Due to a usability glitch, 232 votes, or about 2% of all electronic votes were lost. The results of the election may have been affected, because the seats in municipal assemblies are often decided by margins of a few votes. Unfortunately, nobody knows for sure, because the Ministry of Justice didn't see any need to implement a voter-verified paper record. The ministry was, of course, duly warned about a fully electronic voting system, but the critique was debunked as 'science fiction.' There is now discussion about re-arranging the affected elections. Thanks go to the voting system providers, Scytl and TietoEnator, for the experience."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25833 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/OWrXJQBpQX0/article.pl Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:05:07 EDT API Lead at Twitter, Alex Payne, writes today that the Internet was 'built wrong,' and continues to be accepted as an inferior system, due to a software engineering philosophy called Worse Is Better. 'We now know, for example, that IPv4 won't scale to the projected size of the future Internet. We know too that near-universal deployment of technologies with inadequate security and trust models, like SMTP, can mean millions if not billions lost to electronic crime, defensive measures, and reduced productivity,' says Payne, who calls for a 'content-centric approach to networking.' Payne doesn't mention, however, that his own system, Twitter, was built wrong and is consistently down."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25827 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/KAsY2kE-7Xk/article.pl Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:05:06 EDT Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week. This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for "Barack Obama" kept flipping to "John McCain"."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25795 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/tCjb2yx1H9U/article.pl Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:05:06 EDT Lots of open source hardware articles making the rounds this week, first up — Wired has an excellent piece on the Arduino project, an open source electronics prototyping platform, its founders and business model (they have sold over 50,000 units). And next up MIT's Tech Review has a profile on a few open source hardware businesses including NYC based Adafruit Industries best known for projects like the open source synth (x0x0b0x) and 'fun' projects like the Wave Bubble, the open source cell phone/wifi/GPS/RF jammer."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25743 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/vhjcNZX6iFc/article.pl Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:05:06 EDT Last week, the Dutch court subjected two kids of ages 15 and 14 to 160 hours of unpaid work or 80 days in jail, because they stole virtual property from a 13-year-old boy. The boy was kicked and beaten and threatened with a knife while forced to log into Runescape and giving his assets to the two perpetrators. This ruling is the first of its kind for the Netherlands. Ars Technica has some more background information." In Japan, meanwhile, a woman has been arrested for "illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data" after (virtually) killing her (virtual) husband.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25731 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/sY0y3gk9UnQ/article.pl Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:05:03 EDT Scientists at McGill University in Montreal say they've discovered a new state of matter that could help extend Moore's Law and allow for the fabrication of more tightly packed transistors, or a new kind of transistor altogether. The researchers call the new state of matter 'a quasi-three-dimensional electron crystal.' It was discovered using a device cooled to a temperature about 100 times colder than intergalactic space, following the application of the most powerful continuous magnetic field on Earth."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25716 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/InS_0ZUl5Sk/article.pl Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:05:09 EDT We just completed having our basement gutted and our house decontaminated from mold. The finished basement is gone, my office floor has been removed as well as 24' of drywall around the base of the room. So, we had a full home theater downstairs along with a couple of computers in the electronics closet that were completely immersed (rainwater, not sewage). We moved them to a sheltered area outside and covered them with a plastic tarp. Since the electronics were off when the water hit them, 1) do I have a chance of recovering them? 2) If so, is there a way to clean them with some sort of liquid bath that would not damage the electronics? and 3) I don't want to bring moldy pieces back in the clean house. How could I decontaminate the electronics themselves, pre-bath? Not looking to save the speakers, just the amp, DirecTV box, video switch, etc. Thanks for any help, here, Slashdot." Read on for more details of this reader's plight.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25662 http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/UJ3ZaY-5zLA/article.pl Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:05:14 EDT We just completed having our basement gutted and our house decontaminated from mold. The finished basement is gone, my office floor has been removed as well as 24' of drywall around the base of the room. So, we had a full home theater downstairs along with a couple of computers in the electronics closet that were completely immersed (rainwater, not sewage). We moved them to a sheltered area outside and covered them with a plastic tarp. Since the electronics were off when the water hit them, 1) do I have a chance of recovering them? 2) If so, is there a way to clean them with some sort of liquid bath that would not damage the electronics? and 3) I don't want to bring moldy pieces back in the clean house. How could I decontaminate the electronics themselves, pre-bath? Not looking to save the speakers, just the amp, DirecTV box, video switch, etc. Thanks for any help, here, Slashdot." Read on for more details of this reader's plight.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25660 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/UJ3ZaY-5zLA/article.pl Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:05:01 EDT After years of people complaining about their luggage locks being broken in the name of the Transportation Security Administration, and after countless properly-stowed utilities and tools had been scrutinized from a paranoid point of view, an employee of the TSA (which is part of the Department of Homeland Security) has been captured with evidence of over $200,000 worth of stolen property he was selling on eBay. With the help of local police and the USPS, a search of his house found a great deal of property pilfered from the un-witnessed searches that occurred after luggage had been checked, where the rightful owner was not allowed. 'Among the items seized were 66 cameras, 31 laptop computers, 20 cell phones, 17 sets of electronic games, 13 pieces of jewelry, 12 GPS devices, 11 MP3 players, eight camera lenses, six video cameras and two DVD players, the affidavit said.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25636 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/XjE2G3AltLo/article.pl Sun, 19 Oct 2008 15:05:15 EDT It's rare that that a copyright case is heard in the Australian High Court, let alone a case heard by all seven sitting judges. At stake is a small company IceTV (which we discussed when it launched four years back) taking on Australia's largest television station, the Nine Network, over the copyright status of the weekly broadcast schedule. That is, the schedule itself, not any synopsis or description of the individual programs. Users of PVRs such as MythTV will be well aware of the hassle it is the get a reliable program schedule stream to use for recordings. The saga has gone on for more than two years with Nine unsuccessfully suing IceTV, but later winning on appeal. At issue is whether a list of facts like an electronic program guide is a 'compilation' protected under Australian copyright law. This has implications for the copyright status of many publicly available databases and the limits to which the information can be distributed."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25626 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/-M2Q0wOwt54/article.pl Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:05:02 EDT highways sends word that preliminary investigations into a Qantas Airbus A330 mishap where 51 passengers were injured has concluded that it was due to the Air Data Inertial Reference System feeding incorrect information into the flight control system — not interference from passenger electronics, as Qantas had initially claimed. Quoting from the ABC report: "Authorities have blamed a faulty onboard computer system for last week's mid-flight incident on a Qantas flight to Perth. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said incorrect information from the faulty computer triggered a series of alarms and then prompted the Airbus A330's flight control computers to put the jet into a 197-meter nosedive... The plane was cruising at 37,000 feet when a fault in the air data inertial reference system caused the autopilot to disconnect. But even with the autopilot off, the plane's flight control computers still command key controls in order to protect the jet from dangerous conditions, such as stalling, the ATSB said."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25535 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/CntpAPCdv10/article.pl Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:05:02 EDT Just 10 days ago, 130M Brazilian voters were turned into users of one of the largest Linux deployments worldwide: the 400,000 electoral sections in all of the 5,563 Brazilian municipalities were running electronic voting machines, and the Linux kernel was running in all of them. These voting machines have been used in Brazil since 1996, and are rugged, self-contained, low-spec PCs. We've discussed the technical details of this Linux deployment and implementation elsewhere, but I thought it would be interesting to show some pictures (and a movie) of Linux booting on these voting machines. So I asked for official permission and thus was helped by a technician while I took some quick pictures and made a small movie showing the boot process, where you can actually read the kernel messages."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25528 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/6qkNdEvtEXs/article.pl Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:05:08 EDT