SDR News

 

~~~~~~~SDR2008-09-12~~~~~~~

 

This is SDR News for September 12, 2008. My name is Andy McCaskey, and this is a summary of recent news highlights from Slashdot, Digg, and Reddit. Here's what's new on SDR News.

 

 

CareerBuilder's new survey finds that of those hiring managers who have screened job candidates via social networking profiles, one-third reported they found content that caused them to dismiss the candidate from consideration.' up from 11 percent in 2006. Some red flags: content about applicant using drugs or drinking, inappropriate photos and bad-mouthing former bosses. An additional 9 percent said they don’t currently use social networking sites to screen potential employees, but they plan to start. Hiring managers are using the Internet to get a more well-rounded view of job candidates in terms of their skills, accomplishments and overall fit within the company."

 

 

Apple 's latest version of iTunes crashes Windows Vista when an iPod or iPhone is connected to the PC, scores of users have reported on Apple's support forum. Plug in and Vista crashes and shows the 'blue screen of death.' The errors began showing up immediately after updating iTunes to Version 8.0, which Apple released Tuesday as part of its iPod refresh. ."

The thread had been viewed nearly 10,000 times and sported almost 300 messages, also quickly accumulated theories about the cause. The Vista error message, for example, fingered an Apple-provided USB driver.

 

 

For a long time, you've been looking for a way to securely store my files online without being tied to a single vendor — whose survival my storage depends on. A Zurich-based firm called Caleido is aiming to provide, with a free online storage service known as Wuala that was recently introduced to the public. Wuala has a way to do this, according to this story in the Economist. They use donated disk space of users to scatter your encrypted files over multiple computers. The system has to compensate for the fact that the participating computers will come and go from the Internet in an unpredictable way.

So the challenge is how to minimize the number of copies of the same file that have to be distributed. Copying costs participants both storage space and bandwidth. Yet there have to be enough copies to ensure that there is at least one available most of the time. Wuala is a combination of peer to peer sharing and aggressive encoding and error correction makes it possible to offer uptime that's competitive with commercial solutions, although it is totally decentralized. Most commercial online-storage services use centralized servers. Although these are generally reliable, they sometimes do fail.

 

 

The BBC has a report about the fossil forests found in coal mines in Illinois. The group reported one discovery last year, but has since identified a further five examples. They are fossilized rain forests, with the roots hanging down from the ceiling. Tree trunks, stumps, fallen 30 meter logs with intact crowns, plus a rich diversity of plants. The ancient vegetation, now turned to rock and is visible in the ceilings of mines covering perhaps 25 thousand acres in area. These were among the first forests to evolve on the planet. These are the largest fossil forests found anywhere in the world at any point in geological time. It is quite extraordinary to find a fossil landscape preserved over such a vast area; and we are talking about an area the size of a small city.

 

 

A new breed of solar tower may soon be sprouting up in Namibia, providing the nation with a carbon-free source of electricity and food during the day or night. At one and a half kilometers tall and 280 meters wide, they create a massive solar updraft that could potentially produce 400MW of energy each. There is a massive central chimney with the wind turbine at the base of the chimney, and then a surrounding cloth or plastic disk covering hundreds of acres, suspended perhaps ten or fifteen feet in the air. Solar updraft towers generate energy by using sunlight to heat the air within a vast transparent greenhouse situated at the base of the chimney. As the hot air rises, it is funneled into the reinforced concrete chimney, driving a series of wind turbines which in turn generate energy. The structure’s greenhouse base provides the perfect environment for growing crops, which actually allow the plant to produce energy after the sun has set. The water used for crops is heated during the day and transfers this energy to the tower at night. Once the towers are constructed they require very little maintenance.

 

NASA astronauts will need power sources when they return to the moon and establish a lunar outpost. NASA engineers are exploring the possibility of nuclear fission to provide the necessary power, and they are taking initial steps toward a non-nuclear technology demonstration of this type of system. A nuclear reactor to be used in space is much different than Earth-based systems. There are no large concrete cooling towers, and the reactor is about the size of an office trash can. The energy produced from a space reactor also is much smaller but more than adequate for the projected power needs of a lunar outpost.

The nuclear reactor has been buried below the lunar surface to make use of lunar soil as additional radiation shielding. The engines that convert heat energy to electricity are in the tower above the reactor, and radiators extend out from the tower to radiate into space any leftover heat energy that has not been converted to electricity. The power system would transmit a steady 40 kW of electric power, enough for about eight houses on Earth, and certainly enough to power the lunar outpost.

 

 

Wireless service to more than 90% of U.S. cell phone subscribers, comes from  AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless. How strange that all four doubled the cost of test messages. Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) has started an inquiry on the rising prices of text messaging (up 100% since 2005) that has occurred almost in sync with the consolidation of 6 major carriers down to 4. Sprint doubled the rate of its text messages last fall and that the other three large cell phone service providers quickly followed suit. It may be a concidence appears that each of the companies has changed the price for text messaging at nearly the same time, with identical price increases.

 

 

Apple on Friday will unleash iPhone Software v2.1, a major bug fix release for all iPhone owners that will include a number of other improvements that iPod touch users are discovering as part of yesterday's similarly number iPod touch update. There should be fewer call drops and significantly improved battery life for most customers. In addition, the update will patch a number of bugs related to third-party App Store applications, namely crashes experienced by those users who've installed a large number of apps. Backing up to iTunes will be "dramatically faster." What's more, icons of updated applications now retain their pre-set position on the Touch's home screen, rather than being thrust to the end of the home screen, where they previously needed to be forcibly repositioned by the user. changes to the iPod app's Podcast manager. A completely filled blue dot next to a podcast subscription serves as a notification that a new episode is available, while a half dot means that a user hasn't finished listening to a previous episode.

 

 

With the great advantages of cell phones also comes responsibility. There is certainly proper and improper cell phone etiquette, and unfortunately, improper cell phone etiquette is still rampant amongst the general population. One prime example of bad cell phone etiquette is people yelling into their cell phones. People talk much louder into the cell phone than a regular phone. Of course, that's extremely annoying for all those nearby. A lot of people will excuse themselves into another room when taking a call. So why do people with normal speaking volumes yell into their cell phones? Actually, it’s a pretty simple explanation. Household telephones, or landlines, have a microphone in the receiver that amplifies your voice into the ear piece. When you talk into a landline, your voice is captured and replayed through the ear piece, so you hear your own voice loud and clear.

It's called sidetone.  With cell phones, there is no sidetone, to remove one more source of potential acoustic feedback. Your own voice is not amplified into the earpiece, so the only sound you hear is from your mouth. Yet all those years of landline experience tells you that if the line is working, you are able to hear yourself on the call. So it’s no surprise that when most of us made the switch from landlines to cell phones, we carried over a bunch of our habits.

 

_______SDR2008-09-12_______

 

That's SDR News for tonight, and for the week. My name is Andy McCaskey. I have no relationship to Slashdot, Digg, or Reddit other than a regular reader. You can check out show links and additional comments on today's news at Slashdotreview.com. Mobile distribution by Stitcher at Stitcher.com. Comments and suggestions to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . and SDRNews is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. SDRNEWS is also available through Blubrry at Blubrry.com. Thanks for listening -- have a good weekend, and I will see you Monday with another episode of SDRNews.