Arsen Ivanov

By Ratheon Corp. [h/t: NewScientistTech (click link to see)]. Only thing this thing needs is a battery that can last a day….sweeet!

Whether or not Anthropogenic Global Warming actually exists, I hope it will not be decided by a scientifically-ignorant ex-lawyer Al Gore whether the “scientific consensus” is reached or not. [h/t: JunkScience.com]

Wow, check this out … [h/t NewScientistTech]

Students hack state grade system, change their grades.

Beamformer chip.

The beamformer chip, I think, is a great advancement. I was recently thinking about how stupid really modern wireless communications are - all participants emit waves in all directions, wasting power, while it makes more sense (from interference point of view as well) to use directional beams. Let us see how this goes!

Nice! h/t: InstaPundit
Source - Popular Mechanics:

“The Protector, which comes mounted with a 7.62mm machine gun, wasn’t originally intended for anti-piracy operations. But according to BAE Systems spokesperson Stephanie Moncada, the robot could easily fill that role. “Down the line, it could potentially be modified for commercial use as well,” she says. Instead of being deployed by a warship to intercept and possibly fire on an incoming vessel, a non-lethal variant of the Protector could be used to simply investigate a potential threat.”

Check it out, exciting video: h/t Hot Air

Be advised: the video is, for lack of better word, mad (in a good way). h/t: NewScientistTech

Please read full thing @ NewScientistTech:

“The toughest passwords, including those used to log in to a Windows Vista computer, would normally take months of continuous computer processing time to crack using a computer’s central processing unit (CPU). By harnessing a $150 GPU - less powerful than the nVidia 8800 card - Elcomsoft says they can cracked in just three to five days. Less complex passwords can be retrieved in minutes, rather than hours or days.”

It turns out that Windows actually does have versions of its core! Read more about this at Ars Technica:

Why “Windows 7″? The number is based on Microsoft’s internal operating system numbers: the first version of Windows NT, 3.1, was given the same number as the “Classic” Windows when it was released in 1992. Since then there has been NT 4, Windows 2000 (NT 5), Windows XP (NT 5.1), and Windows Vista (NT 6). You can check these numbers by typing “ver” at a command prompt on any of these operating systems.

Well, the future of robotic war-machines, and their malfunctioning is here. To put in this perspective, it is necessary to say that this sort of thing is, unfortunately, is inevitable. Ever since some human ancestor, picked up a long stick and fashioned it into the spear, war because inseparable from science. In fact, lion’s share of most important scientific discoveries and experiments were done for purely military purpose. Galileio Galilei first tackled problem of falling objects (the famous experiment with droping object from falling tower of Pisa) at the request of Doj of Pisa, to fix the horrendous accuracy of Pisan artillery.

What difference does it make, whether people settle their scores with sticks crudely shaped into spears or with nuclear weapons? Problem is not the weapon itself, but the reason why it can potentially be put to use. In the end, this whole episode will result in more focus in high-quality programming and technology. Nobody wants to have software for their robotic UAV bombe-aircraft to be buggy. Can you imagine what would software crash mean for such a vehicle, while it is flying armed for a combat mission? Cutting corners and saving costs will not do anymore, no more outsourcing, not in that business.

In general, computer science will in general be more and more motivated on bug-free programming methodologies, or more bug-safe programming languages. This development will be interesting to see.