The BBC have made available to the public the beta of their new homepage which is likely to be a close to finished product unless there are any major problems through testing it or if it is disliked by the public.
Drupal Association Member
Dec200724
Bible put on a pinhead-size chip
Researchers in Israel say they have succeeded in putting a version of the Bible on a chip smaller than a pinhead.
Its 300,000 words in Hebrew were inscribed on a silicon surface at the Haifa Institute of Technology.
Scientists say the aim of the project is to increase young people’s interest in nanoscience and nanotechnology.
The record for the smallest copy is held by a Bible measuring 2.8×3.4x1cm (1.1×1.3×0.4in), weighing 11.75g (0.4 ounces) and containing 1,514 pages.
The 0.5sq-mm (0.01sq-in) nano-Bible was written on a silicon surface covered with a thin layer of gold (20nanometres thick – 0.0002mm).
It was written using a device called Focused Ion Beam (Fib).
“When we send the particle beam toward a point on the surface, the gold atoms bounce off of this point, thus exposing the silicon layer underneath,” Ohad Zohar, one of the project’s managers at Technion, said.
“By sending a particle beam towards various points on the substrate, we can etch any pattern of points, especially one that represents text.”
The next step for Technion researchers is photographing the Bible and displaying it on a giant wall within the Faculty of Physics.
Source: BBC
What a huge waste of time and resources. Why on earth would they do this, no one is going to be able to read it without an electron microscope anyway, and they could just read the bible in a book.
I am sure it probably cost quite a bit to achieve as well which just makes the whole point of this exercise pointless.
If you want young people to be interested in nanoscience and nanotechnology let them play Crysis on a good computer that can actually run the game properly, that has a nano suit in it. Now that is much more interesting then a book that a large portion of the world hasn’t read and has no interest in reading.
Dec200723
Crysis – 32bit vs 64bit on Windows Vista x64
After finding out the performance of Crysis on a Windows Vista x64 machine running in x64 mode in DX10, I wondered about how much different it made over 32-bit.
Dec200718
Excellent New Stats from Valve for Team Fortress 2
Often praised for their outstanding games winning awards for all their games, but also critised for their failure to keep hackers out of their online games and some huge glitches that prevent people from enjoying the masterpieces and also Steam have released statistics for Team Fortress 2.
The stats can be found on the Valve website. The stats are between the 18th November and 18th December and show which classes were the most deadly, how many wins per team on the maps and also more interesting. The locations of where people die the most on each map, which can be found at the very bottom of the page.
With these maps you do have to ask yourself how some people died on cp_well on the very far left where there is no actual playable area?
Similar stats can also be found for Half Life 2: Episode 2.
Dec200716
Honda Advert – UK
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=118Lh7jnHXI
So, a Honda feels like driving with a 8 year old kid in your car trying to imitate the sounds the car is doing…just makes you want to go out and buy a Honda doesn’t it. They also seem to have forgotten to design a nice car…
Dec200713
Crysis Benchmark – DX10 Vista x64
Here are some benchmark results for a medium-high spec PC running Crysis on Microsoft Windows Vista x64.
The PC in question is the following specification:
- Intel Core2Duo E6750 overclocked to 3.2GHz
- 4GB DDR2 PC6400 RAM
- 250GB SATA 7200RPM HDD
- Nvidia 8800GTS 320MB overclocked to 560MHz core, 850MHz memory
This including case and PSU etc, excluding monitor and speakers can be bought for around £700-£750, which isn’t really a lot, bringing it around £1000-£1200 with speakers and 22″ widescreen monitor.
The benchmark was carried out on Windows Vista 64-bit edition in DirectX 10 mode.
The benchmark tool used was the Crysis Benchmark Tool made by the team at Crymod and can be downloaded from Crymod or Guru3D.
Dec200713
Aston Martin V12 Vantage RS
At the official opening of Aston Martin’s first ever dedicated design center in Gaydon, Warwickshire, on Tuesday 11 December, Dr Ulrich Bez, Chief Executive Officer, thrilled an audience of more than seven hundred VIP guests with a surprise unveiling of a stunning new 600bhp performance concept car; the V12 Vantage RS.
The V12 Vantage RS concept is based on Aston Martin’s critically acclaimed V8 Vantage coupe, but the company’s design and engineering team have fully exploited the design flexibility of their unique VH architecture and the motor sport development of their 6.0 litre V12 engine to create a dramatic and production feasible concept car focussed on extreme performance and dynamics.
Source: Serious Wheels
Dec200713
Opera accuses Microsoft of anti-competitive behaviour
Microsoft has once more come under fire for allegedly anti-competitive behaviour – this time from software rival Opera. The Norwegian company, which makes an internet browser of the same name, has filed a complaint with European Union officials accusing Microsoft of stifling competition.Opera, which has around 12 million users worldwide, said today that Microsoft had been acting anti-competitively by bundling its Internet Explorer program with the Windows operating system.
“We are filing this complaint on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them,” said Jon von Tetzchner, the chief executive of Opera. “We cannot rest until we’ve brought fair and equitable options to consumers worldwide.”
The company said it was looking for a series of measures from European officials, including forcing Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer or allowing rival products to be preinstalled in Windows, and compelling Microsoft to follow design guidelines issued by web standards groups.
Source: Guardian
Microsoft is once again most likely going to have legal action simliar to that of the Windows Media Player antitrust suit in which the EU fined Microsoft €280M.
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