Free Republic

The U.S. Congress has approved an allocation of $57 million for the critical stage of the development of the Nautilus laser anti-rocket technology. Nautilus is a joint Israeli-U.S. project that turns fantasy into reality: Katyusha rockets detected by radar can be destroyed in mid-air by a Nautilus-system laser beam. Israel's Defense Ministry, together with American defense experts, began working on the project several years ago, and four years ago ran successful tests in the deserts of New Mexico. Israel, which is to pay "matching funds" for the project, is threatened by over 10,000 Hizbullah rockets on its northern border. AP...

I'm getting them ever few seconds, and from a variety of sources (it appears, at least according to my firewall log). Any techie info/advice would be appreciated.

<p>SAN FRANCISCO -- Tech job postings on two popular online employment sites have increased sharply, a sign that the long moribund job market may finally be turning around.</p> <p>Craigslist tech job postings in the San Francisco Bay Area have doubled from a year ago and are up 50 percent from six months ago, said CEO Jim Buckmaster. Activity has particularly picked up in the past four weeks, he said.</p>

Tech Layoffs Fading, But No Hiring Boom Monday October 20, 10:37 am ET By Jed Graham While IBM's earnings report Wednesday didn't thrill investors, its plan to add 10,000 jobs next year offered the best tangible hope yet that tech-sector job woes could be ending. IBM said it's confident about the prospects for technology spending and the economy and will add positions in "key skill areas," including high-value services, middleware and Linux. Still, IBM didn't say how many of those jobs will be in the U.S. Recent reports have said IBM plans to boost staff in India to 10,000 by...

Indian software industry buoyed by U.S. recovery By K.C. Krishnadas EE Times October 17, 2003 (12:33 p.m. ET) BANGALORE, India — The Indian software industry is smelling a turnaround in its main market, the United States. The long-anticipated rebound, coupled with a marked uptick in outsourcing, is sending stocks surging here and sparking a hiring boom. When Infosys Technologies Ltd., one of India's best-known software export firms, announced its quarterly results just over a week ago, the stock market bolted forward as it had not done in the last two years. Shares of Infosys and other tech firms rocketed, confirming...

Buoyed by a rise in sales from a year ago, Apple Computer posted fourth-quarter earnings that narrowly topped expectations. The Mac maker posted a net income of $44 million, or 12 cents per share, on revenue of $1.7 billion, for the three months ended Sept. 27. That compares with a net loss of $45 million, or 13 cents per share, on revenue of $1.4 billion in the same quarter a year ago.

U.S. corporate technology purchases may not be increasing in a big way, but chipmaker Intel (INTC ) certainly isn't crying. The Santa Clara (Calif.) outfit's investment in new technology, such as wireless gear, during the long earnings downturn is boosting profits big-time. How big? On Oct. 14, Intel reported that profits had more than doubled from a year ago. Third-quarter net income came in at $1.7 billion, or 25 cents a share, vs. $686 million, or 10 cents a share, in the same period of 2002. Revenue for the quarter was $7.8 billion, vs. $6.5 billion a year ago. The...

Global sales of chip-making equipment rose 5.7 percent to $1.44 billion in August from the same month a year earlier, helped by a recovery in capital spending by semiconductor manufacturers, an industry group said on Wednesday. The August figure was down 22.3 percent from July after two straight month-on-month gains, Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) said in a preliminary data release. July sales were up 2.25 percent compared with June. The volatile data is largely seasonal. For example, equipment orders fell 31.7 percent in August 2002 from the previous month. The narrower month-on-month drop from a year ago suggests...

During the tech boom, Jay Weidner typically received three calls a week from recruiters trying to pry him out of his job as a consulting project manager for software maker Siebel Systems (SEBL ) Inc. The calls stopped when tech went bust -- a good two years ago. But a funny thing happened a few months back. "The headhunters started calling again. Not like they were, but two or three times per month," says Weidner, who started a new job in mid-September with RightNow Technologies Inc., a Bozeman (Mont.) startup that delivers call-center software as a service over the Net....

Tech skills pop up in manufacturing Too few qualified machinists and auto repairers are replacing those who retire, experts say By VICTOR GODINEZ / The Dallas Morning News Traditional tech industries are still losing jobs, but experts say technology jobs are popping up in one of the industries hardest hit by the economic slowdown: manufacturing. "The average age of a machinist in the U.S. is 54. An auto technician is 49," said Tom Applegate, president of the Association for Career and Technical Education ( www.acteonline.org). "Now both of those are highly skilled, highly trained technical jobs. What happens to...

TOKYO -- The threat to Microsoft from the free Linux operating system could intensify with the help of a powerful Asian triumvirate: Japan and South Korea are prodding China to join an effort that promotes alternatives to Windows. Japan has earmarked $8.6 million for the project and will hold a meeting in November for the three governments to strengthen research in Linux, including versions that better handle Asian languages. Like some European countries, Japan, South Korea and China have long been wary of leaving too many government computers and networks dependent on Windows. Many experts see Windows as too prone...

Using several new technologies and more than 1,000 dual-processor Power Mac G5 computers, Virginia Tech University is building a supercomputer cluster that is likely to rank among the fastest in the world.In addition to the G5 machines, the university said it is using a beta version of the latest release of OS X, new networking hardware from Mellanox and Cisco, and cutting-edge configuration and cooling technologies to build the powerful cluster for a fraction of the price of a traditional supercomputer."The total price tag is probably a factor of 10 lower than a machine in this class in the past,"...

GNU Servers Hacked, Linux Software May Be Compromised ByTechweb News In mid-March, someone hacked the primary file servers hosted by the GNU Project, the group which supports the development of many of the components in the Linux operating system, the group acknowledged Wednesday. It warned that the attacker may have inserted malicious code into the free software available for download, including Linux, and posted a set of hashes that users can check against to determine if what they retrieved is clean. The CERT Coordination Center noted in an advisory posted Wednesday that "because this system serves as a centralized...

The SCO(R) Group Announces Final Termination of IBM / Sequent's Contract to Use or License Dynix Software LINDON, Utah, Aug 13, 2003 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- The SCO(R) Group (SCO)(Nasdaq: SCOX) delivered final written notice yesterday to Sequent Computer Systems for termination of its UNIX System V software contract. Sequent is now owned by IBM. The Sequent (IBM) contract was terminated for improper transfer of Sequent's UNIX source code and development methods into Linux. As a result, IBM no longer has the right to use or license the Sequent UNIX product known as "Dynix/ptx." Customers may not acquire a license...

When a laser successfully destroyed an artillery projectile in flight during a recent test, it was a first-time event, said U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command officials in Huntsville, Ala. Over the New Mexico desert at the SMDC's High-Energy Laser Systems Test Facility, the Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser, MTHEL, tracked, locked onto and fired a burst of protons at an artillery projectile, destroying it.An artillery shell is roughly two feet long, compared to a rocket's 10 feet, and is much more difficult to hit because it gives off less heat.The MTHEL Program, managed by USASMDC, is a collaborative program...

Refilled Inkjet Cartridges Going Cheap Sun August 3, 2003 08:26 AM ET By Ellis Mnyandu and Steve James NEW YORK (Reuters) - There's gold in those empty inkjet printer cartridges. A thriving new economy has grown from selling refilled or remanufactured cartridges for up to 80 percent less than manufacturers like Lexmark International LXK.N , Epson 6724.T , Canon 7751.T and Hewlett-Packard HPQ.N charge. And, the big office-supply superstores, such as Staples SPLS.O and Office Depot ODP.N , have got into the act, collecting empties and shipping them to third parties for refilling and selling in their stores under their...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Bomb disposal experts may soon have an alternative to their hazardous hands-on duties, thanks to a laser detector under development at Israel's nuclear research center. The instrument uses a laser beam's ultra-violet spectrum to "light up" molecules in fumes given off by TNT explosives from a distance of eight feet, a spokesman at Nahal Soreq said Wednesday. "This project was launched in the 1990s to contend with the threat of terrorist smugglers on our borders," the spokesman said of the prototype, for which no marketing date has been set. "The benefits to the wider world post-Sept. 11...

A cheap alternative to the lasers used in surgery has been devised using an energy source that is free and abundant - sunshine. The working prototype made by Israeli physicists concentrates sunlight down a fibre-optic cable to provide a tool for surgeons. Jeffrey Gordon and his colleagues at Ben-Gurion University in Israel hope it might one day replace the expensive surgical lasers used in operations such as the destruction of tumours in the liver. The light for the surgical "suntrap" is gathered by a parabolic mirrored dish, 20 centimetres across. This concentrates the light, which is then focused on to...

I have a constant stream of emails from Mailer Daemon from the same address. I just received an email telling me that my email address is going to expire. I also have been told that a lot of my email is not gettng through. I have been using mailwasher and have disabled the filters so I can personally examine what is coming in. Would a technically astute and wonderful Freeper explain? Thank you. The Technically-impaired mlmr

How chat rooms were used in the Iraq war Run silent, run chat By Doug Mohney: Monday 28 July 2003, 06:56 DURING IRAQI Freedom, twelve U.S. submarines lurked beneath the seas within Tomahawk cruise missile range of the unfortunate misbegotten country. Over the course of active hostilities, the sub fleet (plus two Brit subs) fired almost a third of the estimated 800 missiles used during the campaign. More remarkably, the US boats communicated with each other and higher command in real-time via four different chat rooms on a 24 x 7 basis, according to Rear Adm. Paul F. Sullivan, director...