Conventional materials that turn light into electricity, like silicon and gallium arsenide, generate a single electron for each photon absorbed. Since a photon contains more energy than one electron can carry, much of the energy contained in the incoming light is lost as heat. Now, new research reveals that when graphene absorbs a photon it generates multiple electrons capable of driving a current. This means that if graphene devices for converting light to electricity come to fruition, they could be more efficient than the devices commonly used today.
Here Come the TV Spectrum Prospectors
These early movers are obviously looking to get a hefty return on their investments. They are “no doubt counting on strong demand from wireless buyers and a valuation premium versus what they invested in the stations,” SNL Kagan said.
via Light Reading – Here Come the TV Spectrum Prospectors.
All this spectrum should belong to the taxpayers — not the TV stations.
Mars Rover Curiosity in Safe Mode After Computer Glitch
The issue cropped up Wednesday (Feb. 27), when the spacecraft failed to send its recorded data back to Earth and did not switch into its daily sleep mode as planned. After looking into the issue, engineers decided to switch the Curiosity rover from its primary “A-side” computer to its “B-side” backup on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. EST (22:30 GMT). [Curiosity Rover’s Latest Amazing Mars Photos]
via Mars Rover Curiosity in Safe Mode After Computer Glitch | Space.com.
K-12 student database jazzes tech startups, spooks parents
But the most influential new product may be the least flashy: a $100 million database built to chart the academic paths of public school students from kindergarten through high school.
via K-12 student database jazzes tech startups, spooks parents | Reuters.
Why do Enterprises Favor Centralized SIP Trunking Topologies?
Forrester Consulting estimates a 401% ROI for a typical large organization that deploys a centralized SIP trunking topology using Acme Packet E-SBCs. The Total Economic Impact of Acme Packet’s Session Border Controller, which is based on separate and independent research by Forrester, indicates organizations save by eliminating underutilized TDM trunks serving each location as well as lower per-minute rates that apply to VoIP usage. In fact, each of the customers that Forrester interviewed reported a 40%-60% reduction in monthly service fees upon replacing T1/E1 TDM trunk lines with SIP trunks. Obviously, savings is directly proportional to the number of TDM trunks eliminated.
via Why do Enterprises Favor Centralized SIP Trunking Topologies?.
Understanding Camera Optics & Smartphone Camera Trends, A Presentation by Brian Klug
For readers here I think this is a great primer for what the state of things looks like if you’re not paying super close attention to smartphone cameras, and also the imaging chain at a high level on a mobile device.
Some figures are from of the incredibly useful (never leaves my side in book form or PDF form) Field Guide to Geometrical Optics by John Greivenkamp, a few other are my own or from OmniVision or Wikipedia. I’ve put the slides into a gallery and gone through them pretty much individually, but if you want the PDF version, you can find it here.
via AnandTech – Understanding Camera Optics & Smartphone Camera Trends, A Presentation by Brian Klug.
A Look At YourKarma, A Tiny Wi-Fi Hotspot On A Mission
The YourKarma device creates a WiFi hotspot that moves around with you, and connects your WiFi connected devices to the Internet. This is just like the tethering option available on your pocket computer; but YourKarma sends data through Clearwire’s cellular network.
via A Look At YourKarma, A Tiny Wi-Fi Hotspot On A Mission | TechCrunch.
Yet Another Java Zero-Day
The exploit is not very reliable, as it tries to overwrite a big chunk of memory. As a result, in most cases, upon exploitation, we can still see the payload downloading, but it fails to execute and yields a JVM crash. When the McRAT successfully installs in the compromised endpoint as an EXE (MD5: 4d519bf53a8217adc4c15d15f0815993), it generates the following HTTP command and control traffic:
POST /59788582 HTTP/1.0
Content-Length: 44
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml,*/*
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0)
Host: 110.XXX.55.187
Pragma: no-cache
It should be possible to detect this using something like snort at the firewall/gateway.
VoIPmonitor
VoIPmonitor is open source network packet sniffer with commercial frontend for SIP RTP and RTCP VoIP protocols running on linux. VoIPmonitor is designed to analyze quality of VoIP call based on network parameters – delay variation and packet loss according to ITU-T G.107 E-model which predicts quality on MOS scale. Calls with all relevant statistics are saved to MySQL or ODBC database. Optionally each call can be saved to pcap file with either only SIP protocol or SIP/RTP/RTCP/T.38/udptl protocols. VoIPmonitor can also decode speech and play it over the commercial WEB GUI or save it to disk as WAV. Supported codecs are G.711 alaw/ulaw and commercial plugins supports G.722 G.729a G.723 iLBC Speex GSM Silk iSAC. VoIPmonitor is also able to convert T.38 FAX to PDF.
via VoIPmonitor – VoIP monitoring software – quality analyzer – WAV recorder.
SpaceX overcomes thruster problems with cargo ship
Six-and-a-half hours after launch, follwoing extensive troubleshooting and analysis, it appeared company engineers had resolved the problem, bringing all four sets of thrusters on line and setting the stage for a delayed rendezvous with the space station.
via SpaceX overcomes thruster problems with cargo ship | Cutting Edge – CNET News.