sea

Google chosen to digitize Dead Sea Scrolls

If anybody could be forgiven for missing the deadline to opt out of the Google Books settlement, it's probably the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Israel Antiquities Authority has tapped Google to digitize the famous texts, one of the earliest documents ever discovered chronicling the early years of Christianity. CNN reports that Google will be responsible for scanning the 900 manuscripts, which are actually comprised of more than 30,000 fragments discovered in caves around Israel in the 1940s and 1950s.

Israeli researchers had come to worry about the ability of the scrolls to endure further photography, … Read more

Wind may explain Red Sea parting

Here's some fodder for discussion at the next Passover seder. Moses might have gotten some serious help from the wind when he parted the Red Sea as chronicled in the Old Testament.

According to a new computer-modeling study, wind patterns at a bend where an ancient river is believed to have merged with a coastal lagoon along the Mediterranean Sea are such that they could have pushed the waters back and created a temporary land crossing.

The researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado at Boulder made their discovery as part of a larger study of wind's impact on water depths and reported their findings in a recent issue of the online peer-review journal PLoS One. They used archaeological records, satellite measurements, and current maps to reconstruct the likely locations and depths of Nile delta waterways, which have shifted considerably since Moses' time more than 3,000 years ago.

The biblical Exodus account, famously and dramatically presented in the 1956 movie "The Ten Commandments," describes Moses leading the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to eventual safety.

In what is often recounted as a divine miracle, an east wind blows the waters of the Red Sea back, creating a passageway that enables the fleeing Israelities to safely pass through to the other shore. Then, the story goes, the waters engulf and drown Pharoah's pursuing army.

The researchers say this story can possibly be explained by "wind setdown," a phenomenon in which strong offshore winds can temporarily lower water levels in shallow coastal areas.

Using 14 computer models, they found that 63mph winds, lasting for 12 hours, would have pushed back waters estimated to be 6 feet deep. This would have exposed mud flats for 4 hours, creating a dry passage about 2 to 2.5 miles long and 3 miles wide. The water would have been pushed back into a surrounding lake and river channel, creating water barriers on both sides of the exposed mud flats and thus creating a land bridge people could have possibly walked across. … Read more

Start-up launches DOE-backed green server

Start-up SeaMicro has launched a green server based on Intel's power-sipping Atom processor. The company is backed by about $25 million in venture capital and a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

SeaMicro's SM10000 packs 512 Intel Atom processors, storage, interconnect technology, and server management into a relatively compact 17.5-inch-high server. The size is referred to as 10 RU, or rack unit (1 RU equals 1.75 inches). This design saves lots of energy, reducing power consumption by 75 percent, according to SeaMicro.

In a radical departure from standard server architectures, the start-up selected Intel's Atom, a processor most commonly used in Netbooks--tiny laptops. The chip was designed by Intel to be its most power-efficient chip.

Atom, however, was not designed with servers in mind, though SeaMicro believes it has found a niche. "In the Internet data center, the challenge is to handle millions of relatively small, independent tasks like those needed for searching, social networking, viewing web pages, and checking email," SeaMicro said in a statement.

SeaMicro claims there is a mismatch between Internet server design and current central processing units or CPUs. "Volume servers failed to adapt to this fundamental change and remain optimized for (for more traditional server tasks). This mismatch between volume servers and the now dominant Internet workload is the primary cause of the rapid increase in server power consumption and is responsible for the multi-billion dollar power problem in the data center," SeaMicro said.

Three primary technology innovations define the system, according to SeaMicro:

Smaller circuit board: A patented technique in CPU I/O (input/output) virtualization, which reduces non-CPU power draw by eliminating 90 percent of the components from the motherboard. This CPU I/O virtualization allows SeaMicro to shrink a server motherboard from the size of a pizza box to the size of a credit card. Power-efficient interconnect: A supercomputer-style interconnect fabric that can link 512 mini-motherboards into a single system, reducing power draw and space. This fabric provides 1.28 terabits per-second throughput,… Read more

You sank my Battleship!

Battle of Midway is a one-player iPhone adaptation of the popular "Battleship" guessing game (and the iconic Milton Bradley game of the same name).

Gameplay closely mirrors the analog version, with you and an opponent (an enemy AI, in this case) secretly placing rectangular ships on a 10-by-10 grid, which you can do manually or automatically. You then take turns guessing the location of each other's ships by firing at specific squares, and Battle of Midway has both "volley" and "salvo" modes (either fire until you miss or fire once for each of … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1231: Seals with frickin' lasers! (podcast)

We wanted Google to announce its set-top box at Google IO today, but what do we get? A new video codec, an app store in Chrome, and (yawn) Google Wave going into open beta. And, oh yeah, homeland security seals (the marine mammals, not the hulky military guys) protecting our harbors.

Subscribe:  iTunes (MP3) |  iTunes (320x180) |  iTunes (640x360) |  RSS (MP3) |  RSS (320x180) |  RSS (640x360)… Read more

Sea lions take a swim for Homeland Security training (photos)

During exercises focused on practicing elements of local and regional port security plans Tuesday, the United States Navy Marine Mammal Program took part in a joint training program with the San Francisco Police Department dive team designed to identify underwater threats including mines, improvised explosive devices, and enemy divers.

Using highly trained dolphins and sea lions selected for their quickness, intelligence, detection capability, and mobility, officials demonstrated the unique ability of these animals to identify and neutralize threats in cooperation with human teammates. See the full gallery here.

Scanning tool at sea

Hard disk maker Seagate's SeaTools for Windows scans your disk drives for driver corruption, broken master boot records, viruses and Trojans, spyware, and any hardware conflicts. You'll have to take its word that it's working, though, because it doesn't offer any scan details.

SeaTools' user interface is extremely stark: basic menu items line the top of a plain window, with detected drives are listed below. It detected our only drive, along with its serial number, model number, firmware revision, and drive and test status. We went through each test that the program offered, starting with the … Read more

Rescue passengers from a sinking ship

Titanic Rescue is a simple, cartoonish, quick-to-play arcade game in which you rescue dapper little gentlemen from a sinking ship.

The touch-based interface is both fun and challenging: you can touch and "flick" passengers off the ship (hopefully in a helpful trajectory) and you rescue the passengers by sliding a row of lifeboats (and, later, life preservers) underneath the falling passengers. The gameplay is quick, intuitive, and challenging, as you switch back and forth between flicking dudes and maneuvering boats. Passengers will bounce off of boats and full life preservers (although more than three will sink a boat), … Read more

WAM: A sound recording school for women and girls

The Women's Audio Mission is a San Francisco based, nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of women in music production and recording arts. WAM provides hands-on training, experience, career counseling and job placement for women and girls.

I spoke with WAM's founder and executive director, Terri Winston, by phone earlier this week. Before she started WAM seven years ago, she was a college professor and developed the recording arts degree program at City College of San Francisco. Ms. Winston is also an electrical engineer, musician, recording engineer, and record producer.

Steve Guttenberg: Is it fair to describe WAM as a school?

Terri Winston: Yes, but it's small and it doesn't look like a school; more like a studio. The classes are small, with between seven and fifteen students. WAM has 350 to 400 students a year, and we try to funnel them into two- and four-year programs.

SG: Can local musicians and bands record at WAM?

TW: Yes, we offer no- and low-cost recording services for independent artists. We did a band called Built For the Sea that was on Live 105, and we're currently working on other projects.

SG: I truly admire WAM's goals, but recording studios are closing left and right. It's not a growth industry; why train a new generation of engineers? More and more bands are recording themselves, aren't they? … Read more