Google's Self-Driving Car

Google's project was kept secret until now. Seven cars were equipped with the system outlined above. Cars have gone about 1600 km without any help from man, and about 384000 km with minimum intervention. Even if the project itself was secret, tests were conducted in public on the streets of California.

Our automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps (which we collect using manually driven vehicles) to navigate the road ahead. This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by our cars when mapping their terrain.
-GoogleBlog

Software Freedom Day 2010

Bluepoint Linux Users Elite (BLUE) in cooperation with the Ateneo de Manila University Department of Information Systems and Computer Science (DISCS) and Bluepoint Foundation will celebrate Software Freedom Day with the rest of the world on September 18, 2010 at the Leong Hall Auditorium, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City. Registration is FREE.

Difference between Core 2 Duo and Core Duo

Dual core is simply a generic term referring to any processor package with two physical CPUs in one. The Pentium D, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo and Athlon X2 are all current CPUs that have dual cores in one package.

The Pentium D is simply two Pentium 4 Prescott cpus inefficiently paired together and ran as dual core.

The Core Duo is Intel's first generation dual core processor based upon the Pentium M (a Pentium III-4 hybrid) made mostly for laptops (though a few motherboard manufacturers have released desktop boards supporting the Core Duo CPU), and is much more efficiently than Pentium D.

The Core 2 Duo is Intel's second generation (hence, Core 2) processor made for desktops and laptops designed from the ground up to be fast while not consuming nearly as much power as previous CPUs.


Note - Intel has dropped the Pentium name in favor of the Core architecture as Intel is restructuring and refocusing it's efforts to become number one again (and are doing a fine job, might I add).

The AMD Athlon X2 CPUs have two revisions, the first one is essentially very similiar to the Pentium Ds in that they are simply two Athlon 64 chips fused together, making power requirements quite steep (around 89 watts). The second revision is made more efficiently, like the Core Duos, with much less power consumption (around 65 watts).


There are, of course, other differences, but that is the gist of dual cores as it relates to Intel and AMD.

Difference between DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+RW and DVD-RW

There’s DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, and even DVD-ROM! So what’s the difference between all of these different names, aren’t all DVDs the same? Well, it’s not quite that simple.

Let’s first start with the most obvious difference: some have R and some have RW. The “R” stands for recordable, while the “W” stands for rewriteable.

The main difference between DVD-R and DVD-RW, or DVD+R and DVD+RW is that the R disc formats can only be written to once, and then it is only readable and can’t be erased for the rest of its digital life. While RW discs are can be written to and erased many times, they are both readable and writeable.

“R” discs are perfect if they are only needed to be written to once, such as giving some files to a friend or transferring them between PCs. “RW” discs have their strength in the ability to be used many times over, which is great for routine system backups, etc. And naturally, the RW discs are slightly more expensive than the R discs, but you’ll have to decide if the trade offs are worth the money.

Now, onto the difference between DVD-R and DVD+R. As I just described above, DVD-R & DVD-RW are sister discs, the difference being one is writeable once, while the other is writeable multiple times. The same thing is true for DVD+R & DVD+RW. So the question is, what’s the difference between the plus and minus?

In order to explain this we must take a trip back in time. When DVDs were first being developed, there was no industry standard. Multiple companies were competing to develop what they hoped would be the dominant form of the future.

The DVD-R DVD+R difference can easily be summarized by the following:

• The DVD-R/RW standard was developed by Pioneer, and is used primarily by Apple and Pioneer. These “minus“ discs can only be written to in one layer on the discs surface. In addition, this format is supported by the DVD forum, but is in no way an industry standard. DVD-R/RW discs are cheaper than the “plus” format.
  
  
• The DVD+R/RW format is supported by Philips, Dell, Sony, HP, and Microsoft. These discs can be written to in multiple layers, giving them slightly better and more disc storage than the “minus“ format. Because of this additional capacity, they are slightly more expensive than “minus“ discs.

A couple final things to clear up is the difference between DVD-ROM and DVD+RW, or the other DVD formats I mentioned above. The DVD-ROM drive can only read DVDs, while the other DVD drives can read and write data to DVDs.

And naturally the DVD+RW CD+RW difference can be explained by the “DVD” or “CD” prefix. DVDs, on average, can store up to 4.7 GB of data, while a CD can only store about 700 MB of data, or about 15% of a DVD’s capacity. While CDs are slightly cheaper, in my opinion, the benefits of DVDs are much greater.

Differences between an Ethernet hub or switch and a broadband router

Most broadband routers (“routers” for short) are a combination Ethernet switch (or hub) and Network Address Translator (NAT; see below). They usually include a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, Domain Name Service (DNS) proxy server (see below), and a hardware firewall to protect the Local Area Network (LAN) from malicious intrusion from the Internet.

All routers have a Wide Area Network (WAN) Port. This port connects to the to a DSL or cable MODEM for broadband service (e.g., the Internet) and is usually a 10 MHz 10BASET Ethernet port. A 10 MHz WAN port is sufficient for cable and DSL MODEMs as these devices transfer data at rate that is a fraction of 10 MHz. I have seen no broadband routers with a USB WAN port to connect to a USB cable or DSL MODEM.

Many recent broadband routers are combination routers/Ethernet switch (or hub) that have multiple Ethernet ports to connect more than one PC to form a LAN. These ports allow the PCs to share the WAN port/broadband Internet connection and perform LAN functions, such as Windows file and printer sharing. The LAN ports are usually 100 MHz 100 BASE-TX Ethernet.

Some routers have a single WAN port and a single LAN port and are designed to connect to an existing LAN hub or switch to a WAN.

Ethernet switches and hubs can be connected to router with multiple PC ports to expand a LAN. Depending on the capabilities (kinds of available ports) of the router and the switches or hubs, the connection between the router and switches/hubs may require straight-thru or crossover cables

In short, a hub glues together an Ethernet network segment, a switch can connect multiple Ethernet segments, and a router can do those functions plus route TCP/IP packets between multiple PCs on LAN and a WAN, and much more.