Linked by Howard Fosdick on Fri 2nd Dec 2011 12:12 UTC
If you're modest, think twice before having sex in your van, truck, or RV. Law enforcement uses roving vans with backscatter X-ray technology to peer inside vehicles (the same technology used in airport body scanners). In the Land of the Free, authorities don't request search warrants. More at Forbes here and here. What, you don't want an X-ray bath?
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Member since:2011-01-28
Member since:2006-09-20
Buzzila has the right of it.
"Mutations" occur very frequently - tens of thousands per cell per day, but a very high frequency of them are repaired. See e.g. Friedberg, et al. DNA Repair and Mutagenesis, p.16.
Knowing this, it is perhaps good to know that the risk of cancer from additional radiation is extremely low, but bad to know that randomly speaking someone could get cancer (in fact it may even be highly likely that some few people get cancer because of the stunts our government is pulling.) I'm sure that is all very acceptable for them, as long as they can claim it is "safe".
Edited 2011-12-03 23:57 UTC
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:33 UTC
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/16/13 9:29 UTC
The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/15/13 22:44 UTC
Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote about why OSNews was no longer OSNews: the alternative operating system scene had died, and OSNews, too, had to go with the times and move towards reporting on a new wave of operating systems - mobile, and all the repercussions that the explosion of smartphones and tablets have caused. Still, I was wondering something today: why aren't we seeing alternative operating systems on mobile?More Features »
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2011-12-02
Any dose of ionising radiation has inherent harm through stochastic effects - a several photons could cause a double-strand break which can lead to cancer; given enough radiation, deterministic effects will occur, so epilation and erythema.
I'd be very concerned over the exposure used on these machines - x-ray photons abide the inverse square law, and as mentioned before, it will be attenuated by metal sheeting twice and the contents of the car before being detected. The dose received will invariably be high - even more so if you stand next to the car.
If a pregnant woman and small children would particularly be at risk; furthermore, the skin dose received from these machines is likely to be very high (like the back-scatter machines), again, increasing the likelihood of cancer and other affects.
This is also not taking into consideration the care and quality assurance the machines may or may not be getting. In the UK, x-ray based machinery (in addition to other imaging technology used), by law, has to be constantly assessed in-house and by medical physicist in addition to maintained to ensure that everything is working safely; it is probable that these do not (there was an article on 400 people receiving a dose a lot higher from a CT exam).