The new US stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor, was deployed for the first time to Asia earlier this month. On Feb. 11, twelve Raptors flying from Hawaii to Japan were forced to turn back when a software glitch crashed all of the F-22s’ on-board computers as they crossed the international date line.

The delay in arrival in Japan was previously reported, with rumors of problems with the software. CNN television, however, this morning reported that every fighter completely lost all navigation and communications when they crossed the international date line. They reportedly had to turn around and follow their tankers by visual contact back to Hawaii.

According to the CNN story, if they had not been with their tankers, or the weather had been bad, this would have been serious.

Source: Slashdot

About one-third of Internet users in the U.S. have used a wireless connection to surf the Web or check e-mail, according to a survey released Sunday.

The survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that 34 percent of Internet users have gone online through Wi-Fi service or a cell phone network, including 27 percent who have logged on from somewhere other than their home or workplace.

That’s up from February 2004, when 22 percent of Internet users said they had gone online using a wireless device.

Nineteen percent of Internet users now have a wireless network in their home. That number has nearly doubled since January 2005, when 10 percent said they had a home wireless network.

Three-quarters of the people with both a home wireless network and a laptop computer said they now use their laptop in different parts of the house.

Source: AP

Computers can beat some of the world’s top chess players, but the most powerful machines have failed at the popular Asian board game Go, in which human intuition has so far proven key.

Two Hungarian scientists have come up with an algorithm that helps computers pick the right move in Go, played by millions around the world, in which players must capture spaces by placing black-and-white marbles on a board in turn.

“We are not far from reaching the level of a professional Go player,” Levente Kocsis of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences computing lab Sztaki said.

The 19×19 grid board that top players use is still hard for a machine to use, but the new algorithm is promising because it makes better use of the growing power of computers than did earlier Go software.

Source: ZDNet

Have you ever wondered what happens to those scissors, lighters and the occasional machete confiscated at US airports? Some land in an Ali Baba-style cave, to be auctioned on eBay.

Each month, two tonnes of merchandise is sorted, photographed and put up for sale on eBay and it works, Up to 98 percent of the stuff is sold.

The items are collected from 12 different airports, including JFK and LaGuardia in New York, but also at Boston, Philadelphia and Syracuse, said Ed Myslewicz, spokesman for the State Agency for Surplus Property (SASP) at the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania airport.