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Books

Submission + - Amazon Launching eBook Lending Program, Publishers (wsj.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon is starting a program to lend ebooks to Kindle users. It will allow users to borrow one title at a time, but readers will be able to keep the borrowed ebook for as long as they want. The initial library will only have around 5,000 titles, because 'None of the six largest publishers in the U.S. is participating.' The article continues, 'Several senior publishing executives said recently they were concerned that a digital-lending program of the sort contemplated by Amazon would harm future sales of their older titles or damage ties to other book retailers. ... The new program, called Kindle Owners' Lending Library, cannot be accessed via apps on other devices, which means it won't work on Apple Inc.'s iPad or iPhone, even though people can read Kindle books on both devices. This restriction is intended to drive Kindle device sales, says Amazon.'"
Patents

Submission + - IBM patents GPU databases (insidehpc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to the patent applications, using GPU acceleration for databases "may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages." To cover all of its bases, IBM also states that the "program code may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server."
EU

Submission + - First Joint EU-US Cyber Security Exercise (net-security.org)

Submitted by Orome1
Orome1 writes: The first joint cyber security exercise between the European Union and United States is being held today in Brussels, with the support of the EU’s Network and Information Security Agency and the US Department of Homeland Security. The day-long table-top exercise, Cyber Atlantic 2011, is using simulated cyber-crisis scenarios to explore how the EU and US would engage each other and cooperate in the event of cyber-attacks on their critical information infrastructures. More than 20 EU Member States are involved in the exercise, 16 of them actively playing, with the European Commission providing high-level direction.
America Online

Submission + - AOL discontinues LISTSERV (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: Ending a service it has offered for well over a decade, AOL is shutting down its free LISTSERV-based mailing-list hosting operations, the company has told mailing list administrators. "If your list is still actively used, please make arrangements to find another service prior to the shutdown date and notify your list members of the transition details," an email notice sent out by AOL stated. "If you are no longer actively using this service then no other action is required." At the peak of the service's popularity in the late 1990s, AOL was the third-largest provider of mailing lists, serving more than a million users.
Desktops (Apple)

Submission + - Ensign 1 Kickstarter Campaign (kickstarter.com)

Submitted by
Rustybolts
Rustybolts writes: "Only Human Studios have started a Kickstarter campaign to help fund their new game Ensign 1. Ensign 1 is a single/ multiplayer space combat game for Linux, PC and Mac with a interesting twist. You can leave your cockpit of your currently boarded ship. You can then leave your ship when docked to explore larger capital ship and choose to pilot any other ship that happens to be laying around the docking area or take control of the capital ship itself.

Check it out at
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1902082235/multiplayer-space-combat-ensign-1"
NASA

Submission + - Airship to Orbit, altitude record for American tea (suasnews.com)

Submitted by
garymortimer
garymortimer writes: "Success for JP Aerospace and their airship to orbit project. They are claiming an altitude record for the twin envelope development craft by to soaring 95,085 feet above Nevada last month

The atmosphere as a ladder to space.

Balloons have carried people and machines to the edge of space for over seventy years. JP Aerospace is developing
the technology to fly a balloon or more accurately, their relative, the airship directly to orbit.

Flying an airship directly from the ground to orbit is not practical. An airship large enough to reach orbit would not survive the winds near the surface of the Earth. Conversely, an airship that could fly from the ground to upper atmosphere would not be light enough to reach space. The resulting configuration is a three-part architecture for using lighter-than-air vehicles to reach space."
Science

Submission + - The #SciFund Challenge - linking scientists and th (wordpress.org)

Submitted by
jearbear
jearbear writes: "The #SciFund Challenge, created by two scientists at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Sytnehsis aims to get scientists to create research proposals that connect their science with a public non-academic audience. They've brought together 50 scientists, and just launched the #SciFund Challenge on RocketHub! Participants have collaborated on creating proposals with broad appeal, from biofuel catalyst design to the study of cellular cilia to deploying seismic sensor networks (that attach to your computer!). Beyond just the RocketHub site, participants have been using the project blog to discuss how this method of seeking funds is working for them and what it might mean for the future coupling of academic science and society through funding."
Science

Submission + - RSA takes on Scientific Heresy (wattsupwiththat.com)

Submitted by sanzibar
sanzibar writes: Matt Ridley, Angus Millar Lecture 2011 -
How do you know whether you are taking the rational or the irrational side of an argument, the scientific or the pseudoscientific position? Or to put it a slightly different way, when are the heretics right and when are they nutcases? This question is not as easy to answer as it seems.

Many scientific truths began as heresies and fought long battles for acceptance against entrenched establishment wisdom that now appears irrational: the germ theory, continental drift, the use of antibiotics to treat stomach cancer, low-carbohydrate diets, even the idea that crop circles are man-made. Many environmentalists think the scientific conventional wisdom is right about climate change, and explicitly demand obedience to the consensus or even argue that dissent is illegitimate, but at the same time many of the same people once argued that scientific conventional wisdom is wrong about the safety of genetically modified food and that dissent is legitimate.

There is a consensus that the earth is round and natural selection explains evolution, but there is also a consensus that ghosts and gods exist. So the consensus cannot always be trusted, but nor can it always be dismissed. This lecture will explore the problem of how to decide when to question the scientific wisdom and when to accept it.

Full transcript in the link.

audio:
http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2011/angus-millar-lecture-2011-scientific-heresy
Facebook

Submission + - Google starts indexing Facebook comments (theinquirer.net) 1

Submitted by SharkLaser
SharkLaser writes: Users of Facebook Connect have previously enjoyed extra privacy as it was harder for Google to index comments made on the platform. Google, which also runs the competing service Google+, has now started indexing Facebook's public comments as well as comments made on platforms Disqus and Intense Debate, which all used programming that was hard for Google to read. Public comments and links made on those platforms will now be directly visible and searchable in Google. Last month Google+ lost 60% of its active users.
Science

Submission + - Intelligent Absorbent Removes Radioactive Material (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Nuclear power plants are located close to sources of water, which is used as a coolant to handle the waste heat discharged by the plants. This means that water contaminated with radioactive material is often one of the problems to arise after a nuclear disaster. Researchers at Australia's Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have now developed what they say is a world-first intelligent absorbent that is capable of removing radioactive material from large amounts of contaminated water, resulting in clean water and concentrated waste that can be stored more efficiently.

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