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Intel

Submission + - Intel Developing TV-Internet Convergence Chip (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "The concept of television as an interactive device has never really found traction in a shipping product thus far. However, Intel wants to see that change, and has launched a new SoC (system-on-chip) family meant to give content creators and consumers a broader range of options and a better overall experience. The new CE4100 series will replace Intel's older CE3100. Unlike that chip, which was built around a low-power iteration of the Pentium-M, this new SoC is built around an Atom core and will be clocked at speeds up to 1.2GHz. The newer CE4100 should draw significantly less power than the C3100 and is built on a 45nm process. Intel also has a product development framework for TV-centric applications (widgets). Their Widget Channel Technology Brief defines widgets as: "small Internet applications designed to enhance the the traditional TV watching experience and bring content, information and community features available on the Internet within easy reach your remote."

Submission + - Picasa 3.5 adds face recognition, better geolocati (cio.com.au)

Submitted by Dan Jones
Dan Jones writes: Google's popular photo management software Picasa has added face-recognition features and simplified geotagging with the new 3.5 version. Picasa 3.5 can now automatically group photos in which the same person appears and the application will scan stored photos and create groups of similar faces, putting them into an album titled 'Unnamed People.' Then users can manually add name tags to the photos. What's more, Picasa 3.5 also comes integrated with Google Maps to add geolocation information to photos. Previously, Picasa required that users install and run Google Earth to do this.
Space

Submission + - Are Sunspots Different During This Solar Minimum? (leif.org)

Submitted by
PhreakOfTime
PhreakOfTime writes: "According to Bill Livingston and Matt Penn of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, sunspot magnetic fields are waning. The two respected solar astronomers have been measuring solar magnetism since 1992. Their technique is based on Zeeman splitting of infrared spectral lines emitted by iron atoms in the vicinity of sunspots. Extrapolating their data into the future suggests that sunspots could completely disappear within decades."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Battlestar Galactica Feature Film Confirmed (scifiwire.com)

Submitted by
Dave Knott
Dave Knott writes: "Entertainment Weekly reports that Univeral Pictures has confirmed rumours of a Battlestar Galactica feature film. Directed by Bryan Singer, and co-produced by original series creator Glen Larson, the new movie will not be related to the recently concluded SyFy Network series. Rather, it will be a "complete re-imagining of the sci-fi lore that was invented by Larson back in the 70s"."
Earth

Submission + - Ice-Core Researchers Need to Chill Out

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Ice cores, containing tiny bubbles of trapped air allowing scientists to measure the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from hundreds of thousands of years ago, are one of the most useful research tools for studying climatic parameters such as air temperature, precipitation rate, and solar radiation so that scientists can identify the natural cycles in global warming and cooling. Now Nature reports that the cores, drilled at multi-million-dollar expense from polar and glacial ice, are in danger of losing some of their value because of a lack of proper storage facilities. Oxygen in the cores is gradually lost when cores are stored at -20 to -30 degrees C, the standard temperature of current cold-storage facilities in the United States and Europe resulting in higher ratios of nitrogen to oxygen that can distort the conclusions scientists draw from them. In 2005, Japanese researchers showed that colder storage temperatures could mitigate this gas loss and the ice-core storage facility at the National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo was subsequently upgraded with technology used to maintain cold stores for high-grade tuna at -50 degrees C. Now US researchers are seeking roughly $5 million to rebuild cold-storage facilities at the US Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, New Hampshire, which would also have its storage capacity increased by about 25%. In the interim, Jeffrey Severinghaus, an IPICS steering-committee member from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography says some institutions like his are building smaller units to keep parts of cores at -50 degrees C. These units can be created for about $15,000, but the necessary freezer adaptations void warranties and there are concerns that keeping sections of ice cores in many different locations may hamper researchers' access."
Space

Submission + - Radio waves pushed faster than the speed of light (current.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "A Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist has created a rather awesome gadget that abuses radio waves so severely that they finally give in and travel faster than the speed of light. This may give us an insight to the dynamics of spinning neutron stars.

The article says: "The polarization synchrotron combines the waves with a rapidly spinning magnetic field, and the result could explain why pulsars — which are super-dense spinning stars that are a subclass of neutron stars — emit such powerful signals, a phenomenon that has baffled many scientists.""
Real Time Strategy (Games)

Submission + - Starcraft 2 Drops LAN Support, Battle.net Only (gamespot.com) 2

Submitted by Kemeno
Kemeno writes: Blizzard has announced that they will be dropping LAN support for Starcraft II, citing piracy and quality concerns. Instead, ALL multiplayer games will be hosted through their new Battle.net service. I suppose I shouldn't be suprised by this move, but wasn't LAN play how the original Starcraft became popular? It's the only way I ever played it, and I don't see why Blizzard would alienate casual LAN gamers in favor of forcing their new service upon everyone (well, except for more profit, of course).
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - VirtualBox 3.0 Released (virtualbox.org)

Submitted by royallthefourth
royallthefourth writes: VirtualBox 3.0 was released today. In addition to numerous other fixes and feature additions, it includes experimental support for OpenGL 2.0 and DirectX 9 on Windows guests. This sort of 3D support is a first for freely available virtual machines on Linux.

Comment Re:Yay! (Score 1) 236

by kitezh (#28229657) Attached to: First Look At Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1
To be honest, I prefer the way Netbeans does code completion over Visual Studio. Yes, sometimes you want it to remember the last variable/function you used starting with that letter, but when you have different variables starting with the same characters and you are going through each of them, it becomes a pain. I never could find a way to change it so that it completes what it can, up until the point that the different variations change spelling, then let me type the first letter of the variation I want, then continue completing the word from there.
America Online

Submission + - Time Warner to Spin off AOL

Submitted by ausekilis
ausekilis writes: Ars Technica is running a story that Time Warner will spin off AOL. The interesting part of the story is that both AOL's CEO and Time Warners CEO said effectively the same thing, that AOL will be better off as an independent unit, as opposed to "a cog in the Time Warner wheel". Interesting to note that when they originally merged, the idea was for AOL to be a one-stop shop for all your internet goods. Makes you wonder that if Time Warner had invested in AOL as an exclusive media outlet for movies, TV, music, etc... if AOL would have regained some speed and become the prominent household name it once was, instead of that company that sent us all the free coasters.
Google

Submission + - SPAM: Disguise as GoogleBot to view Hidden Content of a 1

Submitted by
Hungry Hacker
Hungry Hacker writes: "Ever experienced this? You ask Google to search something and it will return a lot of relevant results, but if you try to open the ones with the most promising content, you are confronted with a registration page instead, and the stuff you were looking for will not be revealed to you unless you agree to a credit card transaction first. This means that Google is able to see what a normal netizen cannot see.

The reason behind this is that Google uses a Bot called GoogleBot and most of websites which force users to register or even pay in order to search and use their content, leave a backdoor open for the GoogleBot because a prominent presence in Google searches is known to generate sales leads, site hits and exposure. Examples of such sites are Expert-Exchange, Windows Magazine, .Net Magazine, Nature, and many other sites around the globe.

What if you disguise as GoogleBot then you can also see what GoogleBot can.

To read more visit [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Space

Submission + - XMMNewton takes astronomers to a black hole's edge (spacefellowship.com)

Submitted by
Matt_dk
Matt_dk writes: "Using new data from ESA's XMM-Newton spaceborne observatory, astronomers have probed closer than ever to a supermassive black hole lying deep at the core of a distant active galaxy. The galaxy — known as 1H0707-495 — was observed during four 48-hr-long orbits of XMM-Newton around Earth, starting in January 2008. The black hole at its centre was thought to be partially obscured from view by intervening clouds of gas and dust, but these current observations have revealed the innermost depths of the galaxy."

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