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Earth

An Animal That Lives Without Oxygen 166

Julie188 writes "Scientists have found the first multicellular animals that apparently live entirely without oxygen. The creatures reside deep in one of the harshest environments on earth: the Mediterranean Ocean's L'Atalante basin, which contains salt brine so dense that it doesn't mix with the oxygen-containing waters above."
Patents

Submission + - A Patent Thicket for Hybrid Cars - From Toyota 1

Lorien_the_first_one writes: Toyota is hoping to benefit from new Obama Administration regulations for automobiles here in the US. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Since it started developing the gas-electric Prius more than a decade ago, Toyota has kept its attorneys just as busy as its engineers, meticulously filing for patents on more than 2,000 systems and components for its best-selling hybrid. Its third-generation Prius, which hit showrooms in May, accounts for about half of those patents alone.

"Toyota's goal: to make it difficult for other auto makers to develop their own hybrids without seeking licensing from Toyota, as Ford Motor Co. already did to make its Escape hybrid and Nissan Motor Co. has for its Altima hybrid.
Internet Explorer

Submission + - Is IE usage share collapsing? 1

je ne sais quoi writes: "Net Applications normally releases its statistics for browser and operating system usage share on the first of every month. This month however, the data has not shown up, only a cryptic message has appeared that states they are reviewing the data for inexplicable statistical variations and that it will be available soon. Larry Dignan at ZDNet has a blog post that might explain what is happening: Statcounter has released some data that shows a precipitous drop in IE browser use in North America. At the end of May, StatCounter shows IE usage share at around 64%, at the beginning of June it is now about 56%, an astounding 8% drop in one month.

While interesting, it should be remembered the difficulties in estimating things like browser usage share, and this could very well be a change in how browsers report themselves, or other statistical anomaly, so it should probably be healthy to remain skeptical until this is confirmed by other organizations. Have any slashdotters seen drops in IE usage share for web-sites they administer?"
Transportation

Submission + - SAHIMO Hydrogen Vehicle Gets 568km per Liter (inhabitat.com)

Mike writes: "Students from Turkey's Sakarya University have unveiled a remarkable attempt at creating Europe's most fuel efficient vehicle. Dubbed the Sahimo, their pint-sized hydrogen car is cable of eeking out an incredible 568 Kilometers on 1 Liter of Fuel (about 353 miles on a quarter gallon). An aerodynamic carbon fiber construction keeps the vehicle's weight down to less than 110 kilograms, and the designers hope to push the SAHIMO's performance even further to a full 1,000 kilometers/per 1 liter of fuel before participating in the Global Green Challenge in October."
Google

Google Apps Leave Beta 116

Today Google announced that they're removing the "beta" label from Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk. They said, "We've come to appreciate that the beta tag just doesn't fit for large enterprises that aren't keen to run their business on software that sounds like it's still in the trial phase." Quoting the NYTimes: "'Obviously we haven't had a consistent set of policies or definitions around beta,' said Matt Glotzbach, a director of product management at Google. Mr. Glotzbach said that different teams at Google had different criteria for what beta meant, and that Google felt a need to standardize those. ... Practically speaking, the change will mean precious little to Gmail's millions of users. But it could help Google's efforts to get the paid version of its package of applications, which includes Gmail, Calendar, Docs and other products, adopted inside big companies."
Input Devices

Epic Sticking With Classic Controllers For Now 64

Cliff Bleszinski, design director for Epic Games, said in an interview with Develop that while motion control schemes like Project Natal look interesting, Epic will probably be sticking with classic controllers "for the foreseeable future." He said, "Microsoft came down a few weeks before E3 and gave us a demo, and they're now shipping out the dev kits; I think it's great. When you start combining the motion-capture, the facial recognition, and the vocal recognition you can create some unique experiences. And of course more accessibility is always a good thing. When you build an interface like that though you need to [specifically] design a game for it. It can't just be tacked on."

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