17290876
submission
john00galt writes:
Employees at a CBS affiliate in Anchorage left an accidental voicemail for an aide to GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller in which they discussed and laughed about the possibility of reporting on the appearance of sex offenders at a Miller rally. And they chatted about responding with a Twitter alert to
16820552
submission
Dthief writes:
Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee.
Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat.
"They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.
The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.
16787978
submission
TemporalBeing writes:
I'm looking to a GPS unit, in-car windshield mount, for my wife. I know there are some units on the market already that run Linux, and I'd like to lend them my supports over their non-Linux brethren. However, I am quite new to looking at them and looking over TomTom's and Garmin's website does not provide any info on what OS they run. Android or another custom Linux is okay; and I need maps for the U.S.A. So, what do you recommend?
16692446
submission
juliangamble writes:
Scientists reported Thursday they had developed a technique that can quickly create safe alternatives to human embryonic stem cells, a major advance toward developing a less controversial approach for treating for a host of medical problems.
The researchers published a series of experiments showing they can use laboratory-made versions of naturally occurring biological signals to quickly convert ordinary skin cells into cells that appear virtually identical to embryonic stem cells. Moreover, the same strategy can then coax those cells to morph into specific tissues that would be a perfect match for transplantation into patients.
16581618
submission
pupitetris writes:
Newton may prove himself right again when he stated that we should better find the forces that explain the movement of the stars, rather than claiming the existence of misterious and undetectable substances: S. Mendoza and X. Hernandez, two mexican astrophysicists, postulate a modification to the equation of the theory of gravity that explain the current observations of large-scale phenomena that couldn't be previously explained using gravity alone, while still retaining consistency with medium and small scale observations. This renders the Dark Matter theory unnecessary, and provides a cleaner and more ellegant solution to outer-space observations that have startled scientists for decades.
16458300
submission
kaptink writes:
Google has released a new service called Transparency Report with the aim to shaming and hopefully detering countries in censoring information. By showing a global google map with each guilty country marked and tagged with the associated stats of requests made to google for the removal of links or information, users can see in real time what dodgy things their government has been up to. Unfortunately China is not included because Chinese officials consider censorship demands as state secrets. A FAQ can be found here: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/faq.html#governmentrequestsfaq
16323408
story
$RANDOMLUSER writes
"A new study described at Physicsworld.com claims that a small percentage of shoddy or self-interested referees can have a drastic effect on published article quality. The research shows that article quality can drop as much as one standard deviation when just 10% of referees do not behave 'correctly.' At high levels of self-serving or random behavior, 'the peer-review system will not perform much better than by accepting papers by throwing (an unbiased) coin.' The model also includes calculations for 'friendship networks' (nepotism) between authors and reviewers. The original paper, by a pair of complex systems researchers, is available at arXiv.org. No word on when we can expect it to be peer reviewed."
14974144
submission
thecarchik writes:
One of the criticisms of hybrid cars has historically been that there's no payback, especially given the cheap gasoline prices in the U.S.
The extra money you spend on a hybrid isn't returned in gas savings, say critics. Well, that may be true, especially when regular gasoline is averaging $2.77 a gallon this week. But as we often point out, most people don't buy hybrids for payback--they buy them to make a statement about wanting to drive green . Nevertheless, a Canadian study has now looked at the question of hybrid payback in a country whose gasoline is more expensive than ours (roughly $3.70 per gallon this week), with surprising results.
The British Columbia Automobile Association projected the fuel costs of 16 hybrids over five years against their purchase price and financing fees. In a study released in late July, only a single one of the 16 hybrids cost less to buy and run than its gasoline counterpart.
14787670
submission
kkleiner writes:
The world’s first human testing of a mind-controlled artificial limb is ready to begin. A joint project between the Pentagon and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the Modular Prosthetic Limb will be fully controlled by sensors implanted in the brain, and will even restore the sense of touch by sending electrical impulses from the limb back to the sensory cortex. Last week APL announced it was awarded a $34.5 million contract with DARPA, which will allow researchers to test the neural prosthetic in five individuals over the next two years.
14621954
submission
BlakeReid writes:
The Library of Congress has announced new exemptions from the DMCA's anti-circumvention measures, including:
DVDs for fair use by remixers, documentary filmmakers, and film professors
Unlocking and jailbreaking cell phones
Video games for security research
Software protected by obsolete dongles
eBooks for text-to-speech conversion
The exemptions are good until the next rulemaking, presumably in 2012 or 2013.
14275962
submission
Kirin Fenrir writes:
Ever wondered why MMOs seem to never appear on consoles? Part of the reason for this seems to now be clear, thanks to FFXIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka: "The main reason why we couldn't go with Xbox 360 was the Xbox Live system. [Live is] different to the normal internet environment, so when we wanted to introduce this game in the same environment as Windows PC it had to be PS3, so that was our choice. Microsoft has a different point of view: they want to have a closed environment for Xbox Live. We're still talking to... We couldn't come to an agreement on Xbox Live."
Combined with the PS3 version delayed due to issues with it's 256mb of system RAM, it's no wonder MMO developers seem to consider consoles more trouble than they're worth.
14214556
submission
jbezorg writes:
It's official. Consumer Reports' engineers have just completed testing the iPhone 4, and have confirmed that there is a problem with its reception. When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone's lower left side—an easy thing, especially for lefties—the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you're in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can't recommend the iPhone 4.
14209176
submission
aapold writes:
In a blog post consumer reports revealed their results of their detailed antenna / reception testing process, involving a shielded room and a base station transmitter, and said their analysis confirmed the faulty antennae as a hardware issue, and is why they cannot recommend the IPhone 4 (but they continue to recommend the IPhone 3GS). In the comments section large numbers of outraged fans vow to cancel subscriptions to consumer reports, even suggest lawsuits...
