fermion writes "The Register is reporting that Palm has sent a note to the Pre Dev Wiki asking it to stop discussing tethering. Palm is worried that its US carrier partner, Sprint, is none too eager to have users tether the game-changing tetherable smart phone. While the communication was informal, not legal, the development forum is evidently eager to avoid any possibility of lawsuits, so has rapidly agreed. Perhaps, like the iPhone, the Pre is going have a vigorous underground. What is interesting is that the Pre, like the iPhone (allegedly), can be tethered outside of the US; but even those customers are being denied apparently lawful information to satisfy the US exclusive agents."

KentuckyFC writes "Scientists have found a way to join buckyballs together so that they form buckywires. The wires form when buckyballs are dissolved in an aromatic hydrocarbon called 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene. The solvent links the balls together to make wires shaped like a string of pearls, which then precipitate out. This relatively simple procedure opens the door to industrial-scale manufacture. Buckywires ought to be efficient light harvesters because of their great surface area and the way they can conduct photon-liberated electrons. But perhaps the area of greatest interest is drug delivery. The researchers suggest that buckywires ought to be safer than carbon nanotubes because the production method is entirely metal-free. This contrasts with the production of nanotubes, which are formed in a reaction catalyzed by metallic nanoparticles."

Kristina at Science News writes "The RNA world hypothesis proposed 40 years ago suggested that life on Earth started not with DNA but with RNA. Now a team of scientists bolsters this hypothesis, having assembled RNA in the lab from a mixture that resembles what was likely the primordial soup. 'Until now,' Science News reports, 'scientists couldn't figure out the chemical reactions that created the earliest RNA molecules.' The new work started the RNA assembly chemistry from a different angle than what earlier work had tried."

Mike writes "Law prof Eugene Volokh blogs about a US House of Representatives bill proposed by Rep. Linda T. Sanchez and 14 others that could make it a federal felony to use your blog, social media like MySpace and Facebook, or any other Web media 'to cause substantial emotional distress through "severe, repeated, and hostile" speech.' Rep. Sanchez and colleagues want to make it easier to prosecute any objectionable speech through a breathtakingly broad bill that would criminalize a wide range of speech protected by the First Amendment. The bill is called The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, and if passed into law (and if it survives constitutional challenge) it looks almost certain to be misused."

wjousts writes "Technology Review has an article comparing various search results from Wolfram Alpha and Google. Results vary. For example, searching 'Microsoft Apple' in Alpha returns data comparing both companies stock prices, whereas Google top results are news stories mentioning both companies. However, when searching for '10 pounds kilograms,' Alpha rather unhelpfully assumes you want to multiply 10 pounds by 1 kilogram, whereas Google directs you to sites for metric conversions. Change the query to '10 pounds in kilograms' and both give you the result you'd expect (i.e. 4.536 kg)."

Al writes "There's been a lot of focus on "clean coal" lately, but a Canadian start-up called Atlantic Hydrogen is developing a way to make natural gas more environmentally friendly. The process involves using a plasma reactor to separate hydrogen and methane in the gas. The procedure also turns carbon emissions into high-purity carbon black, a substance that is used to make inks, plastics and reinforced rubber products. Utility companies could potentially sell the carbon black, making the process more financially attractive."

An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post's Security Fix is reporting that hackers broke into servers at the Virginia health department that monitors prescription drug abuse and replaced the homepage with a ransom demand. The attackers claimed they had deleted the backups, and demanded $10 million for the return of prescription data on more than 8 million Virginians. Virginia isn't saying much about the attacks at the moment, except to acknowledge that they've involved the FBI, and that they've shut down e-mail and a whole mess of servers for the state department of health professionals. The Post piece credits Wikileaks as the source, which has a copy of the ransom note left behind by the attackers."

GamePolitics writes "Seven anti-war protesters were arrested in Philadelphia on Saturday during a protest rally and march which targeted the Army Experience Center, a high-tech recruitment center which uses PC and Xbox games and simulations to attract potential recruits. GamePolitics was on hand to cover the protest, and took video of the arrests. A local news station also reported on the rally, and the Peace Action Network released a statement saying, "In its desperate approach to meet recruiting numbers, the military is teaching the wrong values to teenagers. Sugarcoating combat experience with virtual war is a dishonor to those with real war experience."

theodp writes "Barack Obama has squared up for a major battle with big business, announcing a crackdown on offshore tax avoidance and evasion by US multinationals that's designed to raise $210B and make it easier for companies to create 'good jobs here at home'. Obama cited a building in the Cayman Islands where more than 18,000 US companies are housed: 'Either this is the biggest building in the world or it is the biggest tax scam in the world,' he said. 'I think the American people know which it is.' The administration says that more than a third of US foreign profits in 2003 came from Bermuda, the Netherlands and Ireland, and noted US companies paid an effective tax rate of just 2.3% on the $700bn they earned in foreign profits in 2004. Among tech companies affected by the crackdown, Microsoft joined 200 companies who signed a letter complaining that the proposed tax changes would put them at a disadvantage with their rivals, Cisco moaned that the measures 'would adversely impact our ability to invest and grow our business in the US,' and Google declined to comment for the time being."

Vigile writes "With the release of AMD's latest budget graphics card, the Radeon HD 4770, the GPU giant is bringing a lot of technology to the table. The card sports the world's first 40nm GPU (beating out CPUs to a new process technology for the first time), GDDR5 memory, and 640 stream processors, all for under $100. What is even more interesting is that as PC gaming has evolved it appears that a $99 graphics card is all you really need to play the latest PC titles — as long as you are comfortable with a resolution of 1920x1200 or below. Since so few PC gamers have screens larger than that, could the world of high-end PC graphics simply go away?"

Akido37 was one of many readers letting us know that US Sen. Arlen Specter has changed parties to become a Democrat. This gives the Democrats 59 seats in the Senate, and 60 if and when Al Franken gets seated from Minnesota. However, Specter said in his announcement that he will not be an automatic 60th vote for breaking Republican filibusters. While the senator's move seems to have surprised many Republicans, it is understandable to moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who said, "You haven't certainly heard warm encouraging words of how they [Republicans] view moderates. Either you are with us or against us." Specter noted that in his home state of Pennsylvania, 200,000 formerly Republican voters switched party allegiance last year.

Barence was one of several readers to send in word that the UK Home Office checked whether its interpretation of the law suited Phorm, before issuing advice on the legality of the controversial advertising service. The Home Office and Phorm entered a dialogue about the company's services back in August 2007, at Phorm's request. In an email sent to Phorm in January 2008, a Home Office official writes: 'I should be grateful if you would review the attached document, and let me know what you think.' After Phorm made deletions and amendments to the document, the Home Office sent another email to the company stating: 'If we agree this, and this becomes our position do you think your clients and their prospective partners will be comforted.' From the BBC: "Baroness Sue Miller, Liberal Democrat spokeswoman on Home Affairs, told BBC News: 'My jaw dropped when I saw the Freedom of Information exchanges. ... Anything the Home Office now says about Phorm is completely tainted.'"

nandemoari alerts us to news over at DSLReports that Cablevision will be offering subscribers 101-Mbps download service, a new US record. That's fast enough to download an HD movie in less than 10 minutes. The package, known as "Ultra," will launch on May 11 and will cost $99.95 a month. Upload speed is 15 Mbps and there are no monthly limits. Cablevision is also doubling the speed of its Wi-Fi service, which is available free to subscribers using hotspots across the Northeast. "...the company will be launching a new 'Ultra' tier on May 11. The new tier features speeds of 101Mbps downstream and 15Mbps upstream for $99.95 a month. That's an unprecedented amount of speed at an unprecedented price, suggesting that Cablevision just took the gloves off in their fight against Verizon FiOS. ... Cablevision spokesman Jim Maiella confirmed for me that the $99.95 price is unbundled, and the new tier does not come with any kind of a usage cap or overage fees."

Hugh Pickens writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed suit against Apple to defend the First Amendment rights of BluWiki, a noncommercial, public Internet 'wiki' site operated by OdioWorks. Last year, BluWiki users began a discussion about making some Apple iPods and iPhones interoperate with software other than Apple's iTunes. Apple lawyers demanded removal of the content (pdf) sending a letter to OdioWorks, alleging that the discussions constituted copyright infringement and a violation of the DMCA's prohibition on circumventing copy protection measures. Fearing legal action by Apple, OdioWorks took down the discussions from the BluWiki site but has now filed a lawsuit to vindicate its right to restore those discussions (pdf) and seeking a declaratory judgment that the discussions do not violate any of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, and do not infringe any copyrights owned by Apple. 'I take the free speech rights of BluWiki users seriously,' said Sam Odio, owner of OdioWorks. 'Companies like Apple should not be able to censor online discussions by making baseless legal threats against services like BluWiki that host the discussions.'" Random BedHead Ed adds ZDNet quotes EFF's Fred von Lohmann, who says that this is an issue of censorship. 'Wikis and other community sites are home to many vibrant discussions among hobbyists and tinkerers. It's legal to engage in reverse engineering in order to create a competing product, it's legal to talk about reverse engineering, and it's legal for a public wiki to host those discussions.'"

Kristina at Science News writes "We all learn about photosynthesis in school: sunlight in, plant food out. Not well understood is how this process achieves its initial and uniquely high efficiency in capturing the energy of a photon. Quantum mechanics may be at work in the electron transfer process inside chloroplast, giving electrons the chance to consider many paths at once before choosing the best one."