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Charles Darwin Online 326

Posted by Zonk from the got-a-darwin-sticker-on-my-car dept.
eldavojohn writes "The entire works of Charles Darwin have been made available online. It includes scanned works that were owned by his family — many of which were signed by the author. The University of Cambridge hopes to have this completed by 2009 and is only estimated to be about half way done. If you have any love for books whatsoever, I suggest you take a look at how they present the user with each book. Take the very first edition of On the Origin of Species, for example, where they use frames to display the text on the left with the original image on the right. From the Reuters article: 'Other items in the free collection of 50,000 pages and 40,000 images are the first editions of the Journal of Researchers, written in 1839, The Descent of Man, The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle, which includes his observations during his five-year trip to the Amazon, Patagonia and the Pacific, and the first five editions of the Origin of Species.'"

Human Species May Split In Two 1000

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the if-we-don't-destroy-ourselves-first dept.
gEvil (beta) writes "According to an article at the BBC, an evolutionary theorist in London suggests that humanity may split into two sub-species within the next 100,000 years. From the article: 'The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.'" No missing link here, we already have the troll-like humans to prove it.

Letter to European Commission Warns Against Open Source 145

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the set-phasers-to-fud dept.
An anonymous reader writes "TechWorld is reporting that they have a leaked copy of a letter written to the European Commission detailing the extent of lobby pressure coming from proprietary software groups working against open source software. From the article: 'Lueders sent the letter [PDF] on 10 October to leaders of the Commission's Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, in response to an EC-commissioned study into the role of open source software in the European economy (referred to by Lueders as Free/Libre/Open Source, or FLOSS). In the letter, he criticised the study as biased and warns that its policy recommendations, if carried out, could derail the European software economy.'"

Jobs Unfazed by Zune 440

Posted by Hemos from the well-he-would-say-that dept.
twofish writes "In an interview at Newsweek marking the approaching 5th anniversary of the launch of the iPod, Apple CEO Steve Jobs seems unconcerned by Microsoft's wannabe iPod killer Zune. Earphone sharing will prove a more potent force for social networking than the iPod rival's wireless song-sharing feature, he reckons. 'I've seen the demonstrations on the internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever,' he says in the article. 'By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.'"

French Scientists Link Higher BMI with Lower IQ 728

Posted by timothy from the hey-I-resemble-that-remark dept.
Xemu writes "French scientists have linked obesity to lower IQ reports the Telegraph. In a new five-year study of more than 2,200 adults, people with a low body mass index (BMI) could recall 30% more words in a vocabulary test than those who were obese. The fatter subjects also showed a higher rate of cognitive decline when they were retested five years later. In the United States, 30% of the population is obese according to OECD. That's the highest rate of obesity anywhere. Do these high obesity rates affect the average IQ of the population?" (Of course, this sidesteps discussion of whether IQ tests measure anything significant at all.)

Element 118 Created 244

Posted by kdawson from the this-time-for-sure dept.
BuzzSkyline writes, "The heaviest element yet, Element 118, has been created in Dubna, Russia by a collaboration of researchers from Russia's Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US. They created the new element by fusing together Californium (element 98) and Calcium atoms. The achievement comes five years after the scandal-plagued retraction of an earlier claim, which was based on fabricated data, that three atoms of element 118 had been produced at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. The achievement was reported on October 9 in the journal Physical Review C (subscription needed to read more than the abstract)."

Google Office To Get an API 118

Posted by kdawson from the don't-say-the-O-word dept.
Orange Crush writes, "Google's new office applications, Docs & Spreadsheets, will provide APIs for custom apps. Johnathan Rochelle, project manager: 'We definitely want to build out APIs, especially for the spreadsheets side, as spreadsheets are more data-oriented, but maybe also for the word processor. People will be able to do mashups with our tools for other things, and not be stuck behind our dev cycle for everything they want. If I've already got data somewhere you can't really rely on manual cut-and-paste to make it collaborative. Imagine pulling data from any application you've already got in use... you get that data over to the hosted app, make it collaborative, then bring it back... that's what we'd like to enable at some point.'" Eating their own dogfood: Rochelle said that "Everybody in [Google] is using the tool" already.

Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes 249

Posted by Hemos
A reader submitted "Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes which is an interesting op-ed piece about the differences between the two companies, but also the intersection with a different type of business like that of television. I've read some of the same arguements before, but this piece ties it up nicely together."

Vista Licenses Limit OS Transfers, Ban VM Use 968

Posted by timothy from the oh-that's-handy dept.
NiK0laI writes "TechWeb has posted an article regarding Vista's new license and how it allows you to only move it to another device once. How will this work for people who build their PCs? I have no intention of purchasing a new license every time I swap out motherboards. 'The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device," reads the license for Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, and Business. In other words, once a retail copy of Vista is installed on a PC, it can be moved to another system only once. ... Elsewhere in the license, Microsoft forbids users from installing Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium in a virtual machine. "You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system," the legal language reads. Vista Ultimate and Vista Business, however, can be installed within a VM.'" Overly Critical Guy points out more information about changes to Vista's EULA and the new usage restrictions. "For instance, Home Basic users can't copy ISOs to their hard drives, can't run in a virtualized environment, and can only share files and printers to a maximum of 5 network devices."

Bush Reveals New Space Policy 510

Posted by CmdrTaco from the go-there-get-stuff-come-back dept.
Josh Fink writes "Space.com is reporting that President Bush has unveiled his new space policy. From the article: 'U.S. assets must be unhindered in carrying out their space duties,' the Bush space policy says, stressing that 'freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power.'... As a civil space guideline, the policy calls upon NASA to 'execute a sustained and affordable human and robotic program of space exploration and develop, acquire, and use civil space systems to advance fundamental scientific knowledge of our Earth system, solar system, and universe.' While this policy does seem to push for more civil involvement in space for exploration and research, the article does go on to say, 'The policy calls upon the Secretary of Defense to "develop capabilities, plans, and options to ensure freedom of action in space, and, if directed, deny such freedom of action to adversaries."' So it will push into the intelligence community, and will supercede a similar policy from 1996. You can read the entire policy."

What a Vista Upgrade Will Really Cost You 482

Posted by kdawson from the big-bucks dept.
narramissic writes, "James Gaskin wrote an interesting article this week about what he recons it will really cost organizations to upgrade to Vista. Gaskin estimates that each Vista user will 'cost your company between $3,250 and $5,000. That's each and every Vista user. Money will go to Microsoft for Vista and Office 2007, to hardware vendors for new PCs and components, and possibly a few bucks to Apple for those users jumping to a Mac.'" Any sense of how realistic those figures are?

Calif. AG Files Felony Charges In HP Probe 171

Posted by kdawson from the how-low-the-mighty dept.
PreacherTom writes, "Former Hewlett-Packard Chair Patricia Dunn, along with 'ethics chief' Kevin Hunsaker and others, was indicted yesterday on four felony counts by the California Attorney General. The charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy, carry a maximum penalty of 12 years in prison and $30,000 in fines. The indictments follow on the heels of an HP investigation of internal leaks that conducted "bugged" emails to C-Net reporter Dawn Kawamoto, illicitly obtained hundreds of phone numbers, and spied on HP board members." One of the indictments was for a private investigator retained by HP. The article has links to the complaints and warrants.

Television For an Audience 45 Light Years Away 324

Posted by kdawson from the waiting-for-syndication dept.
beebopdebop writes, "The Irish Times notes that Europe goes intergalactic tonight with the broadcast of a program conceived for aliens and broadcast towards a point 45 light years away in the direction of the Big Dipper. The two naked hosts will present their own unclothed bodies as examples of our physical embodiments, and will tell about daily human existence. Music, art, and our own personal messages will be transmitted as well as discussions from sociologists, scientists, and space experts. This project is the brainchild of the French-based Centre National D'etudes Spatiales and is rooted in seriousness as a natural extension of the gold-plated ambassador disks of Pioneer 10. Those of us wishing to be included can still post messages to be sent into space via a CNES antenna. We will have to wait 90 years to learn whether or not some lifeform was listening."

Only a 'Moron' Would Buy YouTube 178

Posted by Zonk from the moronic-like-a-fox dept.
ColinPL writes to mention a News.com article about some harsh words from Mark Cuban, on the possible purchase of video-sharing site YouTube. According to Mr. Cuban only a 'moron' would buy the site, because of the obvious possibility of lawsuits over intellectual property. From the article: "Cuban, co-founder of HDNet and owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, also said YouTube would eventually be 'sued into oblivion' because of copyright violations. 'They are just breaking the law,' Cuban told a group of advertisers in New York. 'The only reason it hasn't been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue ... There is a reason they haven't yet gone public, they haven't sold. It's because they are going to be toasted,'"

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