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Technology

Ultra-Thin Alternative To Silicon 83

An anonymous reader writes "There's good news in the search for the next generation of semiconductors. Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley have successfully integrated ultra-thin layers of the semiconductor indium arsenide onto a silicon substrate to create a nanoscale transistor with excellent electronic properties (abstract). A member of the III–V family of semiconductors, indium arsenide offers several advantages as an alternative to silicon, including superior electron mobility and velocity, which makes it an outstanding candidate for future high-speed, low-power electronic devices."

Comment Re:Ewwww, imagine "can't skip" technology? (Score 1) 194

While I haven't actually been able to find a free book on this service I have been getting "free ad-sponsored" music from Guvera and all they make you do is visit a sponsored playlist page within their site and the sponsor pays for your unencumbered MP3 music. The mp3s have no ads or DRM.
Apparently this model is working for music so hopefully with books it won't be too much worse.

On the other hand:

"I've discovered the identity of the murderer. His name is....." "...and now a word from our sponsor."

Sounds a lot like watching TV these days.

Submission + - WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange is On Run (indiatimes.com)

freakxx writes: Times of India reports that WikiLeak's chief Julian Assange is now on run after the release of the Iraq's War Diary on his website. He is reported to be moving from one place to another (Stockholm, Berlin, London), paying money in cash that is mostly borrowed from his friends, changing hair color, and sleeping on sofa or on the floor, mostly due to the possibility of getting arrested or more likely to be extradited to the USA. In his own words: "being determined to be on this path, and not to compromise, I've wound up in an extraordinary situation".

As the documents are ultimately going to be good for us, the public, and he now seems to be in a deep trouble due to revealing the ugliness of the war, do we, as the public, also have some responsibility to help him out during this bad time, and set a good example for other such people in future? If so, what are the ways we can possibly do it, other than donating money on the WikiLeaks website?

Submission + - The New Yorker's porous paywall (floodmagazine.com)

An anonymous reader writes: If The New Yorker could write Javascript as well as they could stories, there wouldn't have a faulty paywall.
Medicine

Submission + - You have taste receptors in your lungs (io9.com) 1

timothy writes: Says the article: "It sounds like the plot of a Troma flick, but yes, your lungs contain taste receptors. When these receptors encounter bitter compounds, they open up your airways — this discovery could radically improve the treatment of lung conditions like asthma." I wonder if this is why some people can handle spicy foods, and others can't ...
Iphone

Submission + - Jailbreak iPhone? Legal! Jailbreak Xbox? Jail! (techdirt.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Back in July, the Librarian of Congress officially made it legal to jailbreak your iPhone (or any phone). However, why is it that the government is trying to send Matthew Crippen to jail for three years for jailbreaking Xboxes? What kind of law says it's okay to jailbreak the phone in your pocket, but not your gaming console?

Comment Re:Economics (Score 1) 96

Well, a nice economic fightback tactic would be for the ISPs to say that after 1 "strike" (being caused by the user downloading music) the ISP then demands that since it's music causing the problem, the music companies must now strike that person off their own customer lists.
Therefore the person is no longer allowed into any music stores or to buy music from those companies by any means.
Once the labels can show that they are doing their part of the work, they may go ahead and serve more notices for downloading. Once they have shown all their paperwork proving that their culprit has been turned away from stores and the comprehensive list of "downloaders" is being enforced at every outlet, they may go on to strike two and, eventually, 3.
It is unfair that the ISPs are made to do all the work for the labels in this respect AND to cut off their own paying customers who may have paid for 50GB of bandwidth and used a measly 5MB of that (.1%) in order to infringe on the labels' copyrights.

Submission + - GAO says piracy "damage" may be overblown. (martindale.com) 1

poptones writes: A recent article at Martindale.com, that summarises a recent GAO report conducted as a
requirement of the PRO-IP act, seems to reinforce the argument that "industry estimates"
(and even "government estimates") of damages caused by intellectual property piracy may
well be both baseless and overblown. The summary (and, apparently, the report) points out
the many difficulties in even attempting to quantify the effects of piracy on the marketplace
in anything resembling an objective manner. Among the many notable quotations:

"The GAO gave three examples of widely cited piracy estimates that could not be substantiated: 1) an FBI
estimate that U.S. businesses lose $200-$250 billion annually... a 2002 CBP press release that estimated
that U.S. businesses lose $200 billion a year in revenue and 750,000 jobs... and 3) a Motor and Equipment
Manufacturers Associated report of an estimate that the U.S. automotive parts industry has lost $3 billion in
sales... due to counterfeit goods"

A 3 1/2 page pdf that's well worth the read; very interesting to see this sort of discussion appearing in legal print.

Intel

Submission + - Intel's new Turbo Boost trick (pcauthority.com.au)

An anonymous reader writes: Turbo Boost has done wonders for squeezing more performance from computers. When a single-core task is demanding more power than normal it works exceptionally well. The problem though, was that the more cores you had, the less Turbo Boost benefits you got. This week, Intel unveiled new Turbo Boost trickery, which will arrive in new "Sandy Bridge" chips. The new chips extend the speed benefits of Turbo Boost to multicore. Not only that, CPU cores and graphics subsystem can now both use Turbo Boost. If you need the compute power from graphics – such as when rendering video – the graphics subsystem will use Turbo Boost to improve throughput, while if processing is required, the CPU will get the benefits.

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