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Mob Rule on China's Internet 129

Posted by Zonk from the now-that's-web-2.0 dept.
Alien54 writes to mention an International Herald Tribune article about the growing phenomenon in China known as internet hunting; Using the web to track down individuals who have violated social more or broken the law. From the article: "In recent cases, people have scrutinized husbands suspected of cheating on their wives, fraud on Internet auction sites, the secret lives of celebrities and unsolved crimes. One case that drew a huge following involved the poisoning of a Tsinghua University student - an event that dates to 1994, but was revived by curious strangers after word spread on the Internet that the only suspect in the case had been questioned and released. Even a recent scandal involving a top Chinese computer scientist dismissed for copying an American processor design came to light in part because of Internet hunting, with scores of online commentators raising questions about the project and putting pressure on the scientist's sponsors to look into allegations about intellectual property theft."

20 Things You Won't Like About Vista 771

Posted by Zonk from the keep-counting dept.
feminazi writes "Computerworld's Scot Finnie details 20 things you won't like in Windows Vista, with a visual tour to prove it. He says that MS has favored security over end-user productivity, making the user feel like a rat caught in a maze with all the protect-you-from-yourself password-entry and 'Continue' boxes required by the User Account Controls feature." From the article: "In its supreme state of being, Microsoft knows precisely what's best for you. It knows that because its well-implemented new Sleep mode uses very little electricity and also takes only two or three seconds to either shut down or restart, you want to use this mode to 'turn off' your computer, whether you realize it or not. It wants to teach you about what's best. It wants to make it harder for you to make a mistake."

Vonage Vows to Pursue Customers Who Renege on IPO 200

Posted by samzenpus from the or-else dept.
kamikaze-Tech writes "As its shares continued to sink following its initial public offering last week, Vonage Holdings Corp. (VG) said it plans to hold Customers who promised to buy IPO shares to their pledges. In a WSJ article posted in the Vonage Forums; a Vonage spokeswoman said Wednesday the company will pursue payment from customers who renege on their agreements to pay for the botched IPO shares. Shares of Vonage, which offers Internet-based phone service, immediately plunged from the $17 IPO price, and they closed Wednesday at $12.02 in 4 p.m. "If they don't pay, we will reserve our right to pursue payment," said Brooke Schulz. She added that speculation that the company intends to buy shares back from disappointed investors are false. "They are taking a risk if they choose not to pay," she said."

Online Revenge 645

Posted by samzenpus from the wipe-the-hard-drive dept.
Many people have submitted this story of a broken laptop purchased on e-bay. The buyer gives a little lesson on why you should always clean your hard drive before you sell a computer.

Microsoft to Become Mobile DRM Standard? 179

Posted by Zonk from the through-the-backdoor dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It seems most of the media has missed the significance of Microsoft's recent partnership with DoCoMo to put Windows Media DRM on i-mode handsets. If all the i-mode players adopt Windows DRM, that gives Microsoft access to a significant chunk of the mobile market. Couple this with the more recent MTV Urge announcement and you've got Microsoft set to own the DRM space - at least on mobile devices - by stealth. Telecoms.com has a take on the situation, but also reveals that the GSM Association may be on the verge of recommending Windows mobile DRM to all its members. Puts the French copyright and DRM legislation in a whole new perspective - interoperability issues can be solved by removing the competition."

Automating Future Aircraft Carriers 571

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the sign-em-up-for-a-skynet-subscription dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Britain and France will jointly build three new huge aircraft carriers which will be delivered between 2012 and 2014. With their 60,000 tonnes, these 275-meter-long carriers will be the largest warships outside of the U.S. Navy. They're going to cost about $4 billion each, but with their reduced crews due to automation, they'll save lots of money to taxpayers during their 50 years of use. StrategyPage tells us that these ships will need at most a crew of 800 sailors instead of 2,000 for ships of that size today. At a cost of $100K per sailor per year, this represents savings of more than $6 billion. Impressive -- if it works."

Stress Inhibits Brain's Ability to Grow 78

Posted by samzenpus from the a-calm-monkey-is-a-smart-monkey dept.
Travoltus writes "Dr. Professor Elizabeth Gould claims to have shown that, with marmoset primates, stress causes the brain to switch to survival mode in which it thinks only about survival; it simply does not invest new cells in other, more complex thought processes. Dr. Gould also suggests that poverty has an adverse effect on the brain. Dr. Gould is a Princeton researcher who concentrates on studying adult neurogenesis, a phenomenon that, 20 years ago, most scientists believed did not occur."

Medical Translator Used Successfully 98

Posted by samzenpus from the but-does-it-know-orcish dept.
saskboy writes "Translations of medical questions posed by doctors to their patients were provided by a new Canadian designed computer called MedBridge. "Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Portuguese, French, and Russian," are some of the languages the MedBridge can work with. CBC reports, "If a patient is deaf, the system can also translate into American Sign Language using video. The MedBridge system is already in use at hospitals in New York, Toronto and Halifax." Pretranslated questions are stored in the computer and the doctor chooses from the list of questions to ask. It's not quite a Universal Translator, but it should improve doctor-patient communication."

The Most Dangerous Bacteria 368

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fewer-restrictions-for-corrupt-corporations dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Forbes has a story listing the six most dangerous bacteria (one's actually a fungus, but it kills people who get it half the time) that have afflicted athletes, soldiers, and hospital patients. Some scientists worry that even with a bunch of new antibiotics hitting the market, there still aren't enough and they want legislation to make it easier for companies to develop them."

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