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The Almighty Buck

Submission + - The 110 Million Dollar Button

Submitted by
Reservoir Hill
Reservoir Hill writes: "The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on Google's search page may cost the company up to $110 million in lost ad revenue every year according to a report in American Public Media's Marketplace. Tom Chavez says that since the company makes money selling ads on its search results page, the 1% of users who use the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button never see Google's ads because the button automatically directs them to a non-Google site reducing Google's ad revenue. So why does Google keep the button? Marisa Mayer, Google's vice president responsible for everything on the search page, says that "it's possible just to become too dry, too corporate, too much about making money" and the "I'm Feeling Lucky," button reminds you that "people here have personality." Web usability expert Jacob Nielsen says the whimsy serves another business purpose: "Oh we're just two kind of grad students hanging out and having a beer and having a grand old time," not you know, "We are 16,000 people working on undermining your privacy.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Researchers blast Vista Service Pack 1

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: A group of researchers has described Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 as a "performance dud". Researchers from the EXO Performance Network claimed that a series of in-house benchmark tests showed that users hoping to receive a speed boost from the update will be disappointed. "After extensive testing of Release To Manufacture and SP1-patched versions of Vista it seems clear that the hoped-for performance fixes that Microsoft has been hinting at have not materialised," the group said.
Space

Submission + - New "Super-Earth" discovered

Submitted by
TheMagnumMunkey
TheMagnumMunkey writes: "I've always wondered about life on other planets besides our own, way too many planets out there for it not to be true, this adds some clarity... "Astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, a world which could have water running on its surface. The planet orbits the faint star Gliese 581, which is 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra. Scientists made the discovery using the Eso 3.6m Telescope in Chile. They say the benign temperatures on the planet mean any water there could exist in liquid form, and this raises the chances it could also harbour life." Full story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6589157.stm"
United States

Submission + - Trenton Launches Emergency Notification System

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: In an effort to beef up the Trenton's emergency response services, Mayor Douglas H. Palmer Tuesday announced the launch of a new phone and e-mail system, Connect-CTY, designed to alert city residents of emergency conditions within minutes. The system is now widely available to all city residents who may choose to be contacted through the Internet, phone lines or cell phones. Aside from alerting residents of a flood warning or a chemical spill, the system will be used to inform residents of activities such as free flu clinics or remind them not to put out garbage during holidays.
Security

Submission + - Top 12 Operating Systems Vulnerability Summary

Submitted by
markmcb
markmcb writes: "Have you ever wondered how vulnerable your computer is from the first bit you write to the hard drive all the way until you have a fully patched system? If so, Matthew Vea has posted a concise summary of security strengths and shortcomings for twelve of the major operating systems of 2006/2007. In his summary, Matt tests each OS with widely available tools like nmap and Nessus, and notes responses at install, pre-patch, and post-patch times for each system. After the tedious job is done, he produces results that will make both the Apple and Windows communities cringe with regards to security. From the article, 'As far as "straight-out-of-box" conditions go, both Microsoft's Windows and Apple's OS X are ripe with remotely accessible vulnerabilities. ... The UNIX and Linux variants present a much more robust exterior to the outside. Even when the pre-configured server binaries are enabled, each [Linux] system generally maintained its integrity against remote attacks.'"
Space

Submission + - Northern Lights choreographer revealed

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Recently four spacecraft, part of the European Space Agency's Cluster mission, provided a behind-the-scenes look at what choreographs the auroras or Northern Lights (at the South Pole they're called Southern Lights). Researchers have known that relative static electric fields, which hover parallel to Earth's magnetic fields, play an important role in the acceleration of electrons that causes the auroras to shine. From the Space.com article: In the recent study, one of the spacecraft crossed the auroral arc at high altitude in the Earth's magnetotail. As expected, it detected the U-shaped structure when crossing the boundary within the plasma sheet. Just 16 minutes later another Cluster spacecraft crossed the same boundary and revealed an asymmetric S-shaped structure, which was a surprise since the S-shape was thought to arise at the polar cap boundary. Within that 16-minute period, the plasma density and associated electric currents plummeted at the plasma boundary. So the boundary ended up resembling the steep drop-off in particle density between the aurora edge and the polar cap." This fits with the theory set forth in 2004 by Göran Marklund from the Alfvén Laboratory, that U-shaped circuits form at a plasma boundary between a region within the magnetotail at equatorial latitudes and one at higher latitudes and the S-shapes occur at the boundary between the plasma sheet (at the inner edge of the auroral oval) and the polar cap.
Biotech

Submission + - Evolution by Any Other Name

Submitted by jakosc
jakosc writes: Plos Biology has an interesting article on the avoidance of the word 'Evolution' in scientific papers and grants. In 'Evolution by Any Other Name: Antibiotic Resistance and Avoidance of the E-Word' Antonovics et al. claim that "In spite of the importance of antimicrobial resistance, we show that the actual word "evolution" is rarely used in the papers describing this research. Instead, antimicrobial resistance is said to "emerge," "arise," or "spread" rather than "evolve." Moreover, we show that the failure to use the word "evolution" by the scientific community may have a direct impact on the public perception of the importance of evolutionary biology in our everyday lives."
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - Apple: Tons of hardware updates in Q2, black iMac

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "Sources told MacScoop there is strong possibility that most or all the Mac line-ups will see a refresh by the end of June and that the company should start making its first 2007 Mac hardware announcements as soon as during March." The site also claims a black iMac is on the way.
Programming

Submission + - Fast Regexes

Submitted by Watson Ladd
Watson Ladd writes: Perl, Python, and many other languages claim string processing, and in particular pattern matching, as an application they were designed for. But this article shows how slow most of the regex engines now used are due to the use of Henry Spencer's regex package as inspiration. How many more performance losses are due to historical accident.
It's funny. Laugh.

SETI Finally Finds Something 416

Posted by samzenpus from the laptop-phone-home dept.
QuatumCrypto writes "SETI@home is a distributed processing client from UC Berkeley that installs on the volunteers' home computers and harnesses their processing power in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. So far nothing noteworthy has comeout of this massive project... that is until today! One of the volunteers was able to track down his wife's stolen laptop using the IP address that SETI@home client reports back to the server. After getting back the laptop his wife said, 'I always knew that a geek would make a great husband.'"
Power

Submission + - Building an energy efficient always-on PC?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Like many Slashdotters, I find it necessary to leave my home PC running 24/7, for things like web or ftp servers, bittorrent, or simply to make sure I don't miss any messages on IRC or my instant messaging client. It has been about 3 years since I built my current PC, and keeping it running all the time uses a lot of juice. With my next PC I would like to do what I can to keep the power-consumption to a minimum, without sacrificing processing power or other features. What should I look for when choosing components for my PC, and what other ways are there to keep the power consumption down?
Operating Systems

Submission + - Mac OS X Leopard Server

Submitted by DECS
DECS writes: In Mac OS X Leopard Server, Apple sets out to improve upon the existing Tiger Server and fix a number of its limitations. Here's a look at some of the more interesting new features in Leopard Server — including its open source iCal Server based on Twisted.web2 and a Wiki Server which saves history using Subversion — and how its components integrate together to offer far more than a sum of its parts.

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