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Submission + - Researchers hope to protect against another HIV-like outbreak (washington.edu)

Submitted by vinces99
vinces99 writes: Throughout Asia, humans and monkeys live side-by-side in many urban areas. An international research team has been examining transmission of a virus from monkeys to humans in Bangladesh, one of the world’s most densely populated countries.The scientists have found that some people in these urban areas are concurrently infected with multiple strains of simian foamy virus, including recombinant strains — those from more than one source — originally detected in the monkeys. Asian rhesus macaques are very responsive to change, researchers say, and unlike many other species of primates they will continue thriving in human-altered habitats. Simian foamy viruses, which are ubiquitous in nonhuman primates, are retroviruses that exhibit high levels of mutation and recombination – a potentially explosive combination. By analyzing what is happening at the human-primate interface, the researchers hope to protect humans from another deadly outbreak similar to HIV.

Submission + - Genetic convergent evolution: stunning gene similarities among diverse animals

Submitted by Toe, The
Toe, The writes: It has long been understood that completely different animals can end up with very similar traits (convergent evolution), and even that genes can converge. But a new study shows an unbelievable level of convergence among entire groups of genes. The study shows that animals as diverse as bats and dolphins, which independently developed echolocation, converge in nearly 200 different genomic regions concentrated in several 'hearing genes'. The implications are rather deep, if you think about it, delving into interesting limitations on diversity or insights into the potential of DNA. And perhaps more importantly, this finding goes a long way toward explaining why almost aliens in the universe look surprisingly identical to humans (though still doesn't explain why they all speak English).

Submission + - Apple attempts to trademark the term "startup" in Australia (startupsmart.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple has lodged a trademark application for the term “startup” in Australia. If the application passes the examination phase, and isn’t successfully opposed, the term could become officially protected after seven-and-a-half months.

Submission + - Korean 'Armadillo' Electric Car Folds Up, Parks, Controlled By Your Smartphone (greencarreports.com)

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have unveiled a crazy foldable, compact electric vehicle that, well, folds up like an armadillo. What's more, you can engage the armadillo-like folding process as well as actually park the car with a smartphone. Yes, there's an app for that. Not sure if its the folding part or the idea of people trying to park any car using their cellphones that makes this concerning. The shrinking process takes only around 15 seconds, and reduces the car's 110-inch length to just 65 inches as it essentially curls into a ball. No idea what this non-desert creature does when merely threatened in the wild.

Submission + - Mark Shuttleworth: The Ubuntu Edge was a "time machine" (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth on how the Ubuntu Edge phone would have been a "time machine", offering a glimpse of a future where the phone is the only computer we need. Shuttleworth also touches on how the crowd funding initiative for the phone was almost saved by the last-minute intervention of a handset manufacturer, as well as detailing the timetable for getting Ubuntu phones and tablets into shops.

Submission + - Wikipedia Can Predict Box Office Flops (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: Despite a record year though, like every year before it, 2013 remained fraught with its fair share of box office disasters. What if studios could minimize their loses and predict when the next Pluto Nash-level flop was imminent? According to new research published in PLoS One, they may actually be able to. Using data gleaned from Wikipedia articles, researchers measured the likelihood of a film's financial success based on four parameters: number of total page views; number of total edits made; number of users editing; and the number of revisions in the article's revision history, or "collaborative rigor."

Submission + - NASA Testing Frickin' Laser Communications (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: The lunar laser communications demonstration will be part of the agency's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission, which is scheduled to launch on Sept. 6. Here's how the system will work: When the satellite is in orbit around the moon and visible from Earth, one of three ground stations will shoot a laser towards its approximate location. The laser beam from Earth will scan a patch of sky and should illuminate the spacecraft at some point. When that happens, the spacecraft will begin transmitting its own laser towards the ground station and the two will lock on to each other. The technology should allow an upstream data rate, from the Earth to the spacecraft, of around 20Mbps and a much faster downstream rate of 622Mbps. That's roughly six times the speed that's currently possible with radio-based transmission, said Don Cornwell, mission manager for the lunar laser communications demonstration.

Submission + - MIT reports 400 GHz graphene transistor possible with 'Negative resistance' (technologyreview.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The idea is to take a standard graphene field-effect transistor and find the circumstances in which it demonstrates negative resistance (or negative differential resistance, as they call it). They then use the dip in voltage, like a kind of switch, to perform logic.
They show how several graphene field-effect transistors can be combined and manipulated in a way that produces conventional logic gates. Graphene-based circuit can match patterns and it has several important advantages over silicon-based versions.
Liu and co can build elementary XOR gates out of only three graphene field-effect transistors compared to the eight or more required using silicon. That translates into a significantly smaller area on a chip. What’s more, graphene transistors can operate at speeds of over 400 GHz.

Submission + - Groklaw Closure (groklaw.net)

Submitted by JImbob0i0
JImbob0i0 writes: After many years amid fears of forced exposure in light of the recent NSA/PRISM/Lavabits events PJ has closed the doors of Groklaw.

With Microsoft/Motorola, Oracle/Google, SCO/IBM, Apple/Samsung still going on in the background will the legal implications of technology companies fade from view without the light that has been shined on them over the years?

SCO was ridiculed in no small part to researchers at the site.

Oracle was shown to have severe misunderstandings of the Java licenses.

Microsoft was forced out of the background.

When PJ last retired she passed the site over to another but recently she's been managing it herself again. This closure notice appears pretty final however.

What now for legal blogs in the technological world?

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