salec - Slashdot User

Submission + - Robot becomes one of the kids in classroom study

Submitted by on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @06:25AM

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers have found that toddlers treat a small robot as a peer rather than a toy. A team from the University of California, San Diego, placed Sony's QRIO in a classroom of kids aged 18 months to 2 years and watched them interact. Over time the children grew to treat the robot as one of them — playing games with the robot, hugging it, and covering it up with a blanket when its batteries ran down. AWww..

Submission + - EU wants air passenger data collected, too

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @06:24AM

An anonymous reader writes: BBC is telling us that EU commission wants flight passenger data to be preserved in databases for 10 years after the flight. BBC says:"The measures would not apply to flights within the EU." This is part of "anti-terrorism proposals" which also include tighter laws to control hate speech and bomb-making instructions.

Submission + - Washington Grounds All F-15 Jet Interceptors (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by

reporter

on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @04:47AM

reporter writes: "According to a report just published by "The Washington Post", the United-States Air Force has grounded its entire fleet of F-15 jet fighters, which serve as the front-line interceptors against enemy aircraft. This startling development resulted from the equally startling midair disintegration of an F-15C during a training mission: the aircraft broke apart just behind the cockpit. Following suit, Tokyo has also grounded its entire fleet of F-15 interceptors, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The F-15s will remain grounded until American engineers determine how to ensure the safety of the F-15. During this time, the air space of the Western world is vulnerable to penetration by hostile aircraft. Will the Kremlin attempt to test the level of vulnerability?"

Submission + - Fan-Made C&C:Red Alert Tesla Coil (tesladownunder.com)

Submitted by

GDI Lord

on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @03:33AM

GDI Lord writes: "RADen has posted the news about a fan made Tesla Coil from C&C:RA.

From RADEN:

Peter Terren of the Red Alert website Telsa Down Under has recreated the Soviet Tesla coil straight out of the game! It took him about 100 hours of work to make the models and equipment. Obviously he's a very devoted C&C fan. On his website he details how he created the Tesla Coil and the other models you see in that picture below. Quite ingenious indeed!
"

Submission + - Weight Loss Protein Found (smh.com.au)

Submitted by

Whiteox

on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @02:19AM

Whiteox writes: "SYDNEY researchers have discovered how to switch on and off a molecule which controls hunger. The protein, MIC-1 which is created in the body of cancer patients, targets the brain to switch off appetite. The MIC-1 antibody would improve appetite in patients with weight loss from chronic renal failure or anorexia nervosa. Scientists expect the synthetic protein could be on the market within six years. Professor Sam Breit, one of the researchers from St Vincent's Centre for Immunology stated, "Once the MIC-1 is turned off with the antibody, weight gain can be quite rapid, enabling people to tolerate and survive treatment," ... "A synthetic version of MIC-1 would also allow morbidly obese people to lose weight rapidly." he said. Is this the end of obesity as we know it?"

Submission + - Ballmer claims that Red Hat users owe Microsoft

Submitted by

walterbyrd

on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @08:11AM

walterbyrd writes: "According to this story in vnunet "Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has warned users of Red Hat Linux that they will have to pay Microsoft for its intellectual property." According to PJ at groklaw "Ballmer threatens to destroy all FOSS with patents, not just Red Hat." Microsoft does not specify exactly what IP that is supposed to be infringing."

Submission + - Donated Blood Loses Effectiveness After 3 Hours (reuters.com)

Submitted by Dekortage on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @07:46AM

Dekortage writes: Researchers have determined nitric oxide in donated blood dissipates after three hours in a blood bank. "Nitric oxide, which helps keep blood vessels open, begins breaking down as soon as blood goes into storage... If the blood vessels cannot open, the red blood cells back up in the vessel and tissues go without oxygen. The result can be a heart attack or even death." In the U.S., blood banks store blood for six weeks, so this finding is disturbing to many health professionals. However, "if they added nitric oxide to banked or stored blood at any point, the red blood cells were again able to open blood vessels and deliver oxygen to tissues."

Submission + - Russian schools move to Linux (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

fuzzypig

on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @07:41AM

fuzzypig writes: "The BBC is reporting that schoolchildren in Russia are to be taught using the free, open-source Linux software in an effort to cut the cost of teaching information technology. By 2009, all computers in Russian schools are to be run on Linux — which means they will not have to pay to use licensed software, such as Microsoft's Windows. The Linux software is to be tested first in three pilot regions, while others will have the option of installing it as a second operating system. These pilot schools will then get the option to choose either the free software or to pay for something else."

Submission + - Physics Nobel Prize 2007

Submitted by whizzter on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @06:07AM

whizzter writes: The prize was awarded for the discovery of the Giant Magnetoresistive Effect, Peter Grünberg of the Jülich Research Centre and Albert Fert of the University of Paris-Sud that lead the research will receive the prize. During the presentation the Nobel committe stressed how the research had helped decreasing harddrive sizes. The discovery was also the birth of the spintronics field. More information on the prize can be found at the Nobel site.

Submission + - Killer Start-Up Stock Competition, Microsoft Free (prleap.com)

Submitted by

Derek Westra

on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @05:03AM

Derek Westra writes: "Wall Street Idol, boasting the Web's most accurate stock market simulation to date is also boasting about their Microsoft free status. The website is currently receiving high rankings on killerstartups.com for its clever design and realistic to market datafeed. Bob Haupt, the Chief Technology Officer was adamant that the business be 100 percent Microsoft free and has developed the site using RAILS. Check out the following URL for the story about Wall Street Idol: http://www.prleap.com/pr/96901/ check out http://www.wallstreetidol.com/ or visit http://www.killerstartups.com/ to see the review.

Feel free to contact myself at 801.502.7437 or dawestra@gmail.com or the company's founder Bob Haupt at 801.830.1794 or bob@wallstreetidol.com.

Thank you,

Derek"

Submission + - ASIMO going to the University (cor-lab.de)

Submitted by

orkomedix

on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @04:29AM

orkomedix writes: "The famous HONDA robot ASIMO is going back to the University. From the article: "A spectacular detail of the cooperation is that Honda for the first time provides two humanoid robots ASIMO as research platforms to a university. While ASIMO so far has mainly represented the technological competence and progressiveness of Honda, this new quality of research cooperation emphasises Honda's continuous commitment to contribute to the advancement of science for the benefit of our society. It is planned to use ASIMO both in interaction studies with adults and children, e.g. for the evaluation of the acceptance of humanoid robots in our society, and in technologically orientated projects for the advancement of the cognitive and motion skills." Looks like robots are becoming more intelligent ;-)"

Submission + - Why Mobile Linux Is Better Than Windows (osweekly.com)

Submitted by techie on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @03:49AM

techie writes: OSWeekly.com has a new article up that compares Mobile Linux to Windows. The author claims that Mobile Linux is much better than Windows. Why? "On the desktop front, most customer built PCs designed with Windows in mind run great with the latest Linux distributions. But there are still some bumps in the road regarding the efforts behind successfully running Linux on notebooks designed for Windows. Yes, there are tremendous resources like linux-laptop.net to make this a bit easier, but in the end, just supporting the vendors that are trying to make compatible solutions with the OS that we have all come to love is one step closer to coming together as a community to support the cause. Think Linux hardware vendors like System76, Emperor Linux and others.

Submission + - The Sorry State of Desktop Innovation in OSes (osweekly.com)

Submitted by

OSer

on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @03:15AM

OSer writes: "OSWeekly.com's Brandon Watts discusses the stale desktop environments in existing operating systems. Sure, we are all used to and expect a certain way of doing things, but does that mean we should kill innovation? He continues, "I don't always agree with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality that is so prevalent today. As a power user, I've grown relatively tired of these same old things. When new OS versions come out, they may be new, but they don't always feel new. I think it's time for Microsoft and Apple to really step it up and show us what the next generation of desktops are going to look like. They may be working on it, but I want to see the results as they currently stand. The next versions of Windows and OS X after Vista and Leopard really should bring us the goods, and if they don't, then I want an explanation."

Submission + - 41,000 PCs seek bird flu cure

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @02:26AM

Stony Stevenson writes: An international grid of more than 41,000 computers is offering new hope in the search for treatments for the deadly avian influenza virus. The Enabling Grids for E-science (EGEE) network links ordinary computers in 50 countries to form a single giant supercomputer with more than five million gigabytes of disk and tape storage.

Dr Ying-Ta Wu, a biologist at the Genomics Research Center of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, explained that computing grids are the fastest and cheapest way to find promising new drugs that might be able to battle the virus. By rapidly sifting through a vast number of possible drug and virus interactions, the grid calculates the probability that a particular drug molecule will block key sites on the virus, thus inhibiting its action.

Submission + - Forget about OpenOffice, KDE readies KOffice 2.0 (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by Da Massive on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @12:26AM

Da Massive writes: While the industry is distracted by the ongoing tussle between Microsoft and OpenOffice.org over document formats, the KDE project is quietly preparing the next generation of its own office suite, KOffice, which will run on for Linux, Mac OS X and... Windows. http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1596080362

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