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Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft SharePoint spreads like a virus (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "Microsoft's SharePoint is spreading like a virus throughout large enterprises, catching IT departments off guard and introducing risks related to uncontrolled content and regulatory compliance, analyst firm CMS Watch claims. One North American bank found "more than 5,000 uncontrolled and unaudited instances of SharePoint," and a major energy company "reported finding more than 15,000 previously undetected instances of SharePoint." With users deploying SharePoint on their own, business-critical information is being left on servers where it isn't properly archived, making it hard to comply with legal discovery requirements. Microsoft accuses the analyst firm of spreading "mischaracterizations and inaccuracies.""
Media

Submission + - Suit seeks "a la carte" TV channel choices (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. pay-TV industry amounts to a cartel because it maintains profits by offering channels in prepackaged tiers rather than "a la carte," according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles. The federal lawsuit names every major cable and satellite television system operator as well as every major cable and broadcast television network. "The antitrust laws protect the right of choice," antitrust lawyer Maxwell M. Blecher said. "Here the customer is denied that choice."
NASA

Submission + - NASA posts ancient FORTRAN code, buffs up data

Submitted by
chicomarxbro
chicomarxbro writes: "A Y2K error discovered by blogger Steve McIntyre in August forced NASA's climate chief James Hansen revise temperature data showing 1934 was actually the hottest year on record, not 1998 as previously announced. This spurred renewed calls for NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) to publicly release their historical FORTRAN code which powered the global temperature analyses. Still used today, the code has a lineage going back to the 70's. NASA finally agreed and published the code but not before making an unannounced change to the raw temperature data which bundled with the code. NASA's change to raw data collating methods. which hadn't been modified in over a decade, resulted in 1998 being put back in first place next to 1934. Some bloggers have called this stealthy revision of the raw data an "Enron like accounting game""
Security

Submission + - Report: How Paper Trails Fail to Secure e-Voting (itif.org)

Submitted by
Daniel Castro
Daniel Castro writes: "The Information Week article on our report was listed earlier this week on Slashdot, so I thought people might be interested in seeing our actual report "Stop the Presses: How Paper Trails Fail to Secure e-Voting" which we released today at a briefing in Washington, D.C. We basically make three points: 1) Paper trails have serious limitations. 2) Audit trails are good, but there is no need to mandate that they be paper audit trails. 3) Even better forms of verifiability, such as "end-to-end verifiability", offer proven security which actually allows any voter or election observer to verify the results of an election, without compromising the privacy of the voter's ballot."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Canadian Bureaucrats Don't "Think Different

Submitted by owlgorithm
owlgorithm writes: Apple's new store in Montreal has three parking meters in front, and in their ever-conscious attempt to improve design, they offered to reimburse the city for the parking meters and their revenue if they would remove them. Answer: No, because "We've never done it before, so we can't."
Businesses

Submission + - Broadcasters launch ads opposing wireless internet

Submitted by kaufmanmoore
kaufmanmoore writes: According to an AP report, The National Association of Broadcasters is launching ads to target lawmakers over a push by a consortium of technology giants including Google, Intel, HP and MSFT who want to use unused and unlicensed TV spectrum for wireless broadband. Broadcasters are airing concerns about the devices creating interference with broadcast television and in a statement NAB chairman Alan Frank takes a swipe at technology companies saying, "While our friends at Intel, Google and Microsoft may find system errors, computer glitches and dropped calls tolerable, broadcasters do not."
Education

Submission + - Levitation Technology Developed (smarthouse.com.au)

Submitted by
Mike
Mike writes: "Scientists at a Scotland university have developed technology that offers a way of levitating tiny objects. The technology relies on reversing the Casimir force. The physicists said they can create "incredible levitation effects" by manipulating so-called Casimir force, which normally causes objects to stick together by quantum force.The scientists say they are a long way off, they admit it is possible in principle for the technology to be developed to levitate larger objects, including people and vehicles. Now, I remember when the very idea of owning a gigabyte of hard disk space was regarded as crazy-talk; now you can get a terabyte for $300 or less. So the question is, how much longer before this technology is scaled up to a useful level?"
Input Devices

Submission + - What is that gunk on the bottom of your mouse? 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: While working in a student computer lab at a major university for several years, I was appalled at how quickly that black gunk would built up on the bottom of the mice. Not only was it gross, but it kept the devices from sliding properly. What is that stuff? Has anyone ever analyzed it? How can it be avoided?
Security

Submission + - Stampedes can be predicted by CCTV software

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Analysis of footage from the Jamarat Bridge stampede tragedy during the 2006 Hajj pilgrimage has shown up new processes that can be used to predict when such a disaster will occur. Sharp waves move through a crowd before a turbulent phase when people are jostled in unpredictable directions, when they are likely to fall, leading to a stampede. Software used by the researchers could be used to provide warning before this stage is reached.
Media (Apple)

Submission + - PC World claims "Apple is the New Microsoft

Submitted by
mcgrew (sm62704)
mcgrew (sm62704) writes: "In a wordy, convoluted troll, PC World is claiming that it's Apple's turn to be the monopolist now. Their reasoning is, of course, the iPod and iTunes.

Don't look now, but the role of the industry's biggest bully is increasingly played by Apple, not Microsoft. Here's a look at how Apple has shoved Microsoft aside as the company with the worst reputation as a monopolist, copycat and a bully.
Personally, I don't buy it. What do you guys think?"
Toys

Submission + - Spider-like catamaran travels 5,000 on one tank (msn.com)

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "Proteus, a Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel that looks like a spider, is so fuel efficient that it can travel 5,000 miles on one load of diesel fuel. The 100-foot-long, 50-foot-wide boat rides on metal and fabric pontoons that have hinges and shock absorbers to flex with the motion of the waves, which helps it to skim over the water at a max speed of 30 knots. It made its debut yesterday in New York harbor."
IBM

Submission + - IBM stores data on an atom (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
InfoWorldMike
InfoWorldMike writes: "IBM has demonstrated how to perform computer functions on single atoms and molecules, a discovery that could someday lead to processors the size of a speck of dust, the company said Thursday. Researchers at IBM's Almaden Research Center in California developed a technique for measuring magnetic anisotropy, a property of the magnetic field that gives it the ability to maintain a particular direction. Being able to measure magnetic anisotropy at the atomic level is a crucial step toward the magnet representing the ones or the zeroes used to store data in binary computer language. In a second report, researchers at IBM's lab in Zurich, Switzerland, said they had used an individual molecule as an electric switch that could potentially replace the transistors used in modern chips. The company published both research reports in Friday's edition of the journal Science."
Businesses

Submission + - 54% of CEOs dissastisfied with innovation (cio.com)

Submitted by
athloi
athloi writes: "Invention is new and clever; innovation is a process that takes knowledge and uses it to get a payback. Invention without a financial return is just an expense. Ideas are really the sexy part of innovation and there's rarely a shortage of them. If you look at the biggest problems around innovation, rarely does a lack of ideas come up as one of the top obstacles; instead, it's things like a risk-averse culture, overly lengthy development times and lack of coordination within the company. Not enough ideas, on the other hand, is an obstacle for only 17 percent. At the end of the day all that creativity and all those ideas have to show on the bottom line. The goal of innovation is to make or save money, and IT should never lose sight of that central fact.

http://www.cio.com/article/134201/"
Space

Submission + - "Dark energy" explained? (turton.co.za)

Submitted by Tijaska
Tijaska writes: In 1998 astronomers discovered to their suprise that the universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. The term "dark energy" has been coined to describe the mysterious, unknown force that is causing this acceleration. I have published a paper that claims to explain what dark energy is – plain old electrons, released from the accretion disks of black holes, while their matching protons, being heavier, get preferentially sucked into the black holes and swallowed by the singularities at their centres. Once there, the protons become sequestered, their positive charge invisible to the rest of the universe forever. Well, if not forever then at least for a very long time. The oldest galaxies, largely swallowed by the black holes at their centres by now, have released vast amounts of electrons over the ages, which have exanded into surrounding space, pushing the galaxies in these regions further away and giving rise to the huge voids that characterise the cosmos, as also described in this BBC report.

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