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Web OS, ajaxWindows Launched 211

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the then-your-internet-connection-dies dept.
BigRedFed writes "Michael Robertson, of mp3.com fame, Linspire.com fame (or infamy depending on your view point) and more recently, ajax13.com has released another interesting piece of web software. ajaxWindows they are calling it and it's an almost full fledged web based OS that you can use to transport around your documents and mp3 collection to any device with an internet connection and a full web-browser."
Censorship

Submission + - Arcor, german ISP censors Pornsite

Submitted by
sango
sango writes: "The german ISP Arcor censored the access to some porn and adult sites like sex.com, youporn.com or privatamateure.com
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/95758 (german)
Some think its about the large amount of traffic these sites produce. Some think, its because the video-on-demand sites from arcor itself are not used enough. Arcor itself talk about legal problems like age verification. I think, it is pure censorship with financial intrest and no moral decision."
Programming

Submission + - Free Pascal 2.2 has been released (freepascal.org)

Submitted by
Daniel Mantione
Daniel Mantione writes: "Free Pascal 2.2 has been released. Several new platforms are supported, like the Mac OS X on Intel platform, the Game Boy Advance, Windows CE and 64-Windows. Free Pascal is now the first and only free software compiler that target 64-bit Windows. These advancements were made possible by Free Pascal's internal assembler and linker allowing support for platforms not supported by the GNU binutils. The advancement in internal assembling and linking also allow faster compilation times and smaller executables, increasing the programmer comfort. Other new features are stabs debug support, many new code optimizations, resourcestring smartlinking and more.

Further, Free Pascal has become extremely powerfull in developing portable software over the last years. The release article explains why."
The Internet

Spotlight on Facebook Groups Affects Microsoft 150

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the hate-to-be-in-the-marketing-managers-shoes dept.
NewsCloud writes "After Slashdot reported Facebook Exposes Advertisers To Hate Speech, the company removed its F**k Islam group for a day (it's back up now). According to the New York Times, 'Facebook declined to comment on Friday on the subject of hate speech or on what steps had been taken.' It turns out that Microsoft is the digital advertising provider for Facebook serving up ads for companies such as NetFlix, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon and Coca Cola. But for now, the Microsoft-served ads for all Facebook group home pages (even those complying with Facebook's Terms of Use) appear to have been taken off the site. For its part, NetFlix told me to address any concerns about its own ad placement along obscene speech with Facebook. T-Mobile said they would look into it."
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."
Power

New Wonder Weed to Fuel Cars? 484

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the be-a-great-shift-in-the-balance-of-power dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Jatropha, an ugly, fast-growing and poisonous weed that has been used as a remedy for constipation, may someday power your car. The plant, resilient to pests and resistant to drought, produces seeds with up to 40 per cent oil content that when crushed can be burned in a diesel car while the residue can be processed into biomass for power plants. Although jatropha has been used for decades by farmers in Africa as a living fence because its smell and taste repel grazing animals, the New York Times reports that jatropha may replace biofuels like ethanol that require large amounts of water, fertilizer, and energy, making their environmental benefits limited. Jatropha requires no pesticides, little water other than rain and no fertilizer beyond the nutrient-rich seed cake left after oil is pressed from its nuts. Poor farmers living close to the equator are planting jatropha on millions of acres spurred on by big oil companies like British Petroleum that are investing in jatropha cultivation."
Censorship

Submission + - Web search for bomb recipes should be blocked: EU

Submitted by the_insult_dog
the_insult_dog writes: Internet searches for bomb-making instructions should be blocked across the European Union, the bloc's top security official said on Monday .

Internet providers should also prevent access to any site giving instructions on how to make a bomb, EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said in an interview.

Frattini said there would be no bar on opinion, analysis or historical information but operational instructions useful to terrorists should be blocked.
Space

Submission + - Arecibo Observatory Funding in trouble (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by MadMonkD
MadMonkD writes: According to the Puerto Rican Newspaper El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish) and The Washington Post , The NSF (National Science Foundation) has stated that if half of the $8 million budget needed for running the Arecibo Observatory is not found by 2011, they will need to close down the facility. This Observatory is responsible for the SETI project, space climate investigation and is the only one sensitive enough to track asteroids. Unlike the New Mexico or the West Virginia Observatories who have been in financial crisis before, the Arecibo Observatory does not have enough political clout in Congress to get financial backing, since Puerto Rico has no senators in Washington and its single representative has no vote. But that doesnt mean that the people running it dont have a backup plan: "Arecibo site director Robert B. Kerr says rather than count on Congress, he is trying to get creative when it comes to funding sources. One idea: selling naming rights to a private corporation, much the way sports venues do.
Power

Submission + - Magnetic Waves Boost Ethanol Production (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Research in Brazil has shown that 'extremely low frequency magnetic waves' applied to yeast-based fermentation of sugar cane resulted in a two hour shorter process and a boosted 17 percent more ethanol produced. They say it can easily be produced on an industrial scale but do not mention how much 'net' energy after accounting for energy used to create the field for whole duration of the fermentation process."
Science

Method of Reading Discovered 181

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the going-crosseyed dept.
Scientists have discovered that the method our eyes use to process letters on a page is different than previously believed. Instead of assimilating one letter at a time our eyes actually lock on to two different letters simultaneously about half the time. "The team's results demonstrated that both eyes lock on to the same letter 53% of the time; for 39% of the time they see different letters with uncrossed eyes; and for 8% of the time the eyes are crossing to focus on different letters. A follow-up experiment with the eye-tracking equipment showed that we only see one clear image when reading because our brain fuses the different images from our eyes together."
First Person Shooters (Games)

Submission + - Bioshock: did the reviewers mess up? (custompc.co.uk)

Submitted by
mr_sifter
mr_sifter writes: "With a whopping average review score of 96% it's clear that the press can't heap enough praise on Bioshock — yet some are beginning to wonder just how it managed to get such high scores. In this column one gamer argues that far from being a masterpiece, Bioshock is derivative stuff, and its high review scores represent a serious lapse by the games press. "The underwater city of Rapture is a thing of beauty, but most of the locations you actually see in the game are repetitive and dull. It's all dripping corridors and small, dark rooms, with only the occasional port hole to provide a view of some kelp and corpses to lighten things up. The enemies, aside from the Big Daddies are uninspiring. Mostly you've got a horde of maudlin zombie types, called Splicers, and gun turrets; pretty much the same sort of stuff anybody who played through System Shock 2 has killed enough of to last a lifetime.... the boring enemy design is further weakened by poor AI: the splicers' basic tactic is just to run at you, weaving around and cackling. You may recognise this behaviour from, ooh, most PC games of the past fifteen years, and also schoolchildren at playtime. "Then there are the game's primitive controls; Bioshock completely lacks modern innovations such as the ability to lean around corners or aim down the gun sights, and your character moves at a fixed pace — a pace more suited to viewing paintings in a gallery rather than evading gun turrets or, heaven forbid, fighting.""
Google

Submission + - Google introduces Gmail Paper

Submitted by nacturation
nacturation writes: Everyone loves Gmail. But not everyone loves email, or the digital era. What ever happened to stamps, filing cabinets, and the mailman? Now in Gmail, you can request a physical copy of any message with the click of a button, and it'll be sent to you in the mail. Photo attachments are printed on high-quality, glossy photo paper, and secured to your Gmail Paper with a paper clip. And it's totally free: the cost of postage is offset with the help of relevant, targeted, unobtrusive advertisements printed on the back of every print.
Software

Submission + - Is Software Piracy Killing Jobs?

Submitted by Murthy DN
Murthy DN writes: During his visit to India, Steve Ballmer (CEO, Microsoft)said "By reducing piracy by just 10%, it would lead to the creation of 50,000 new jobs in India.". The full article is here.
Do you think software piracy is killing jobs?
Linux Business

Dell To Linux Users — Not So Fast 356

Posted by kdawson from the still-with-the-Windows-tax? dept.
PetManimal writes to tell us that after all the hubbub over Dell's note about manufacturing Linux-friendly Dells and choosing distros, the company is now telling users not to expect factory-installed Linux laptops and desktops anytime soon. According to the article, Dell says that lining up certification, support, and training will 'take a lot of work.' "The company said today that the note was just about certifying the hardware for being ready to work with Novell SUSE Linux, not an announcement that the computers would be loaded and sold with the operating system in the near future..."
Wii

Submission + - Miiware.com to make Mii "stuff"

Submitted by
boywundr
boywundr writes: "Hey, I found this site, MiiWare.com, while surfing the web for Mii stuff. It's cheaper than the other ones out there and seems pretty cool. On the one page they have a Flash program that you make the Miis on and then get it printed on shirts and stuff. The My Account area's pretty cool with the Mii images there instantly after you make them."

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