Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Earth

Arctic Sea Ice Rallies a Bit 152

Posted by timothy from the mysterious-ways dept.
radioweather writes "Like the recent stock market rebound, Arctic sea ice is making a big rally over the record low set last year. According to the Alaskan IARC-JAXA website, satellite data which shows sea ice extent as of 10/14/08 was 7,064,219 square kilometers, when compared to a year ago 10/14/08 it was 5,487,656 square kilometers. The one-day gain between 10/13/08 and 10/14/08 of 3.8% is also quite impressive. On May 5th, The National Snow and Ice Data Center suggested the possibility of an ice-free north pole in 2008, but so far, this year has been a banner year for sea ice recovery."
Businesses

Submission + - Nokia to acquire Trolltech (nokia.com)

Submitted by Iloinen Lohikrme
Iloinen Lohikrme writes: From press release: Nokia and Trolltech ASA today announced that they have entered into an agreement that Nokia will make a public voluntary tender offer to acquire Trolltech.. The acquisition of Trolltech will enable Nokia to accelerate its cross-platform software strategy for mobile devices and desktop applications, and develop its Internet services business.. Nokia aims to continue the development of Trolltech's products and support of new and existing customers.. Nokia intends to continue to enhance Trolltech products through active and ongoing development, for both desktop and mobile. To further stimulate industry innovation based on Trolltech's products, Nokia plans to continue to license Trolltech technology under both commercial and open source licenses.
Linux Business

Submission + - Samba Success in the Enterprise?

Submitted by
gunnk
gunnk writes: "We've deployed a Samba server here to replace some aging Novell Netware boxes. It works great: fast, secure, stable. However, we have one VIP that feels that Samba is "amateur" software and that we should be buying Windows servers. I've been searching with little success for large Samba deployments in enterprise environments. Anyone out there care to share stories of places that are happily running large Samba installations for their file servers? Or not so happy, for that matter — better to be informed!"
Microsoft

Submission + - iowaconsumercase archive disappered

Submitted by jbrax
jbrax writes: Microsoft's dirty tricks archive seems to have vanished.

The Register: Plaintiffs maintained a website at iowaconsumercase.org, which included daily media updates, full transcripts of the previous day's proceedings, and an archive of some 2,000 exhibits of alleged misdeeds going back to the 1980s.

The website is now password-protected. Microsoft's own archive of exhibits and transcripts has similarly disappeared. Microsoft maintains a comprehensive record of its antitrust proceedings, making Comes a notable absence.
Announcements

Submission + - Merck HIV vaccine trial begins in South Africa

Submitted by Neme$y$
Neme$y$ writes: The BBC reports that "An international team of researchers, led by experts from the US, will oversee the trial of the vaccine, created by the drug company Merck.". According to CBC News : The study is a "test of concept" trial that will help researchers determine if the vaccine prevents HIV infections, results in lower HIV levels in those who become infected after vaccination or both. "South Africa is an excellent location for this trial due to the high levels of infection coupled with the good clinical infrastructure, including internationally recognized immunology laboratories, a well-established national vaccine initiative and experience in running clinical trials," said James Kublin, M.D., M.P.H., one of study's lead investigators, along with Glenda Gray, MBBCH, FCPaeds (SA), of the Perinatal HIV Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand, based at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. A more detailed explanation here.
Biotech

Submission + - Obesity linked to gut bacterial population

Submitted by
krishn_bhakt
krishn_bhakt writes: "Joel Elmquist (The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, USA), a Physiology Faculty 1000 Member, comments "This is one of the most provocative papers to be published in the field of obesity research in some time. The evidence provided in this paper demonstrates that obese and non-obese mice have alterations in bacterial populations that apparently affect energy availability and utilization and the body weight of the host."

The nature article is available at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7122/ab s/nature05414.html ."
Biotech

Submission + - Neural "extention chord" developed

Submitted by moon_monkey
moon_monkey writes: Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a 'neural extention chord' by growing neurons attached to a microchip. The chord is made by gradually moving two batches of neurons apart, as they naturally grow towards one another. This biological 'data cable' could then naturally interface with the brain once implanted, the researchers say.
Businesses

Submission + - Whatever happened to Aerogel?

Submitted by
BK117
BK117 writes: "When I first saw the news releases for this amazing material (in the early 1990's) they said it would revolutionize refrigerators, hot water heaters and many other devices needing lightweight insulation. Well, I have yet to see any consumer-level appliances using aerogels. Why not?"
Handhelds

Submission + - OpenMoko Schedule Announced

Submitted by
levell
levell writes: "The schedule for the OpenMoko Open source, Linux based Neo1973 smart phone was posted to the community mailing list by Sean Moss-Pultz this morning. On Feb 11, free phones will be sent to key community developers and the community websites/wiki/bug tracker will be available. Then on March 11 ("official developer launch") we'll be able to buy an OpenMoko for $350 (+p&p) (worldwide from openmoko.com). After allowing some time for innovative, slick software to be created there will be a "Mass market launch" at which point Sean hopes that "your mom and dad will want one too"."
KDE

Submission + - KDE on Windows

Submitted by
AlanS2002
AlanS2002 writes: "This week's KDE Commit Digest tells about an installer for KDE on Windows and the problems the developers encountered setting up a working environment for KDE to run on. Many screenshots included, showing the first applications (such as Konqueror) running natively."
Software

Submission + - MacFUSE: write to NTFS partitions from OS X

Submitted by
Beiden Baeren
Beiden Baeren writes: "After an announcement at MacWorld, Amit Singh from Google has released the code for MacFUSE http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/. While FUSE has been available to Linux users for a while, MacFUSE means that OS X users have now support for a variety of filesystems:
  • Windows NTFS includes write support
  • FTP includes write support
  • WebDAV
  • SSHFS
  • BeagleFS
  • etc... (PicasaFS, GoogleFS)
While installing and configuring the software requires use of the command line and compiling from source, users are quickly stepping forward to provide more user-friendly installation packages such as this one by Jeff McCune of The Ohio State University's mathematics department. Personally, as a switcher to Mac from Windows, I find the ability to write to Windows NTFS invaluable, but MacFUSE provides significantly more than this. Thanks to Amit Singh and his team!"
Operating Systems

Submission + - Carmack Blasts Vista, Questions Direct X 10.

Submitted by
222
222 writes: "Apparently id's John Carmack is also having trouble finding a reason to upgrade to Vista. ""Nothing is going to help a new game by going to a new operating system. There were some clear wins going from Windows 95 to Windows XP for games, but there really aren't any for Vista," Carmack told Game Informer." He also seems to feel that Direct X 10 is more of a gimmick than anything. "They're artificially doing that by tying DX10 [DirectX 10] so close it, which is really nothing about the OS. It's a hardware-interface spec. It's an artificial thing that they're doing there." With this coming from an industry leader, will you be upgrading?"
Security

Submission + - Why blurring sensitive information is a bad idea

Submitted by
Rub3X
Rub3X writes: "For the most part this is all fine with peoples' faces as there isn't a convenient way to reverse the blur back into a photo so detailed that you can recognize the photo. So that's good if that is what you intended. However, many people also resort to blurring sensitive numbers and text. I'll illustrate why that is a BAD idea."
Biotech

Submission + - scientific basis for race: genome Hamming distance

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Physics professor describes how genetic clustering corresponds to racial identity. Individual genetic data, when plotted in an abstract genome space, tends to cluster into groups corresponding to traditional continental ethnic groups (Europeans, Africans, Asians, etc.). Race is more than a matter of pigmentation or other superficial traits: it determines the likelihood an individual is carrying a particular gene variant.

Slashdot Top Deals

And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones

Close