DogBotherer writes "The BBC is reporting that the film Serenity has been voted the number-one Sci Fi film of all time. Serenity is a followup to the series Firefly. The 2005 film beat out Star Wars better than two-to-one for the top honors. This result came in a poll of 3000 readers of SFX magazine.

An anonymous reader writes "At an ICANN meeting in Lisbon, the US Department of Homeland Security made it clear that it has requested the master key for the DNS root zone. The key will play an important role in the new DNSSec security extension, because it will make spoofing IP-addresses impossible. By forcing the IANA to hand out a copy of the master key, the US government will be the only institution that is able to spoof IP addresses and be able to break into computers connected to the Internet without much effort. There's a further complication, of course, because even 'if the IANA retains the key ... the US government still reserves the right to oversee ICANN/IANA. If the keys are then handed over to ICANN/IANA, there would be even less of an incentive [for the U.S.] to give up this role as a monitor. As a result, the DHS's demands will probably only heat up the debate about US dominance of the control of Internet resources.'"

GP writes "The GTA4 trailer isn't 48 hours old yet, but NYC politicians are up in arms because the game's setting, Liberty City, is a virtual version of the Big Apple." Obviously these guys never played GTA3, since it was also set in the "fictional" Liberty City, that also felt a lot like NYC.

GrepNut writes "CERN is reporting that the giant magnets that steer the particle beam in the new and highly anticipated Large Hadron Collider have just failed catastrophically in a stress test, apparently due to a design oversight. It doesn't help that the magnets were designed and built by CERN's US competitor Fermilab." While safety precautions were followed, and no one was injured nor were any rifts in the space-time continuum opened, it's still a rather large setback for the project.

anthemaniac writes "Professor Esmail Zanjani and colleagues at the University of Nevada-Reno have created sheep that are 15 percent human at the cellular level. Half the organs in the sheep are human. The idea, of course, is to harvest those organs to transplant into human patients. From the article: 'He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.' One scientists worries, however, that the work could lead to new viruses that cross from animals to humans."

Sparr0 asks: "Microsoft has announcement that DirectX 10 will not be released for Windows XP (which means no Shader Model 4.0 and no Geometry Shaders). I have since been waiting for news of game developers switching to OpenGL, in order to get the best graphics on the best hardware on the most popular gaming OS, however there is nary a whisper of such. Will such a shift occur, even if only in small amounts? When? Why not? It is probably safe to say that Unreal Tournament 3 (AKA UT2007) will have OpenGL as an option in Windows, but that is both unsurprising and also a long way off. Ditto for Quake Wars, and most other games that are planning a native Linux clients. Where are all of the other big names with Windows-only offerings? Why haven't we heard from Valve, Blizzard, Sony, or EA, to name a few?"

interactive_civilian writes "Jack Thompson has personally replied to ArsTechnica regarding their coverage of the lawsuit from TakeTwo. Really, it's best for Jack to speak for himself: 'I have been praying, literally, that Take-Two and its lawyers would do something so stupid, so arrogant, so dumb, even dumber than what they have to date done, that such a misstep would enable me to destroy Take-Two. With the filing of this SLAPP lawsuit last week, my prayers are finally answered. This lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, is, without a doubt, the single dumbest thing I have ever seen any lawyers do in my thirty years of practicing law--while in continuous good standing to do so with The Florida Bar, I might add, the shock radio and video game industry's efforts notwithstanding.'"

An anonymous reader writes "ArsTechnica is running a story regarding comments by Microsoft Business Group President Jeff Raikes, who had a pithy comment on the subject of software piracy. His view is that, should software piracy occur, Microsoft's desire is that the pirated software should be theirs. Potentially, in the future, they could then convert the illegal users from the 'dark side' into legit users who obtain licenses. 'We understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the installed base of people who are using our products. What you hope to do over time is convert them to licensing the software.' Obviously Microsoft prefers the market to use their software even if it's pirated, rather than the alternative: the use of free software."

00_NOP writes "HateMyTory is the world's first political rating site and occasionally gets blasted or promoted by British bloggers on either side of the political spectrum. But here's something even more intriguing: when the right come visiting they hate the site but they are disproportionately likely to be users of free software, whether that is just Firefox on top of their Windows box, or all the way with some Linux distro. But when the left rally to the cause they are more likely than not to be proprietary software users, albeit with a big bias towards Apple. If Microsoft's defenders think free software is the road to socialism, why don't the left seem to agree? As a leftie, and a free software advocate, I find this pretty puzzling."

theodp writes "In its annual report, Google said it's done no tax-accounting evil, but the search giant acknowledged that both the IRS and SEC are taking a look at the way in which it accounts for income tax. Google is one of a number of U.S. companies that have come under fire for allegedly practicing 'profit laundering', i.e., moving book profits offshore to evade millions and even billions in taxes to the country where it really operates. In past SEC filings, Google has credited its Irish subsidiary for reducing its effective tax rate."

A blog entry by Michael Kanellos at ZDNet links to and expands upon an article in the Charlotte Observer. Last year Google was apparently throwing its weight around in North Carolina, seeking tax breaks from state and local legislators. When the company didn't get what it wanted pressure was brought to bear on legislative aides, journalists, and politicians. The search giant was especially touchy about keeping the negotiations secret: "Executives didn't want anybody even to mention the company's name for fear that competitors could learn of its plans. Most involved with the negotiations were required to sign nondisclosure agreements ... That posed challenges for elected officials, charged with conducting the public's business in the open. As the tax measure wended its way through the legislature, some lawmakers began linking it to Google." The results of this deal are extremely lucrative for both sides. Google brought some $600 million in investment and as many as 200 jobs to the state, and legislation enacted with Google's help is projected to save the company some $89 million in taxes over 30 years.

Dr Kool, PhD writes "According to Bloomberg, a jury ruled against Qualcomm in their patent lawsuit against Broadcom. Qualcomm had sought $8.3 million in damages for patent infringement stemming from Broadcom's H.264 encoder/decoder chips. From the article: 'The patents, covering a way to compress high-definition video, are unenforceable in part because Qualcomm withheld information from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, jurors in San Diego said today after deliberating less than six hours.' This ruling clears the way for H.264 to become a widely adopted open standard."

adamlazz writes "The most dense computer memory circuit ever fabricated, capable of storing around 2,000 words in a unit the size of a white blood cell, was unveiled by scientists in California. The team of experts at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) who developed the 160-kilobit memory cell say it has a bit density of 100 gigabits per square centimeter, a new record. The cell is capable of storing a file the size of the United States' Declaration of Independence with room left over."

spiedrazer writes "In yet another attempt to create legitimacy for the Bush Administration's many questionable legal practices, US attorney General Alberto Gonzales actually had the audacity to argue before a Congressional committee that the US Constitution doesn't explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights on US citizens. In his view it merely says when the so-called Great Writ can be suspended, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the rights are granted. The Attorney General was being questioned by Sen. Arlen Specter at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18. THe MSM are not covering this story but Colbert is (click on the fourth video down, 'Exact Words')." From the Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel commentary: "While Gonzales's statement has a measure of quibbling precision to it, his logic is troubling because it would suggest that many other fundamental rights that Americans hold dear (such as free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to assemble peacefully) also don't exist because the Constitution often spells out those rights in the negative. It boggles the mind the lengths this administration will go to to systematically erode the rights and privileges we have all counted on and held up as the granite pillars of our society since our nation was founded."

John H. Doe writes "A number type of nano-scale architecture developed in the research labs of Hewlett-Packard could beat Moore's Law and advance the progress of of microprocessor development three generations in one hit. The new architecture uses a design technique that will enable chip makers to pack eight times as many transistors as is currently possible on a standard 45nm field programmable gate array (FPGA) chip.""