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PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - PS3 Price Drop (yahoo.com)

coop247 writes: Sony has announced a 40gig PS3 for $400 in the U.S. So between the price drop and the release of several good games around the same time, will the PS3 finally get some love. If you already own one, I recommend checking out Everyday Shooter on the PSN, easily the best game $10 can buy.
FTFA:
The new version of the PS3 will come with a 40-gigabyte hard drive, cost $400, and go on sale on November 2...The price of the 80-gigabyte version will be cut to $500 from $600.

Data Storage

Submission + - Western Digital doubles HDD density

An anonymous reader writes: Western Digital has really done some great job by packing 520GB data on a single one square inch plate. In the simple terms WD has double the hard drive density using perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) / tunneling magneto-resistive (TuMR) head technology. This development will lead to 3.5-inch 3TB hard drive by 2010.
The Courts

Submission + - A patent infringement suit cheat sheet

Count Blah writes: Having trouble figuring out who all the players are and who's doing what with the patent infringement suit slapped on Red Hat and Novell? This playbook spells it all out for you.
Networking

Submission + - Power Line modems reach 400 Mbps (ds2.es)

alabarbacoa writes: Current PLC modems seem to work much better than wifi for big houses. Now the third generation of PLC modems has been announced. More range and more speed, up to 400 Mbps they say...
The Matrix

Submission + - Light to power nano devices (yahoo.com)

Technical Writing Geek writes: "Scientists have developed solar cells 200 hundred times thinner than a human hair that they believe will power the nanoscale gadgetry of tomorrow, according to a study released Wednesday. Charles Leiber and colleagues at Harvard University describe silicon nanowire they devised that can convert light into electrical energy, which at nanoscale it is enough to provide a steady output of electricity to run ultralow power electronics, including some that could be worn on — or even inside — the body.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071017/sc_afp/sciencenanotechnologyenergysolar_071017171804

But can it run my iPod nano?"

The Matrix

Submission + - Ann Arbor using LEDs to replace incandescents (yahoo.com)

Technical Writing Geek writes: "The city of Ann Arbor will be installing light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, to replace about 1,400 street lights. The eco-friendly city about 30 miles west of Detroit says it will be the nation's first to convert all downtown street lights to LED technology, which uses less than half the energy of traditional bulbs and could save the community $100,000 a year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071017/ap_on_hi_te/techbit_city_s_bright_idea"

Patents

Submission + - OSS used to punish competition is bad biz (news.com)

Technical Writing Geek writes: "Oliver Alexy of Technische Universität München (TUM) Business School has written an interesting paper entitled "Putting a Value on Openness: The Effect of Product Source Code Releases on the Market Value of Firms." It says if a vendor is more worried about pulverizing its competitors than it is in serving its customers, the investment markets recognize this and punish its stock.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9799637-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5"

Education

Submission + - DNA co-discoverer claims blacks less intelligent (independent.co.uk)

Theaetetus writes: "In a move that will surely raise angry debate, James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA, has claimed that "black people are less intelligent than white people and the idea that 'equal powers of reason' were shared across racial groups was a delusion." Criticism has been widespread, with some anti-racism groups calling for Watson's remarks to be looked at in the context of racial hatred laws. Watson has previously found controversy with pronouncements that sex drive is linked to skin color, that "stupidity" could one day be cured through selective breeding, and that exposure to sunlight could make women slutty."
Privacy

Submission + - Company had to pay $4000 for illegal use of image (eirikso.com)

eirikso writes: "One year ago a company stole an image from my blog and used it in a commercial. I hired Halvor Manshaus (Jon Lech Johansen's lawyer) and was able to get a compensation of $4000 for the violation of intellectual property law. As more and more people publish their images on the internet I think this is an important story."
The Courts

SCO Vs. Groklaw 477

Conrad Mazian points us to an article in Forbes reporting that the SCO Group is trying to subpoena Pamela Jones of Groklaw. Except they can't find her. A few days ago PJ posted a note on Groklaw saying that she is taking some time away from the blog for health reasons; she didn't mention any SCO deposition. SCO's lawyers apparently believe that "Pamela Jones" does not exist and that Groklaw is penned by a team of IBM lawyers.
United States

US Pennies To Be Worth Five Cents? 729

Z-MaxX writes to point out Reuters coverage following up on last month's news that the US Mint has made it illegal to melt or export US coins in bulk, since the value of their constituent metals — in the case of pennies and nickels — now exceeds their face value. The new story quotes Francois Velde, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, who thinks the new rules will not be enough — he believes that determined speculators are already piling up pennies. Velde suggests "rebasing" the penny to be worth five cents. Quoting Velde: "These factors suggest that, sooner or later, the penny will join the farthing (one-quarter of a penny) and the hapenny (one-half of a penny) in coin museums."
Announcements

Submission + - FreeSBIE 2.0 released

An anonymous reader writes: FreeSBIE 2.0 has been released, based on FreeBSD 6.2. FreeSBIE is a LiveCD based on the FreeBSD operating system, i.e. you can boot and run FreeBSD directly fromthe CD, without touching your hard drive.

Full details and information on how to download are available:
http://ftp.freesbie.org/2.0-RELEASE/FreeSBIE-2.0-R ELEASE-announce.txt
Software

Submission + - The Hidden Engineering Gender Gap

ifindkarma writes: "Joyce Park, CTO of invitation site Renkoo.com [1], has
written a two-part essay exploring why there is no pipeline of self-taught
female engineers entering the tech industry via Open Source or other
individual efforts. In "The Hidden Engineering Gap" [2], she asks why
there are so many self-taught male software engineers in startups, but
no similar pool of women. In "A Modest Proposal" [3], she discusses a
potential short-term fix to the problem.

Links:

    1. http://renkoo.com/
    2. http://www.venturebeat.com/contributors/2007/01/02 /the-hidden-engineering-gender-gap/
    3. http://www.venturebeat.com/contributors/2007/01/04 /a-modest-proposal/"
The Internet

Inside MySpace.com 250

lizzyben writes "Baseline is running a long piece about the inner workings of MySpace.com. The story chronicles how the social networking site has continuously upgraded its technology infrastructure — not entirely systematically — to accommodate more than 26 million accounts. It was a rocky road and there are still hiccups, several of which writer David F. Carr details here." From the story: "MySpace.com's continued growth flies in the face of much of what Web experts have told us for years about how to succeed on the Internet. It's buggy, often responding to basic user requests with the dreaded 'Unexpected Error' screen, and stocked with thousands of pages that violate all sorts of conventional Web design standards with their wild colors and confusing background images. And yet, it succeeds anyway."

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