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Government

Submission + - FTC Introduces New Orders for Intel; No bundling (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Today a decision was handed down (PDF) from the FTC that underlined new guidelines for Intel in the highly anticipated investigation. Biggest result: the practices Intel employed like bundling prices to get manufacturers like Dell to block sales of competitors' chips like AMD must stop. No word yet on whether or not Intel will face monetary fines from the FTC like they did in Europe over the same monopolistic practices.
Mars

Submission + - ESA and NASA Chose Tools for Mars Mission (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: The first joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA that will study the chemical makeup of the martian atmosphere is scheduled for 2016. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter marks an unprecedented alliance between the two agencies for future ventures to Mars and is the first in a planned series of joint missions leading to the return of a sample from the surface of the Red Planet. Scientists worldwide were invited to propose the spacecraft’s instruments and ESA and NASA have now made their selections.

Submission + - Slashdot is Dying, New York Times Confims It (nytimes.com) 12

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The New York Times is running a story about how Slashdot has dropped in popularity compared to other news sites in social web space. Quote: "Why is Slashdot almost irrelevant to the social media community? It used to be the biggest driver of traffic to tech web sites, but now it hardly delivers any traffic at all to them. We explore some of the reasons, including input from our own community."
Crime

Submission + - New fast, reliable method to detect gravesoil (scienceblog.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Gravesoil. Yes, just what it sounds like. Nothing against bloodhounds, but finding bodies buried by someone who wanted them to stay undiscovered can be difficult. A new technique developed by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, can reliably detect biochemical changes in a decomposing cadaver. Typically, cadaver-sniffing dogs or ground penetrating radar are used to detect clandestine gravesites. But these methods are not always useful in all scenarios, such as if a body is buried under concrete.
Space

Submission + - Mars Rover Spirit May Never Wake from Deep Sleep (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "After repeated calls from NASA to wake up Mars Exploration Rover Spirit from its low-energy coma, mission control is beginning to realize the ill-fated robot may never wake up again. After getting stuck in a sand trap in Gusev Crater and then switching into hibernation in March, rover operators were hopeful that the beached Spirit might yet be saved. Alas, this is looking more and more unlikely. In a statement, NASA said: "Based on models of Mars' weather and its effect on available power, mission managers believe that if Spirit responds, it most likely will be in the next few months. However, there is a very distinct possibility Spirit may never respond.""
Government

Submission + - Justice Department Sues Oracle, Alleging Fraud (cnet.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: Justice department lawsuit argues that Oracle's government customers--a wide array of agencies, including the State Department, the Energy Department, and the Justice Department itself--got deals "far inferior" to those the enterprise software giant gave to its commercial clients.

The allegations stem from a software deal between Oracle and the federal General Services Administration that the Justice Department says involved "hundreds of millions of dollars in sales" and that ran from 1998 to 2006. Under the contract, Oracle was required to inform the GSA when commercial discounts improved and to offer those same discounts to government buyers.

Oracle misrepresented its true commercial sales practices and thus defrauded the U.S., the lawsuit contends.

"We take seriously allegations that a government contractor has dealt dishonestly with the United States," said Tony West, assistant attorney general for the civil division of the Department of Justice, in a statement.

CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-20012193-92.html
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Who Is Downloading the Torrented Facebook Files? (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Aside from the obvious answer of everyone on Slashdot, Gizmodo's got an interesting scoop on a list of IPs acquired from Peer Block revealing who is downloading the Facebook user data torrented this week. Apple, Church of Scientology, Disney, Intel, IBM and several major government contractors just to name a few. The article notes that this doesn't mean it's sanctioned by these companies or even known to be happening but the IP addresses of requests coming to one of the users' machines match to lists of IP blocks for each company.
Patents

Submission + - Uniloc Sues Sony, McAfee, Activision, Borland (marketwatch.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Uniloc's thirst for corporate blood is apparently not yet satiated despite recieving a $388 million decision from Microsoft last year. This new patent, filed of course in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Tyler Division, seems to target software activation much like their earlier patent against Microsoft. The CEO of Uniloc gave a statement, "We decided to take legal action against Sony, McAfee, Activision, Quark and others to protect our products and our company. Uniloc has licensed its products to technology companies since 1995. Patent infringement corrupts everything we have worked so hard to build; it is not only unfair to our paying customers, our employees and shareholders, but it handcuffs our ability to build and grow a great technology company with a tremendous future. Patent infringement, especially when it's carried out by 'Captains of Industry' like Sony America and McAfee can kill a small business. We do not intend to let this happen to Uniloc and we plan to defend our patents aggressively whenever we believe they are violated." Certainly does seem to be the latest fad to name everyone in your patent suits these days.
Communications

Submission + - IBM crafts silicon optical amplifier (eetimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: LIght amplifiers have been called the optical-transistor, because they will someday enable all our electronic devices to use light instead of electricity to compute. If this report pans out as expected, then this ultra-cheap CMOS light amplifier from IBM has begun to realize the dream of silicon photonics:

"Optical amplifiers used in applications like telecommunication links must be made with materials such as indium gallium arsenide phosphide today. IBM researchers said they have been able to do the same thing for other applications using a much less expensive standard silicon process. Fabricated at its Yorktown Heights, N.Y., pilot line using the same silicon photonic waveguides used for telecommunications optical interconnects, the new silicon optical amplifier targets the mid-infrared band used by heat sensors, medical imagers and industrial process monitors...--EETimes"
Mars

Submission + - New Mars Rover Rolls for the First Time (nasa.gov)

Submitted by
wooferhound
wooferhound writes: "Like proud parents savoring their babys very first steps, mission team members gathered in a gallery above a clean room at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory to watch the Mars Curiosity rover roll for the first time.
Engineers and technicians wore bunny suits while guiding Curiosity through its first steps, or more precisely, its first roll on the clean room floor. The rover moved forward and backward about 1 meter (3.3 feet).
Mars Science Laboratory (aka Curiosity) is scheduled to launch in fall 2011 and land on the Red Planet in August 2012. Curiosity is the largest rover ever sent to Mars. It will carry 10 instruments that will help search an intriguing region of the Red Planet for two things:
      1. Environments where life might have existed
      2. The capacity of those environments to preserve evidence of past life

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1026"
Businesses

Submission + - Google Adds Licensing Server DRM to Android Market (afterdawn.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: According to AfterDawn, Google has given app makers the option to use a license server as DRM to ensure the user has paid for an app before they can download it. The report is that the market app will communicate with a Google license server using RSA encryption. It is important to note this is only available for non-free apps (built with SDK 1.5 and later) and it is instituted to provide a better solution to the old and widely criticized copy protection scheme that was criticized as susceptible to Android app piracy (like sideloading). For better or for worse, Android's Marketplace appears to now have an optional phone-home form of DRM.

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