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Government

Submission + - Govt. Bans (Some) Li Batteries In Airline Luggage (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruhlinger
jfruhlinger writes: "If you need extended power from your laptop and you're flying in the U.S., don't pack a spare battery if you're checking your luggage: That's a fire hazard! But a battery inside a laptop or camera is A-OK. And you can put one in your carry-on luggage, as long as it's in a plastic bag. What, you expected this to make some kind of sense?"
Government

Submission + - Federal Research Funds for 2008 are Disappointing

Submitted by SoyChemist
SoyChemist writes: Wired Science has asked their readers to complain about the biggest problems with federal research funding. Some of the comments are quite revealing: Lead scientists must rush to buy supplies before their grants expire, they sometimes get stuck when equipment breaks and they did not anticipate replacement parts in their budget, and there are only token incentives for alternative energy research. Worst of all, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which could exceed $1.2 trillion, are particularly appalling when compared to the measly $6.43 billion requested by the National Science Foundation and $28.6 billion requested by the National Institutes of Health for supporting science in 2008.
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - Will Apple Rescue Intel's Silverthorne? (appleinsider.com)

Submitted by UMEE
UMEE writes: AppleInsider looks deep behind the rumors of an expanded partnership between Apple and Intel involving Silverthorne, the second generation, low power x86 processor designed to power Microsoft's UMPC. However, sales of the tablet devices have historically been bogged down by design, price, performance, and usability issues, and UMPCs have seen little marketing. Apple's use of the processor could turn things around by leveraging the company's strengths in marketing, retail, and design, but it's certainly not alone in targeting the ultra mobile space. Low priced alternatives including the Asus Eee PC and OLPC XO-1, both of which run Linux and use processors from Intel rivals TI and AMD, have already stolen the limelight among ultra mobile devices. Is the future ultra mobile? Will tablet computing fail yet again? Will Apple Rescue Intel's Silverthorne?
Microsoft

Submission + - Fedora 8 up and running on Microsoft's Hyper-V (crn.com) 1

Submitted by
RedZed
RedZed writes: "By Ed Moltzen (ChannelWeb) Ben Armstrong, program manager on the core virtualization team at Microsoft, writes that Fedora 8 can now be integrated into a Microsoft Server 2008 deployment in six steps or less: "Anyone who has installed Linux on Virtual PC / Virtual Server knows that while yes, Linux is supported on these platforms, and yes, it does run well after getting it setup — installation can be a downright pain. It is for this reason that I take great pride in the fact that installing Linux on the Hyper-V beta release is a breeze." http://www.crn.com/software/205206443"
Handhelds

Submission + - Research: Drivers on cellphones cause traffic jams (networkworld.com)

Submitted by BobB-NW
BobB-NW writes: University of Utah researchers have conducted a new study that drivers on cell phones are to blame for more than causing accidents — they also cause traffic jams. And that costs society plenty, too, in lost productivity and fuel costs.
Books

Submission + - GUI Design Book Recommendations? 8

Submitted by jetpack
jetpack writes: I've always hated writing user interfaces, and graphical user interfaces in particular. However, I suspect that is largely because I have no clue how to write a *good* one. By this, I don't mean the technical aspects, like using the APIs and so on. I mean what are the issues in designing an interface that is clean, easy to understand and easy to use? What are things to be considered? What are things to be avoided? What are good over-all philosophies of UI design?

To this end, I'd like to pick up a book or two (or three) and get my learn on. I'd appreciate some book suggestions from the UI experts in the Slashdot crowd.
The Internet

China's New Internet Plan 259

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the i-don't-want-to-wash-the-people's-internet dept.
eldavojohn writes "The internet in China is diverging rapidly from the state that the rest of the world enjoys it. Recent news of China's leader, Hu Jintao, has revealed a strategy to distort it even further. Jintao is tackling the issue his Communist party is having with the youth of China that are too young to remember Chairman Mao and the fanaticism the populace had for him. A strategy he is proposing is 'cleaning up' China's internet & lacing it with a little propaganda like the need to 'Consolidate the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere' online. The meeting notes also declared that 'Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance.'"

Feed Recoll: A search engine for the Linux desktop (slashdot.org)

From feed by lcfeed
Desktop search engines are all the rage these days. While Beagle may be the most popular desktop search engine for Linux, there are alternatives. If you are looking for a lightweight and easy-to-use yet powerful desktop search engine, you might want...
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft plot 'gaming device network'

Submitted by
jasoncart
jasoncart writes: "The latest revelation in from the US Patent & Trademark Office reveals that Microsoft are already busy plotting the expansion of their Xbox empire, having filed a number of patents related to their plans for the future.

The patent hints at a new console "system" that will lie at the heart of a gaming-media network, bringing together distributed computing between consoles and handheld devices (such as the Zune), which can share games, media and other functionality across a huge networks of gadgets."
Biotech

Submission + - When the Earth was purple

Submitted by Ollabelle
Ollabelle writes: It's always been a bit of a mystery why plants absorb red and blue light while reflecting green when the sun emits the most visible light in the green part of the spectrum. Now a theory has come up with one possible answer: that the first chlorophyll-utilizing microbes evolved to exploit the red-and-blue reflected light of older green-absorbing microbes, eventually out-competing them through greater efficiency and the rise of oxygen. http://www.livescience.com/environment/070410_purp le_earth.html [note to editor: I'm baffled how to tag this story to science, and nothing else. All the "topics" seem to be anything except 'off topic'. Thanks for any insight you can give.]
Security

Submission + - Is Anti-Virus software dead?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: After stumbling over several unanimous recommendations against using viral scans for your email (which somewhat shattered my security world view), I started to notice a bigger and bigger movement which argues against the use of anti-virus software altogether, as it is ineffective against the main threats of malware, counter-productive (as it eats up system resources), and seems to be more of a "good-luck charm" than anything else.

I have to admit that, even though I deal with loads of suspicious software, I can't even remember when I got the last real virus warning.

So — is it time to dump your anti-virus software, go "commando", and free yourself from the shackles of these system drags?

Feed Scientists Create Nano Nose Aimed At Sniffing Out Diseased Cells (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Scientists have created a kind of molecular nose that uses nanoparticle-based sensors to sniff out and identify proteins. The sensors, which can be trained to detect a wide variety of proteins, could eventually serve as a medical diagnostic tool by sniffing out the proteins made by sickly cells.

Feed Recoll: A search engine for the Linux desktop (newsforge.com)

From feed by nffeed
Desktop search engines are all the rage these days. While Beagle may be the most popular desktop search engine for Linux, there are alternatives. If you are looking for a lightweight and easy-to-use yet powerful desktop search engine, you might want to try Recoll Recoll. Unlike Beagle, Recoll doesn't require Mono, it's fast, and it's highly configurable. Recoll is based on Xapian, a mature open source search engine library that supports advanced features such as phrase and proximity search, relevance feedback, document categorization, boolean queries, and wildcard search.
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Do PC Games Have A Brighter Future?

Submitted by Hoi Polloi
Hoi Polloi writes: The New York Times has this article that seems to contradict all of the gloom and doom over the future of PC gaming.

This quote is especially interesting:

...in the first two months of 2007, domestic retail sales of PC games reached $203 million, a 48 percent increase over the $136.8 million in the period a year earlier.

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