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AMD

Submission + - AMD's Launches Triple & Quad Core Notebook CPU

adeelarshad82 writes: It's no secret that AMD has fallen well behind Intel in the mobile CPU space. In an attempt to make up for their lost ground, AMD has extended their Vision brand to include a new family of mobile processors; its first Phenom triple-core and quad-core processors for laptops. While AMD has updated a few different things in the mobile platform, the most compelling ones include DDR3 memory (up from DDR2), HyperTransport 3, support for Direct X 11, improvements in battery life and AMD's Phenom processors in laptops as small as 13 inches. The sales strategy behind these laptops will be based what day-to-day tasks can be performed on it, broken down into tiers: Vision Basic, Vision Premium, Vision Ultimate, and Vision Black. The Vision Basic covers laptops in the sub-$500 price range, Vision Premium will include all dual-core level processors, Vision Ultimate is intended for advanced users, video editors, professional photographers, part time games; where as Vision Black represents the top of the heap, as it parts are aimed at hardcore performance enthusiasts.
Education

3rd-Grader Busted For Jolly Rancher Possession 804

theodp writes "A third-grader in a small Texas school district received a week's detention for merely possessing a Jolly Rancher. Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch Monday when a teacher confiscated the candy. Her parents said she was in tears when she arrived home later that afternoon and handed them the detention notice. But school officials are defending the sentence, saying the school was abiding by a state guideline that banned 'minimal nutrition' foods. 'Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,' said school superintendent Jack Ellis."
Moon

Submission + - Moon May Have Formed In Natural Nuclear Explosion (technologyreview.com)

KentuckyFC writes: The famous Oklo georeactor in Gabon is a natural nuclear fission reactor where some 1.5 billion years ago, the concentration of uranium was high enough to start a chain reaction which generated roughly 100 kW of power for several hundred thousand years. Now planetary geologists claim a similar nuclear chain reaction could have been responsible for the origin of the Moon. The thinking is that the Earth originally formed from a rapidly spinning blob of molten rock in which the force of gravity only just overcame the centrifugal forces at work. The spinning tended to concentrate heavy radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium near the surface near the equator. That led to a runaway chain reaction and a nuclear explosion that blasted a substantial chunk of material into orbit. The new theory explains why the isotopic content of the Moon and Earth rocks are almost identical. By contrast, the current leading theory of lunar formation is that the Moon formed after the young Earth was hit by another giant body, in which case the Moon's composition ought to be substantially different from Earth's. Interestingly, the idea that Earth and Moon originated from the same parent body was first put forward in 1879 by George Darwin, son of Charles.
Privacy

Submission + - Tracking browsers without cookies or IP addresses? (eff.org) 1

Peter Eckersley writes: The EFF has launched a research project called Panopticlick, to determine whether seemingly innocuous browser configuration information (like User Agent strings, plugin versions and, fonts) may create unique fingerprints that allow web users to be tracked, even if they limit or delete cookies. Preliminary results indicate that the User Agent string alone has 10.5 bits of entropy, which means that for a typical Internet user, only one in about 1,500 (2 ^ 10.5) others will share their User Agent string.

If you visit Panopticlick, you can get an reading of how rare or unique your browser configuration is, as well as helping EFF to collect better data about this problem and how best to defend against it.

Comment Re:DARN YOU, jongalbreath!!! (Score 0) 316

Yes, I have a copy that I carry around on my iPhone for just such an emergency. If I'm ever mugged or kidnapped, I'll surely be released once I start up this mess. I tried watching it again but couldn't even make to the first commercial break before I considered killing myself. George should be proud of it though, since it's STILL better than Jar Jar Binks.

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