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Submission + - Facebook Asks You To Set Facebook.com As Homepage (digitizor.com)

Submitted by dkd903
dkd903 writes: Facebook is leaving no stone unturned to push itself into the lives of all it’s users. Facebook has now launched a new technique that will force users to make Facebook.com as their browser’s homepage. Now when you open your Facebook account, you can see this bar at the top of the page which reads: Drag this to your home button to see what’s happening with friends as soon as you open your browser.
Ubuntu

Submission + - Ubuntu Is NOT Moving To A Rolling Release (digitizor.com)

Submitted by dkd903
dkd903 writes: Well now we have official words from Canonical. Rick Spencer, the Engineering Director of Ubuntu at Canonical has said the Ubuntu is not moving to a rolling release. While a rolling release does have many things I like, since there has been no official word Mark Shuttleworth or anyone from Canonical I was somewhat hesitant to believe in it.
Biotech

Submission + - Four Star Trek medical technologies we use today (fiercemedicaldevices.com)

Submitted by hlovy
hlovy writes: Nobody ever planned on a short-lived TV series having such a lasting impact on society, but it has. And this is true whether you like Star Trek or not. It doesn't matter that the show's medical devices looked like scavenged pieces of plastic the Desilu studio prop department glued together on a low budget. Star Trek is part of our collective mythology. And in the endless loop of life imitating art, many of the futuristic technologies introduced on the show are now a reality. That's why we decided to compare some of today's medical breakthroughs with those envisioned by science fiction TV writers, producers and actors more than 40 years ago.

So, for our list of four ways real life medicine is catching up with Star Trek, here are the ground rules for all the hardcore Trekkers out
there. We are sticking to The Original Series, where the gadgets, the technology, the basic assumptions of how the future might look are in their most primordial state. Each medical device or medicine was more of an idea, a basic concept of what things should do rather than anything that got too bogged down in actual science. As the later spinoffs got rolling, real science often got in the way of simply
telling the story. Ultimately, the in-depth scientific explanations of the later series will likely turn out to be wrong, while The Original
Series will forever retain a colored-plastic purity.

But enough of all that. Here's our Top 4 list.
Open Source

Submission + - LibreOffice Talks About the Breakaway from Oracle (cmswire.com)

Submitted by Goffee71
Goffee71 writes: Breaking up is never easy to do, but the split between Oracle and the new LibreOffice team has been one of the more traumatic recent events in IT. CMSWire asked the new team's Italo Vignoli what went on behind the scenes and what can we expect to see now from Libre/OpenOffice.

Example Q: Did the process of separation feel like a "rush for the exits" or was it a hard decision for some people?

A: It has been a hard decision for most people, as they have been instrumental for building the OOo brand in most countries. We still believe in OOo, although we do not believe in a corporate-sponsored free software project.

We feel that corporate-sponsored free software projects belong to previous decades, as free software was not perceived as good enough to be self-sustaining. After 20 years, free software is mature enough for a self-sustaining business model, with corporate sponsors as members of the community.

Submission + - Data Center Campus Will Generate its Own Power (datacenterknowledge.com)

Submitted by 1sockchuck
1sockchuck writes: A large data center project in Reno, Nevada plans to generate its own power from natural gas and renewables, allowing tenants to use the local utility as a backup. As the cost and capacity of power becomes the driving force in data centers are built, The Reno Technology Park is expanding the traditional role of the data center builder. The developer plans to double as a power company, providing at least 440 megawatts of on-site power generation from natural gas, wind, solar and geothermal sources.
Linux

Submission + - Fedora To Ditch X.Org, To Bring Wayland F15 Onward (digitizor.com)

Submitted by dkd903
dkd903 writes: Last week Mark Shuttleworth announced plans for Ubuntu to move away from X towards Wayland. Granted it is a long a time away, but a lot of people commended Canonical for such an important decision, which can potentially take desktop Linux to the next level (graphics wise).

Well here is more good news, from Red Hat this time. In a post in the Fedora mailing list, Adam Jackson of Red Hat, has said that Fedora will eventually switch to Wayland. Like Shuttleworth, he also said that Wayland is not stable enough and did not put an exact time frame. However, he said that Wayland might be packaged in Fedora 15 for developers to play around with it.
The Internet

Submission + - Copper wire can now handle 825Mbps data speeds (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Network providers face a never-ending battle to keep up with demand from users for bandwidth while at the same time increasing the speed of their overall networks. One of the major limiting factors is that many networks still rely on copper wire rather than the superior fiber optic cabling. The networks therefore have to choose when to make the very expensive upgrade to fiber optic, and where those upgrades should happen first.

Thanks to some new technological breakthroughs, however, copper wire may be making a comeback. Current download speeds offered to end users range from 2Mbps-50Mbps, but we are all looking towards 100Mbps as the next milestone. While you may think fiber optic would be required for that, Nokia Siemens Networks has managed to employ phantom circuits to boost data-carrying capacity over copper wire to as much as 825Mbps over short distances of around 400 meters.

While the tech that achieved such high speeds may be a few years away, Ikanos has unveiled its NodeScale Vectoring technology allowing a minimum of 100Mbps data speeds over the same wires. It works by eliminating crosstalk on existing cabling allowing for much higher performance.

http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/new-technology-allows-copper-wire-to-handle-825mbps-data-speeds-20101026/

Submission + - Vatican Warns Against 'Excessive Zeal' for IP (arstechnica.com) 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Vatican has written an encyclical warning that 'excessive zeal' for IP rights is harmful. They're not against IP per se, but they are concerned with the problems caused by things like drug patents, which leave the citizens of poor countries unable to afford medicine. In essence, they're arguing that a 'fair regime of intellectual property rights should aim toward the good of all' and that current regimes fall short.

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