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arcticstoat writes
"One of the barriers to the development of nanoscale electronics has potentially been eliminated, as scientists have discovered the world's smallest superconductor. Made up of four pairs of molecules, and measuring just 0.87nm, the superconductor could potentially be used as a nanoscale interconnect in electronic devices, but without the heat and power dissipation problems associated with standard metal conductors."
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submission
anonsdo writes:
The NY Times reported here ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/nyregion/31about.html ) on invalidation of a group of DNA patents ( decision here: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20100329_patent_opinion.pdf ). The basis of the rejection was that "products of nature do not constitute patentable subject matter" (at page 107). This writer wonders what algorithms may be products of nature. Are there encryption algorithms that are products of nature, and therefore not patentable? How about memory storage devices? ...bus architectures? If we find parallels in nature to what we do in code, is it the ultimate "prior art"?
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aftab14 writes:
From the news source:
“What’s brilliant about this (approach) is that it allows you to build a cognitive model in a fantastically much more straightforward and transparent way than you could do before,” says Nick Chater, a professor of cognitive and decision sciences at University College London. “You can imagine all the things that a human knows, and trying to list those would just be an endless task, and it might even be an infinite task. But the magic trick is saying, ‘No, no, just tell me a few things,’ and then the brain — or in this case the Church system, hopefully somewhat analogous to the way the mind does it — can churn out, using its probabilistic calculation, all the consequences and inferences. And also, when you give the system new information, it can figure out the consequences of that.”
News url: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/ai-unification.html
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submission
mernilio writes:
Former Radio 4 Today editor Rod Liddle has become the first journalist to have an online blog censured by the press watchdog. A complaint was upheld by the Press Complaints Commission after the writer and columnist claimed on the Spectator website that the "overwhelming majority" of violent crime in London was carried out by young Afro-Caribbean men.
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mask.of.sanity writes:
Up to 500 gamers hit Sydney dressed as zombies to raise awareness about the lack of an R18+ rating for video games in Australia
The protest began at Hyde Park Fountain last Saturday and lumbered through Sydney, informing the public of the need for a higher classification rating, and causing hysteria in others.
The push for an R18+ classification is long with lobby groups failing for a decade to convince the Federal Government to introduce the measure. But the recent exit of South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson — a staunch opponent to an R18+ video game classification — was celebrated in gaming circles as the removal of a signficant roadblock to reform. His replacement is said to support the reforms.
Video games are banned from sale in Australia if they exceed the maximum MA15+ classification. Gamers and industry advocates say a higher rating will prevent the sale of violent games to minors and put Australia's law on par with other countries including the US, the UK and New Zealand. Opponents argue exposure to violent media causes aggression within participants.
You can see Computerworld's slideshow of the pre-zombie bash and the first zombie march here.
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submission
Rozine writes:
Today Ubuntu released a patch for Karmic that stops the destruction of some SSDs caused by a software bug. This is great news, especially since just yesterday we sent my wife's Eee PC for warranty service due to this same issue. The kicker? The bug was first reported in October 2009! Is it time to look to other distros for the crown of easy-to-use Linux? To me, allowing a *hardware destroying* bug to sit for months, whatever the cause, is completely unacceptable. Hopefully I've applied the patch on my other computers fast enough to prevent permanent damage on them as well.
