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United States

Submission + - Military Develops Non-Lethal Ray Gun

Submitted by sup2100
sup2100 writes: The military's new weapon is a ray gun that shoots a beam that makes people feel as if they will catch fire. The technology is supposed to be harmless — a non-lethal way to get enemies to drop their weapons... While the sudden, 130-degree Fahrenheit heat was not painful, it was intense enough to make participants think their clothes were about to ignite.
Media (Apple)

Submission + - The Insanely Great Songs Apple Won't Let you Hear

Submitted by
FunkeyMonk
FunkeyMonk writes: "Slate.com has an article by Paul Collins explaining that the iTunes music store has thousands of tracks that you can't buy in the U.S. From the article:
The iTunes Music Store has a secret hiding in plain sight: Log out of your home account in the page's upper-right corner, switch the country setting at the bottom of the page to Japan, and you're dropped down a rabbit hole into a wonderland of great Japanese bands that you've never even heard of. And they're nowhere to be found on iTunes U.S.
The article goes on to mention a few workarounds if you want to purchase foreign tunes. But this brings up a good point — why shouldn't iTunes be the great mythical omniscient music repository where all the world's music is available instantly? Is this a case of **AA greed, or simply a marketing decision?"
Links

Submission + - Treasure trove of fossils found Down Under

Submitted by
clintonclinton
clintonclinton writes: ""Treasure trove of fossils found Down Under
Australian bones could shed light on prehistoric extinction mystery.

In three caves, researchers unearthed the remains of 69 vertebrate species, plus a mollusc, that lived between 800,000 and 200,000 years ago1. The rare find sheds light on an intensely debated topic: what wiped out the large prehistoric animals, or megafauna, that roamed ancient Australia?"

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070122/full/070122 -7.html"
Democrats

Submission + - Rough Start for First Impeachment Resolution

Submitted by Dr. Eggman
Dr. Eggman writes: According to The Santa Fe New Mexican, a bill has been introduced in the state senate that would call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. However, the bill has already come across hurdles in the form of it's committee assignments. I has been assigned to three separate committees, making leaving the Democrat controlled Senate hard pressed to clear them all and make it to the floor before the 60-day session ends. This would make New Mexico the first state to pass an impeachment resolution.
Media

Submission + - No prohibition against adult content on Blu-ray

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a recent Slashdot story it was reported that "No Blu-ray disk manufacturer would make their disks because Sony doesn't want porn on Blu-ray (just as with Betamax)." Reports now indicate that this is false. "'There's no prohibition against adult content,' Lisa Gephardt, a spokeswoman for Sony Corp. of America...."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Extends XP Home & MCE Support

Submitted by
innocence18
innocence18 writes: "Microsoft has announced that it will be adding an "Extended Support" phase for both Windows XP Home and Media Center Editions. This brings the support life cycle of both products to 5 years mainstream (April 2009) and 5 years extended which matches the support policy of XP Professional."
The Internet

Submission + - Owner of MySpace sued by families of abused girls

Submitted by
shawnmyers
shawnmyers writes: "The Fort Worth Star Telegram is reporting that Four families have sued News Corp. and its MySpace social-networking site after their underage daughters were sexually abused by adults they met on the site, lawyers for the families said Thursday. The law firms — Barry & Loewy LLP of Austin, and Arnold & Itkin LLP of Houston — said families from New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina filed separate suits Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging negligence, recklessness, fraud and negligent misrepresentation by the companies. "In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users," said Jason A. Itkin, an Arnold & Itkin lawyer. ++++ Of course I am sure that Myspace's view, is that the parents waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users."
Space

Submission + - China Kills Their Own Satellite Confirmed

Submitted by shawnmyers
shawnmyers writes: From CNN: China last week successfully used a missile to destroy an orbiting satellite, U.S. government officials told CNN on Thursday, in a test that could undermine relations with the West and pose a threat to satellites important to the U.S. military. According to a spokesman for the National Security Council, the ground-based, medium-range ballistic missile knocked an old Chinese weather satellite from its orbit about 537 miles above Earth. The missile carried a "kill vehicle" and destroyed the satellite by ramming it. **** This is contray to earlier reports of a laser
Portables

Submission + - Aid org accuses MIT, Negroponte of exploiting poor

Submitted by Tookis
Tookis writes: Scandinavian-based aid organisation FAIR has accused the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, orchestrated by Nicholas Negroponte and MIT, of exploiting poor countries and misleading them into taking a high investment risk for a new type of technology, the success of which is very uncertain. FAIR reckons using recycled PCs is much better. http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/8721/53/
Editorial

Submission + - An Underdog Story: How the Wii Became Number One

Submitted by
John Misak
John Misak writes: "GWN have published a thought-provoking editorial piece on the past, present and future of the Wii and PS3. From the article:

"Has the world gone mad? At this time last year Sony was sitting comfortably on top of the gaming console hill. Nintendo rolled the dice with the Wii and it seems to have come up seven for the company, while Sony is constantly betting the hard eight and losing chips by the handful.

Sony still sits atop the gaming heap, but may not be resting all that comfortably these days. It's interesting that the first few PS3 consoles sold in the US came with a Blu-Ray copy of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby because Sony is now a bit like Will Ferrell's Ricky, seeing that competitor coming up fast from behind. Instead of a gay French NASCAR driver, it's an Italian plumber coming by way of Japan, Sony's home turf.

An in-depth look at exactly how it happened."
Sony

Submission + - Sony all too happy to void your warranty?

Submitted by Hej
Hej writes: According to this post on the AVS Forum, a customer who bought a Playstation 3 had the warranty voided because he used 3rd party cables to hook it up to his television. From the thread, "Just got off the phone with Sony Support. Because I have a generic brand of component cables, instead of officially licensed Sony components, Sony has voided the warranty on my PS3 and will only replace it for $150 dollars! ... So now my system boots up and sits there with a blank screen. Thank god I kept the receipt." Original AVSForum.com thread here. I'm curious if this is just a case of a customer service rep taking things a bit too literally, or if Sony is actually that eager to screw over their customers. Any Slashdotters with similiar stories of warranty woe?
User Journal

Journal Journal: Army Establishes Psyops Branch 3

Journal by Philip K Dickhead

"Effective 16 October 2006, Psychological Operations was established as a basic branch of the Army, pursuant to the authority of Section 3063(a)(13), Title 10, United States Code."

That is the substance of General Order 30 (pdf) issued by Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey on January 12, 2007.
The Media

Submission + - Dinosaurs, humans coexist in U.S. creation museum

Submitted by jlowery
jlowery writes: Yeah, yeah: flamebait. But it's not the museum I find darkly amusing, it's the following paragraph in this Reuters story.

Mocking publicity is free publicity," Looy said. Besides, U.S. media have been more respectful, mindful perhaps of a 2006 Gallup Poll showing almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years.
I long for the days when journalists aspired to the old-fashioned ideal of being guardians of the truth. Instead, media chooses to be 'respectful' of quaint pre-19th century theologic explanations of the natural world just because half of Americans would rather be spoonfed fairy stories instead of cracking open a science book. If they did, they would soon understand how the miraculous world they live in today is due entirely to men and women applying the scientific method to understand the world around them.

While the truth may be murky at times, that does not mean that every half-baked extreme point of view has to be given equal deliberation or respect.

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