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Submission + - Japan To Offer $20,000 Subsidy For Fuel-Cell Cars (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Toyota is on track to launch the first consumer fuel-cell car in Japan next year, and the country's Prime Mininster says the government wants to assist the new alternative to gas-driven vehicles. Shinzo Abe announced that Japan will offer subsidies of almost $20,000 for fuel cell cars, which will decrease the Toyota model's cost by about 28%. He said, "This is the car of a new era because it doesn't emit any carbon dioxide and it's environmentally friendly. The government needs to support this. Honda is also planning to release a fuel-cell car next year, but experts expect widespread adoption to take decades, since hydrogen fuel station infrastructure is still in its infancy.

Submission + - World Health Organization Calls For Decriminalisation of Drug Use (tdpf.org.uk)

An anonymous reader writes: We've known for a while: the War on Drugs isn't working. Scientists, journalists, economists, and politicians have all argued against continuing the expensive and ineffective fight. Now, the World Health Organization has said flat out that nations should work to decriminalize the use of drugs. The recommendations came as part of a report released this month focusing on the prevention and treatment of HIV. "The WHO's unambiguous recommendation is clearly grounded in concerns for public health and human rights. Whilst the call is made in the context of the policy response to HIV specifically, it clearly has broader ramifications, specifically including drug use other than injecting. In the report, the WHO says: 'Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize injection and other use of drugs and, thereby, reduce incarceration. ...Countries should ban compulsory treatment for people who use and/or inject drugs." The bottom line is that the criminalization of drug use comes with substantial costs, while providing no substantial benefit.

Submission + - MicroxWin Creates Linux DIstribution That Runs Debian/Ubuntu & Android Apps (phoronix.com)

An anonymous reader writes: VolksPC who developed MicroXwin as a lightweight X Window Server has come up with their own Linux distribution. Setting apart VolksPC's distribution from others is that it's based on both Debian and Android and has the capability to run Debian/Ubuntu/Android apps together in a native ARM experience. The implementation doesn't depend on VNC or other similar solutions of the past that have tried to join desktop apps with mobile Android apps. This distribution is also reportedlby compatible with all Android applications. The distribution is expected to begin shipping on an ARM mini-PC stick.

Submission + - Amazon Isn't Killing Writing, The Market Is (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Amazon has been struggling for price control of the book and ebook markets for years, battling publicly and privately with publishers while making a lot of authors nervous. With yesterday's announcement of "Kindle Unlimited," a Netflix-like book subscription service, Amazon is reaching their endgame in disrupting the book-selling business. But there are other companies doing the same thing, and an article at TechCrunch makes the case that it's the general market, rather than any company in particular, that's making it harder for authors to make a living. "Driving the prices lower isn’t likely to expand the market of readers, since book prices don't seem to be the deciding factor on whether someone reads a book (time is). But those lower prices directly shrink the incomes of authors, who lack any other means of translating their sales into additional revenue. That’s why I don't think the big revolution for writers and other content producers will come from Amazon, but rather from startups like Patreon, which allow producers to build audiences directly and develop their own direct subscription model with their most fervent fans."

Comment Re:OK (Score 2) 79

It is going away when:
1.(
a) one guy implements it in open source (likely) and it has the neccessary features (less likely) and usability (least likely), and which will get popular (rather unlikely)
OR
b) people become less greedy and companies get popular which get money by selling the devices and not the data or ads on the devices.
)
AND
2. Internet providers assign static ipv6 subnets (perhaps additionally to the dynamic privacy-friendly ones) (hey they could use this for lock-in: change your provider, change your bookmarks)

It took a long time since cyanogenmod came out, and even CM isn't fully respecting the user in its default setup, and CM still lacks some drivers.

Comment Re:A worldwide contest ... but only in English (Score 1) 127

Only the submissions have to be in english, not the names. OP was wrong in this point, I find no hint in the rules that forbid an arabic name. On the contrary:

Proposed names should be:
        16 characters or less in length.
        Preferably one word.
        Pronounceable (in some language)

I think they can address the astronomic organisations in english only, but would do better (nice gesture of being global) if they offered at least the most used languages. You can argue that (?amateur) Scientific organisations, particularly in astronomy, which is highly international (the european(!) telescopes are in chile), usually have the needed knowledge of english.
But when the vote is for the public, it would be a great sign of arrogance if the website won't be language localized.

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