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Black Hole At Center of Milky Way Confirmed 392

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-can-see-it-from-here dept.
Smivs writes "The BBC are reporting that a German team has confirmed the existence of a Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way. Astronomers tracked the movement of 28 stars circling the center of the Milky Way, using the 3.5m New Technology Telescope and the 8.2m Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. Both are operated by the European Southern Observatory (Eso). The black hole is four million times heavier than our Sun, according to the paper in The Astrophysical Journal. According to Dr Robert Massey, of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), the results suggest that galaxies form around giant black holes in the way that a pearl forms around grit."

Comment Re:At last! (Score 1) 369

by un1xl0ser (#25669681) Attached to: Creative GPLs X-Fi Sound Card Driver Code

Honestly, being a casual Linux user, sound card support is not the defining factor holding back Linux adoption. While Ubuntu goes a long way to improving the user experience with Linux, even to get it to a 'standard' setup, I needed to use the console no less than 5 times. That's *needed* to, there was no GUI way to do what I was trying to do.

While I personally have no problem doing that, I shudder at the idea of talking someone like my father through it. The day that I can combine Linux stability with ease of use... that will be the year of the Linux desktop. Driver integration and support goes a long way to doing that, and a flushed out menu system will put it over the top.

What does your father do that requires editing configuration files or using a shell interface on Ubuntu 8.10?
Idle

Beer at the Barbershop 1

Posted by samzenpus
A barber in Grand Rapids Michigan who had been forced to stop offering beer after authorities told him he was breaking the law, hopes to convince lawmakers to change their minds. He feels that a beer with your haircut is simply old-fashioned service. When will the Nanny State learn that nothing goes as well with a foamy mug of beer as straight razors, scissors and loose hair.
Censorship

Scientology Given Direct Access To eBay Database 684

Posted by kdawson from the finger-on-the-scale dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Church of Scientology can delete auctions from eBay with no supervision under the VeRO program, and has used this to delete all resale of the e-meters Scientologists use. This is to stop members from buying used units from ex-members instead of buying from the official (and very expensive) source. Given Scientology's record of fraud and abuse, should eBay give them this level of trust? Will this set a precedent for other companies that want to stop the aftermarket resale of their products?"
IBM

Submission + - OS2 Open Source Petition (os2world.com)

Submitted by
Kim Haverblad
Kim Haverblad writes: "More than two years ago on September 25, 2005, OS2 World.Com sent IBM a letter with a petition that contained 11,613 signatures requesting IBM to release the source code of Operating System 2 (OS/2 Warp) — or at least release the source code that IBM owns — to the public under an open source license. Sadly IBM was ignorant enough to not answer the first letter and this is why we sent a second letter to IBM.

On November 19, 2007, OS2 World.Com sent the second letter to IBM where we insisted on implementing the stipulations contained in this petition because we believe that OS/2 is an important part of the history of the Operating System, and furthermore, it still contains values that the computer science field considers unique.

The petition can be found at following url: http://www.os2world.com/petition"
Operating Systems

Submission + - Petition to open OS/2 source, round/2 (os2world.com) 1

Submitted by The_Wilschon
The_Wilschon writes: On September 25, 2005, OS2World.com sent a petition with 11,613 signatures to IBM, asking them to release some or all of the source code to OS/2. Oddly, given IBM's embrace of the Open Source movement, the letter was ignored. So, on November 19 of this year, OS2World.com sent a second letter. They have also opened up a second petition round in order to show even more support to IBM for their requests. In particular, the System Object Model (SOM), Workplace Shell (WPS), and OS/2 kernel could both spur new OS/2 development and provide some fresh ideas to the Free Software world.
Portables

Submission + - Solid-State Notebook has Full Linux OS Detailed (pcper.com)

Submitted by
Vigile
Vigile writes: "The Asus Eee PC 701 is a solid-state hard drive notebook computer that uses a custom Linux operating system that boots in about 15 seconds. Though the hard drive is only 4GB, thanks to not relying on any Windows OS there is more than enough space for the applications necessary for most mobile users. The hardware features a small 7" LCD screen with an 800x480 resolution, Celeron-M 900 MHz CPU, 512MB of system memory and an integrated webcam and microphone all at just about 2 lbs. A full review of the Eee PC 701 is now available that details the functionality of the hardware in general as well as showing 100+ screenshots of the custom Linux OS."
Patents

Google Patents Shipping-Container Data Centers 207

Posted by Zonk from the pick-it-up-and-move-it-out dept.
theodp writes "Two years ago, Robert X. Cringely wrote that Google was experimenting with portable data centers built in standard shipping containers. The idea, Cringely explained, wasn't new and wasn't even Google's, backing up his claim with a link to an Internet-Archive-in-a-Shipping-Container presentation (PDF, dated 11-8-2003) that was reportedly pitched to Larry Page. Google filed for a patent on essentially the same concept on 12-30-2003. And on Tuesday, the USPTO issued the search giant a patent for Modular Data Centers housed in shipping containers, which Google curiously notes facilitate 'rapid and easy relocation to another site depending on changing economic factors'. That's a statement that may make those tax-abating NC officials a tad uneasy."

Free the iPhone from AT&T 314

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-it-is-the-fourth-of-july dept.
Acererak was one of several readers who noted that DVD Jon has released information on unbricking an iPhone. You sacrifice all cel phone functionality of course, but you have an iPDA that will work on your WiFi. Currently the hack is windows only but it doesn't look very complicated.
Microsoft

Microsoft Slaps Its Most Valuable Professional 474

Posted by kdawson from the schizophrenic-is-one-word-for-it dept.
Violent Offender writes with a touching story in The Register about Microsoft's awarding of its Most Valuable Professional credential to a British hobbyist, Jamie Cansdale, then turning around and threatening him with a lawsuit for the very software that won him the award. The article links to the amazing correspondence from Microsoft on Cansdale's site.
Supercomputing

Submission + - Supercomputer Simulates Mouse Brain

Submitted by
ougouferay
ougouferay writes: "The BBC is reporting that a team of researchers from the IBM Almaden Research Lab and the University of Nevada have used a BlueGene L supercomputer to model a mouse brain consisting of 8000 neurons and 6300 synapses.

The team have reported observing "biologically consistent dynamical properties", neurons form spontaneously into groups and synapses firing in ways similar to patterns seen in nature."
Toys

A Million-Dollar Laptop Created 404

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the conspicuous-consumption dept.
aluminumangel writes "For those of you who don't know what to do with all your money, why not a one million-dollar laptop from the U.K-based company Luvaglio? With 128GB of solid state disk space, Blu-ray, and a detachable rare diamond that acts like a power button and a security key."
Media (Apple)

EU Countries Call Out iTunes DRM 457

Posted by Zonk from the cue-the-gunfight-music dept.
seriouslywtf writes "Europe is upping the pressure on Apple to open up its restrictive DRM that ties iTunes to the iPod. Norway ruled last year that the iPod-iTunes tie-in was unreasonable and gave Apple a deadline to make a change to its policies, but was unsatisfied with the response they got. Now France and Germany have joined forces with Norway, making it a lot harder for Apple to just walk away from those markets. From the article: 'France's consumer lobby group, UFC-Que Choisir, and Germany's Verbraucherzentrale are now part of the European effort to push Apple into an open DRM system, with more countries considering joining the group. However, the company has been under some fire over the last year due to those restrictions, first with France and then Denmark looking to open up restrictive DRM schemes (including, but not limited to iTunes) ... Norwegian consumer groups were unimpressed by Apple's response. Norway has now given Apple a new deadline of September of this year to change its policies, and the pressure on Apple will likely grow in the months leading up to the deadline.'"

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