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Media

Submission + - LinkedIn To Go Public In 2011 (eweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by geek4
geek4 writes: Professional social networking site LinkedIn is planning to go public later this year, according to reports

LinkedIn — the social networking site for business professionals — is reportedly considering a stock offering within the first quarter of 2011.

The company is working on the documentation with three financial advisers, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley, according to Reuters.

The value of LinkedIn's shares in the Initial Public Offering (IPO) remains confidential. However, its shares in secondary markets like SharesPost are reportedly worth around $2.2 billion (£1.4 billion).

The report follows news of Facebook's recent fundraising that has attracted $450 million (£290m) from Goldman Sachsand $50 million (£32m) from Russia's Digital Sky Technologies. Speculations also surround the company's implied gesture to go public in 2012.

Submission + - Technology is Remaking Teenage Brains (pbs.org)

Submitted by tcd004
tcd004 writes: The teen years are a critical "pruning" stage in the brain. Neural pathways that are needed are strengthened, and those that aren't are discarded. How is a twitter/facebook/texting/xbox lifestyle remaking the teen brain? DR. JAY GIEDD, a neuroscientist, National Institute of Mental Health is studying the affects of multitasking and constant communication on teens, and he thinks these influences may actually be building a better brain.
Science

Submission + - A Life Is Saved By DNA Sequencing (forbes.com)

Submitted by Matthew Herper
Matthew Herper writes: I've been covering DNA sequencing for a decade, and this is one of those moments that crystallizes the potential of this technology. A small child with a deadly condition that doctors are struggling to diagnose, no less treat. They sequence his DNA, and find a genetic cause they wouldn't have imagined. As a result, the doctors can try a risky but potentially effective treatment.

I don't think most people realize this, but DNA sequencing is decreasing in cost and increasing in speed at a rate that exceeds Moore's law. This technology has more velocity than any other out there. In the current issue of Forbes, I wrote a cover story about the first attempt to sell chaep ($50,000, but compare that to $500,000) minicomputer-type boxes for doing some of this work. There may be a revolution on that Slashdotters should pay attention to. Regardless — this poor kid — this is a pretty big moment.
Google

Submission + - Slashdot, Meet Slashtags

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: With content mills like Associated Content and Demand Media joining forces with spammers and marketers to manipulate Google's page-ranking systems, laments Vivek Wadhwa, we're fighting a losing battle for the web and need alternative ways of finding the information that we need. Search startup Blekko, notes Wadhwa, aims to clean up the spam and clutter. In addition to providing regular search a la Google, Blekko allows you to define what it calls 'slashtags' — mostly human-curated sets of websites built around a specific topic — to filter the information you retrieve. So if you're looking for info about swine flu, you can add '/health' to your query to search only the top 70 or so relevant health sites rather than tens of thousands of spam sites. Blekko also takes a stab at chronological searches, allowing you to add the slashtag “/date” to the end of a query to retrieve info based on the date on which it was actually created. Always good to see some competition for the big search dogs — hopefully, Blekko will fare better than Cuil (RIP).
Crime

Online Impersonations Now Illegal In California 217

Posted by samzenpus from the lets-pretend dept.
theodp writes "TechCrunch's Michael Arrington reports that a California bill criminalizing online impersonations went into effect on January 1st. 'There has to be intent to harm, intimidate, threaten, or defraud another person — not necessarily the person you are impersonating,' explains Arrington. 'Free speech issues, including satire and parody, aren't addressed in the text of the bill. The courts will likely sort it out.' So, Fake Steve Jobs, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?'"
Microsoft

Some Hotmail Accounts Wiped 298

Posted by Soulskill from the you-didn't-need-that,-right? dept.
tomhudson writes "PC Magazine reports that many Hotmail accounts have lost all their emails. Users' entire email histories have apparently been lost. 'Users can still log in sans issue. However, they arrive at empty inboxes: No custom folders, no messages in "Sent" or "Deleted," nothing. As one might expect, the abruptness (and unexpectedness) of the purge has left some of Hotmail's long-time users a bit in the dark.'"
Microsoft

Microsoft Research Takes On Go 175

Posted by Soulskill from the narrowing-the-possibilities dept.
mikejuk writes "Microsoft Research has used F# and AI to implement a consumer-quality game of Go — arguably the most difficult two-person game to implement. They have used an interesting approach to the problem of playing the game, which is a pragmatic cross between tree search with pruning and machine learning to spot moves with a 'good shape.' The whole lot has been packaged into an XNA-based game with a story."
Microsoft

Submission + - Hotmail or Notmail? (pcmag.com)

Submitted by
tomhudson
tomhudson writes: "PC Magazine reports that many Hotmail accounts have lost all their emails. Users entire email histories have apparently been lost.

Users can still log in sans issue. However, they arrive at empty inboxes: No custom folders, no messages in "Sent" or "Deleted," nothing. As one might expect, the abruptness (and unexpectedness) of the purge has left some of Hotmail's long-time users a bit in the dark

"
Google

Submission + - Android Text Messages Intermittently Going Astray

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Reports from Engadget and others suggest that Tiger Woods and Brett Favre might want to avoid Android for the time being. Engadget reports that Android's default text messaging app still has horrible text messaging bugs that can that intermittently send texts to the wrong person. 'This is ticking me off like no other technology glitch that I experienced in recent years,' reads one unhappy camper's post on a lengthy Help Forum thread opened on March 16th. 'If a bank deposited my paycheck into another person's account I wouldn't stress so much cause I can always get the money back. How the hell do you take words back? 'Oh sorry boss you had to find out that I think you're an idiot, can I still keep my job, please please please?'' Over at Google Code, Issue 9392 — SMS are intermittently sent to wrong and seemingly random contact — carries a priority of 'Medium,' even though it has 600+ comments and has been starred by 3,600+ people.
Power

Submission + - TFETs as an alternative to MOSFTs in CMOS chips (idg.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "A number of chip manufacturers and European research institutions have banded together to figure out how redesign microprocessors so that they consume less energy when in use and leak less energy when in stand-by mode. Called Steeper, the three-year research project will explore an alternative design to the standard CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) designs used to build virtually all commercially available computer chips today. The new approach will use nanowire-based TFETs (tunnel field effect transistors), as an alternative to the MOSFTs (metal--oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors) used in CMOS chips."
Firefox

Submission + - Cloud, meet Rainbow (mozillalabs.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla Labs is working on an experimental add-on which enables video and audio recording in the browser. Anant Narayanan writes on the Mozilla Labs blog, 'The Rainbow add-on for Firefox is an early developer prototype that enables web developers to access local video and audio recording capabilities using just a few lines of JavaScript. The add-on generates files encoded in open formats: Theora (for video) and Vorbis (for audio) in an Ogg container. The resulting files are accessible in DOM using HTML5 File APIs, which may be used to upload them to a server.' Suppor for live streaming and WebM is planned for a future version of the add-on.
Medicine

Submission + - Immunizing Mosquitoes To Fight Malaria

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Up to now, efforts at controlling it have focused on attacking the parasites that cause it, keeping mosquitoes from biting, or killing the insects. But at Johns Hopkins University, Rhoel Dinglasan, an entomologist and biologist, decided to try another tack: immunizing mosquitoes. Dinglasan says that combined with the current generation of malarial vaccines, immunizing the mosquitoes would go a long way towards preventing people from getting severe malaria in the first place. So while the number of total cases would initially stay the same, the number of new cases would drop.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Wireless HDMI at 1080p, Lag-Free WHDI Tested (hothardware.com) 1

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Wireless HDMI technologies have finally come of age. Though there are two camps currently in the market (Intel's WiDi and WHDI), the bottom line is lag-free full HD 1080p wireless HDMI video/audio transmission is now a reality. No longer does an HTPC need to be shoehorned into the confines of the entertainment center. Also, that notebook you have perched on the coffee table just got a major display upgrade. This demo of the Asus WiCast and the briteView HDelight wirless HDMI transmitter kits, shows the technology in action and it's impressive actually. Both of these WHDI-based kits utilize the same family of Amimon WHDI transmitter and receiver chipsets. The technology is capable of full 1080p HD video and Dolby Digital surround sound audio transmissions, over distances of up to 30 feet with less than a millisecond of latency."

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