eldavojohn writes "A while ago, Slashdot ran an article on Algorithms used to augment or replace analysts. Today, the NY Times is running an article on stock-picking computers with quotes from the lovable Ray Kurzweil." From the article: "'Investment firms fall over themselves advertising their latest, most esoteric systems,' said Mr. Lo of M.I.T., who was asked by a $20 billion pension fund to design a neural network. He declined after discovering the investors had no real idea how such networks work. 'There are some pretty substantial misconceptions about what these things can and cannot do,' he said. 'As with any black box, if you don't know why it works, you won't realize when it's stopped working. Even a broken watch is right twice a day.'"

Gamasutra has the story (by way of the currently-down GamePolitics) that Jack Thompson could be facing a contempt charge over his antics during the Bully fiasco. From the article: "According to the report, the contempt of court request could find Thompson facing jail time, though it is more likely that 'fines, judicial admonishment or censure' would result from this most recent turn of events. The report also notes that attorneys representing the Philadelphia law firm Blank-Rome have filed a 'Petition for Order to Show Cause,' which requires Thompson to illustrate to a judge why he should not be held in contempt."

TheDawgLives writes "Just as we near the end of the hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean, winds whirl and clouds churn 2 billion miles away in the atmosphere of Uranus, forming a dark vortex large enough to engulf two-thirds of the United States."

digitalhermit writes "I guess many folks are of very little brain, and big words bother them... There's a push for simpler spelling. Instead of 'weigh' it would be 'way.' 'Dictionary' would be 'dikshunery' and so forth. Dunno if it's a joke, but it seems in earnest. Mark Twain must be spinning around somewhere." Twain is often credited with the satirical call for spelling reform called "A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling," though according to Wikipedia, Twain was "actually a supporter of reform," and the piece may have been written by M.J. Shields. Benjamin Franklin was another champion of spelling reform, and even came up with a phonetic alphabet to implement such reform.

lowrydr310 writes "Western Union is blocking money transfers to people with Arab names. They have delayed or blocked thousands of cash deliveries on suspicion of terrorist connections simply because senders or recipients have names like Mohammed or Ahmed. 'In one example, an Indian driver here said Western Union prevented him from sending $120 to a friend at home last month because the recipient's name was Mohammed.' Western union claims they are merely following U.S. Treasury Department guidelines that scrutinize cash flows for terrorist links. I agree that Western Union shouldn't allow anyone supporting terrorism to use their service, however I'm fairly certain there are millions of people named Mohammed or Ahmed who aren't terrorists. I wonder if any other financial companies such as banks are doing the same thing."

Yahoo! Games is running a piece comparing the PS3 and 360. They look at the hardware, software, and HD offerings for Sony and Microsoft's next-gen consoles. From the article: "Unlike the last generation, where Sony clearly held a commanding lead, the next generation of gaming is going to be a much closer race between the behemoths of Microsoft and Sony. Though there were many skeptics last fall, the past eight months have shown the Xbox 360 to be a very capable system and more than powerful enough to challenge the PlayStation 3. Microsoft also believes it will have 10 million units in the global marketplace before Sony even leaves the gate. So the question becomes: Which system do you buy?"

anzev writes "A team manager for Windows for 5 years has decided to write a blog-essay about what caused Windows Vista project to miss the due date. Philip tells us in the blog, that Windows developers are writing an average of 5000 lines of code (which is *only* 1200 lines less than the national average of 6200 lines of code per year). He addresses issues like the Vista code being too complicated, the processes the developers have to follow too complex and a lot more. All in all it gives a nice insight into why Vista will be late, from a different perspective. Oh, and Slashdot gets mentioned too ;-)."

gliph writes "Yahoo news has a piece about a small biogenetics firm that is using genetically engineered rice containing human genes to help fight diarrhea. From the article: 'Ventria's rice produces two human proteins found in mother's milk, saliva and tears, which help people hydrate and lessen the severity and duration of diarrhea attacks, a top killer of children in developing countries.'"

daria42 writes "It looks like the days of downloading Java every time you re-install a Linux box may be at an end. Reports are trickling in that Sun plans to alter the Java license to make it easier to bundle the JRE with Linux. From the article: 'Sun has faced calls several times to open-source Java, which advocates say would foster innovative open-source development. The company has resisted formally open-sourcing all of the Java software, but it has dramatically changed the development process around Java and changed licenses to make it easier to see Java source code.'"

tecker writes "Redhat.com has a banner and press release that states that it will be Red Hat that will buy JBoss and not Oracle as previously thought. The press release states "the world's leading provider of open source solutions to the enterprise, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire JBoss, the global leader in open source middleware. By acquiring JBoss, Red Hat expects to accelerate the shift to service-oriented architectures (SOA), by enabling the next generation of web-enabled applications running on a low-cost, open source platform." Could it be that a one company server package that will rival Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 and ASP will finally emerge?"

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at MIT have modified the M13 virus to create very small batteries. With the viruses building wires 6 nanometers in diameter, the research team hopes to 'build batteries that range from the size of a grain of rice up to the size of existing hearing-aid batteries.'"

Angry_Admin writes "For Network World's 20th anniversary, they've published an interview with William (Bill) Yeager, the creator of the multiprotocol router, with some history on how Cisco came to be. As he says in the interview : 'This project started for me in January of 1980, when essentially the boss said, "You're our networking guy. Go do something to connect the computer science department, medical center and department of electrical engineering."' 6 months later he had his first working 3MBit router shoved in a closet."

An anonymous reader wrote to mention an International Herald story about a recent ICANN meeting on the proposed .XXX domain. Australia, the U.S., and the EU have moved to block the idea, with most commentators surmising this will prevent the concept from ever moving forward. From the article: "Some people maintain that a triple-x domain name, and the ability to enforce rules to qualify for it, would rein in an out-of-control Internet phenomenon. In registering, a company could have to abide by ratings agency standards, require proof of age for entrants, maybe even pay for Internet filtering research. The company pushing the idea, ICM Registry, also argues that dot-xxx would be good for customers of pornography sites, assuring them of certain business benchmarks, like being free of adware or computer viruses."

Next Generation sat down with Phil Harrison after the Sony keynote last week, and they discuss the PS3, the PlayStation Network, and Harrison's place in the company. From the article: "Q: Aren't retailers going to be slightly annoyed that they're selling this hardware for next-to-no margin, just so the software can ultimately be sold directly via downloads? A: I completely disagree with that. The software business for PlayStation 3 will continue to grow. PlayStation 2 has more software on it than PlayStation 1 - more units sold in more countries to a wider demographic of consumers. PlayStation 3 will continue to grow the market and will generate a bigger opportunity for everybody - retailers, developers, and publishers alike. So I do not accept your statement that retail is going to be in any way affected by this other than positively."

Belfegor writes "The PBS series Nova has a great feature on their website, regarding the coverage of the DARPA-sponsored 'Robot Race' in which driverless vehicles 'competed' in a 130-mile race across the Mojave Desert. The full show is available on the website, and besides that they have plenty more information about the robotics behind the challenge, and also some pretty cool out-takes from the show."