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Submission + - X Particle Might Explain Dark Matter & Antimat (wired.com) 1

cold fjord writes: Wired Science has a story on a new theory that tries to explain dark matter, and the balance of regular matter with antimatter. This theory may even be testable.

A new hypothetical particle could solve two cosmic mysteries at once: what dark matter is made of, and why there's enough matter for us to exist at all. ...Together with physicists Hooman Davoudiasl at Brookhaven National Lab and David Morrissey of TRIUMF, Tulin and Sigurdson suggest a way to solve the problem of missing antimatter: Hide it away as dark matter. The details are published in the Nov. 19 Physical Review Letters.


Submission + - 'Chaos' at WikiLeaks Follows Assange Arrest (wired.com) 1

cold fjord writes: Wired's Threat Level is reporting that:

The arrest without bail of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday has left the organization in a state of uncertainty, despite transition plans laid out prior to his surrender to British police, according to one dispirited WikiLeaks activist who spoke to Threat Level on condition of anonymity. ... Assange left Icelandic television journalist Kristinn Hrafnsson in charge of the group in his absence, the activist said. But now the embattled organization's secrecy and compartmentalization are apparently hindering its operations. ... Specifically, midlevel WikiLeaks staffers have been mostly cut off from communicating with hundreds of volunteers whose contact information was stored in Assange's private online-messaging accounts, and never shared with others. ... "There is an ongoing plan, but that plan was only introduced to a few staffers — key staffers," explained the source. "We are experiencing chaos." ... And when Assange's autocratic leadership style was challenged by some staffers last year, he described his importance to the organization in no uncertain terms. "I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier and all the rest." ... His absence, says the source, is being felt acutely. "The organization will most likely start to fall apart now."


Censorship

Submission + - Assange could face espionage trial in US (independent.co.uk)

M_Cheevy writes: The Independent reports: "Informal discussions have already taken place between US and Swedish officials over the possibility of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being delivered into American custody, according to diplomatic sources.

Mr Assange is in a British jail awaiting extradition proceedings to Sweden after being refused bail at Westminster Magistrates’ Court despite a number of prominent public figures offering to stand as surety.

His arrest in north London yesterday was described by the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates as “good news”, and may pave the way for extradition to America and a possible lengthy jail sentence. "

Submission + - An Anonymous, Verifiable E-Voting Tech (ted.com) 1

Kilrah_il writes: After the recent news items about the obstacles facing E-voting systems, many of us feel it is not yet time for this technology. A recent TED talk by David Bismark unveiled a proposal for a new E-voting technology that is both anonymous and verifiable. I am not a cryptography expert, but it does seem interesting and possibly doable.
Government

Submission + - Ballmer 1, Gates 0

theodp writes: TechFlash reports that Washington's proposal to impose a state income tax on those making more than $200,000 was soundly defeated Tuesday night. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his father supported the measure, while a number of prominent high-tech business leaders — including Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos — argued that the measure would hurt the state's competitiveness. Ballmer anteed up $425,000 to defeat the measure, which was intended to boost funding for education and health. Opponents also argued that the tax eventually would be passed on to all citizens. This marks the seventh time that WA voters have rejected a state income tax. Washington remains one of seven states — along with Florida, Nevada, Texas, Alaska, Wyoming and South Dakota — without an income tax.

Submission + - Motorola Droid X Bugs worse than Antennagate (i4u.com) 1

i4u writes: When the serious iPhone 4 antenna design flaw hit the blogosphere, there was a media explosion and Apple hate campaign almost like we've never seen before. Yet, one of the most high-profile Android phones to date has much more significant, extremely crippling glitches that still haven't been fixed, and no one is really calling for action.
When the Droid X got its update to Android 2.2, almost immediately users began reporting issues of phones crashing, screen display bugs, and apps becoming completely unusable. In addition, it became impossible to download any new apps because the Android Market completely vanished.

Printer

Submission + - Researchers invent inkjet that prints out skin (geek.com)

shougyin writes: If you’ve ever seen the lesser-known Sam Raimi movie Darkman, you probably remember that the plot involved the main character, Dr. Westlake, trying to figure out a way to “print” liquid skin to help burn victims. Westlake never did figure out how to keep the synthetic skin from destabilizing past the 98 minute mark, but luckily, Wake Forest Instititute for Regenerative Medicine researchers seem to have mastered it, showing off their amazing skin printer that uses living cells instead of ink.
Apple

Submission + - The Apple Hackintosh Experience (benchmarkreviews.com)

ocoles writes: The recently published guide "Turning PC into Apple Macintosh: Hackintosh" described my experience building a Hackintosh, and my thoughts on the concept as a long-time Macintosh computer user. The article was very popular and generated a lot of comments from our readers, some with recurring themes that I want to address here, as well as report on the longer-term use of the machine.
Businesses

Submission + - Meg Whitman Loses Gov Auction Despite $161MM Bid

theodp writes: It was a bad Tuesday for ex-tech CEOs Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, who were the Republican dream team of candidates in California. Fiorina, once the head of HP, failed to unseat incumbent Barbara Boxer in the U.S. Senate race, and Whitman, who made eBay a household name, lost out to state Attorney General Jerry Brown in her $161 million bid for governor. Both women campaigned on largely the same issues: reinvigorating California's struggling economy, creating jobs, and cutting government waste. California's voters (and probably Whitman's sons) were reportedly dismayed at the amounts of money that Fiorina and Whitman spent, even though it was largely from their own coffers.
Wii

Submission + - Wii, DS Software Sales Continue to Plummet at EA (industrygamers.com)

donniebaseball23 writes: Nintendo recently posted its first six-month loss in seven years, leaving Satoru Iwata to defend the declining Wii and DS sales in front of investors, but it's become clear that leading publishers have been realigning their resources to other platforms as well — not a good sign for Nintendo. With the Q2 fiscal report from Electronic Arts, IndustryGamers notes that it's the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC that are driving sales, not the Wii or DS. In fact, year-over-year Wii software sales for EA have plummeted 82% while DS software sales have dropped 64%. That's more than the 10-year-old PS2 which saw its software sales for EA drop by 28%. And even with that, the PS2 generated $29 million compared to the Wii's $25 million.
Books

Submission + - How Google is Solving its Book Problem (theatlantic.com)

Pickens writes: "Alexis Madrigal writes in the Atlantic that Google's famous PageRank algorithm can't be deployed to search through the 15 million books that Google has already scanned because books don't link to each other in the way that webpages do. Instead Google's new book search algorithm called "Rich Results" looks at word frequency, how closely your query matches the title of a book, web search frequency, recent book sales, the number of libraries that hold the title, how often an older book has been reprinted, and 100 other signals. "There is less data about books than web pages, but there is more structure to it, and there's less spam to contend with," writes Madrigal. Yet the focus on optimizing an experience from vast amounts of data remains. "You want it to have the standard Google quality as much as possible," says Matthew Gray, lead software engineer for Google Books. "[You want it to be] a merger of relevance and utility based on all these things.""
Australia

Submission + - Aussie research company brings Wi-Fi to TV antenna (zdnet.com.au)

joshgnosis writes: The CSIRO has unveiled new technology that could bring internet to people in rural or remote parts of Australia using their existing TV antennas. Analog TV signal is set to be switched off in 2013 but this technology could see the spectrum used to deliver internet straight into people's homes through their TV antenna. Gartner expert Robin Simpson told ZDNet Australia that this would make it much easier for companies to get new customers. "What appeals to me about it is that it re-uses existing infrastructure, all of the competing wireless technologies tend to use high frequencies and therefore require new base stations, new spectrum and new receiving antenna infrastructure as well," he said. "The fact that they're re-using the analog TV stuff gives them a much easier market entry strategy."
Portables

Submission + - Creative launches Android tablets (idg.com.au)

angry tapir writes: "Creative Labs has announced entry-level media tablets with 7-inch and 10-inch touchscreens, with prices ranging from US$249 to $319. The Ziio Pure Wireless Entertainment tablets come with Google's Android 2.1 OS and storage ranging from 8GB to 16GB. Some models are priced lower than Archos' 101 Internet Tablet and Velocity Micro's Cruz tablet, which are priced at $299."
Science

The Proton Just Got Smaller 289

inflame writes "A new paper published in Nature has said that the proton may be smaller than we previously thought. The article states 'The difference is so infinitesimal that it might defy belief that anyone, even physicists, would care. But the new measurements could mean that there is a gap in existing theories of quantum mechanics. "It's a very serious discrepancy," says Ingo Sick, a physicist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, who has tried to reconcile the finding with four decades of previous measurements. "There is really something seriously wrong someplace."' Would this indicate new physics if proven?"

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