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Science

Submission + - Climate change "already visible," say researchers (blorge.com)

Charlotte Web writes: In 1980 there were just 60 floods, blizzards, or thunderstorms, but in 2010 there were 247, according to a new article in Scientific American. "It's likely that the number of strong storms involving rain, snow and hail is also rising because of warming temperatures," says the head of the Corporate Climate Center at Munich Reinsurance, adding "we believe we have indications that climate change is already, at least to some extent, visible." The number of damaging storms rose from 50 to 150, notes one environmental blog, adding that "While politicians bicker over the reality of climate change, insurance companies are dealing with its reality." In fact, altogether the past year saw 950 disasters worldwide, where 30 years ago the number was a mere 400.
Businesses

Submission + - Cell Phone Industry's Six Biggest Failed Schemes

adeelarshad82 writes: The tech world is for dreamers, schemers, and sometimes, scammers. Which is why it's no surprise that the cell phone industry isn't any different. In wake of the recent news about the Israeli mobile-phone firm Modu shutting its doors, mobile analyst Sascha Segan revisits six major failures in the cell phone industry, from using phones to create a peer-to-peer that would eliminate the need for wireless carriers to a company with a $225,000 phone.
HP

Submission + - HP promises webOS netbooks to go along with smartp (cranktime.com)

cosmicdust writes: Todd Bradley did promise us there’d be more than just slates on HP’s webOS menu and today we can add netbooks to the list of form factors for Palm’s famed OS. This heretofore unknown slice of info comes from a carrier training website HP has set up to educate resellers on the strong points of its forthcoming products. The training video on the site speaks of the great synergies that can result from smartphones, slates and netbooks all running the same OS and “speaking” to one another, which echoes Bradley’s “connected experience” mantra from a couple of days ago. Smartphones are said to be the beginning of a new family of webOS products, with their larger siblings set to come “soon enough.” Is February 9th soon enough? We’d say so.
Businesses

Submission + - 9th Circuit Unmasks Anonymous Online Speakers (rhlaw.com)

reidhellyer writes: While Internet users may presume that their anonymous posts on message boards and social media sites may remain anonymous, web surfers may want to think twice before they click “post” as a Ninth Circuit opinion in 2011 allowed the unmasking of anonymous online speakers engaged in commercial speech.
Security

Submission + - Kindle DRM removal made easy (i-programmer.info)

mikejuk writes: Wherever there are barriers there are going to be people looking for ways to defeat them. The Kindle's Digital Rights Management is an obvious target for hackers and it now looks like the start of a war between amazon and the programmers willing to defeat the encryption. At the moment things are shifting — you can still remove DRM from a MOBI file if you try but not from a Topaz file. TooSmartGuys have now produced a video which shows even the most inexperienced hacker how to un-DRM a Kindle MOBI ebook
Crime

Student Googles Himself, Finds He's Accused of Murder 184

University of Florida student Zachary Garcia was more than a little surprised to find out he was wanted for murder after Googling his name. It turns out the police were looking for a different man but had mistakenly used Garcia's photo. From the article: "Investigators originally released a driver's license photo of Zachary Garcia — spelled with an 'A' — but it was Zachery Garcia — spelled with an 'E'— who was charged in connection with the crime."
Image

Kids Who Watch Popeye Cartoons Eat More Vegetables 119

markmark57 writes "Popeye cartoons, tasting parties and junior cooking classes can help increase vegetable intake in kindergarten children, according to new research published in the journal Nutrition & Dietetics. Researchers at Mahidol University in Bangkok found the type and amount of vegetables children ate improved after they took part in a program using multimedia and role models to promote healthy food. Twenty six kindergarten children aged four to five participated in the eight-week study. The researchers recorded the kinds and amounts of fruit and vegetables eaten by the children before and after the program."
Image

Radioactive Boar On the Rise In Germany 165

Germans who go out in the woods today are sure of a big surprise, radioactive boars. A portion of the wild boar population in Germany was irradiated after the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, and the boars are thriving. In the last two years government payments to compensate hunters for radioactive boar have quadrupled. From the article: "According to the Environment Ministry in Berlin, almost €425,000 ($555,000) was paid out to hunters in 2009 in compensation for wild boar meat that was too contaminated by radiation to be sold for consumption. That total is more than four times higher than compensation payments made in 2007." I think the Germans are overlooking just how much money there is to be made from regenerating bacon.
Image

Marine Mammals Used To Fight Terrorism 131

pinkstuff writes "The Navy unveiled its terror-fighting marine mammals at a two-day homeland security and disaster preparedness exercise in California this week. From the article: 'A Navy seal — actually a sea lion — took less than a minute to find a fake mine under a pier near San Francisco's AT&T Park. A dolphin quickly located a terrorist lurking in the black water before another sea lion, using a device carried in its mouth, cuffed the pretend saboteur's ankle so authorities could reel him in.' Queue the 'frickin lasers' jokes."

Submission + - Comcast wins! (yahoo.com)

AmazinglySmooth writes: I wonder what good legal arguments can be made in favor of net neutrality? I understand the social arguments, but what are the legal arguments for it?

Submission + - Court Says FCC Cannot Enforce Net Neutrality (wsj.com)

An anonymous reader writes: From the Wall Street Journal: "A federal appeals court struck down the FCC's efforts to enforce its "net neutrality" principles, ruling Tuesday that the Federal Communications Commission exceeded its authority when it issued a 2008 citation against Comcast Corp. for throttling Internet traffic from high-bandwidth file-sharing services. A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the citation, ruling that Congress hadn't given the FCC the power to regulate an Internet service provider's network-management practices. "
Image

Facebook Master Password Was "Chuck Norris" 319

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A Facebook employee has given a tell-all interview with some very interesting things about Facebook's internals. Especially interesting are all the things relating to Facebook privacy. Basically, you don't have any. Nearly everything you've ever done on the site is recorded into a database. While they fire employees for snooping, more than a few have done it. There's an internal system to let them log into anyone's profile, though they have to be able to defend their reason for doing so. And they used to have a master password that could log into any Facebook profile: 'Chuck Norris.' Bruce Schneier might be jealous of that one."
Businesses

The Twelve Most Tarnished Brands In Tech 430

harrymcc writes "Polaroid, Netscape, CompuServe, Westinghouse, Heathkit — these were once among the most respected names in the technology business. They're still around, but what's happened to them is just plain sad. I took a look at the tragic fates of a dozen mighty brands that have, in one way or another, fallen on hard times."
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Why Single Player Games Will Never Die (ign.com)

spidweb writes: "RPGVault at IGN.com has a new article about why there will always be a healthy market for single player games. For a huge portion of the market, the stress of dealing with (and competing with) other humans defeats much of the purpose of playing games to relax in the first place. From the article, "Computer games are, to a large extent, about adolescent power fantasies. We can write off three or four losses as valuable learning experiences. Lots and lots of losses? Well, then I am not living my power fantasy. I am providing the fodder for someone else's."

The article is at

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/832/832692p1.html"

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