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Submission + - Scientists find new target for Alzhiemer's (medicaldaily.com)

Submitted by GarryFre
GarryFre writes: Neurological researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found a new therapeutic target that can potentially lead to a new way to prevent the progression of Alzheimer's disease. The target called neutral sphingomyelinase (N-SMase) is a protein that when activated, can cause a chain of reactions in the cell leading to neuronal death and memory loss. Already a substance has been found that shows some promise in halting the progression of the disease.
NASA

Submission + - Martian meteorite gets NASA Mars rover's attention (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: NASA's Mars rover Opportunity will take a small detour on its current journey to check out what could be a toaster-sized iron-based meteorite that crashed into the red planet.NASA scientists called the rock "Oileán Ruaidh," which is the Gaelic name for an island off the coast of northwestern Ireland. The rock is about 45 centimeters (18 inches) wide from the angle at which it was first seen on September 16.

Comment Re:Aptitude (Score 1) 769

by xavierpayne (#33601590) Attached to: Why Are Terrorists Often Engineers?

By this logic if someone commits suicide because Microsoft loses money and they had everything invested in Microsoft is the Linux community responsible for their deaths because they weren't improving Microsoft's sales?

I'm sorry, we were looking for your argument to be presented in the form of a car analogy. But, thank you for playing and do enjoy a free complimentary copy of the home game! :-)

Comment Re:It does make homebrew *possible*. (Score 1) 322

by xavierpayne (#33560540) Attached to: Sony Has Lost the PS3 Hacking War
An intel i7-975 with an NVidia gtx 480 can emulate a PS2 quite smoothly at 1080p with hardware scaling, AA, and a handful of other graphical touches that blow the original PS3's PS2 support out of the water. SONY already proved the PS3 has the power to emulate the PS2's central processing. All that's left is for them to emulate the Emotion Engine (GPU). I'd be willing to bet there are plenty of cores left over to do that effectively. They even already filed a patent for it: http://www.ps3news.com/PlayStation-3/patent-shows-ps3-to-ps2-backwards-compatibility-no-ps2-chips-1/ My guess is once they finally end of life the PS2 the backward compatibility will return to the PS3 via full software emulation. That way they can continue to sell all the PS2 "classics" on the PlayStation Store. FF7 for the PS One has been one of the best selling games in their store for a long time. It's got to be killing them all the money they are loosing not being able to sell downloadable iso's of PS2 games.

Comment Re:Opportunity knocking for AMD here... (Score 1) 324

by xavierpayne (#33414332) Attached to: It's Official — AMD Will Retire the ATI Brand
I agree. Unless intel does something major with their graphics team they have been and will continue to be an "also ran". I'll take closed source and fully functional over open source and "might work, somewhat" any day. I really haven't had any problems with the closed source ATI or NVidia drivers once they were properly configured. And I've used them for gaming, dual monitors, etc.

Comment Re:So what? (Score 4, Informative) 700

by xavierpayne (#31941746) Attached to: Sony Can Update PS3 Firmware Without Permission
So SONY in their latest ToS has basically admitted that they believe they have carte blanche over hardware you payed between $300-$600 dollars for. Not counting accessories and purchases. Yes. With 3.21 this only affected linux and it was optional (arguably). But from 3.30 forward SONYs stance is they can AUTOMATICALLY and WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION update the console. The updates can add/remove features, capabilities, even content you have bought and paid for and you (in their eyes) can't do a thing about it. GeoHot was right. This isn't about Linux anymore. This is about who owns what you paid for.
Graphics

The Nuts and Bolts of PlayStation 3D 154

Posted by Soulskill from the wait-till-the-bayonetta-guys-get-ahold-of-this dept.
The Digital Foundry blog took an in-depth look at how Sony is introducing 3D technology to PlayStation 3 games. They give a step-by-step description of how the system generates a 3D frame (or rather, a pair of frames), and the graphical hurdles that need be to overcome to ensure the games look good. The article also discusses some of the subtle effects 3D technology can have on gameplay: "'One interesting thing came through in the immersion aspect was that in the first-person camera view, it felt so much more like being there. Typically when most people play MotorStorm, something like 90 per cent play in the third-person view,' Benson explains. 'As soon as we put the 3D settings in place, the first-person view became a lot more popular, a lot more people were using that view. This could indicate that 3D could perhaps change the standards, if you like.' ... 'We found that in the first-person view the game is giving you all the sorts of cues that you're used to in normal driving: speed perception, the ability to judge distances, things like that. It's far easier to avoid track objects.' The insertion of true stereoscopic 3D into MotorStorm also brings about a new sense of appreciation of the scale and size of the game world and the objects within it."

Comment Re:Douchebags (Score 1) 396

by xavierpayne (#31871744) Attached to: Sony Refuses To Sanction PS3 "Other OS" Refunds

Actually this is what I was thinking, it's not like Sony/the retailer is forcing them to update to the latest firmware, the users chooses to update and loose that functionality.

Buying a device that promises to do A, B, and C. Then being told after the purchase that you have to pick "A" or "B and C" is not much of a choice. Even if I do nothing I loose advertised features (no PSN, no games or movies that require a firmware update). If I do update I loose real time AVC encoding: http://codecsys.fixstars.com/en/

Comment We are not being noisy enough! (Score 5, Informative) 396

by xavierpayne (#31871474) Attached to: Sony Refuses To Sanction PS3 "Other OS" Refunds
I called SONY customer relations to chat with them about the dropping of linux in their latest PS3 update. After very civily conveying my dismay at their decision to punish honest users of the PS3 by retro-actively ripping out the previously advertised, supported, and paid for "Other OS" feature I asked what they could do for me to even things up for effectively turning my non ps2 compatible fat into an oversized-overpriced slim. Their answer: "Sir I take hundreds of calls a day and you are the first to call and complain about this particular issue." Linux fans, PS3 owners who are linux fans... If that statement is true I'm dissappointed in you. 1-800-345-7669 (SONY) Hours: Mon-Sat 6:00AM-8:00PM / Sun 7:00AM-6:30PM PT If you are going to call be civil. But make it clear their action hasn't gone unnoticed and is unnacceptable. According to a friend of mine who has also called if you want to escalate it further, you can apparently call 1-866-286-5123 Monday through Friday from 8am-5:30pm Pacific time, a.k.a. 11am-8:30pm Eastern. They need to know just how much this bothers their customers. The impression I have so far is that it's not even a blip on their radar.
Security

Microsoft Refuses To Patch Rootkit-Compromised XP Machines 330

Posted by timothy from the define-yourself-as-outside-the-fence dept.
Barence writes "Microsoft has revealed that its latest round of patches won't install on XP machines if they're infected with a rootkit. In February, a security patch left some XP users complaining of endless reboots and Blue Screens of Death. An investigation followed and Microsoft discovered the problems occurred on machines infected with the Alureon rootkit, which interacted badly with patch KB977165 for the Windows kernel. Now Microsoft is blocking PCs with the rootkit from receiving its new patches. 'This security update includes package-detection logic that prevents the installation of the security update if certain abnormal conditions exist on 32-bit systems,' Microsoft cautions in the patch notes."

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