Comment Re:And I'll be the first to say: (Score 1) 256
Gesundheit!
Steve Fossett's Unfinished Project 97
MazzThePianoman writes "Steve Fossett left behind a secret vessel project called the Deep Flight Challenger. Fossett was funding the development of a winged submersible being designed by Hawkes Ocean Technologies in California. The intent was for the vehicle to be capable of travel to the very bottom of the ocean — the Mariana Trench, more than 11,000 meters beneath the surface. 'It would have dramatically, dramatically opened the oceans for exploration. It would have been a game changer,' said Graham Hawkes, the designer. Testing had been completed at Department of Defense facilities. Field testing was only four weeks away when Fossett's untimely death, a year ago, put the project on hold." Hawkes Ocean Technologies owns the design, but the vehicle itself is owned by Fossett's estate.
Submission + - Finnish censorship critic censored (wikinews.org)
An anonymous reader writes: Finnish hacker Matti Nikki who has loudly critized national childporn blacklist has been added to the very same blacklist (which should only contain foreign sites from countries where authorities are not interested in taking down those sites) he has been critizizing. According to police, the reason for blocking is that the site the site contained a list of the blocked sited, most of which contain legal porn and reside in EU or USA.
Intel Demos Software Defined WiFi/WiMAX/DVB-H Chip 97
Doc Ruby writes "Electronics Weekly is reporting that Intel has developed a new prototype chip for software defined radio. The new chip will be able to handle WiFi, WiMAX and DVB-H digital TV all on the same chip. 'This kind of chip would allow equipment to access the WiFi network in the home, automatically handover to a WiMAX network when you leave the house and also access digital TV on the move, all through one chip.' It's also a proof that the entire class of SW radios that could possibly converge CDMA, GSM and various other radio networks for opportunistic handoffs by a single device, a 'universal radio' that could use content formerly locked into a single radio type."
What If Yoda Ran IBM? 205
Esther Schindler writes to mention that one IT leader who came from big business found himself in quite another world when he transitioned into a smaller business, specifically with respect to the amount of attention from their vendors. He presents an amusing approach with a familiar twist. "Not only are the IBMs of the world leaving money on the table, they're also risking future sales. The IT leaders at small organizations will in many cases be employed by larger organizations someday. Why alienate them? Vendors could engage IT leaders in small organizations now and build brand loyalty. How could they make such a business model work? Let's imagine (with apologies to George Lucas) what Yoda might do if he were running a large consultancy."
Mark Cuban Calls on ISPs to Block P2P 463
boaz112358 writes "Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner, HDNet CEO, and noted gadfly is publishing on his blog that Comcast and other ISPs should block all P2P traffic, because as he says, "As a consumer, I want my internet experience to be as fast as possible. The last thing I want slowing my internet service down are P2P freeloaders." He complains that commercial content distributors instead of paying for their own bandwidth, are leeching off consumers who are paying for the bandwidth. As an alternative distribution method (at least for audio and video), he suggests Google video."
Samsung Unveils 64-Gbit Flash Memory Chip 150
Lucas123 writes "The chips can be combined to create a 128-GB flash storage device capable of holding up to 80 DVD movies or 32,000 MP3 music files. The chip was created using 30-nanometer processing technology that was developed with Samsung's self-aligned double patterning technology. Manufacturing will start in 2009; but the article quotes a Gartner analyst who reminds us, 'Samsung has had a difficult time adhering to its timelines for mass production due to the complexity of MLC architectures and ever shrinking process geometries.'"
A Simple Plan To Defeat Dumb Patents 234
Steve Jones writes "With the EU being rumored to look at software patents again I thought I'd have a look at the root of the problem — the US Patent Office — and work out if there is a simple way to defeat dumb patents. The big thing that defeats a patent is prior art. At the Patent Office they have the definition of Prior Art that includes the phrase: 'known or used by others in this country, or was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country.' Now suppose that every time we have an idea that we think is 'obvious' but that hasn't been done before, or something we think would be interesting but don't have the money to create — that we blogged about that idea, tagging it as 'prior art' via Technorati. This would give people an RSS feed of prior art." Read on for more details of Steve's proposal.
Comment Re:Has no one beaten me to it? (Score 4, Funny) 231
That's old.
Instead, imagine a 1.5-mile-high stack of these!
Instead, imagine a 1.5-mile-high stack of these!
Sun Asks China to Merge its Doc Format With ODF 114
christian.einfeldt writes "Sun's Chairman Scott McNealy has asked the world's most populous nation to merge its Uniform Office Format with the Open Document Format. Tech lawyer Andy Updegrove thinks that McNealy would not have flown to China and taken this chance of rejection if McNealy didn't think that there was a good likelihood of success."
Blackberry Network is Down 243
Brian writes "According to CNET and others, "A system failure at Research In Motion has affected BlackBerry users in the Western Hemisphere, a news channel reported on its Web site late on Tuesday. The infrastructure failed on Tuesday night, and e-mails were not being delivered to the handheld devices.""
WTO Again Sides With Antigua Over Online Gambling 429
TechDirt writes "For some time we've been following the ongoing conflict between the US and the island nation of Antigua surrounding internet gambling. Even before the passage of the most recent anti-gambling law, Antigua had gone to the WTO to complain that the US government's actions against online gambling were de facto protectionist measures, and thus violated international trade law. The WTO ended up siding with Antigua, although, quite predictably, the US did nothing to resolve the issue -- in fact, things have only gotten worse. Now the WTO is speaking out again, slamming the US government for its failure to abide by the decision against it. Once again, it seems likely that the US will ignore the decision, although that would give Antigua the right to retaliate. One possibility that's been thrown out there is that Antigua may turn itself into a haven for free music and software and set up some site like allofmp3.com. Of course, the US put pressure on Russia to crack down on that site, as part of the country's admittance into the WTO, but since Antigua is already part of the organization, the US would have no such leverage. Now, the WTO has spoken out again."
Submission + - Fast-track of OpenXML standardisation blocked
FireFury03 writes: "The British Standards Institute has issued a contradiction to Microsoft's OpenXML document format, blocking it's fast-track ISO standardisation for 90 days. The article states that "Proponents of the rival Open Document Format" are opposed to the format as there is "no point in having two document standards." This seems to miss the true problems with the (incomplete) OpenXML specification and the British Standards Institute have not yet stated the reasons for their objection."
Cameras Help Cops Catch a Killer 754
CrazedWalrus writes "Philadelphia police recently captured a serial killer with the help of a combination of Homeland Security and private surveillance cameras. Police examined video from 50 different cameras and pieced together relevant footage from 12 of them, and eventually were able to identify the murderer. Once caught, he confessed to several other murders spanning the past eight years. Without these cameras this killer would probably be stalking the streets of Philadelphia today. With results like that, is there really a good basis for argument against these cameras?"
iTunes Sales 'Collapsing' 651
Alien54 writes to tell us The Register is reporting that based on reported revenues this year iTunes sales are plummetting. From the article: "Secretive Apple doesn't break out revenues from iTunes, but Forrester conducted an analysis of credit card transactions over a 27-month period. And this year's numbers aren't good. While the iTunes service saw healthy growth for much of the period, since January the monthly revenue has fallen by 65 per cent, with the average transaction size falling 17 per cent. The previous spring's rebound wasn't repeated this year."
