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Submission + - DARPA Lays Out Plans for Future Iconic Programs

Submitted by
docinthemachine
docinthemachine writes: "DARPA — the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency is at the core of hundreds of amazing projects with countless future-tech devices produced. Tthe agency has just announced its roadmap for 2007 and beyond. Docinthemachine.com reviews the major areas where they propelled advancement (TCP/IP protocol, Stealth, unmanned vehicles, etc) and a roadmap for their major future target projects- along with an overview of the potential medical offshoots of each. The major future thrust includes chip scale atomic clocks, molecular anti-terrorism sensors, unmanned aerial rovers, new space initialtives, high productivity computing systems, real-time language translation, biolgical warfare defenses, prosthetics, low-cost titanium, alternative energy, and high energy liquid lasers. Docinthemachine boils down the report to the essence of how our military R&D arm will change the future of military and biotech. Details are at http://docinthemachine.com/2007/02/10/darpaachieve ments/"
Television

Submission + - Where are all the hdtv tuners?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Today I read about rabbit ears making a comeback with OTA HTDV. I want to purchase a standalone ATSC HDTV tuner to go with my projector, but I am having a very hard time finding one. The big-box stores seem to only stock one or two models and are frequently sold out. Searching online yields similar results. It would seem that there would be ever increasing demand for these tuners given that many HDTVs were sold without internal tuners in years past and these tuners will be necessary for all old NTSC TVs after the February, 2009 shutdown of analog broadcasts. Where should I look to buy one of these devices? Of the currently available models, which are the best? Will the standalone HDTV tuner become a ubiquitous item as the 2009 deadline approaches?
Software

Submission + - Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) 5x coverage

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This past weekend saw the fifth annual Southern California Linux Expo in Los Angeles. Press coverage was a little better this year than in previous years: LXer has day 1 and day 2 individual coverage; The Jem Report has a writeup on the women in open source mini-conference and a summary of the whole weekend; the Haiku guys wrote a brief commentary on their experiences at SCALE 5x, as did event speakers Celeste Lyn Paul and Dru Lavigne.
Toys

Submission + - Hate Dishes? Automatic Dishmaker

Submitted by
aibrahim
aibrahim writes: "Hate dishes? the DishMaker is a prototype for a new kind of appliance that can replace dishes altogether by making cups, bowls and plates on demand and recycling them when you're done. The DishMaker takes advantage of a little-known shape-memory property of acrylic. Video at YouTube."
The Almighty Buck

California Balks At Internet Sales Tax 268

Posted by kdawson from the what's-$2B-among-friends dept.
bob_calder writes "California has walked away from $2 billion a year in revenue by declining to get on board with a group working to standardize tax rates so a national tax on Internet sales could eventually be implemented by Congress. Supporters of the tax think they still have a chance in New York, Texas, and Florida. At the moment the largest states pursuing the Streamlined Sales Tax Initiative are New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. California didn't want to give up its autonomy in setting taxes to a coalition of smaller states."
Supercomputing

Submission + - Intel Squeezes 1.8 TFlops: EDIT REQUIRED

Submitted by
jagzjagz (Jagdeep Poonian)
jagzjagz (Jagdeep Poonian) writes: "Hi Hemos: Thanks for posting my story (http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/11/intel_80_core/) . For some reason, my e-mail address was used in the article (jagzjagz@hotmail.com) even though I set it to 'Do not display e-mail address'. I do not wish my e-mail address to be listed. Please change it to show my full name instead. Thanks!! Jagdeep Poonian"
Games

Why Online Multiplayer Isn't That Important 134

Posted by Zonk from the one-opinion dept.
cyrus_zuo writes "GameTunnel has published an article on why they believe online multiplayer is over-rated. Specifically, author Russell Carrol feels that multi-player is only at its best when you have an emotional connection to the people you're playing against. In his words: 'Multiplayer gaming is awesome, don't get me wrong, but I don't think that online multiplayer modes are all that great. Unless I'm playing in the same room as the person I'm playing against, I lose the emotional and physical connection that makes multiplayer games fun. .. It's like going to a party where you drink and dance by yourself in your living room, and connect to everyone else through headsets, video cameras and HD TVs. No matter how you look at it, the end result is a lame party.'"
Music

Submission + - Study finds P2P has no effect on legal music sales

Submitted by
MBrichacek
MBrichacek writes: "A new study in the has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the recording industry. Analyzing data from the final four months of 2002, the researchers estimated that P2P affected no more than 0.7% of sales in that timeframe. The study reports that 803 million CDs were sold in 2002, which was a decrease of about 80 million from the previous year. The RIAA has blamed the majority of the decrease on piracy, and has maintained that argument in recent years as music sales have faltered. Yet according to the study, the impact from file sharing could not have been more than 6 million albums total in 2002, leaving 74 million unsold CDs without an excuse for sitting on shelves."
Privacy

Submission + - VeriSign implants 222 people with RFID chips

Submitted by
cnet-declan
cnet-declan writes: "Anyone remember VeriChip, a company that came up with the idea of implanting chips in humans for tracking them? They've been behind ideas like RFID tagging immigrant and guest workers at the border, and they've persuaded a former Bush Health Secretary to get himself chipped. In this CNET News.com article, we offer an update on how successful the idea has been. It turns out that, according to IPO documents, 222 people have been implanted, with sales revenue of $100,000."
Graphics

Submission + - ATi Unveils the R600

Submitted by
MBrichacek
MBrichacek writes: "VR-Zone has learned about some new details on 80nm R600 today and there will be 2 SKUs at launch; XTX and XT. There will be 2 versions of R600XTX; one is for OEM/SI and the other for retail. Both feature 1GB DDR4 memories on board but the OEM version is 12.4" long to be exact and the retail is 9.5" long. This picture shows a 12.4" OEM version. The power consumption of the card is huge at 270W for 12" version and 240W for 9.5" version. As for R600XT, it will have 512MB of GDDR3 memories onboard, 9.5" long and consumes 240W of power. Lastly, there is a cheaper R600XL SKU to be launched at a later date. Good luck fitting this thing into your case!"
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - SAP skills shortage driving up salaries

Submitted by
bednarz
bednarz writes: "A shortage of skilled SAP workers is making it difficult for IT departments to fill open jobs and caused the average salary for certain high-level SAP professionals to rise 15.6% in the past year. Consulting firm Foote Partners says the average base salary for directors of SAP program management rose from $115,468 to $133,500 in the calendar year that just ended. This increase dwarfs the typical increases in IT salaries of 3% to 5% a year. Network World has the story: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/021207-sap-w orkers.html"
Graphics

Vista Not Playing Nice With FPS Games 437

Posted by kdawson from the shoot-em-up dept.
PetManimal writes "Computerworld is reporting that gamers who have installed Vista are reporting problems with first person-shooter titles such as CounterStrike, Half-Life 2, Doom 3. and F.E.A.R. (Users have compiled lists of games with Vista issues.) The complaints, which have turned up on gamers' forums, cite crashes and low frame rates. Not surprisingly, the problems relate to graphics hardware and software: 'Experts blame still-flaky software drivers, Vista's complexity, and a dearth of new video cards optimized for Vista's new rendering technology, DirectX 10. That's despite promises from Microsoft that Vista is backwards-compatible with XP's graphic engine, DirectX 9, and that it will support existing games. Meanwhile, games written to take advantage of DirectX 10 have been slow to emerge. And one Nvidia executive predicts that gamers may not routinely see games optimized for DirectX 10 until mid-2008.'"

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