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Biotech

Submission + - Stems Cells to Cure Heart Attacks

Submitted by
dptalia
dptalia writes: "Stems cells have already been proven effective in improving the heart's condition, but now doctors in London plan on testing if stem calls can help repair damage caused by a heart attack. The plan is to inject stem cells from the paitent's bone marrow in to the attery in an attempt to repair the immediate damage. If this works it could lead to a whole new, low cost method of treating hear attacks."
Novell

Submission + - Microsoft paying Novell US$308M for Linux pact

Submitted by Pabell Nelson
Pabell Nelson writes: Microsoft will pay Novell a net amount of US$308 million to market and distribute its competitor's product. Microsoft will pay Novell US$240 million for 350,000 coupons — 70,000 per year — entitling customers to support and maintenance for Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server, and a net amount of US$108 million in an agreement under which both companies release each other from patent claims from past actions. On top of that, Microsoft will spend US$94 million over the five-year deal on its own sales and marketing work for Suse products. However, Novell will also pay at least US$40 million over the course of the deal to ensure Microsoft will not sue Suse customers for patent infringement.
User Journal

Submission + - My misadventures at the polls

Submitted by robyannetta
robyannetta writes: My voting story
In early May, right before I was diagnosed with cancer, I renewed my drivers license at the local DMV. When I was asked if I would like to register to vote, I said yes, much to the shock of the person renewing my license. She had this silent smile on her face that made me wonder if she got a bonus for every sucker that signed up to vote.

Why did I register? Well, to be honest, I'm tired of the state of this country. I'm tired of watching the news hearing about the exploits of our elected officials (honestly I believe that Bush stole the last election because Gore had over one million more votes than Bush, but Bush still won by some miracle) and their mindless zombie drones in Congress and the House of Representatives. It's sad to see so many old retirees in office just sit around and exist, pushing their old meaningless ways onto the current generation who want nothing to do with them. The existing 'old farts' sit around waiting for big business to grease their bank account with another legal bribe and have their votes purchased. The government, as I see it thanks to the media, is so horrifically corrupt that it can't survive in its current state. Over half the world hates us for being Americans and I didn't do a darn thing wrong.

I registered to vote to change that. I thought my vote may count. I honestly don't think it did. Here's why.

I've heard the news stories and read the articles about the electronic voting machines that switch votes from 'anyone' to Republican. I never thought it would happen to me the first time I attempted to vote.

I arrive at the polling station bright and early Tuesday morning. I'm greeted at the door with smiles and helpful people. I show my voters registration card and an ID. I'm given a smartcard to insert into a voting machine to enable it. I'm asked if I would like a quick demo of the 'new voting machine.' For giggles, I said yes. A young man walks up to me and shows me screen prints of what I should do here, here and here, pointing to specific areas on the printout. This seems very straightforward. Remembering about the problems with electronic voting, I ask him if we are going to get a paper receipt of some kind showing what the voting machine had registered a vote for. He said NO. That was problem number one of many. I walk up to one voting machine and enter the smartcard into it. The screen on the voting machine pops to life with a warm glow and starts offering me choices for the Governor, Legislature and Congressional seats. I start making choices.

Here's where the fun begins.

Halfway down the line, I am having a problem: When I press on the touchscreen to make a choice, the machine will not register my vote for that candidate. I press it a bit harder, but still nothing. Hmm. To diagnose whether or not I'm experiencing a hardware or software problem, I press the name of the other candidate that I do NOT want to vote for. Ding! I just successfully chose the other candidate. Okay, so it's not a software problem. I press the name of the candidate that I want to vote for. Nothing. The machine it not registering it at all. I press the back button on the bottom left hand side of the screen. Surprise! This button is disabled. Now, I remember being told that at the end of the selection process that I can review and make changes then. I mistakenly decide to do that. I let this one mis-vote pass. This happens a second time. And a third. Now I'm fuming.

At the end of the voting procedure, a review screen pops up and asks me to review my selections, telling me that I can go back and make changes. I now press the back button. Guess what? The back button is either disabled or broken altogether.

I ask for some help. A man walks over and I calmly and politely tell him what has happened. He shakes his head and makes a comment that 'these things aren't perfect, it just happens.' I then ask him if there is a way to vote by paper. He tells me this is an electronic polling station only. I'm starting to silently panic. So I'm just supposed to accept that this box will not allow me to change my votes to the correct ones and the excuse is that 'it just happens' on these electronic machines? Apparently so. I had no choice. I got to vote for the candidates that I didn't want to vote for, and guess who I didn't want to vote for?

I feel used. I feel as if all the lame conspiracy theories the crackpots have been circulating around the internet for months were not total crap after all. Maybe I should put more faith in the news reporting of Slashdot, Digg and Fark. Do I now believe that voting actually means something? No. Do I now think that the top 1% of big business really runs this country? Yep. Do I want to vote again? No.

I wasn't the only one let down here. 300 million Americans were.
Linux Business

Submission + - Dvorak: Is Microsoft Going to Start a Linux War?

Submitted by
zaxios
zaxios writes: "John C. Dvorak has weighed in on the recent Novell-Microsoft pact. Among his insights: "Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses and the possibility that one false move would make a Microsoft product public domain at worst, or subject to the GPL at best." But now, "the idea is to create some sort of code that is jammed into Linux and whose sole purpose is to let some proprietary code run under Linux without actually 'touching' Linux in any way that would subject the proprietary code to the GPL." According to Dvorak, it's only a matter of time before Linux is "cracked" by Microsoft, meaning Microsoft figures out a way to run proprietary code on it. I hope Microsoft shares this discovery with VMware, Adobe, Sun, nVidia, et al."
Privacy

Submission + - More privacy hypocrisy from HP

Submitted by
macraig
macraig writes: "On the heels of the Patricia Dunn et al scandal at HP comes an article titled "Staying undercover on the Internet" as part of the November 2006 issue of HP's Technology at Work e-mail newsletter. The newsletter summarizes the article: "When you surf the Web, you leave behind a trail of information about you and your online activities — and this can be misused. Fortunately, you can stay undercover and protect your privacy".

Perhaps HP should have released an advance copy of this article to the reporters and others whose privacy it violated? Can a corporation that authors articles that seem to demonstrate concern for consumer privacy, on the one hand, but wantonly violates privacy when it suits its internal purposes, on the other, really be trusted to hold our privacy in suitably high regard?"
AMD/OSTG

Journal Journal: AMD Offers Graphics Chips for Older Macs

Journal by OSTG Marketing
If you have an older Mac and have been looking for an AMD (ATI) chip, it's your lucky day. "AMD will begin offering the ATI Radeon X1900 graphics chips for the Mac G5 Quad and the Power Mac G5 Dual, which are still powered by PowerPC processors. The new graphics chips, according to AMD, will help Mac users who use the desktops for graphic design, video editing, photo editing, as well as offer better gaming performance."
Novell

Submission + - Novell Defends Microsoft Patent Agreement

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Novell today defended its patent agreement with Microsoft, asserting that it neither violates the GPL nor implies that Linux infringes on any of Microsoft's patents, according to an article at Linux-Watch. Additionally, Novell is suggesting that its agreements with Microsoft promote the adoption of Linux. In a second article, Linux-Watch also reports that Microsoft is making an up-front payment to Novell of $348 million, and that Novell will make ongoing payments of at least $40 million over five years to Microsoft, based on percentages of Novell's Open Platform Solutions and Open Enterprise Server revenues.
AMD/OSTG

Journal Journal: Dell unveils AMD based desktop

Journal by OSTG Marketing
Have you heart about Dell's Optiplex 740? It is the first desktop computer based on AMD processors from Dell. "The new AMD Athlon and Ahtlon X2 powered Optiplex 740 targets enterprises. It marks a next step in the system maker's transition to AMD powered systems. Dell on its website touted the Optiplex 740's flexibility and its ability to meet diverse demands that users might have."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft to pay Novell $348 million

Submitted by pestilence669
pestilence669 writes: SEATTLE (Reuters) — Software maker Novell Corp. said on Tuesday Microsoft Corp. will make two separate up-front payments totaling $348 million to the company under an agreement to allow Novell's open-source Linux software to work with Windows.

Microsoft will pay Novell $240 million up front in subscription fees to allow the world's largest software maker to use its Linux software. Microsoft will pay an additional $108 million upfront for use of patents, Novell said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Is this the beginning of interoperability or the beginning of something much worse?
Microsoft

Submission + - Novell Gets $348 Million From Microsoft

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Novell has published additional details about its agreements with Microsoft concerning Windows and Linux interoperability and patents. It seems the company is receiving an up-front payment of $348 million from Microsoft, for SLES subscription certificates and for patent cross-licensing. Microsoft will make an upfront payment to Novell of $240 million for SLES subscription "certificates" that Microsoft can use, resell, or distribute over the term of the agreement. Regarding the patent cooperation agreement, Microsoft will make an up-front net payment to Novell of $108 million, and Novell will make ongoing payments totaling at least $40 million over five years to Microsoft.

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