Comment Tomorrow's Headline (Score 4, Funny) 353
"over 394,000 PCs report massive amounts of virus infections due to the accidental removal of Antivirus 2009"
Batteries To Store Wind Energy 275
Roland Piquepaille writes "Scientific American reports that Xcel Energy, a Minneapolis-based utility company, has started to test a new technology to store wind energy in batteries. The company is currently trying it in a 1,100 megawatt facility of wind turbines in Southern Minnesota. The company started this effort because 'the wind doesn't always blow and, even worse, it often blows strongest when people aren't using much electricity, like late at night.' It has received a $1 million grant from Minnesota's Renewable Development Fund and the energy plant should be operational (PDF) in the first quarter of 2009. If this project is successful, the utility expects to deploy many more energy plants before 2020 to avoid more polluting energy sources."
Print News Fading, Still Source of Much News 140
CNet's Dan Farber took a look, not only at the popular news of how print media is dying a slow death, but also what contribution to the news print journalists are still making. According to research quoted, while the physical publications are quickly becoming a thing of the past much of the news that makes its way into circulation via blogs and other means still originates from the hard work of those print journalists. (We discussed a similar perspective on the news a week back.) "While the Internet is growing as the place where people go for news, the revenue simply isn't catching up fast enough. The less obvious part of the Internet overtaking newspapers as the main source for national and international news is that much of the seed content--the original reporting that breaks national and international news and is subsequently refactored by legions of bloggers--comes from the reporters and editors working at the financially strapped newspapers and national and local television outlets. [...] As the financial pressures mount--the outlook for 2009 is dismal--and the cost cutting continues, we can only hope that the original news reporting by top-flight journalists is not a major casualty."
Comment Re:I must be tired... (Score 1) 182
I read, "The Waco Tribune has short report about it, with comments by lolcats."
I need either moar sleep or less internets.
Fixed that for you.
Comment Help them in the guidance office (Score 1) 1
Point them to a free college and career planning service that makes use of technology and helps get their guidance office out of the middle ages. Tell them to use something like ConnectEDU (http://www.connectedu.net). It's completely free and hooks directly into their student information system. It also saves them a lot of time moving file folders and paper around, and works with the students using a SAAS approach to delivering info about colleges. The biggest issue with schools isn't that they need more computers - its that their staff that has been their for 25+ years wouldn't know what to do with the computer if they had it. The best things to do regarding technology in public schools is show them low to no cost alternatives to the processes they are using today that will have minimal impact on retraining, long term support and maintenance.
Comment Re:Obama (Score 1) 1486
I think that a politician doing what is the correct and right thing to do with regards to IT is DEFINITELY newsworthy.
Comment first uncensored post (Score 4, Funny) 146
cmdrtaco smells bad.
'Hundreds of Worlds' in Milky Way 334
Raphael Emportu writes "BBC news is reporting
that rocky planets, possibly with conditions suitable for life, may be more common than previously thought in our galaxy, a study has found.
New evidence suggests more than half the Sun-like stars in the Milky Way could have similar planetary systems.
There may also be hundreds of undiscovered worlds in outer parts of our Solar System, astronomers believe.
Future studies of such worlds will radically alter our understanding of how planets are formed, they say."
WikiLeaks Under Fire 282
kan0r writes "The transparency group WikiLeaks.org currently seems to be under heavy fire. The main WikiLeaks.org DNS entry is unavailable, reportedly due to a restraining order relating to a series of articles and documents released by WikiLeaks about off-shore trust structures in the Cayman Islands. The WikiLeaks whistle blower, allegedly former vice president of the Cayman Islands branch of swiss bank Julius Baer, states in the WikiLeaks documents that the bank supported tax evasion and money laundering by its clients from around the world. WikiLeaks alternate names remained available until Saturday, when there seems to have been a heavy DDoS attack and a fire at the ISP. The documents in question are still available on other WikiLeaks sites, such as wikileaks.be, and are also mirrored on Cryptome. Details of the court documents have also been made available."
