Feed Symantec completes Altiris buy (com.com)
Acquisition of IT management software company, announced in January, valued at about $830 million.
Feed Photos: Hybrids that give back to the grid (com.com)
PG&E and CalCars demonstrate how owners of plug-in hybrids could one day send electricity back to the grid.
Submission + - Sunspots reach 1000 year peak
rlp writes: Researchers at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich are reporting that solar sunspot activity is at a 1000 year peak. Records of sunspots have been kept since 1610. The period between 1645 and 1715 (known as the Maunder Minimum) was a period of very few sunspots. Researchers extended the record by measuring isotopes of beryllium (created by cosmic rays) in Greenland ice cores. Based on observations and ice core records, we are now at a sunspot peak exceeding solar activity for any time in the past thousand years.
Submission + - Physicist needs $20,000 for time-travel experiment
breem42 writes: "John Cramer at the University of Washington is apparently almost ready to set up an experiment that includes a tiny bit of time travel, but needs the aforementioned funds to finish. FTFA:
"It's a project that aims to do a conceptually simple bench-top test for evidence of something Albert Einstein called "spooky action at a distance." The test involves using a crystal to split a photon, a light particle, into two reduced-energy photons that — through careful manipulation — Cramer thinks could reveal a flash of time traveling backward."
On a side note, it may be a surprise to some, but the NASA agency that has funded this lab in the past, "NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts" or NIAC, is apparently being shutdown."
"It's a project that aims to do a conceptually simple bench-top test for evidence of something Albert Einstein called "spooky action at a distance." The test involves using a crystal to split a photon, a light particle, into two reduced-energy photons that — through careful manipulation — Cramer thinks could reveal a flash of time traveling backward."
On a side note, it may be a surprise to some, but the NASA agency that has funded this lab in the past, "NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts" or NIAC, is apparently being shutdown."
Feed Scientists Identify Protein Key To Breast Cancer Spread, Potential New Drug Targ (sciencedaily.com)
Researchers have identified a protein that they say is key to helping a quarter of all breast cancers spread. The finding could be a potential target for new drugs aimed at stopping or slowing the growth and progression of breast cancer.
Feed People Who Are Severly Overweight Grow Faster Than Other Obese Americans (sciencedaily.com)
The proportion of Americans who are severely obese -- about 100 pounds or more overweight -- increased by 50 percent from 2000 to 2005, twice as fast as the growth seen in moderate obesity, according to a new study.
Submission + - The death of the network hub?
Ageing Metalhead writes: The death of the network hub?
As part of my day-to-day work supporting and developing embedded devices, to diagnose system and application problems within those devices I'm often left with no choice but to fire up ethereal/wireshark to understand what is happening at a network level.
A cheap off-the-shelf network switch is no good, as I will not see the traffic that is addressed to my embedded device. Expensive switches allow you to set up a promiscuous port that will direct all traffic going to-from a specific port(s).
So has the basic network hub now died, never to be seen again, or are there vendors still making / reselling hubs?
A.M
Submission + - Perens Counters ACT's Claim that GPLv3 is "Ris
Microsoft Delenda Est writes: "After ACT, a Microsoft front group, started claiming that the GPLv3 was legally "risky" and could give rise to anti-trust liability, eWeek has published a rebuttal by Bruce Perens. Aside from the fact that IBM, HP, Red Hat, and a couple dozen corporate lawyers are watching over the creation of the GPLv3, there is already precedent saying that shows the GPL is unlikely to give rise to any significant liability — Daniel Wallace v. FSF. In that case, pro se litigant Daniel Wallace was all but laughed out of the courtroom for alleging the GPLv2 violates anti-trust law, and the GPLv3 clauses in question are simply clarifications and extensions of clauses in the GPLv2. Presumably, that is why the ACT neglected to cite any precedent substantiating their allegations."
Submission + - Nintendo posts record profits
mrneutron2004 writes: Does a 62 percent rise year-on-year in profit sound pretty darn sweet? How about beating 17 top analysts expectations, or beating your own corporate forecast by 24%? It sounds very sweet to anyone owning shares in Nintendo Corporation, because they posted a record $2.2 Billion Dollars in earnings for the year ended March 31. http://www.fastsilicon.com/latest-news/nintendo-po sts-record-profits.html?Itemid=60
Submission + - ScummVM Ported to Nintendo Wii
Croakyvoice writes: Rodolfo Portillo has released a port of ScummVM
for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo Gamecube. ScummVM is a program which allows
you to run certain classic graphical point-and-click adventure games like Simon
the Sorcerer, Broken Sword and Flight of the Amazon Queen. You will have to use
SD
Load to run this on your console.
Submission + - Researchers chill mirror to near absolute zero
An anonymous reader writes: Physicists have managed to cool a dime-sized mirror to within one degree of absolute zero, the lowest laser-induced freeze yet achieved with a visible object.
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/ 2007/409/1
Submission + - Matter Colliding at the Speed of Light
CannonballHead writes:
Apparently, there are fears about the smashing of two gold atoms together, fears about it creating strange particles that will engulf the entire earth, or creating a black hole that will suck the entire earth into itself in a few minutes. I knew money was powerful, but I didn't know gold was that influential.Researchers have spent eight years constructing the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island in New York state. Its goal is to smash the nuclei of atoms together and study their wreckage to determine the fundamental properties of matter.
Submission + - AMD Prices Through The Floor
mrneutron2004 writes: Looks like yet another gauntlet has been thrown down in the war between AMD and Intel. Across the board there are dramatic price drops on AMD X2 CPU's, with the X2 6000+ 3Ghz Dual Core tipping in as cheap as $229, and the low end X2 3600+ veritable pocket change at $73.
http://www.fastsilicon.com/latest-news/amd-prices- through-the-floor.html?Itemid=60
Journal Journal: April Fool's Submissions Overboard and Underfunny 2
I agree with some of the comments and submissions I have seen today that the yearly stupidity on Slashdot is just plain dumb. Unfortunately, these comments are drowned out. One or two good hoaxes would have made my day. ("Google Paper" was actually quite good). A score of idiotic and unbelievable posts just ruins the site and real news is buried. Having looked through the Firehose at several points today, there have been several serious submissions that have been voted up but have never made
Submission + - Best Buy Selling PSP Games at $1.99
YokimaSun writes: Bestbuy are selling Playstation Portable games off at bargain
prices of $1.99, $4.99 and $9.99 the games included Mercury, Me and My Katamari,
Ape Academy, Luminous, ATV Offroad Fury. Signs of a clearout by Sony or just bestbuy
clearing old stock?
