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Submission + - Internet Uses 9.4% of U.S. Electricity (prweb.com)

Submitted by

ribuck

on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @02:43PM

ribuck writes: "Equipment powering the internet accounts for 9.4% of electricity demand in the U.S., and 5.3% of global demand, according to research by David Sarokin at online pay-for-answers service Uclue. Worldwide, that's 868 billion kilowatt-hours per year. The total includes the energy used by desktop computers and monitors (which makes up two-thirds of the total), plus other energy sinks including modems, routers, data processing equipment and cooling equipment."

Submission + - FDA and Drugs Not Yet Approved

Submitted by The Assistant on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @02:31PM

The Assistant writes: Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture?

CNN has a story FDA fails to vet many prescription drugs about drugs that slip through the cracks and are sold prior to being approved.

CyberActivist.US forums had a story in August Court Rules Drugs Cannot Be Used Until FAD Approved" in which the court ruled that patients with terminal illnesses could not get drugs unless the FDA approved them.

If the FDA is having a problem with everyone having the risk of getting unapproved drugs, why can't they let those who have the most to gain and least to lose try something that may improve their condition?

Submission + - Smart Image Resizing Cuts Out Useless Pixels (ohgizmo.com) 1

Submitted by FsG on Thursday August 23, 2007 @04:44PM

FsG writes: Wouldn't it be useful if you could make images smaller by selectively removing the least important pixels? New research in computer science makes it possible to do just that, thereby shrinking images without either distorting them or making the important elements too small.

Submission + - 20 Reasons Not to Run BioShock DX10 over DX9

Submitted by

ThinSkin

on Thursday August 23, 2007 @04:09PM

ThinSkin writes: "After learning about a 20 frames-per-second penalty for running DX10 instead of DX9 in BioShock, Joel Durham Jr. over at ExtremeTech thought it would be a good idea to compare the image quality differences of BioShock DX10 vs. DX9. Long story short: There is no difference. From the article: "BioShock is turning out to be an engrossing and downright fun shooter. DirectX 10, in the meantime, is turning out to be a non-issue. If you decided to play in DirectX 9 for the sake of performance, you're really not missing much at all.""

Submission + - Courts Nix Net Radio Plea

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12, 2007 @05:21PM

An anonymous reader writes: It looks like the courts will not give Webcasters the relief they seek from the new Internet radio rates that go into effect on Sunday. The courts denied the Webcasters' request to delay the hikes, citing that they didn't meet the high burden necessary to establish their case. In a press release issued today SaveNetRadio spokesperson Jay Ward said "We are disappointed that the Court failed to acknowledge the irreparable and quite frankly, devastating effect these new royalties will have on the Internet radio industry,". Webcaster must now hope that Congress will come to their aid. The House Commerce Committee led by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) called members of both the Internet radio and recording industries into a meeting today in an attempt to mediate a workable solution before Sunday. If no solution comes about many small Webcasters say they will have no choice but to fold their operations.

Submission + - Outsource Your Brain for Science (readwriteweb.com)

Submitted by

ReadWriteWeb

on Thursday July 12, 2007 @04:14PM

ReadWriteWeb writes: "A new project from the University of Oxford (UK), the University of Portsmouth (UK) and Johns Hopkins University (US) aims to harness the power of the human brain to identify and classify galaxies and stars. On the Galaxy Zoo website, users are asked to identify the objects in photographs as spiral or elliptical galaxies, the direction of rotation, or if the photo depicts a star or merger of galaxies. The site launched yesterday and says they have already had an "amazing response."

"The human brain is actually better than a computer at pattern recognition tasks like this. Whether you spend five minutes, fifteen minutes or five hours using the site your contribution will be invaluable," said Kevin Schawinski of Oxford University of the project."

Submission + - Google to build Iowa data center...

Submitted by The Bastard on Tuesday June 19, 2007 @10:23PM

The Bastard writes: Iowa politicians were stumbling all over themselves today to announce that Google will blow $600 million to build a new datacenter to be located in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (That's flyover country for those of you in Rio Linda.)
What begins to make this so interesting is not so much what is located in Council Bluffs, but what is located across the Missouri River in Omaha and suburbs. Specifically, USSTRATCOM and USSTRATCOM-GISC, Berkshire-Hathaway, TD-Ameritrade, InfoUSA, and others.
But what really adds to the interest level is this blurb from the news report, which initially didn't make sense:

MidAmerican Energy said it will be a partner in the project. It is working to expand its wind energy generation capability to about 18 percent of its total output
However, this Slashdot post tonight ("Google Spends Money to Jump-Start Hybrid Car Development") clarified the picture. And Iowa-based MidAmerican Energy Holdings (the parent company) is more than just your typical multi-national energy company. Their HomeServices of America subsidiary owns several real estate companies around the nation. No matter how you look at it, it's an interesting mash-up, indeed.

Submission + - Vista Virtualization Flip Flop (com.com)

Submitted by WrongSizeGlass on Tuesday June 19, 2007 @09:42PM

WrongSizeGlass writes: It looks like Microsoft has changed its mind about changing its mind. FTA:

Microsoft planned this week to announce that it was broadening the virtualization rights for Windows Vista, but decided at the last minute to reverse course and stick with existing limits.
Let the speculation begin.

Submission + - Leopard to include ZFS (com.com)

Submitted by coldfarnorth on Wednesday June 06, 2007 @04:44PM

coldfarnorth writes: From the article:

"We've heard rumors for a while that Apple's forthcoming Leopard operating system will use the next-generation file system called ZFS.

Now it seems to be official. As MacRumors.com notes, Sun Microsystems's Jonathan Schwartz said on Wednesday that the ZFS would be "the file system" for Leopard, succeeding HFS+. "

Submission + - Halo 2 Vista delayed Due to Nude Content

Submitted by

Jnivekk

on Friday May 25, 2007 @08:42PM

Jnivekk writes: "For those of you who have been waiting for the PC version of Halo 2, looks like you will have to wait a little longer — that is, if you're able to tear yourself away from the Xbox 360 Halo 3 beta. Microsoft has once again pushed back the release date for the Windows Vista edition of Halo 2 to May 31.

Halo 2 Vista was originally set for release on May 8, but Microsoft decided to push it back in order to make some important improvements to the install experience and to touch upon other technical issues.

"Halo 2 for Windows Vista did not release to retailers on May 22, as previously announced, and will now ship from manufacturers on May 31," a Microsoft representative said. "Shadowrun will be the first game to debut the highly anticipated Games for Windows Live system on May 29. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our customers."

Interestingly enough, reports are now surfacing that nudity is the cause for Halo 2 PC release. In an email statement received by Next-Generation, Microsoft said, "It has come to our attention that an unfortunate, obscure content error which includes partial nudity was included in our initial production of "Halo 2" for Windows Vista. As such, we have updated the initial game packaging at retailers with a label, so customers are aware before purchasing the game. Additionally, we've developed an online update which can be downloaded from www.halo2.com to remove the content. At Microsoft we take the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) guidelines very seriously and hold ourselves to high standards, with our customers always in mind."

While Microsoft is officially calling it a delay, some stores have already received shipments and are selling copies. Stores such as Circuit City and other retail chain websites list the PC shooter as currently shipping and available for in-store pickup."

Submission + - Dell claims next day support equals 3 days later?

Submitted by Symphonic5 on Thursday May 24, 2007 @03:16PM

Symphonic5 writes: I just got off the phone with Dell support and was surprised to hear that even while having "next day on site service", I can expect a tech maybe on Monday, 4 days away. Apparently, as dell as just informed me, next day on site means that I will recieve a call about the issue the next day to schedule an appointment, the tech will show up a a few days time. Am I crazy to expect that with next day on site service a tech should show up, well, next day? Has anyone else had any problems like this?

Submission + - Save Jericho Campaign Shows Weakness of Old Media

Submitted by

GoCanes

on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:46PM

GoCanes writes: "To the dismay of many fans, CBS canceled the TV show Jericho after just one season. The fans are reacting with an internet drive that seems to dwarf the famous original Star Trek letter writing campaign. They've acquired over 60,000 signatures on their petition in less than a week. Their plan is to flood CBS with packages of nuts, a reference to a sub-plot in the last episode. But perhaps this just shows how old media can't deal with new realities. Nielson ratings can't handle DVRs, web viewing, DVD sales, etc. The article suggests that perhaps the broadcast networks should start using their platform as a method to entice people into paying for content delivery."

Submission + - EMC's CEO blames social networking for data deluge

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Monday May 21, 2007 @03:26PM

Lucas123 writes: "In a keynote speech used to unveil a new $1 million disk array, EMC President and CEO Joe Tucci said data centers are being flooded by not only traditional business data but a slew content from digital cameras, phones and personal devices. Tucci also pointed to online social networking communities such as Facebook, Youtube, MySpace, Flickr, and LinkedIn as part of the problem. 'Tucci said, disk-based recovery will continue to trump tape-based recovery operations in terms of cost, functionality and speed. "I'll bet you anything you want that going forward more and more, virtually all [data] recovery will come off of disk and not on tape," Tucci said.'"

Submission + - Blender 2.44 released

Submitted by

joeedh

on Monday May 14, 2007 @04:26PM

joeedh writes: "The 2.44 release of Blender is out. This is primary a 64-bits bugfix release, however several new features such as subsurface scattering were added. Many bugfixes were also included, and also various parts of the user interface were improved (most notably the action editor).

Blender is a free and open-source modeler/animator/renderer/compositor suite, comparable to commercial software in quality (if not necessarily quantity)."

Submission + - Samsung puts finishing touches on DDR3 memory

Submitted by

HostAdmin

on Monday May 14, 2007 @04:19PM

HostAdmin writes: "Buckle your seatbelts, boys and girls! DDR3 is almost here (well, 2009 is "almost here", isn't it?)

DDR3 is the long-awaited successor to DDR2 memory, now the most common memory type used in PCs. The newer chips will offer data transfer speeds up to 1.6Gbps, twice the memory bandwidth of DDR2. That means better performance for both 3-D graphics and multithreaded applications that tap the power of multi-core processors. The chips will also consume less power — around 1.5 volts compared to 1.8 volts for DDR2 — which means longer notebook battery life, Samsung said.
"

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