ThinSkin writes "So many Web browsers, so little time. The folks at ExtremeTech have assembled the ultimate browser test to determine which Web browser is king. From speed tests to rendering tests, different browsers traded off wins, but Google Chrome came out on top."

SpaceAdmiral writes "Forget cloning a woolly mammoth — should scientists clone a Neanderthal? Such a feat should be possible soon, although it raises a number of bioethics concerns, including where to draw the line between humans and other animals."

As_I_Please writes "At 8:40AM (GMT) this morning, Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang successfully spent 18 minutes in a tethered spacewalk outside the spacecraft Shenzhou 7. This is an important step in China's goal of building an orbiting space station and sending astronauts to the moon."

ashitaka writes "KDDI has announced that they will be launching a 1Gbps Internet service to single-family home and condo users in October. The service is supposedly synchronous, with 1Gbps in both directions, although the article implies that speeds will vary with location. Cost will be 5,985 yen/month (about US$56.50) for the basic Internet and IP phone service. This is intended to compete with NTT, who currently control over 70% of the Japanese FTTH market."

jayintune points out an interview with Joel DeYoung of HotHead Games, the studio that developed the Penny Arcade video game. He describes some of the new additions coming in the sequel, how old characters and zones will be handled, and plans for the game's release. Additional details are available from DeYoung's comments during PAX, and Joystiq has some screenshots. "Maxing out your stats at the end of Episode One means that your party can be as high as Level 15 if you import your save game and character. Your character's look and all of your items are available to you as well, and if you want to improve upon your looks, you can always browse through the new customization options at the start of the game. About the only thing that won't carry forward is your weapons — we've automatically upgraded Tycho's tommy gun to a shotgun, Gabe's fists now have brass knuckles and your character has traded in your rake for a hoe. We're sticking with the garden tool theme!"

Lawksamussy writes "Having just bought a really old house that's on the verge of falling down, I'm now trying to find a way to pay to fix it up. I have a great job in software development that pays the bills, but I'm looking to earn some extra cash in my spare time. Whatever I end up doing has to be reasonably lucrative (or at least have the potential to be so), not require any specific time commitment, and be doable equally well from home or from a hotel room. I'm also keen that it should be sufficiently different to my day job to keep my interest up, so the most obvious things like bidding for programming projects on Rentacoder.com, or fixing up neighbors' PCs, aren't really on. Above all, it should appeal to my inner geek, otherwise my low boredom threshold will doom it to failure before I even start! So, I wonder if any of my fellow Slashdotters run little part-time ventures that they find more of an inspiration than a chore... and if they are willing to share what they do and perhaps even how much money they make doing it?"

jesuscash writes "It seems early adopters of the new iPod Touch are out of luck when they bring it home and attempt to connect it to their WPA/WPA2 secured network. Reading this Apple forum thread shows that many tests with different configurations show a no-go on WPA. Some of the last entries give the best clue, revealing a 'received deauthentication' error in their router logs. Apple has yet to respond."

Last week we took nominations for a Slashdot category at the SourceForge Community Choice awards. Our category was 'Most Likely to be Shut Down By Government Agency'. Your nominations were tallied, and we arbitrarily selected a few that we think are the best. Today is the day where you can at long last determine the winner, using the incredibly scientifically accurate Slashdot Poll. Our nominees are Truecrypt, EFF Patent Busting, GNU Software Radio, WikiLeaks, Cryptome.org, Tor, Freenet, and CowboyNeal.

An anonymous reader points to a mention at MozillaZine of "a screencast by Mozilla developer Mike Beltzner, demonstrating some of the new features in Mozilla Firefox 3, which is due out very soon. Weighing in at under four minutes, the screencast gives a concise overview of why you should be excited about Firefox 3. Due to its visual nature, the screencast shows Firefox's features far more clearly than the many written previews that have been published. A picture really is worth a thousand words."

JackPowers writes "The Google Health APIs enable portable, standardized, open architecture, extensible personal health records, which is nice but boring if they're just used to manage the paperwork of the doctor/patient relationship. But once the data is set free, all kinds of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 apps are possible. This article looks ahead 10 years at Best Case Scenarios. A follow-up article lists the Worst Case Scenarios."

JavaScript is everywhere these days. Now WebKit, the framework behind (among others) Safari and Safari Mobile, as well as the yet-unreleased Android, is getting a new JavaScript engine called Squirrelfish, which the developers claim provides massive speedups over the previous one. The current iteration of the engine is "just the beginning," they claim; in the near future, six planned optimizations should bring even greater speed. With JavaScript surviving as a Web-page mainstay despite many early gripes, and now integral to some low-powered mobile devices, this may mean many fewer wasted seconds in the world.