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Businesses

Submission + - Leaked Zynga Memo Justifies Copycat Strategy (forbes.com)

Submitted by bonch
bonch writes: After taking heat over allegations of copying hit indie game Tiny Tower, Zynga founder Mark Pincus wrote an internal memo justifying the company's strategy of cloning competing titles, citing the Google search engine and Apple iPod as successful products which weren't first in their markets. Pincus infamously told employees: 'I don't want f*cking innovation. You're not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers.'
Science

Submission + - What Makes Spider Webs Tough as Steel (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: A new analysis reveals the intricacies of spider web design, showing how the unique properties of its silk turn webs into flexible yet strong traps. Compuer simulations reveal that heavy forces spread over the entire net rather than stay local. Real spidersilk can be either stretchy or stiff at different times, which produces threads that flex and then snap in just the right way to avoid wrecking nearby spokes.
Biotech

Submission + - Cancer resembles life 1 billion years ago (lifescientist.com.au) 4

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: What is cancer? It's not an invader, it's spawned from our own bodies. And it bears striking resemblance to early multicellular life from 1 billion years ago. This has led astrobiologists and cosmologists Paul Davies and Charlie Lineweaver to suggest that cancer is driven by primitive genes that govern cellular cooperation, and which kick in when our more recently evolved genes that keep them in check break down. So, far from being rogue cells that mutate out of control, cancers are actually cells that revert to a more ancient level of programming, like booting in Safe Mode. The good news is this means cancers have only finite variation. Once we nut out the ancient genes, we'll know how it works, and it's unlike to evolve any new defence mechanisms, meaning curing cancer might be not quite as mammoth a task as commonly thought.
Cellphones

Submission + - HP unveils webOS tablet, plans webOS computer (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruhlinger
jfruhlinger writes: As had been expected, Hewlett-Packard unveiled new webOS-based smartphones and a webOS tablet today. But in a bit of a shock, the company also announced that webOS would be coming to HP PCs. Whether this is happening in specialized products only or HP plans a wholesale repudiation of Windows, it's definitely a bold move.

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