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Businesses

Submission + - Dell begins their largest layoff ever. 3

cyphercell writes: Dell has begun their largest series of layoffs ever. This morning at about 10:00am more than two hundred employees at Dell's Roseburg Oregon Call center found out that they no longer had jobs. Sparking what appears to be the beginning of year long run of layoffs for the company. http://www.newsreview.info/article/20070802/NEWS/7 0802014

Refuting local suspicions of malice Dell spokesman David Frink states:

... the closure has nothing to do with a lawsuit filed by employees of the Roseburg center in February, claiming Dell violated federal and state wage and hour laws.
http://www.newsreview.info/article/20070213/NEWS/7 0213020

and later says

...plans to reduce employment worldwide by 10 percent at the end of May.


Their plans to reduce employment can be found here:
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business /stories/technology/06/01/1dell.html

Here are some highlights:

Dell set to shed 8,800 workers...

Dell has 82,200 permanent workers, including 18,000 in Central Texas, and 5,300 temporary workers worldwide. The layoffs are expected to affect both groups...

In its last large-scale layoffs, Dell cut more than 5,000 jobs in Austin after the high-tech bust in 2001.

...many of the layoffs could come in Central Texas, where Dell is headquartered. In a March 29 report to clients, Goldman Sachs analysts said Dell might reduce the work force at its test and assembly facilities in the U.S. and Malaysia.
PlayStation (Games)

LAIR Pushed To Next Month 50

LAIR, the much-anticipated title featuring combat from dragon-back, is a very important title for Sony and the PlayStation 3. Its the first of the AAA slated for the end of the year for the trailing platform ... and so far things don't look good for the title. Now, the company has announced that LAIR has been delayed until early in September. "Due to an extra step in QA testing to enhance the community features in the game, the release of LAIR, originally set for August 14th, has changed to September 4, 2007. Natural challenges that arose while finalizing the offline game to include key online features - such as leaderboards and medal systems - have led to the difficult choice of pushing back the release date. We appreciate everyone's excitement and patience for the game and look forward to its release on September 4."
Businesses

Submission + - Will more IITs, IIMs help economy of India ? 1

Gaura writes: "If the central government has its way, India Inc will soon get more corporate honchos, straight out of top-notch B-schools along with more IIT tech grads.The Planning Commission has proposed a plan which includes setting up eight new IITs and seven new IIMs among other institutes. The government feels that increasing the number of IITs and IIMs will add to the number of executives and tech wizards that the country needs and beef up its presence in the scope of research. One point raised has been that perhaps the government should focus more on better medical schools. Another that having more IITs and IIMs will simply fritter the premium on quality that these institutes have. Can a mere increase in numbers guarantee a consistency in the quality of education imparted? Or will the move merely lower quality and dilute the prestige of these premium institutes by turning them into commonplace schools that churn out dozens of average professionals?"
Handhelds

Submission + - HP-35s calculator announced and withdrawn 1

leighklotz writes: "HP announced their 35th anniversary version of the groundbreaking HP-35 calculator on July 11th, and the New York Times featured [reg warning] it in their Circuits section today. Sadly, today was also the day that HP apparently withdrew the product to correct reported manufacturing defects. For calculator geeks, note that it has a big prominent ENTER button and reportedly features good tactile feedback. No news about the recall on HP's website..."
Space

Submission + - New Theory Explains Periodic Mass Extinctions

i_like_spam writes: The theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid impact, the K-T extinction, is well known and supported by fossil and geological evidence. Asteroid impact theory does not apply to the other fluctuations in biodiversity, however, which follow an approximate 62 million-year cycle. As reported in Science news, a new theory seems to explain periodic mass extinctions. The new theory found that oscillations in the Sun relative to the plane of the Milky Way correlate with changes in biodiversity on Earth. The researchers suggest that an increase in the exposure of Earth to extragalatic cosmic rays causes mass extinctions. Here is the original paper describing the finding.
Software

Submission + - Microsoft delays Office 2008 for Mac until mid-Jan (appleinsider.com)

i_hate_robots writes: AppleInsider is reporting that Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) said Thursday that the release of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac has been pushed back from the second half of 2007 until mid-January. The Redmond-based firm now anticipates showing a final version of the software at the Macworld trade show and conference in January, with global availability to commence in the first quarter of 2008. "This was a business decision based on the Mac BU's commitment to deliver a high-quality product," said Mac BU General Manager Craig Eisler. "Our number one priority is to deliver quality software to our customers and partners, and in order to achieve this we are shifting availability."
Privacy

Submission + - Do Not Call Registry gets wake-up call (networkworld.com) 2

coondoggie writes: "If you signed up for the federal or your state's Do Not Call Registry a few years ago, you might want to thing about refreshing it. Pennsylvanians this week got a wake up call, so to speak from the state's Attorney General Tom Corbett who kicked off a public awareness campaign designed to remind people what many have forgotten or never knew — that the 2002 law set registrations to expire after five years. That is of course unless you want to start hearing from those telemarketers as you sit down to dinner. Corbett said about 2 million people signed up in the immediate aftermath of the law taking effect and those who do not act by Sept. 15 will have their numbers dropped from the registry on Nov. 1. The Pennsylvania action is a reminder that the National Do Not Call Registry has a five year life span as well. The Federal Trade Commission is set to being a nation campaign in Spring 2008 to remind all US citizens to refresh their federal Do Not Call Registry standing. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18066"
Announcements

Submission + - Automotive X-Prize Reveals First 31 Teams

An anonymous reader writes: The Automotive XPRIZE announced yesterday the first 31 teams to have signed on for the competition to build 100 mpge (mile-per-gallon equivalent) automobiles. The list contains obvious contenders like electric bike vendor ZAP, electric truck peddler Phoenix Motorcars, Munich's überefficient Loremmo AG, and Elon Musk-backed Tesla Motors as well as Cornell University and a laundry list of other less well known names. There's even a team commited to an Open Source-like license. Notable is the total absence of any established manufacturer. Contrary to expectations of a Big Auto win, could the AXP be up for grabs?
Microsoft

Submission + - Massachusetts adopts Open XML (networkworld.com)

willdavid writes: "By John Fontana, NetworkWorld.com: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has added Open XML to its list of approved open documents formats. Critics of Open XML adoption, such as Andy Updegrove, a lawyer, Linux Foundation board member and Massachusetts resident, said Microsoft should not be "rewarded for launching a competing, self-serving standard as a next-best defense against erosion of its dominant position." Massachusetts officials acknowledged the criticism, but said the importance of open formats could not be denied. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/080107-massa chusetts-open-xml.html?page=1"
Google

Submission + - Google shows cell phone prototype to vendors

taoman1 writes: Google Inc. has developed a prototype cell phone that could reach markets within a year, and plans to offer consumers free subscriptions by bundling advertisements with its search engine, e-mail and Web browser software applications, according to a story published Thursday in The Wall Street Journal.
The Courts

German Prosecutors Won't Help RIAA Counterpart 199

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A German court decision ruled that the European counterpart to the RIAA cannot invoke criminal proceedings over petty file sharing incidents. The goal was to to find out from ISPs the identity of alleged file-sharing subscribers; the requests have been refused as the judge saw the the proceedings as not in the 'public interest', and little or no economic damage was shown to have been caused to the record companies. Offering a few copyright-protected music tracks via a P2P network client was 'a petty offense,' the court declared. Within days, German prosecutors have now indicated that they will no longer permit the use of 'criminal proceedings' to procure subscriber information."
Education

Submission + - Monkeys and humans learn the same way (sciencedaily.com)

Lucas123 writes: "A new study from UCLA showed that monkeys, like humans, learn faster by being actively involved in the learning process rather than just having information placed before them, according to a story in ScienceDaily. In the study, two rhesus macaque monkeys learned to put up to 18 photos on an ATM-like touch screen in a row. 'The monkeys did much better on the first three days when they had the help than when they didn't, but on the test day, it completely reversed.'"
Google

Submission + - Gmail accounts hacked - no response from Google (livejournal.com)

jared51 writes: A few friends have recently had their Gmail accounts hacked, causing immense life complications. With Gmail storing all information (many people have a handy label "Accounts" making life easier) that has ever been emailed, a hijacker can easily move on to eBay, PayPal and credit card accounts to turn the crime into cash. Making matters worse, Google is impossible to contact by human. Hijacked users must contend with an endless series of forms.

GNU Coughs Up Emacs 22 After Six Year Wait 500

lisah writes "After keeping users waiting for nearly six years, Emacs 22 has been released and includes a bunch of updates and some new modes as well. In addition to support for GTK+ and a graphical interface to the GNU Debugger, 'this release includes build support for Linux on AMD64, S/390, and Tensilica Xtensa machines, FreeBSD/Alpha, Cygwin, Mac OS X, and Mac OS 9 with Carbon support. The Leim package is now part of GNU Emacs, so users will be able to get input support for Chinese, Tibetan, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, and other languages without downloading a separate package. New translations of the Emacs tutorial are also available in Brasilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, simplified and traditional Chinese, Italian, French, and Russian.'"
Input Devices

Submission + - QWERTY Keyboard Layout: Are We Stuck Forever?

techie writes: "CoolTechZone.com author Gundeep Hora asks the question, "QWERTY Keyboard Layout: Are We Stuck Forever?" Sure, DVORAK may be gaining some traction between developers, but will it ever be mainstream. The article states, "Personally, for a new keyboard layout to get adopted, the entire technology industry would have to form an association with contributing member companies to come up with a new standard. Once they have come up with a new layout, they would then have to release their respective models at the same time to saturate the market and leave us with no choice. After all, if we have a choice, then we would obviously opt for the layout that's familiar to us. Ethical or not, that's what would happen."

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