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+ - 3D printing may face legal challenges->

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes "A coming revolution in 3D printing, with average consumers able to copy and create new three-dimensional objects at home, may lead to attempts by patent holders to expand their legal protections, a paper from Public Knowlege says. Patent holders may see 3D printers as threats, and they may try to sue makers of the printers or the distributors of CAD (computer-aided design) blueprints, according to digital rights group Public Knowledge."
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News

+ - Fatal Online & Offline Journalism in Russia->

Submitted by reporter
reporter writes "With the recent attempted murder of Oleg Kashin, we should examine the recent history of fatal journalism in and around Russia. A summary of the recent bloody history of Russian journalism appears at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and was written by Fatima Tlisova.

Freedom of the press and the safety of journalists should have special meaning for Slashdot and its many readers, for freedom of the press is the very reason that Slashdot can exist in the West. What can Slashdotters do to help journalists in and around Russia?"
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+ - Is SSD density about to hit a wall?->

Submitted by Zombie Puggle
Zombie Puggle writes "Enterprise Storage Forum has an article by Jeffrey Layton in which he contends that solid state disks will stay stuck at 20-25nm unless the materials and techniques used to design Flash drives changes and soon. “Anything smaller and the data protection and data corruption issues become so great that either the performance is abysmal, the data retention period doesn't meet JEDEC standards, or the cost increases.”

(“Why Flash Drive Density Will Stop Growing Next Year” http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/technology/article.php/3904146/Why-Flash-Drive-Density-Will-Stop-Growing-Next-Year.htm)

Though engineers are working on performance and density improvements via new technologies (they’re also trying to drive costs down), these are fairly new techniques and are not likely to make it into devices for a while. All of which supports Henry Newman’s belief that SSDs won’t replace spinning disk drives.

("Why Solid State Drives Won't Replace Spinning Disk" http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/technology/features/article.php/3894671/Why-Solid-State-Drives-Wont-Replace-Spinning-Disk.htm)"
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Science

+ - Quantum Physics Documentary Earns Top Honor ->

Submitted by modernphysics
modernphysics writes "An educational outreach program about quantum computing and quantum communications has been nominated in Canada's biggest broadcasting honors. The Gemini Awards, which are equivalent to the Emmys in the U.S., recognized "The Quantum Tamers" from Ontario's Perimeter Institute in two categories, including best documentary. The program has already won 'The Audacity' prize in France and other awards for its novel look at quantum physics. Lots of top scientists, including Stephen Hawking, took part. www.thequantumtamers.com"
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AMD

+ - After four years, the ATI brand finally withers->

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes "In a move that many thought would arrive much sooner than this, AMD officially announced plans to remove the "ATI" brand from the company's graphics division completely. Currently available products will still hold the ATI name but all future products will be called "AMD Radeon Graphics" thus officially cementing the AMD/ATI merger that happened in mid-2006. AMD claims that the Radeon and FirePro brands held just as much weight as the ATI brand did and thus they felt that they had permission from the community to make the move. Other changes include the removal of a dozen or so branding programs for notebook and desktop systems as well as the deprecation of the "Fusion" brand that was to represent AMD's CPU/GPU hybrid processors."
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AMD

+ - It's official: AMD will retire the ATI brand->

Submitted by J. Dzhugashvili
J. Dzhugashvili writes "A little over four years have passed since AMD purchased ATI. In May of last year, AMD took the remains of the Canadian graphics company and melded them into a monolithic products group, which combined processors, graphics, and platforms. Now, AMD is about to take the next step: kill the ATI brand altogether. The company has officially announced the move, saying it plans to label its next generation of graphics cards 'AMD Radeon' and 'AMD FirePro,' with new logos to match. The move has a lot to do with the incoming arrival of products like Ontario and Llano, which will combine AMD processing and graphics in single slabs of silicon."
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AMD

+ - AMD axes ATI brand->

Submitted by arcticstoat
arcticstoat writes "Following weeks of rumours, AMD has now officially announced that it plans to axe the ATI brand on its graphics products. The processor maker says the decision to drop the 25-year-old brand was made after polling a large collection of "graphics-processor-aware consumers" in seven different countries, to ensure it had "permission" to dismiss it. According to AMD, the research revealed that a 'combination of AMD and Radeon actually proved to be a stronger combination than ATI and Radeon in the minds of processor-aware consumers, by a statistically significant amount.' Existing graphics products will retain the ATI brand, but new graphics chips such as the forthcoming Radeon HD 6000-series will now be branded with a new AMD Radeon logo. The same also goes for new Fire Pro products. Not only that, but several other brands also on the way out, including Sempron, Athlon Turion and Phenom, as well as AMD's Game and Live programmes. The idea is that future AMD-based systems will feature just a single AMD Vision logo."
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Space

+ - Astronomers spot largest group of exoplanets->

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes "Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory say they have spotted a solar system similar to ours containing seven planets as compared to our eight. The researchers also found evidence that the distances of the planets or exoplanets from their star follow a regular pattern similar to our solar system. The international team of astronomers made the discovery using used the HARPS spectrograph which is attached to ESO's 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla, Chile, during a six-year-long study of the Sun-like star labeled HD 10180, located 127 light-years away in the southern constellation of Hydrus."
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AMD

+ - AMD details upcoming Bulldozer architecture->

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes "AMD is taking the lid off quite a bit of information on its upcoming CPU architecture known as Bulldozer that is the first complete redesign over current processors. AMD's lineup has been relatively stagnant while Intel continued to innovate with Nehalem and Sandy Bridge (due late this year) and the Bulldozer refresh is badly needed to keep in step. The integrated north bridge, on-die memory controller and large shared L3 cache remain key components from the Athlon/Phenom generation to Bulldozer but AMD is adding features like dual-thread support per core (but with a unique implementation utilizing separate execution units for each thread), support for 256-bit SIMD operations (for upcoming AVX support) all running on GlobalFoundries 32nm SOI process technology."
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Businesses

+ - The Japanese bullet train hopes to come to America->

Submitted by JoshuaInNippon
JoshuaInNippon writes "Central Japan Rail, the company the controls a vast majority of Japanese train tracks, announced on Jan. 25th that they want to bring their bullet train, known as the Shinkansen, to America. The company is hoping to take advantage of President Obama's call for high-speed rail and the potential for billions of dollars in funding from the federal stimulus package. While JR is looking at over 100 possibilities for tracks around the States, their top first pick so far would be a line in Florida, connecting Tampa, Orlando, and Miami. Other options include a track connect LA and Las Vegas, or a track in Texas. The company is also hoping to sell their MAGLEV technology, which has created some of the fastest test trains in the world (at over 300+ mph/ 500+ kmh). JR mentioned track options for the MAGLEV include a line between Baltimore and Washington D.C, a line between Chattanooga and Atlanta, or a line in Pennsylvania. While there is already steep competition coming from American and European companies with similar ideas, JR is pitching their complete train systems as extremely safe and environmentally efficient."
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