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OS X

OSX gaining market share, but how much?-> 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "This article claims OSX's share of the OS market is up to 7.57%, up from 7.31% a year earlier (linux also gained a bit of ground, from 0.63% to 0.67%). But the statistics were gathered by monitoring web traffic from the server side, so this doesn't take into account OSX users who are using Windows in VMWare, Parallels, or Boot Camp at the time. Another article predicts that OSX will have 12% of the OS market by 2011. Could they be there already? What is OSX's real share of the market? How could this be measured more accurately?"
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The Courts

A torrid tale of plagiarizing paleontologists->

Submitted by its hard to think of
its hard to think of writes "There's an interesting story up at Nature News about scientific ethics. It seems that while one group of scientists is figuring out details about aetosaurs (ancient crocodiles), another group in New Mexico is repeatedly taking credit for their work and naming the new animals they discover. It also looks like the state government, which has been asked to intervene, is trying to sidestep the issue. How widespread is this kind of thing?"
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Education

Student's Expulsion Over Facebook Photo Reversed 1

Submitted by mykevelli
mykevelli writes "Following up Friday's article about a student being expelled for writing a 'threatening' photo description on Facebook, it seems once the pressure of a lawsuit backed by FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) came against the Board of Regents, they have backed down. Barnes claims that proper disciplinary processes were not followed for his expulsion and is also asking reimbursement for expenses associated with moving to another university and enrolling there for one semester. Yesterday, the Board of Regents reversed the expulsion of Hayden Barnes. It is unknown at this time whether or not Barnes plans to re-enroll and continue at VSU."
Government

Leave Your Laptop At Home When Entering the US-> 4

Submitted by
rah1420
rah1420 writes "According to a recent sidebar in the NY Times, a couple of federal appeals courts have upheld the right of the government to inspect the hard drive contents of any hard drive entering the US. So make sure you leave the pr0n at home. And your finances. And your personal correspondence. And your notes and contact list (if you're a reporter.) For my part, I am buying another hard disk. I'll just install Ubuntu and Firefox and use that if I have to travel abroad."
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It's funny. Laugh.

"Prehistoric Art" actually created by shee->

Submitted by
Eric Powell
Eric Powell writes "Archaeologists used X-Ray fluorescence spectrometer analysis to show that some "rock art" in Wyoming was actually created by sheep. Ewes marked with different colors for breeding purposes seem to have taken shelter at a rock art site, leaving behind abstract smears mistaken by archaeologists for prehistoric paintings."
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Announcements

Is Global Warming Past The Tipping Point?->

Submitted by
s31523
s31523 writes "New speculation based on updated computer models predict a possibility of an ice free Arctic Ocean by the year 2013. As new reports come out, many scientists are saying the Arctic is screaming and we have to act fast, while others are not so sure. But with record breaking events like a record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, the evidence is mounting."
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Software

On Demand, On The Fly FLV Transcoding of Library

Submitted by
erpbridge
erpbridge writes "While recently doing a consulting job for a local college, I was asked an interesting question. They have a backend archive of videos, ranging from training to classroom instruction videos, in AVI format using DIVX codec, with an average size of about 400MB. They can easily make these videos available on campus, but for commuting students accessing from home this is not feasible. The idea is to setup a Youtube/DailyMotion style site with Flash videos. As these are to be allowed to students only, it is not feasible to upload these to a commercial site such as Youtube or DailyMotion. They don't want to transcode the entire library to ASF for Windows Media Server, and double storage capacity (same goes for transcoding all videos to FLV). They also want to keep the originals available to students onsite, as they are higher quality than any FLV will be. Instead, click a video, the backend server performs an on-the-fly FLV transcoding on demand, and the user gets the video. The temporary videos would then be cleaned up later by a collection process running on a regular basis. Has anyone seen a solution that would let a web user do this sort of on demand, on the fly FLV transcoding?"
Biotech

Desktop synchrotron freezes molecular action

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes "Most sources of synchrotron radiation are giant dough nut-shaped particle accelerators. But researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland have developed a compact synchrotron machine that could fit inside any lab. Instead of a giant ring of magnets and microwave cavities, the device uses plasma wakefield acceleration to accelerate electrons. Synchrotron radiation can be used to probe many kinds of matter and is used in many areas of scientific research."
The Almighty Buck

US Consumerism Poses Global Recession Threat->

Submitted by
Horar
Horar writes "From the article: One of the world's leading economists has issued a scathing denunciation of American consumerism, saying overspending could lead to a "catastrophic" recession... He says the United States has a current account deficit of $US811 billion for last year, which means America is borrowing [more than two] billion a day from overseas.

What are the implications of this for the IT industry if there is such a recession? Alternatively, what would happen if rampant consumerism is brought under control? Isn't it that very consumerism that pushes the development of the devices and technologies which most slashdotters could not live without?"
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Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll invite himself over for dinner. -- Calvin Keegan