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Hardware

Blizzard is selling old World of Warcraft servers->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Blizzard Entertainment has found a sure fire way to raise a lot of money for charity. The developer has decided to sell off around 350 retired HP p-Class server blades on eBay to the highest bidder. Each one has spent time helping to keep World of Warcraft online, and there’s a good chance if you’re a long-time player of the MMO you’ve set foot on one of these blades.

Blizzard is classing the servers as having been honorably discharged from service and has turned them into collectors’ items. Each one has a plaque stating the WoW realm name it served along with the month and year of its active duty. There is also a description of why the blade servers are so important to the game, and the signatures of the World of Warcraft team have been included at the bottom."
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Biotech

Redesigning ecstasy as potent cancer treatment->

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes "Six years ago, researchers at the University of Birmingham discovered that more than half of the cancers of white blood cells they looked at responded in the test tube to the growth-suppressing properties of psychotropic drugs, including amphetamine derivatives such as ecstasy and weight-loss pills, and antidepressants such as fluoxetine (Prozac). Building on this previous work, the researchers have now discovered a modified form of MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, they claim has 100 times more cancer-busting properties than the designer drug itself."
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution, A Successful Sequel?->

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes "Eleven years ago, now-defunct developer Ion Storm released Deus Ex and made video game history. Part of what won Deus Ex such acclaim back then was its open-ended approach to problem solving. Virtually every mission could be approached from stealth or with reckless abandon. The game's plot is a fusion of classic conspiracy theories and a referendum on what it means to be human. The problems of humanity in 2052 — plague, environmental destruction, rampant terrorism — were far enough away in time to be comfortable, but close enough to be unsettling. Therecently released sequel, Deus Ex: Human Revolution isn't a perfect smash hit, nor was the original but the game play is fun and the graphics impressive with DX11 effects turned up. Frame rates with a solid mainstream graphics card should be decent, though level load times can be lengthy and even hinder playbility, if you're trying to crack a tough level and have to reload often. However, the game transcends its flaws. If you liked the original Deus Ex, or you think you'd like it based on its description, it probably makes sense to pick this one up."
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Education

Google Gets Accepted by Nine Schools in One Day

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes "How did Google manage to get nine Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to announce their decision to switch to Google Apps on the same day? Well, offering a free product doesn't hurt. Neither, apparently, does offering a three-day, all-expenses paid trip to New York City, where representatives of the nine schools pledged Google on the first day of the search giant's 3rd Annual Google-HBCU Faculty Summit. To help seal its college deals, Google also provides a White Paper that, among other things, points out that Outlook flunked out of Howard ('Washington, D.C.'s Howard University was using Microsoft Outlook for campus email, but was concerned by low usage"), and suggests that failing to adopt Google Apps could deprive students of a college education ('The money we've saved by switching to Google Apps has helped us direct funds to scholarships, letting more students who couldn't afford to stay enrolled continue their education')."
Patents

EU 'Unitary Patents' could mean software patents->

Submitted by chebucto
chebucto writes "RMS has an article up at the Guardian about the proposed EU Unitary Patent system, which would make any patent issued by the European Patent Office (EPO) valid in all of the EU except for Spain and Italy. The unitary patent system would remove national jurisdiction over patents, leaving the European Court of Justice (the ECJ — the highest court in Europe) as the only body with appeal power over EPO decisions. There's a real chance that patent policy throughout much of Europe will be decided by an organization that's shown, in practice, that it supports software patents."
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