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Check it -- we've got a new entrant in the ever-expanding solid state disc market, and it goes by the name Micron. The firm's first SSD lineup (dubbed RealSSD) will feature a native SATA II interface, a rugged, lightweight plastic casing, and suck down less than two-watts of power while active. Furthermore, the units will come in both 1.8- and 2.5-inch iterations, with a 32GB and 64GB flavor to be available in each size. The newly launched family is expected to slip into mass production in Q1 of next year, and on a related note, the 1GB to 8GB RealSSD Embedded USB range -- which is slated to ship en masse next month -- was also introduced. We know, you've hung around this long just to get the low down on pricing, but unfortunately, Micron has yet to dole out that oh-so-crucial information.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/191996532/

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "Scientists analyzing data gathered by the Cassini spacecraft have confirmed the presence of heavy negative ions in the upper regions of Titan's atmosphere. These particles may act as organic building blocks for even more complicated molecules. This discovery was completely unexpected because of the chemical composition of the atmosphere, mainly consisting of nitrogen and methane. According to the lead researcher at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, "Additional rings of carbon can build up on these ions, forming molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which may act as a basis for the earliest forms of life." The article abstract is available from Geophysical Research Letters."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/ucl-ob112807.php

For the past two years, Europe's Venus Express orbiter has been studying Earth's planetary neighbor up close. Today, mission scientists have released a new collection of findings and amazing images. They include evidence of lightning and other results that flesh out a portrait of a planet that is in many ways like ours, and in many ways hellishly different, such as surface temperatures over 400C and air pressure a hundred times that on Earth.
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMS9773R8F_index_0.html

noiseordinance writes "I realize I just asked a question last night and am grateful it was published. However, I'm noticing that many Comcast subscribers are reporting that they cannot access the website, www.teaparty07.com, a fund-raising website for presidential candidate, Ron Paul. Is Comcast up to it's filtering tricks once again?

Thanks guys, and sorry if I'm being a nuisance."

An anonymous reader writes "This appears to follow up a story from Nov 12 involving the KittyHawk and a Chinese submarine that popped up next to it... From today's Minneapolis Star and Tribune: Navy surprised by China's port-call refusal Two of the Navy's top admirals said China's refusal to let a U.S. aircraft carrier make a Thanksgiving port call at Hong Kong was surprising and troubling. The carrier Kitty Hawk, which has its home port near Tokyo, returned early to Japan when Chinese authorities at the last minute barred the ship and its escort vessels. Hundreds of family members of sailors aboard the Kitty Hawk had flown to Hong Kong from their homes in Japan to join in the port visit. The url is http://www.startribune.com/484/story/1577230.html"

Chris Lindquist writes "Stuart Scott's loud departure from Microsoft's CIO role concluded with his exceptionally quick landing as chief operating office for mortgage company Taylor, Bean & Whitaker. But the speed of the turnaround has some executive recruiters scratching their heads about the whole turn of events. For instance, how's Scott going to manage his 3,000-mile commute from Washington to Florida, since he reportedly isn't planning to move?"
http://www.cio.com/article/159050/

greenrom writes "I work for a small company as a software developer. While investigating a bug in one of our products, I found source code on a website that was nearly identical to code used in our product. Even the comments were the same. It's obvious that a developer at our company found some useful code on the web and copied it. The original author didn't attach any particular license to the code. It's just 200 lines of code the author posted in a forum. Is it legitimate to use source code that's publicly available but doesn't fall under any particular license? If not, what's the best way to deal with this kind of situation? Since I'm now the only person working on this code, there's no practical way to report the situation confidentially. I'm new to the company, and the developer who copied the code is the project lead. Reporting him to management doesn't seem like a good career move. I could rewrite the copied code without reporting him, but since the product is very close to release it would be difficult to make a significant change without providing some justification."

jezhills writes "The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program started their "Give One, Get One" campaign two weeks ago, and was scheduled to end November 26 (yesterday); however, the organization has decided to extend their offer for individuals to "buy two and get one" (the other one is given to a child in a developing country) of their innovative XO laptops, sometimes called the $100 laptop. Now the offer will be extended to December 31st"
http://www.tech4educators.org/2007/11/27/tis-the-season-to-give-one-and-get-one/

Smordnys s'regrepsA writes "Wired has a great little interview with one of the big men of the Entertainment Industry, Doug Morris.

"There was a cartoon character years ago called the Shmoo," he says in a raspy tenor. "It was in Li'l Abner. The Shmoo was a nice animal, a nice fella, but if you were hungry, you cut off a piece of him and put onions on it, and if you wanted to play football you just made him like a football. You could do anything to him. That's what was happening to the music business. Everyone was treating the music business like it was a Shmoo."

"There's no one in the record company that's a technologist...we didn't know who to hire. I wouldn't be able to recognize a good technology person — anyone with a good bullshit story would have gotten past me," Morris explains."
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/15-12/mf_morris

bn0p writes "Ars Technica has an article on a Korean company that has developed a low-cost, flexible, plastic optical fiber that could bring cheaper 2.5 Gbps connections to homes and apartments. While not as fast as glass fiber, it is significantly faster than copper. In related news, Corning recently announced a flexible glass fiber that can be bent repeatedly without losing signal strength. The Corning fiber incorporates nanostructures in the cladding of the fiber that act as 'light guardrails' to keep the light in the fiber. The glass fiber could be as much as four times faster than plastic fiber. Neither fiber is available commercially yet, but both should help with the last mile problem when they are deployed."

volpe writes "This video shows a robotic exoskeleton (not unlike the one used by Sigourney Weaver in Alien) being developed for soldiers. The wearer can lift large amounts of weight, but still retain pretty fine motor control, enough to play catch, gently box a punching bag, and dance. It's currently tethered, but will be deployed with a battery pack. I'd be impressed to see this thing capable of carrying a battery that can power it for any appreciable length of time, given the SWAP (Size, Weight, and Power) problems associated with the gear that soldiers currently carry, or are slated to carry in the near future."

In a major shift for the mobile phone industry, Verizon Wireless now plans to give customers more choice in what phones they can use on its network and how they use them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/technology/28phone.html?ex=1353906000&en=7740f414b413910b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss