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Space

Hubble's Exoplanet Pics Outshined by Keck's 140

Posted by timothy
from the keckkeckkeck-is-the-new-bwahaha dept.
dtolman writes "Scientists at the Keck and Gemini telescopes stole the thunder of Hubble scientists announcing the first picture of an extrasolar world orbiting a star. Hubble scientists announced today that they were able to discover an extrasolar world for the first time by taking an actual image of the newly discovered exoplanet orbiting Fomalhaut — previous discoveries have always been made by detecting changes in the parent star's movement, or by watching the planet momentarily eclipse the star — not by detecting them in images. Hubble's time to shine was overshadowed though by the Keck and Gemini observatories announcing that they had taken pictures of not just one planet, but an entire alien solar system. The images show multiple planets orbiting the star HR 8799 — 3 have been imaged so far."
The Media

Wall Street Journal Going Free

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes "Rupert Murdoch announced today that he intends to make access to the Wall Street Journal's Web site free, trading subscription fees for anticipated ad revenue. Murdoch's News Corporation has signed an agreement to acquire Dow Jones & Company and the deal is expected to close by the end of the year. The WSJ web site, one of the few news sites to successfully introduce a subscription model, currently has around one million subscribers and generates about $50 million annually in user fees. Murdoch made his decision as paid circulation at major newspapers in the United States continued to decline this year with readership at 609 papers that filed on Sunday falling 3.5% to 46,771,486. With their business model under extreme pressure, publishers have been whittling back on circulation considered to be less useful by advertisers and increasing their internet presence because ad revenue has been increasing. Online advertising now accounts for an average 5.5% of newspapers' total ad revenue and online profits margins have been skyrocketing worldwide with revenue projected to hit 10% of newspapers' total ad revenue by 2008-2009."
Censorship

EFF and Dvorak blame the digg revolt on lawyers

Submitted by
enharmonix
enharmonix writes "Just a bit of an update on the recent digg revolt over AACS. Well, the New York Times has taken notice and written quite a decent article that actually acknowledges that the take down notices amount to censorship and documents instances of the infamous key appearing in purely expressive form (I was pleased to see the similarity to 2600 and deCSS was not lost on the Times either). More interesting though is that the EFF's Fred von Lohmann blames the digg revolt on lawyers. And in an opinion piece, John Dvorak expands on that theme."
Space

Wally Schirra, Dead at 84

Submitted by
Jivecat
Jivecat writes "Veteran astronaut Walter M. Schirra Jr., the only man to fly in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, has died of a heart attack in a La Jolla, California, hospital. (NASA press release, AP wire) Along with commanding three spaceflights, Wally was known for his wit and levity, including having coined the term "Constellation Urion" for the glittering cloud of ice that developed around the spacecraft following on-orbit urine dumps."

In the long run we are all dead. -- John Maynard Keynes