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Sci-Fi

Battlestar Galactica Gets Spinoff Prequel Series 297

Posted by ScuttleMonkey
from the frak-here-comes-more-fraking dept.
It was recently announced that sci-fi remake series Battlestar Galactica is getting a whole new spinoff prequel series called "Caprica." Signed on for twenty hours worth of finished product, including a two-hour pilot, the new series is to be set 50 years prior to Battlestar Galactica, and will focus on two rival families, the Graystones and the Adamas. "Enmeshed in the burgeoning technology of artificial intelligence and robotics that will eventually lead to the creation of the Cylons, the two houses go toe-to-toe blending action with corporate conspiracy and sexual politics. 'Caprica' will deliver all of the passion, intrigue, political backbiting and family conflict in television's first science fiction family saga."

Comment: Re:Good grief (Score 1) 560

by Mydron (#22813834) Attached to: Questions Arising On Mercury In Compact Fluorescents

We want the fuel efficiency that diesel engines already offer but we can't buy them in the US because of sulfur emission regulation.
This makes it sound like our emission regulations are so strict that auto companies can't sell their diesel engines in the US. You make it sound like there is a strict dichotomy between efficiency and sulfur pollution. This is not the case. In fact, the reason is that modern diesel engines have been designed assuming the use of ultra-low-sulfur (ULS) diesel fuel, which, until recently, wasn't available in the US. Therefore, it wasn't feasible to run diesel engines with the sulfur-infused diesel available in the US.

You might wonder why ULS diesel wasn't available sooner? Because there was no regulatory will to make it happen sooner. And why was that? Because refining the sulfur out of diesel costs 3-5 cents per liter and thus the trucking industry lobbied heavily against any proposed legislation.

Everything may have tradeoffs, but this particular case isn't a good example. This is more an example of putting our money where are our mouth is.
Education

Wikipedia founder attacks educators

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "In the BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7130325.stm
"Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has said teachers who refuse students access to the site are 'bad educators'." and
"He said he now thinks that students should be able to cite the online encyclopedia in their work."

which is ironic because rejecting Wikipedia as a valid source is his idea

"In 2005, at the height of the controversy over the site's accuracy, Mr Wales told the BBC that students who copied information from Wikipedia 'deserved to get an F grade', and that the site should really be used as a 'stepping stone' to more authoritative information.""
The Almighty Buck

Long Range Eye Tracking for Advertisers 134

Posted by samzenpus
from the The-unseen-mechanized-eye dept.
holy_calamity writes "A Canadian firm has launched a device that can track the gaze of multiple people from up to 10 metres away. Originally developed at Queen's University, Ontario, they hope to sell it to advertisers to allow them to monitor how many people look at their ads. Admittedly they are trying more benign stuff too like better hearing aids, but I doubt that will make up for movie posters that make a song and dance whenever you glance their way."
The Courts

Jury finds Vonage infringed on Verizon patents

Submitted by LabRat
LabRat writes "Today, a jury found that Vonage violated 3 key patents held by Verizon. Vonage is ordered to pay $58 million in past damages and a 5.5% royalty on future sales revenue. While much smaller than what Verizon was seeking ($5/customer/month)...it's still quite a substantial financial blow to a company that continues to hemorrhage cash as it seeks to buy it's way to market share through a marketing blitz campaign. It's unclear at this point if this victory will embolden Verizon to pursue blackmail, erm, settlements from other VoIP providers..though it seems highly unlikely that Verizon would pass up the opportunity to generate cash flow from its IP holdings. No word yet if Vonage plans to appeal."
United States

US faces skill crunch, to review H1B visa

Submitted by prasansk
prasansk writes "Making a case for increasing the number of H1B visas, the US Commerce Secretary has said high-tech businesses are facing shortages in filling up positions and lamented that students from India and China cannot stay in US and apply their skills. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Guttierrez made the point in his testimony before the Judiciary Committee that was having Comprehensive Immigration reform as its topic of hearings when the issue of the H1B visas came up for a brief discussion."
Biotech

Bacteria to protect against quakes

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes "If you live near the sea, chances are high that your home is built over sandy soil. And if an earthquake strikes, deep and sandy soils can turn to liquid, with some disastrous consequences for the buildings sitting on them. But now, U.S. researchers have found a way to use bacteria to steady buildings against earthquakes by turning these sandy soils into rocks. Today, it is possible to inject chemicals in the ground to reinforce it, but this can have toxic effects on soil and water. On the contrary, this use of common bacteria to 'cement' sands has no harmful effects on the environment. But so far, this method is limited to labs and the researchers are working on scaling their technique. Here are more references and a picture showing how unstable ground can aggravate the consequences of an earthquake."
Censorship

Teens Prosecuted For Racy Photos 740

Posted by kdawson
from the protecting-from-whom? dept.
An anonymous reader writes with a story on CNet about two teens who were prosecuted under anti-child-porn laws in Florida for having made and emailed racy photos of each other. Both were under 18 years old, so the resulting pictures are clearly illegal; but the teens' intent was not to share the pictures with anyone else. An appeals court majority opinion found that emailing the photos from one of the kids to the other was a careless act that should, it seems, bring down the full weight of the law. A minority opinion argued that the laws were intended to protect children from exploitative adults, not from other children.
Programming

Next Generation Source Code Search Engine

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes "Newsforge has an article on a new source code search engine, All The Code which has just launched a public alpha. According to the article, unlike previous generations of source code search engines (such as koders and google codesearch) this new engine "looks at how code is used" to help determine the relevance. The idea being that if a library is used more frequently in a certain context, it is probably more relevant than a less popular library. Unfortunately only supports Java for the time being, but the faq indicates they will be adding more languages once the alpha is completed. I wonder if the other players will adopt this method?"
The Media

The Demise of the Professional Photojournalist 133

Posted by kdawson
from the going-going dept.
Dan Gillmor has a piece up on his Center for Citizen Media blog about the coming decline in the venerable professions of photojournalism and videography. It's hard to fault Gillmor's argument that the ubiquity of Net-connected cameras and cell phones will mean that, for breaking news at least, a pro will rarely if ever be the ones who capture the shot or the footage that gets widely published and reprinted. The comments to Gillmor's post are worth reading. One reader pulls out the figure that a billion camera phones will be in use globally by 2008.
Businesses

Can a Manager Be a Techie and Survive? 238

Posted by Zonk
from the pointy-hair-with-a-diploma dept.
theodp writes "Some say that good managers should not be technical at all. Over at Computerworld, 'C.J. Kelly' takes a contrarian position, arguing that managers should keep their hands on the technology. The ability to tell the difference between fiction and reality, says Kelly, is priceless." From the article: "If you don't know the difference between fiction and reality, you've got a problem. By being technically informed while managing people and projects, no one can blow smoke up my skirt. I can tell the difference between a lame excuse for a delay and a legitimate reason why something can't be done." Where do you fall on this issue? Is it nice to be able to flim-flam the boss once in a while? Or is the valuable input of a boss with a technical background worth the occasional all-nighter?

The End of Net Anonymity In Brazil 242

Posted by kdawson
from the good-while-it-lasted dept.
DieNadel writes, "The Brazilian senate is considering a bill that will make it a crime to join a chat, blog, or download from the Internet without fully identifying oneself first. Privacy groups and Internet providers are very concerned, and are trying to lobby against the bill, but it seems they won't have much success." From the article: "If approved, it will be a crime, punishable with up to 4 years of jail time, to disseminate virus or trojans, unauthorizedly access data banks or networks and send e-mail, join chat, write a blog or download content anonymously."

Research Supports "Snowball Earth" Hypothesis 243

Posted by kdawson
from the big-chill dept.
u2boy_nl writes, "A new U.S. study finds evidence for 'Snowball Earth,' the hypothesis that the entire Earth was ice-covered for long periods on several occasions, most recently 600-700 million years ago. The icy conditions (Earth's oceans frozen completely with ice more than a kilometer thick) ended violently under extreme greenhouse conditions — snowballearth.org suggests the meltdown could have occurred in as little as 2,000 years. Snowball Earth challenges long-held assumptions regarding the limits of global change. Wikipedia has more on the hypothesis."

Keeping Cool May Be the Key To Longevity 224

Posted by Zonk
from the everybody-be-cool-you-be-cool dept.
merryprankster writes "New Scientist reports that Scripps Research Institute scientists have found that lowering the body temperature of mice by just 0.5C extends their lifespan by around 15%. Until now the only proven way of increasing longevity has been calorie restriction — but as this also causes a lowering of body temperature the researchers speculate that this cooling may be the underlying mechanism retarding aging. In this study mice with a defect in their lateral hypothalamus, which has the side effect of cooling body temperature, not only lived longer but also ate normal amounts."

Tim Berners-Lee Announces Web Science Initiative 73

Posted by Zonk
from the two-great-tastes-go-great-together dept.
ReadWriteWeb writes "MIT and the University of Southampton in Britain have announced an initiative called Web Science. Tim Berners-Lee is leading the program, which is essentially about formalizing a new kind of scientific discipline. The goal is to understand the deeper structure of the social Web and how people are using it. But as well as studying the Web, they also hope to shape the future of the Web. In the conference call this morning, Tim Berners-Lee spoke about how Web Science will help build 'a new Web, a better Web, building things on top of the Web infrastructure.' He said they'll be 'developing new ways of analyzing things and we'll be building systems which have completely new properties'. But he made a point of saying that because the Web is about people, social aspects will be a very important part of it."

It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction.