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Comment: I've met the researchers, this story is overblown (Score 1) 81

by jj13 (#36047250) Attached to: Canadian Researchers Create Thin-Film Flexible Paperphone
I've met some of the researchers in this lab, and I've attended talks on their work. They definitely don't mean this prototype to be represented as a practical paperphone device to be sold anytime soon. The prototype is being used simply to investigate bending gestures as a means to UI navigation, complementary to touch and buttons. From what I recall their results have been promising for certain types of behaviour, and it certainly is great to have this level of basic investigation being done long before these types of devices hit the market.
Announcements

Extra dimensions? Only if smaller than 3*10^-6 m!

Submitted by Vincenzo Romano
Vincenzo Romano writes "The website of the fortnightly scientific magazine Science News is reporting today an interesting article about the maximum size of any extra dimension, if any.
A team of theoretical physicists and astronomers has calculated that any hidden extra dimension beyond our familiar three-dimensional space, a world known in physics parlance as a 3-brane, must be less than 3 micrometers.
The study has been submitted online by Oleg Gnedin, Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts of the Univesrity of Michigan and is based on observations on one of the oldest black holes ever found in our universe, lurking deep inside the NGC 4472 galaxy.
Basically, that black hole has not evaporated yet by the Hawking radiation on the predicted "short" short timescale, thus posing an upper limit to the size of any extra dimensions to less thab 0.003 mm.
So what? String theorists must buy better magnifying lenses if they want to prove to be right."
Space

Discovery: Even Tiny Stars Have Planets -> 2

Submitted by
Paul server guy
Paul server guy writes "From a story at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090528-exoplanet-small-star.html — A Jupiter-like planet has been discovered orbiting one of the smallest stars known, suggesting that planets could be more common than previously thought.
"This is an exciting discovery because it shows that planets can be found around extremely lightweight stars," said Wesley Traub, the chief scientist for NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This is a hint that nature likes to form planets, even around stars very different from the sun."

Astrometry was first attempted 50 years ago to search for planets outside our solar system, but the method requires very precise measurements over long periods of time, and until now, has failed to turn up any exoplanets.
The technique involves measuring the precise motions of a star on the sky as an unseen planet tugs the star back and forth.
The discovery will be detailed in the Astrophysical Journal.

The newfound exoplanet, called VB 10b, is about 20 light-years away in the constellation Aquila (a light-year is the distance that light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles or 10 trillion kilometers). It is a gas giant, with a mass six times that of Jupiter, and an orbit far enough away from its star to be labeled a "cold Jupiter" similar to our own.

In reality, though, the planet's own internal heat would give it an Earth-like temperature.

The planet's star, called VB 10, is tiny. It is what's known as an M-dwarf and is only one-twelfth the mass of our sun, just barely big enough to fuse atoms at its core and shine with starlight."
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Power

In Finland, Nuclear Renaissance Runs Into Trouble->

Submitted by g8oz
g8oz writes "The world is in the beginning stages of a nuclear revival. But as a massive project in Finland facing cost, schedule and quality problems shows, there will be many bumps on the road. Will the modular nature of wind and solar win out over the scale efficiencies of nuclear because of construction and operation risk?"
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Earth

50 Days of Indigenous Protests in Peru->

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The major media in the United States have been eerily silent about it, but there have been 50 days of protests in the Amazon rainforest area of Peru over the Government's possibly illegal decrees authorizing invasion of the rainforest for further oil exploration. Thousands of indigenous rainforest inhabitants have massed in demonstrations throughout the region, and there have been attacks by the police and military, causing a number of injuries and at least one death among the tribespeople. On Tuesday, May 26th, there was a march and protest in Los Angeles, led by actress Q'orianka Kilcher, whose blog post about Tuesday's demonstration includes an 8 minute video. I feel the issue is of such importance, and is receiving such short shrift from the American media, that I've decided I'd better keep my own collection of links on the subject. The Guardian, BBC, and Reuters in the UK are all providing some coverage, including videos of the police riots, but I have to backtrack to locate the links to those stories."
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The Courts

Hollywood's Victory Over TPB May Be Short Lived

Submitted by Adrian Lopez
Adrian Lopez writes "According to PC World: "Hollywood may have won a battle, but the war against piracy is far from over. Unauthorized file sharing will continue (and likely intensify), if not through The Pirate Bay, then through dozens of other near identical swashbuckling Web sites. ... What Hollywood needs to remember is sites like The Pirate Bay are like weeds. When you try to kill one, they grow back even stronger. In this case, The Pirate Bay already moved most of its servers to the Netherlands, a move that could keep the site running even if The Pirate Bay loses its appeal.""
Operating Systems

Palm's webOS lives up to hype, developers say->

Submitted by
bednarz
bednarz writes "Underneath the sleek exterior of the upcoming Palm Pre smartphone is the real innovation: a new kind of operating system designed with the mobile Web in mind. For the mobile enterprise, Palm's webOS and companion Mojo software development kit offer a simpler way to build mobile applications that are highly integrated with Web-based content and services, according to several developers working with these tools since early this year. For example, webOS was designed from the outset to run multiple applications at once and, developers say, to minimize the well-known potential problems that arise when doing so. "Everything about the Pre feels like it's 'future-oriented,' not an iPhone-inspired knockoff," says Tom Conrad, CTO for Pandora, an Oakland, Calif., company that offers a personalized Internet radio service."
Link to Original Source
Microsoft

Microsoft Already Starting on Windows 8->

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes "According to a job posting on Microsoft's site, the company is starting to put its engineering team together for designing the successor to Windows 7. The job posting details of a storage related position with focus in the enterprise:

"For the upcoming version of Windows, new critical features are being worked on including cluster support and support for one way replication. The core engine is also being reworked to provide dramatic performance improvements. We will also soon be starting major improvements for Windows 8 where we will be including innovative features which will revolutionize file access in branch offices."

If you've got what it takes to be the "Lead Software Development Engineer in Test," apply right here:

Microsoft : http://members.microsoft.com/careers/search/details.aspx?JobID=524FE97F-DB02-4501-AD0E-8CCAF1719BB3"
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Google

SPAM: Gmail Now Tells You Who You Should Email

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes "Gmail continues to improve their mail client interface and within the last month, we've seen additions such as an Undo Send feature and YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, Yelp Preview capabilities, as well as many other previous additions. Today, Gmail added a "suggest more recipients" feature which is useful but also a tad creepy. You see, the suggest more recipients feature can suggest people you should email based on previous conversations. In other words, if you've had threads going with a group of people, the next time you add a couple of those recipients to the address field, Gmail can recommend other people you might want to include as well."
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Software

Serious flash bug in Linux and OSX now 1 year old

Submitted by
JickL
JickL writes "A crippling bug in Adobe Flash, rendering input of international characters in text input fields broken, has been left unsolved for over a year. Almost no response from Adobe so far, and the bug has been reported in OS X too. Users are reporting their companies giving up on the Flex development platform due to this issue, yet still no reply, A good example of the shortcomings of closed source bug hunting?"

"...[Linux's] capacity to talk via any medium except smoke signals." (By Dr. Greg Wettstein, Roger Maris Cancer Center)