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Comment Re: Read between the lines (Score 1) 303

by xkpe (#46456325) Attached to: Google Chairman on WhatsApp: $19 Bn For 50 People? Good For Them!

Lower wages - always good for business

That's not true if your economy relies on consumption, just look at what happen to some European countries when they decided to cut on salaries and benefits to overcome crisis, people had less money to spend, they were already in-debt to the limit, that led to a decrease in consumption resulting in a big percentage of companies closing down and a cyclic recession.

Submission + - US bans students from "blacklisted" countries from getting access to COURSERA

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Coursera is an online website that offers free courses from many of the world’s top universities. Now, all students from Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba will no longer be able to access Coursera. The official blog provides more info regarding the ban. From the blog post — United States export control regulations prohibit U.S. businesses, such as MOOC providers like Coursera, from offering services to users in sanctioned countries, including Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Under the law, certain aspects of Coursera’s course offerings are considered services and are therefore subject to restrictions in sanctioned countries, with the exception of Syria.

Submission + - UK Government Plans Switch to Open Source (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Karashur
Karashur writes: Ministers are looking at saving tens of millions of pounds a year by abandoning expensive software produced by firms such as Microsoft. Some £200m has been spent by the public sector on the computer giant's Office suite alone since 2010.

The Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude believes a significant proportion of that outlay could be cut by switching to free "open-source" software, such as OpenOffice, or Google Docs.

Submission + - Human Beings May Not Be Cut Out for Space

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: The human body did not evolve to live in space and the longest any human has been off Earth is 437 days. Some problems, like the brittling of bone, may have been overcome already. Others have been identified — for example, astronauts have trouble eating and sleeping enough — and NASA is working to understand and solve them. But Kenneth Chang reports in the NYT that there are some health problems that still elude doctors more than 50 years after the first spaceflight. The biggest hurdle remains radiation. Without the protective cocoon of Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere, astronauts receive substantially higher doses of radiation, heightening the chances that they will die of cancer. Another problem identified just five years ago is that the eyeballs of at least some astronauts became somewhat squashed. “It is now a recognized occupational hazard of spaceflight,” says Dr. Barratt. “We uncovered something that has been right under our noses forever.” NASA officials often talk about the “unknown unknowns”, the unforeseen problems that catch them by surprise. The eye issue caught them by surprise, and they are happy it did not happen in the middle of a mission to Mars. Another problem is the lack of gravity jumbles the body’s neurovestibular system (PDF) that tells people which way is up. When returning to the pull of gravity, astronauts can become dizzy, something that Mark Kelly took note of as he piloted the space shuttle to a landing. “If you tilt your head a little left or right, it feels like you’re going end over end.” Beyond the body, there is also the mind. The first six months of Scott Kelly’s one-year mission are expected to be no different from his first trip to the space station. Dr. Gary E. Beven, a NASA psychiatrist, says he is interested in whether anything changes in the next six months. “We’re going to be looking for any significant changes in mood, in sleep, in irritability, in cognition." In a Russian experiment in 2010 and 2011, six men agreed to be sealed up in a mock spaceship simulating a 17-month Mars mission. Four of the six developed disorders, and the crew became less active as the experiment progressed. “I think that’s just an example of what could potentially happen during a Mars mission, but with much greater consequence,” says Dr. Beven. “Those subtle changes in group cohesion could cause major problems.”

Submission + - Samsung's First Tizen Smartphone Gets Leaked

Submitted by SmartAboutThings
SmartAboutThings writes: We are less than a month away from seeing the first ever Tizen smartphone from Samsung. The leaked image points towards Feb 24th launch date at MWC 2014 in Barcelona. The phone design is very similar to Galaxy phones, while the UI reminds us of Windows Phone 8 . Samsung is also the world's top smartphone vendor, so it has all the chances of developing a mobile OS of its own, what do you think?

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