Al writes "It might not please many environmentalists, but a major energy company is adding solar-thermal power to a coal plant and says this could be the cost-effective way to produce energy while lowering CO2 emissions. Abengoa Solar and Xcel Energy, Colorado's largest electrical utility, have begun modifying the coal plant, which is based near Grand Junction, Colorado. Under the design, parabolic troughs will be used to preheat water that will be fed into the coal plant's boilers, where coal is burned to turn the water into steam. Cost savings comes from using existing turbines and generators and from operating at higher efficiencies, since the turbines and generators in solar-thermal plants are normally optimized to run at the lower temperatures generated by parabolic mirrors."

Hugh Pickens writes "Business Week reports that security experts plan to recruit victims and other computer users to help them go on the offensive and hunt down hackers. '"It's time to stop building burglar alarms to keep people out and go after the bad guys," says Rowan Trollope, senior vice-president for consumer products at Symantec, the largest maker of antivirus software. Symantec will ask customers to opt in to a program that will collect data about attempted computer intrusions and then forward the information to authorities. Symantec will also begin posting the FBI's top 10 hackers and their schemes on its Web site, where customers go for software updates and next year the company will begin offering cash bounties for information leading to an arrest. The strategy has its risks as hackers who find novices on their trail may trash their computers or steal their identities as punishment. Citizen hunters could also become cybervigilantes and harm bystanders as they pursue criminals but Symantec is betting customers won't mind being disrupted if they can help snare the bad guys. "I'm convinced we can clean up the Internet in 10 years if we can peel away the dirt and show people the threats they're facing," says Trollope.'"

RainbowBrite writes "The YikeBike is the invention of a New Zealander aiming to alleviate city congestion. 'It might look like a collision between a praying mantis and a child's scooter, but it's the result of five years of work to reinvent the wheel, with one important addition: an electric motor. It's a bicycle, but not as we have come to know it. For a start, you sit upright and steer with your hands at your side.'" The YikeBike weighs in at a measly 22 lbs but has a hefty price tag of almost $5,000 US (£3,000). The battery's expected lifespan is only 1,000 charges, but the device has a projected range of around six miles.

theodp writes "What are you doing on Oct. 22? Microsoft is putting a Tupperware-style twist on the upcoming Windows 7 rollout, launching a new initiative to encourage thousands of employees, partners and technology enthusiasts to throw parties in their homes and communities to demonstrate and help spread the word about its new OS. People accepted as official launch party hosts will get their own copy of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, and a chance to win a computer. Host spaces are very limited, so apply now, kids. Hey, what could possibly go wrong?"

ciaohound writes "The Baltimore Sun has a story about 'unschooling,' which is like homeschooling except, well, without the schooling. '...unschooling incorporates every facet of a child's life into the education process, allowing a child to follow his passions and learn at his own pace, year-round. And it assumes that an outing at the park — or even hours spent playing a video game — can be just as valuable a teaching resource as Hooked on Phonics.' If you have ever been forced to sit in a classroom where no learning was taking place, you may understand the appeal. A driving force behind the movement is parents' dissatisfaction with regular schools, and presumably with homeschooling as well. Yet few researchers are even aware of unschooling and little research exists on its effectiveness. Any Slashdotters who have experience with 'unschooling?'"

drunken_boxer777 sends us to The Wall Street Journal for a lengthy article on a small tech company, Palantir Technologies, that is making the CIA, Pentagon, and FBI take notice. The submitter adds, "And yes, their company name is a reference to what you think it is." "One of the latest entrants into the government spy-services marketplace, Palantir Technologies has designed what many intelligence analysts say is the most effective tool to date to investigate terrorist networks. The software's main advance is a user-friendly search tool that can scan multiple data sources at once, something previous search tools couldn't do. That means an analyst who is following a tip about a planned terror attack, for example, can more quickly and easily unearth connections among suspects, money transfers, phone calls and previous attacks around the globe. ... With Palantir's software 'you can actually point to examples where it was pretty clear that lives were saved.'"

Diabolus Advocatus alerts us to an article Cory Doctorow has up on guardian.co.uk, addressing what cloud computing really means for the average consumer: "The tech press is full of people who want to tell you how completely awesome life is going to be when everything moves to 'the cloud' — that is, when all your important storage, processing and other needs are handled by vast, professionally managed data-centers. Here's something you won't see mentioned, though: the main attraction of the cloud to investors and entrepreneurs is the idea of making money from you, on a recurring, perpetual basis, for something you currently get for a flat rate or for free without having to give up the money or privacy that cloud companies hope to leverage into fortunes."

Philosopher Adam Shriver suggested that genetically engineering cows to feel no pain could be an acceptable alternative to eliminating factory farming in a paper published in Neuroscience. Work by neuroscientist Zhou-Feng Chen at Washington University may turn Shriver's suggestion a reality. Chen has been working on identifying the genes that control "affective" pain, the unpleasantness part of a painful sensation. He has managed to isolate a gene called P311, and has found that mice who do not have P311 don't have negative associations with pain, although they do react negatively to heat and pressure. This could end much of the concern about cruel farming practices, but unfortunately still leaves my design for the fiery hamburger punch in the unethical column.

stelt writes "On Oct.2–4 Google will host the international conference on Scalable Vector Graphics at its campus in Mountain View, California. The SVG Open conference schedule shows developers and designers of various backgrounds. Major brands, open source projects, universities, and individuals are presenting on a variety of subjects like interactive scientific visualizations, mobile web animation art, internationalization and localization in print, geo-systems, etc. A couple of weeks back we discussed Google's adding SVG support to IE, and details of this project will be presented during the keynote 'SVG in Internet Explorer and at Google.'" Early-bird registration has already ended for this conference, but the pricing is not steep.

Thorfinn.au sends along big physics news: magnetic monopoles have been detected at low temperatures in "Dirac strings" within a single crystal of Dysprosium Titanate. Two papers are being published today in the journal Science and two more on arXiv.org, as yet unpublished, provide further evidence. "Theoretical work had shown that monopoles probably exist, and they have been measured indirectly. But the Science papers are the first direct experiments to record the monopole's effects on the spin-ice material. The papers use neutrons to detect atoms in the crystal aligned into long daisy chains. These daisy chains tie each north and south monopole together. Known as 'Dirac strings,' the chains, as well as the existence of monopoles, were predicted in the 1930s by the British theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. Heat measurements in one paper also support the monopole argument. The two, as yet unpublished, papers on arXiv add to the evidence. The first provides additional observations, and the second uses a new technique to determine the magnetic charge of each monopole to be 4.6x10-13 joules per tesla metre. All together, the evidence for magnetic monopoles 'is now overwhelming,' says Steve Bramwell, a materials scientist at University College London and author on one of the Science papers and one of the arXiv papers."

Tyler Too writes "The MPAA is once again trying to badger the FCC into approving Selectable Output Control, which would plug the 'analog hole' during broadcasts of some prerelease HD movies. MPAA bigshots met with seven staffers from the FCC Media Bureau last week, calling the petition a 'pro-consumer' (!) move designed to 'enable movie studios to offer millions of Americans in-home access to high-value, high definition video content.' At least the studios are now acknowledging that SOC would break the functionality of some HDTVs, an admission they were previously unwilling to make: 'What's interesting about the group's latest filing, however, is that it effectively concedes that the output changes it wants could, in fact, hobble some home video systems. "The vast majority of consumers would not have to purchase new devices to receive the new, high-value content contemplated by MPAA's" request, the group assures the FCC.'"

Lucas123 writes "Intel is planning to launch its native flash memory module, code named Braidwood, in the first or second quarter of 2010. The inexpensive NAND flash will reside directly on a computer's motherboard as cache for all I/O and it will offer performance increases and other benefits similar to that of adding a solid-state disk drive to the system. A new report states that by achieving SSD performance without the high cost, Braidwood will essentially erode the SSD market, which, ironically, includes Intel's two popular SSD models. 'Intel has got a very good [SSD] product. But, they view additional layers of NAND technology in PCs as inevitable. They don't think SSDs are likely to take over 100% of the PC market, but they do think Braidwood could find itself in 100% of PCs,' the report's author said."

Steve Perlman, CEO of OnLive, has announced that beta testing is now underway for the cloud gaming service that aims to take the processing burden for cutting-edge games off a player's computer and use remote servers instead. Reaction to this service and competitor GaiKai has been interest tempered with skepticism, but users can now sign up to test it themselves and see if the reality matches the hype. There will be hardware and connectivity restrictions to start: "When you sign up for OnLive Beta, you tell us some general information about your ISP, your computer configuration and your location. We use this information to organize Beta testers into test groups so that our engineering team can focus at different times on testing different situations. If you are a potential fit for a particular test group, we'll send you an invitation email, asking you to run a detailed Performance Test on your network connection and your computer configuration."

BluePeppers writes "The Guardian has a story, primarily about a deal that allows YouTube to broadcast music videos again, but also covering a coalition of artist unions that are opposing new legislation in the UK that would punish file sharers more severely. From the article: 'A coalition of bodies representing a range of stars including Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, and Damon Albarn attacks the proposals as expensive, illogical and "extraordinarily negative." The Featured Artists Coalition, the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, and the Music Producers Guild have joined forces to oppose the proposals to reintroduce the threat of disconnection for persistent file sharers, which was ruled out in the government's Digital Britain report in June.""

eldavojohn writes "Take-Two has settled with shareholders to the tune of $20 million dollars over the 'Hot Coffee' debacle. Ars brings the details on how a badly-handled situation resulted in shareholders suing Take-Two. '[The scandal] led to a media panic because it was assumed the sexual content was easy for children to get to (it wasn't) or that sex themes were becoming common in games (they aren't). Still, the lawsuit shows how badly the company bungled the situation, and it's easy to see how Take-Two's management directly caused shareholders to lose money. ... The suit alleged far more than a single misstep with Hot Coffee, however. "Take-Two's management was not cooperating or assisting with the Company's audit committee and was failing to keep the Board of Directors informed of important issues or failing to do so in a timely fashion," the complaint stated. Inventory was misstated, as was software development costs."