I am a new graduate student in Computer Engineering. I would like to get my MS and possibly my Ph.D. I have learned that 90% of my department is from India and many others are from China. All the students come here to study and there are only 7 US citizens in the engineering program this year. Why is that? I have heard that many of the smarter Americans go into medicine or the law and that is why there are so few Americans in engineering. Is this true?

MojoKid writes "Prior to AMD-ATI's Radeon HD 2000 series introduction, rumors circulated regarding an ultra-high clocked ATI R600-based card, that featured a large 1GB frame buffer. Some even went so far as to say the GPU would be clocked near 1GHz. When the R600 arrived in the form of the Radeon HD 2900 XT, it was outfitted with 'only' 512MB of frame buffer memory and its GPU and memory clock speeds didn't come close to the numbers in those early rumors. Some of AMD's partners, however, have since decided to introduce R600-based products that do feature 1GB frame buffers, like the Diamond Viper HD 2900 XT 1GB in both single-card and CrossFire configurations. At 2GHz DDR, the memory on the card is also clocked higher than AMD's reference designs but the GPU remains clocked at 742MHz"

A reader writes "Despite Microsoft releasing Windows Vista more than nine months ago the adoption rate has not been as Microsoft hoped. Bowing further to pressure from OEMs and consumers, Microsoft has extended the life of Windows XP, which was due to end sale by OEMs on January 1 next year, to a new date of June 30. Asked if this was an indication of a strong demand for XP, a Microsoft representative sought to downplay the extension, stating 'We wouldn't term it strong, we would describe this as accommodating a certain element who needs more time.'"

rcs1000 writes "Jon Udell has a interesting article on a new type of spreadsheet: one targeted specifically at techies. The skinny is that any spreadsheet is actually a computer program, only in Resolver One, the product profiled in Udell's piece, this is explicit rather than implicit. And the code is IronPython rather than VBA. There are some other cool things it does — allowing cells to contain objects, and allowing spreadsheets to back-end websites." Udell's screencast gives a good demo, though the presenters are a bit hard to hear due to the phone connection. Resolver's own screencast is an alternative.

WiNot writes "WiMAX's supporters are positioning Mobile WiMAX as an alternative to municipal WiFi networks in the wake of recent cancellation or postponement of muni WiFi projects in Chicago and San Francisco. 'There's no business case for municipal WiFi ... With many municipal WiFi deployments in a holding pattern, it may be Sprint's Xohm WiMAX network will be up and running before muni WiFi can get its act together.' From what Ars saw during its Motorola-sponsored cruise on the Chicago River earlier this week, WiMAX has the potential to deliver the goods in terms of speed, latency, and reliability. If Sprint hits its goal of blanketing metropolitan areas with WiMAX in a timely fashion and prices the service attractively, the kind of expansive municipal WiFi networks once envisioned in Chicago, Houston, and San Francisco could go the way of Pets.com and Flooz."

Michele Alessandrini writes "Having bought several TomTom One navigation systems at work, I was browsing their web site to find information about maps. There are several pages of documentation about their devices. In one of them, they proudly inform you that their devices use Linux, as a warranty of power and stability. They even prominently display their GPL compatibility. But, when you come to the software (the one used to manage updates, set locations, etc), they only support Windows and Mac OS. Not that surprising, and not a real necessity. Just the same, they probably saved millions of dollars using a free kernel and didn't think to support Linux users. As Linux gains ground in commercial applications like this, how often are we going to see actual users of the OS left out in the cold? Why don't more Linux-using shops reach out to the Linux-using community?"

destinyland writes "University professor and artist Steve Kurtz publicizes the history of chemical weapons with performance art pieces. The day his wife died of a heart attack, 911 responders mistook his scientific equipment for bioterrorism supplies. After he was detained for 22 hours, Homeland Security cordoned off his block, and a search was performed on his house in hazmat suits, they found nothing. Now they're prosecuting him for "mail fraud" for the way he obtained $256 of harmless bacteria."

An anonymous reader writes "Land Warrior, the Army's wearable electronics package, was panned earlier this year by the troops who were testing it out. They were forced to take the collection of digital maps and next-gen radios to war, anyway. Now, Wired's Noah Shachtman reports from Iraq, those same soldiers are starting to warm up to their soldier suits of the future."

A user writes "According to the BBC, the Bavarian state government has announced that it has signed an agreement with Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway system, and the Transrapid consortium, to provide a maglev railway between central Munich and its airport. The only other maglev in full operation at the moment is in Shanghai, again as a city-to-airport service. The cost of the system is estimated at $2.6 billion. No completion date has been announced."

An anonymous reader writes "Now that XML is the de facto standard (for good or ill) for doing message passing, I find that I need to give XML examples in the documentation that we produce. We're stuck with Word and up till now I've just been doing the examples as cut and paste from the log files. We include schemas in the appendix but it seems that the clients like the 'readability' of the raw XML over other approaches we've tried. I'm wondering what everyone else is doing in the world of XML documentation."

An anonymous reader writes "In an obituary for AnywhereCD, which closes in one week, founder (and MP3.com founder) Michael Robertson chronicles how at least one record label wanted him to embed credit card numbers of buyers into songs. A fascinating story about how at least some of the labels still don't get it and why AnywhereCD is about to be buried."

l-ascorbic writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is poised to buy 5% of Facebook for $300 million to $500 million, valuing the company at up to $10 billion. Microsoft already handles advertising for the site."

iCry writes "It was rumored last week, and Apple has now confirmed it: 'Apple said today that a firmware update to the iPhone due to be released later this week "will likely result" in SIM-unlocked iPhones turning into very expensive bricks... So what are users of SIM-unlocked iPhones to do? Not run the latest software update, that's for sure. Users can instead pray to the hacking deities — the famed iPhone Dev Team that released the free software unlock, and iPhoneSIMfree, which released a commercial software unlock — to write applications that will undo the unlocks, as it were, if those users want to run the latest iPhone software.'"

From a certain point of view, Halo 3 is without a doubt the biggest game of the year. The combination of fan anticipation, marketing, and the skill of Bungie's design combine to create a game that's larger than life; if gaming has a blockbuster franchise to match the movie industry's punch, it's the tale of Master Chief. The importance of the Halo franchise to gaming is a very big issue, though, and one worth it's own article. Having played through the game, there's really only one question I'm here to answer today. Does it meet expectations? In a word: yes. It's not the best game ever made, and it may not even be the best game this year. Will it make the fans happy, and deservedly sell thousands of Xbox 360s? Very much yes. Read on for my impressions of Bungie's years-in-the-making epic, Halo 3.

Keith writes "Gmail was launched on April 1, 2004, and has revolutionized the way many of us use email. The interface has remained largely untouched since it launched, but get ready, it's soon to undergo a change in what they describe as a 'New Version'. Only a select few people have access to use the new interface — mainly employees and trusted people outside the company called 'Trusted Testers'. From the ZDNet blog entry: 'Google lets every-day users who are fluent in both English and another language translate small snippets of English text into the language of their choice. This is how they can offer services in several languages without spending a dime on professional translators. Unfortunately, exposing sensitive information in this manner makes it hard to keep a secret. One of my readers, who wishes to remain anonymous, stumbled across an interesting snippet of text (which I confirmed exists) spilling the beans on a new version of Gmail that is either currently being tested, or about to be released to testing in short order.'"