lisah writes "According to a NewsForge article by Bruce Byfield, new Fedora test lead Will Woods has a laundry list of changes he plans on making to enhance the Fedora testing process. 'There's always someone who will comment that Fedora is just Red Hat's beta test for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL),' says Woods. 'It's not true, and I want no one to have cause to say that ever again.'"

ReadWriteWeb writes "Ebrahim Ezzy reviews 5 new third-generation search technologies — and how they compare to the big guns of Google, Yahoo and MSN. These so-called "search 2.0" companies are combining the scalability of existing internet search engines with new and improved relevancy models; they bring into the equation user preferences, collaboration, collective intelligence, a rich user experience, and many other specialized capabilities. The new search engines profiled are Swicki, Rollyo, Clusty, Wink and Lexxe." Note, as the article points out, that the author has developed yet another search engine, called Qube.

Heir Of The Mess writes "Intel have a press release out about their new Itanium 2 Processor. The new processor doubles the performance, and improves performance per watt by 2.5 times compared to the existing single-core versions. The flagship model triples the cache and can execute 4 threads/instructions per processor enhanced by Hyper-Threading. Transistor count is a whopping 1.7 billion. Triples the previous SPEC_int_rate_base_2000 record. Retails for US$3692 for the top of the range.
So yes the Itanium crew are still pushing forward. I wonder if this could help save SGI?"

CNET reports that the British Government today attributed the country's 22% rise in street crime to iPod robberies. This has hit CNET close to home. Guy Cocker, a CNET (Gamespot) journalist based in London, was mugged last week. The muggers held 'a semi-automatic weapon to the back of Cocker's head and told him, "we're taking all your stuff"'. CNET's solution to the problem is suggestions on how to conceal your iPod from attackers. These include 'The gaffer tape method,' 'The Coke can method,' and 'The Christopher Walken method.'

DreamWinkle writes "It might seem unlikely considering that Mario was born and developed in Japan by Japanese minds, but America forever changed how our favorite plumber played. Why? Because Nintendo thought the U.S. and European gamers couldn't play. As a consequence, they never released the real Mario 2 outside of Japan because it was too hard, and instead released Doki Doki Panic with the Mario name. Since then, the entire Mario franchise has picked up traits from Doki Doki Panic, like the card game at the end of each level in Mario 3. This article takes a look at what elements really belong to Mario and what belongs to Doki Doki Panic. It's interesting to see that, point for point, Nintendo changed almost nothing about Doki Doki Panic before releasing it in the states and Europe as Mario 2."

An anonymous reader writes "Washingtonpost.com's Security Fix blog reports that a banner ad running on MySpace.com and other Web sites used a Windows security flaw to push adware and spyware out to more than one million computer users this week. The attack leveraged the Windows Metafile (WMF) exploit to install programs in the PurityScan/ClickSpring family of adware, which bombards the user with pop-up ads and tracks their Web usage."

McLuhanesque writes "The Globe and Mail reports that a Calgary biotech firm has developed a process to turn genetically modified safflower oil into human insulin in commercial quantities. The process reduces capital costs by 70% and product cost by 40%. 'SemBioSys says it can make more than one kilogram of human insulin per acre of safflower production. That amount could treat 2,500 diabetic patients for one year and, in turn, meet the world's total projected insulin demand in 2010 with less than 16,000 acres of safflower production.'"

stacybro writes "Wired has an article about the Tesla Roadster. It is similar to other electric cars that we have seen in that the electric engine's serious torque will allow it to do 0-60mph in about 3 seconds. Part of what is different about this is that they are using over 6,831 laptop-type lithium-ion batteries. They are claiming the range is about 250 miles. As the battery tech for laptops improves, so will the range of these cars. The car will run about $80,000, which is about par for an exotic two-seater. So who is doing the poll on which tech CEO will be seen driving one first? My guess is one of the Google or E-Bay guys, since they are investors. It is nice to see more companies serious about helping to getting rid of our oil dependency. It is odd that the big car companies aren't more on this track!"

Slashback tonight brings some clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including, Kent State Facebook ban reversed, exploding laptop old news to Dell, XM moves to dismiss RIAA suit, J2EE death greatly exaggerated, and Square's next MMOG not FFXI II -- Read on for details.

Aviran Mordo writes to tell us Reuters is reporting that Microsoft is announcing a voluntary policy to help guide the development of Windows in the future. The policy, which Microsoft senior vice president Brad Smith said was 'committed to creating a transparent system that allows open competition,' will start by allowing other search engines like Google to be set by default.

anthemaniac writes "A reptile that lived 225 million years ago had triangular-shaped wings like the delta-wings of some jets. At least that's what a new computer model suggests. Researcher have generated several possible shapes for the wings of Sharovipteryx mirabili before, so this is just the latest guess (based on one fossil). Last fall NatGeo reported that the first biplane configuration was on a dinosaur. Maybe airplane designers should delve into the fossil record a little more."

rogabean writes to tell us that Hollywood studios have taken a large step into the future by launching their new program with CinemaNow which allows users to legally download and burn DVDs. While the current of offerings seems to be just the dregs, studio execs hope to expand the list quickly and offer a new way to find niche or older films that are difficult to locate.

malyn writes "CNN has an article on the artist who designs the custom Google logos for holidays, special events, etc. From the article: '[Dennis Hwang] has been manipulating the six letters in the Google name into shamrocks, fireworks, hearts and goblins since shortly after he got an internship there in 2000. Company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin found out that he was an art major in college. They said "Hey Dennis, why don't you give this a shot,"' and he has been doing it ever since."

Lots of tidbits about Microsoft's next-gen console floating around this week. On Monday, the company revealed that almost 60% of 360 owners are now using Xbox Live. GameDaily discusses what is making their setup so dang popular. Major Nelson's Sunday podcast included a lot of details on the 360's approach to HD-DVD. HD Beat has the rundown on what was said, including the inevitable Sony smack-talk. Finally, Gamasutra has a feature on the 360's position in Japan. A group of analysts debate whether or not the system even needs Japan in order to be a success. From this last article: "I don't think that American gamers are enamored [with] Japanese product because it comes from Japan; rather, I think Americans like good games, regardless of the country of origin. Microsoft doesn't need Japanese development to succeed in the U.S.; it needs good games, period."

Michael J. Ross writes "The global accessibility of Web sites is a double-edged sword: At the same time that your online e-commerce site is open for business to anyone with an Internet connection, it is also open to malicious attack. Web sites based upon the popular language PHP, are no exception. Thus, it is both astonishing and worrisome that there are currently so few books devoted to PHP security — particularly ones that go beyond the handful of typical security countermeasures discussed in articles. Fortunately, Pro PHP Security, written by Chris Snyder and Michael Southwell, is intended to fill this critical need." Read the rest of Michael's review.