Jeff writes "Direct from Japan, the SegaToys HomeStar is a unique home projector that turns any room into a planetarium, giving a clear view of the night sky. Using interchangeable plates, it's capable of displaying up to 10,000 stars of either northern or southern hemisphere, as well as their constellations. The starfield can move on a timer to simulate the earth's rotation. Also comes with a meteor generating function and sleep timer. Makes a great gift for the dad who has everything, or people who live in light-polluted areas." Check out Jeff's review of the unit.

grammar fascist writes "After just less than 13 years, the first comic on the World Wide Web, Doctor Fun, has come to an end. Thanks for all the laughs, Dave. From Dave Farley's page at ibiblio: 'Doctor Fun is over. As promised, I somehow managed to finish 520 weeks or ten full years, even if it took a bit longer than ten years to get there. All of the old cartoons will stay right here as long as ibiblio wants to keep hosting them.'"

bariswheel writes "The controversial genius developer/writer/entertainer Paul Graham writes an insightful piece on Why Startups Condense in America. Here's the skinny: "The US allows immigration, it is a rich country, it is not (yet) a police state, the universities are better, you can fire people, work is less identified with employment, it is not too fussy, it has a large domestic market, it has venture funding, and it has dynamic typing for careers. Inquire for details within."

Steve Kerrison writes "Desperate times call for desperate measures, but I'd like to think of this as more of an exercise in cunning. It's hot, but I'm not, thanks to an Icy-Box and a Panaflo. This was nearly categorised as hardware hacking, but then the only 'hacking' required was the removal of four thumb-screws."

mikesd81 writes "According to an AP article, the Chinese are pushing for the encryption standard called WAPI. It's not going so well, as the majority of countries are taking the IEEE standard 802.11i. From the article: 'An international dispute over a wireless computing standard took a bitter turn this past week with the Chinese delegation walking out of a global meeting to discuss the technology. The delegation's walkout from Wednesday's opening of a two-day meeting in the Czech Republic escalated an already rancorous struggle by China to gain international acceptance for its homegrown encryption technology known as WAPI. It follows Chinese accusations that a U.S.-based standards body used underhanded tactics to prevent global approval of WAPI.'"

kandela writes "It seems the fashion industry has taken an interest in the space industry. Space.com is running a story about the Hyper Space Couture Design Contest, a fashion competition sponsored by the Japanese space agency, JAXA, and Rocketplane Ltd. for clothes that look good in zero gravity. The best designs will appear in a fashion show in Tokyo this fall." From the article: "Onuki said that, in working with fashion designer, Ms. Matsui, the intent is to cross-thread mathematics, science, art, and physics with fashion. To date, there have been several kickoff events, as well as fashion shows to stir interest in the multi-step contest. At the end of March, contest officials had received 882 drawings by 365 individuals. Last month, the top 10 designs plus three alternate designs were picked. The actual winner, second and third place will be selected later this year."

Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at the University of Arkansas have created long nanowires with titanium dioxide and assembled them into pieces of 'nanopaper.' This flexible paper can fold into 3D nanostructures such as tubes, bowls or cups. This kind of nanopaper could soon be used for applications such as bacteria filters, decomposition of pollutants and chemical warfare agents. But first the University needs to find industrial partners. Read more for additional details and some pictures of these microcups."

An anonymous reader writes to mention an Economist article wondering how safe should robots be? From the article: "In 1981 Kenji Urada, a 37-year-old Japanese factory worker, climbed over a safety fence at a Kawasaki plant to carry out some maintenance work on a robot. In his haste, he failed to switch the robot off properly. Unable to sense him, the robot's powerful hydraulic arm kept on working and accidentally pushed the engineer into a grinding machine. His death made Urada the first recorded victim to die at the hands of a robot. This gruesome industrial accident would not have happened in a world in which robot behavior was governed by the Three Laws of Robotics drawn up by Isaac Asimov, a science-fiction writer." The article goes on to explore the ethics behind robot soldiers, the liability issues of cleaning droids, and the moral problems posed by sexbots.

Reverse Gear writes "CNN has two commentaries about net neutrality with quite opposing viewpoints. Craig Newmark discusses how the legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would efficiently remove net neutrality, while Mike McCurry writes about how the big companies should pay their fair share for the physical upgrade of the internet. From Newmark's commentary: 'Telecommunication companies already control the pipes that carry the Internet into your home. Now they want control which sites you visit and how you experience them. They would provide privileged access for themselves and their preferred partners while charging other businesses for varying levels of service.'"

Legal Ethics writes "According to an article on Groklaw, Microsoft is misrepresenting what the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) tool is to pressure people into installing it. It comes with no uninstall, it fails to disclose many pieces of information it provides to Microsoft, and it misrepresents itself as a 'critical update' when it does not address any security vulnerability, although it remains to be seen if it can create one. ZDNet has a series of screenshots so that you can see exactly how badly it misrepresents itself. Oh, and it also checks for updates, so Microsoft can presumably execute arbitrary code on any machine with it installed, merely by making that code part of a WGA update."

Aryabhata writes "As per a BBC article, US scientists have created a device that could one day pave the way for robotic hands mimicking human touch. The research team from University of Nebraska in Lincoln hopes to apply this to aid surgery by allowing surgeons to feel the tissue they are operating on. This could help surgeons in distinguishing cancerous or abnormal tissue etc. To demonstrate the device the scientists tried the instrument on a one cent coin and the sensor revealed the wrinkles in President Lincoln's clothing and the letters TY in liberty."

PizzaFace writes "Back in the day, college was a place where a lot of kids tried recreational drugs. Now the world's more competitive, psychopharmaceuticals are better targeted, and millions of students are routinely using drugs to work better and longer. Stimulants developed for attention deficit and narcolepsy are giving mentally healthy students an edge like athletes get from steroids or human growth hormone. These psychotropics seem fairly safe, but should they be banned in the interest of fairness, perhaps with enforcement by urine tests before exams? Or do we tell our kids that, if they want to compete in this brave new world, they better find some Adderall and jack their brains up like their classmates'." If college students are doing it, how many programmers are? What say you?

SJasperson writes "A few weeks ago Mini-Microsoft decided to stop tweaking his corporate masters, having won the astounding victory of getting free towels returned to the locker rooms in Redmond. Now uber-blogger Scoble is moving on to work with a podcasting startup, having apparently tired of his supposed role as Vista evangelist and self-appointed corporate revolutionary. The company still has 3,000 bloggers left, but Microsoft has apparently figured out how to keep them safely within the rules, blogging about the wonders of product renaming and coming features instead of anything that might challenge the party line. There's a lesson here for those starry-eyed adolescents who think the power of the blog is going to triumph over the power of the boardroom."

Ant writes "Here is a collection of "spy equipment" found for sale around the Internet. Everything listed is completely real, is sold at online stores, and almost any item listed here costs less than $500, and often times can be bought for less than $200. Seen on Compfused."

Yoshi writes "DCEmu have released an article detailing the current State of the Homebrew Scene on all consoles from the PSP to GBA and even to the Next Gen Nintendo Wii, the article explains whats needed to run emulators and games and if its worth bothering for each console."