deeptrace writes "California company D2Fusion has announced they are hiring Dr. Martin Fleischmann (of 'Pons and Fleischmann' fame). The company belives that they can produce a commercial fusion based home heating prototype within a year. They are also looking at other applications, such as using it as a heat source for a commercially available Stirling electrical generator."

bariswheel writes "This kernelthread article seeks to investigate further to the inner core of OS X and the improvements therein. The subtopics are the following: BootCache, Kernel Extensions Cache, Hot File Clustering, Working Set Detection, On-the-fly Defragmentation, Prebinding, Helping Developers Create Code Faster, Helping Developers Create Faster Code, Journaling in HFS Plus, and Instant-on."

CNet is reporting that the Federal Election Commission released a 96-page volume of internet regulations last Friday. From the article: "The rules [PDF] say that paid Web advertising, including banner ads and sponsored links on search engines, will be regulated like political advertising in other types of media. They also say bloggers can enjoy the freedoms of traditional news organizations when endorsing a candidate or engaging in political speech.

teutonic_leech writes "ZDNet has an article claiming that movie theater operators plan to be screening live 3D sports events by 2007 in a bid to lure sports fans away from their home theater systems and bolster sagging mid-week ticket sales." From the article: "Other chains are looking to much-improved digital three-dimensional projection for an experience theatergoers can't get at home. But while the projection has greatly advanced from the early 3D days, special glasses must still be worn to achieve the full effect."

Torrentz writes "P2PNet is running a question and answer session with Canada's Michael Geist, a leading Internet and copyright expert. Geist discusses P2P, the music business, and the future direction of copyright law." From the interview: "My focus has traditionally been on Internet issues and I'm very active on privacy, spam, Internet governance issues. The growing attention to copyright merely reflects its critical importance to the Internet and to creativity and culture more generally."

notmyopinion writes "In a wide-ranging interview with the British Computer Society, Sir Tim Berners-Lee criticizes software patents, speaks out on US and ICANN control of the Internet, proposes browser security changes, and says he got domain names backwards in web addresses all those years ago."

Brent Kupras writes "NVIDIA just launched a whole bunch of GeForce Go 7xxx graphics cards for notebooks. There is a Go 7900 GTX, a Go 7900 GS, a Go 7600 and a Go 7300. The GTX version looks like just a faster copy of the old Go 7800 GTX. There are also a few benchmark results of these new chips against the older NVIDIA chips and ATI's chips."

legolas writes "SpaceX's Falcon 1 is the world's first privately funded satellite launch vehicle. After a successful static engine test on Wednesday, it was launched today. Unfortunately, the rocket was destroyed shortly after launch."

WorkinTooHard asks: "Two years ago, I took the job of Internet Marketing Manager for a international company, with a crazy idea that I could convince senior management that the internet wasn't a fad. The only problem was that I didn't expect a (respected) mid-level manager to be the road block. We are in the middle of a major website redesign (the current site has not been updated in over 8 years) and everyone is asking why it takes so long to complete, and almost daily I have to explain that I do not have enough manpower. Of course, I can't prove ROI until the new site is launched (a great Catch22). How many people do you have working in/on your company's Internet/Intranet and Extranet sites and applications? How many full-time web-application developers, content providers, analytics people, UI designers, email marketing people, and so forth?"

SilentBob4 writes to tell us MadPenguin is running the first of two articles taking a look at the 'world of retail as Tux is experiencing it'. From the article: "Of the stores we visited, only Linspire Linux was sold pre-installed on computers in-store. Those FOSS boxes were often among the store's best volume sellers, primarily because they were the cheapest, according to store staff. The staff believed, based on conversations with frequent customers, that most customers were buying the boxes to install Windows on them. But that is not surprising to us, because, as we discuss in section two, brick-and-mortar "computer" stores are still part of the Microsoft distribution chain. The fact that there were some open source products at all in these stores is actually surprising, as Microsoft guards its distribution chain jealously, and punishes those business partners who stray into carrying FOSS products."

slashDoug asks: "I am a career tester that now has an opportunity to bring application security testing in-house in the form of training. We have a network team that already does network, penetration testing and hardware hacking to keep our web infrastructure and sites secure, but I am interested in focusing on the security flaws of our designed web applications. I have read through a couple books on the subject which have different insights ('How to Break Software Security' by James Whittaker, and 'Writing Secure Code' by Howard and LeBlanc) and would like to bring that kind of knowledge to the other testers in my group. Does anyone have any recommendations on training groups that I could bring in-house to train a team of software testers? Your thoughts and recommendations are greatly appreciated!"

utki writes "The Moscow Times is reporting that the chief software architect at Russian software developer Cognitive Technologies, Andrei Smirnov, recently won a boxing match organized between himself and a software pirate he caught selling bootlegged software CD's at a Moscow market. At last, a practical and entertaining model for dealing with software piracy (MPAA and RIAA take note), and perhaps a useful way to channel Steve Ballmer's aggression too."

Jay Stelly is a senior engineer at Valve, and on the last day of the conference he kicked off the morning with a discussion on Physics in Half-Life 2 (HL2). The physics simulation, and inventive physics-related puzzles used throughout the game, were complicated elements to implement. He discusses the problems they faced, relates some of the humorous demos they used to flesh out their ideas, and laid out the ways that good engineering can make design that much better.

An anonymous reader writes "Spam king Christopher William Smith, aka Rizler, is facing up to life in prison for conspiracy to tamper with a witness and up to 20 years for endeavoring to obstruct justice. The charges are based on an alleged phone call in which he threatened to have a witness or the witness' family killed to prevent them from testifying against him in an upcoming trial on drug and related charges.

Gamespot reports that Raph Koster, chief creative officer for Sony Online Entertainment, has left the company. While Gamespot seems to confirm this news, there are a number of MMOG-related rumours swirling at GDC. Mythic may be in EA's sights for acquisition, and Sony Online may soon be losing the rights to the Star Wars license. IE: No more SWG. Grimwell online has a rundown on these virulent rumours. Chris Kramer (from SOE) said words to the effect of "We're in it together for the long haul." SWG will be staying with Sony Online for some time to come.