starexplorer2001 writes "LiveScience is reporting how scientists at Sandia's Z laboratory have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit (2 billion kelvins). That's hotter than the interior of our sun, which is only 15 million degrees F. And they don't know how they did it. Do we want anything that hot on our planet?"

An anonymous reader writes "Liquid crystals, the same phase-shifting materials used to display information on cell phones, monitors and other electronic equipment, can also be used to control the differentiation of embryonic stem cells, Wisconsin researchers say. By using the crystals to mechanically strain the cells, they can prevent the indiscriminate (and unwanted) differentiation common in embryonic stem cell research and therapy. So when you want a bone cell, say, you don't end up with one from the kidney."

Z0mb1eman asks: "My company is considering replacing our aging CrystalReports with an open source solution. We are currently doing our research, and the choices seem promising -- JasperReports, Actuate-backed BIRT, and Pentaho, which seems to combine other open-source reporting tools. All have some level of commercial support, but are they ready to replace established solutions like Crystal Reports or even Actuate? Is your company using an Open Source reporting tool, and what have been your experiences with such tools? Are there any other choices we should consider? What should we expect if we make the decision to switch?"

Slashdot tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including some favorable results from the University of Wisconsin's Mac OS X Challenge, skeptics investigate cold fusion claims, more on DoD web filtering, AT&T cuts 10,000 jobs after BellSouth merger, more child-proofing efforts for MySpace, Why Windows Vista Will Suck: a rebuttal, Harvard Professor punished for reporting bugs, Assemblyman Biondi backpedals on NJ anonymous posting bill, and a followup on Chinese TLDs -- Read on for details.

An Inquiring Mind asks: "A good friend's employer has recently installed a CCTV system in the office she works at. This is not unusual in itself, but there is no notice that CCTV is in use, and no company policy regarding CCTV use in employee monitoring, data retention, or anything else. My understanding is that CCTV use in the UK is covered by the DPA (Data Protection Act) if: it is used to gather information about an individual; is monitored remotely; or is given to people other than law enforcement bodies (this from a CCTV/PDA document [pdf], from the website of the Information Commissioner's Office). If it does fall under the remit of the DPA, then they would need at least signage, and a policy for the retention of the data. Given that this camera would likely fall foul of the DPA, that challenging the employer would be career suicide (due to internal politics), and that she has nothing to hide -- what do other Slashdot readers think should be the next step for my friend: principled but suicidal stand, or quiet annoyance?" Much of what is allowed depends on the law of the land in your area. Depending on what the laws do and do not allow, how would you safely approach your employers to air your concerns on this subject?

truthsearch writes to tell us ITWire is reporting that Novell has just signed a deal with the Australian government to become an approved supplier of Open Source software and solutions. This deal, believed to be the first of it's kind, "places Novell on the NSW government panel of preferred open source suppliers. This is the first panel contract of its kind by an Australian jurisdiction that contains provisions specific to open source software, giving government agencies and departments formal access to Linux solutions."

bart_scriv writes "Business Week has a review of Palm's Treo 700w (the first Palm device to run Windows). Aside from network performance, the reviewer was fairly disappointed. From the article: 'The best Windows Mobile device ever, but a cut below Palm's 650."

tkajstura writes "New Scientist is reporting on 'a new tool [called Boxxet that] offers to create websites on any subject, allowing web surfers to sit back, relax and watch a virtual space automatically fill up with relevant news stories, blog posts, maps and photos.' It uses an algorithm based on unique word count to filter an index and integrate relevant subject information into the page, called a 'Boxxet.' The tool will first be available by invitation only, opening to the general public by the end of April 2006."

Paul Pareti writes "Doug Reilly has published an affecting, personal piece about Surviving Cancer if you're a Programmer. You don't have to be a sufferer to benefit from reading it, especially his conclusions, including the perspective-lengthening advice: 'Make sure you are not indispensable!'"

Some financial news from the gaming industry today; NPD Analysts predict that game sales for February will be much lower than hoped-for, down eleven percent from last year. Take-Two Interactive, the publisher for studios Rockstar and Firaxis, posted a loss of $29.1 Million in their first quarter, which ended at the end of January. Not everything was doom and gloom. Newly linked Bioware/Pandemic did great in 2005, with more than 28 million games sold. From that 1up piece: "Neither company has laid out much of their plans for the next-generation consoles, though BioWare's brief showing of their planned Xbox 360 trilogy Mass Effect suggests the companies are poised to be just as ambitious on the coming consoles as ever before. "

Roland Piquepaille writes "Robots designed to help farmers have been built before, but this time, engineers from the University of Warwick have chosen to develop robots that will reduce farm labor costs. In recent months, they've built a robotic mushroom picker, an inflatable conveyor belt and a grass cutting robot that might also be used by golf course owners."

Thomas Hawk writes "Similicio.us is a brand new search engine that matches up the database of del.icio.us with the power of the search engine EasyUtil.com The result is a new blog finder tool that can help you discover new websites based upon what you currently like. Interesting to see a small time guy come up with a pretty cool tool like this while the major search players are spending millions trying to improve their own relevancy in blog search."

Gamasutra has responses to its weekly question of the week, this time looking at whether there will ever be an Oscars for games. The responses focused on some of the current crop of awards currently handed out, from the GDCA to Spike's debacle. From the article: "No one in the industry has taken the previous attempts at an award show seriously because they shows seem to offer up an award to the highest bidder and not the one most deserving. The only exception that I've seen come close to being a decent awards show is the Interactive Achievement Awards put on by AIAS. So how about we stop having rappers involved with the award shows based on the grounds that they like to play their Xbox? Or if we must have them involved, how about having Will Wright host the BET Awards Show? That makes about as much sense."

galactic grub writes "New Scientist's new Tech Blog has an article about a remarkable, if slightly creepy, tree-climbing robot being developed by robotics experts from Carnegie Mellon and several other US Universities. The article comes complete with a video clip of it going up several different surfaces."

Via a Cathode Tan post, a gloriously in-depth look at the technology behind the PS2 title Shadow of the Colossus. From that article: "In games such as DOOM3 on the PC, the model used for generating the shadow volume is almost equivalent to the character itself. But with SOTC, in order to speed this up, we made use of a simpler model with much fewer polygons in. The main character generally consists of 3,000 polygons, but the colossus can be around 18,000 polygons, depending on the type. But the model used for shadow generation will contain a substantially lower amount than this. For example, the simple model seen by the player will probably only use 1/40th of what the original model contained."