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Education

Submission + - Study: firstborns have higher IQ than siblings (nytimes.com)

Submitted by ghastlygray
ghastlygray writes: The New York Times reports an extensive study which shows firstborns tend to have higher IQ than their siblings. The interesting point is that there's strong evidence this has nothing to do with biology, but rather with social conditioning and family dynamics: the researchers discovered that when the eldest child dies at infancy, the second child gets the high IQ. The article cites several competing explanations for this phenomenon.
Graphics

Submission + - History of Photoshop: The Mac's First Killer App

Submitted by Gammu
Gammu writes: For the past fifteen plus years, Photoshop has turned into the killer app for graphics designers on the Mac. It was originally written as a support app for a grad student's thesis and struggled to find wide commercial release. Eventually, Adobe licensed the app and has sold millions of copies. Read about its early history at SiliconUser.
Math

Submission + - Busting the MythBusters' Yawn Experiment

Submitted by
markmcb
markmcb writes: "Most everyone knows and loves the MythBusters, two guys who attempt to set the story straight on so many things people just take for granted. Well, everyone except Brandon Hansen, who has offered them a taste of their own medicine as he busts the MythBusters' improper use of statistics in their experiment to show yawning is contagious. While the article maintains it is still possible yawns are contagious, the author makes it clear that he's not giving the MythBusters any credit for proving such a claim, 'not with a correlation coefficient of .045835.'"
The Matrix

Submission + - How the Internet is currently distributed

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A study has been published by IPligence.com on how the Internet is distributed across the entire world. The study reveals the differences between the most and least developed countries and compares the human populated world with the eye invisible Internet super structure giving a fantastic overview.
The Courts

Submission + - The Best and Worst Intenet Laws

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "When a U.S. legislator describes the Internet as a "series of tubes" you just know that you're going to end up with some wacky laws on the books. Law professor Eric Goldman takes a look at the best and worst Internet laws in the U.S. Eric offers an analysis of the biggies such as the DMCA, but also shines a light on lesser known laws like the Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002."
Television

Submission + - Bjork sponsors a music video contest

Submitted by STFS
STFS writes: A number of news sites have picked up on singer Björk's idea of having an open contest for making a music video to one of her latest songs titled Innocence.

The official contest page has more information about the contest along with some material (the song itself, the lyrics and some visual goodies) to get the ball rolling.

This may be the ultimate opportunity for those artistically inclined Slashdot readers to take a stab at world fame.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Wifi Health Danger

Submitted by
Zaffle
Zaffle writes: "Britain and New Zealand's top health-protection watchdog wants the wireless networks, which emits radiation, to be full investigated because of the concern for students' health. Several European provincial governments have already taken action to ban, or limit, Wi-Fi use in the classroom.

Recent research has linked radiation from mobiles to cancer and brain damage. And many studies have found disturbing symptoms in people near masts.

Professor Olle Johansson, of Sweden's Karolinska Institute, who is concerned about the spread of Wi-Fi, says "thousands" of articles in scientific literature demonstrate "adverse health effects" from Wi-Fi.

"Do we not know enough already to say, 'stop'?"

For the past 16 months, the provincial government of Salzburg in Austria has been advising schools not to install Wi-Fi, and is considering a ban."
Quickies

Submission + - Fruity cocktails may count as health food...

Submitted by
Ant
Ant writes: "Reuters report that A fruity cocktail may not only be fun to drink but may count as health food according to United States/U.S. and Thai researchers. Adding ethanol — the type of alcohol found in rum, vodka, tequila and other spirits — boosted the antioxidant nutrients in strawberries and blackberries, the researchers found. Any colored fruit might be made even more healthful with the addition of a splash of alcohol, they report in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. Seen on Blue's News."
The Internet

Submission + - Free fashion advice for geeks

Submitted by
Sanity
Sanity writes: "Wondering whether that T-shirt you got at DEFCON, and those jeans you have worn since high school are as flattering as they could be? Pocket Fashionista allows you to upload a photo of yourself and get friendly but honest feedback from fashion-minded experts. The site is simple, easy to use, and implemented in Ruby on Rails, so its definitely buzzword-compliant. Could this be the turning point for geek-fashion?"
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Escort agency launches virgin service for geeks

Submitted by 6Yankee
6Yankee writes: A Dutch escort agency is offering a "virgin service" — and most of the customers work in IT. Says boss Zoe Vialet: "They are very sweet but are afraid of seeking contact with other people. They mean it very well but are very scared." In what might be considered a very cunning move, the three-hour-minimum appointment includes — a bath.
Power

Submission + - Storing hydrogen into organic molecules

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "While it is possible to store hydrogen in metal containers to use as fuel in hydrogen-powered vehicles, it is not today a cost-effective solution. But now, researchers at the University of California at Riverside (UCR) have identified organic molecules that mimic metals. They've used carbenes, molecules which contain a carbon atom with only six electrons, to demonstrate that these organic molecules could be used for storing hydrogen. Read more for additional references and a picture of such a very special molecule."
Communications

Submission + - Robust Surface Navigation could replace GPS

Submitted by
GadgetMike
GadgetMike writes: "The Global Positioning System is the only navigation system operational at the time speaking and the world depends on it. The event of something happening to the system could really cause chaos. That's why the United States are trying to develop some alternative technologies which should be unable to fulfill the GPS's tasks in case the last one is unusable. One of them is called the RSN (Robust Surface Navigation) project, developed by the joint forces of some major companies under the lead of the giant Boeing. Link: http://www.gadgetroad.com/design/robust-surface-na vigation-could-be-an-alternative-to-gps/2007/04/20 /"

Feed High school students laser-enable the disabled (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Wearables


The students on the Palo Alto High School InvenTeam arrived at the Stanford Cool Products Expo this year with a new system designed to allow quadriplegics to operate all kinds of gadgets and appliances. The user shakes his head to activate a glasses-mounted laser, which he can then point at sensors embedded in an array of custom triggers placed around the home. So far the team's nailed the basic on/off circuit needed for lights, fans, and a pet food dispenser (which is currently shelling out M&M's to Expo attendees), but the real noise is their plan to extend the system by building a small robot that will perform various tasks. According to the school, team captain Guy Davidson was only kidding a little when he said the team hoped "to have [the user] vacuuming in a few weeks." While this isn't the first time we've seen lasers used to assist the disabled, you gotta wonder what's going to happen to their altruisitic spirit when these kids realize they can also just headmount one of those crazy high-powered laser pointers.

Read - CNET Cool Products Expo video (second item)
Read - Palo Alto High School press release (6MB PDF)

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Patents

Submission + - IBM patents dynamic web pages

Submitted by bluehat
bluehat writes: From the patent 7,058,671: A method and system for delivering dynamic web pages in the INTERNET. Compiled programs embedding static queries to a database are stored on a server computer; view templates with HTML tags defining the layout of corresponding dynamic web pages and data tags instructing where and how to include each record of the query result into the respective dynamic web page are further stored on the server computer. When a dynamic web page must be distributed, the corresponding program is run, and the query result is stored into a shared memory structure. The query result is combined with the corresponding view template, by replacing the data tags with the associated records in the shared memory structure. The resulting web page is then distributed to client computers of the network.

Better start converting all your websites back to static page content. Seriously, folks this is not funny.
Privacy

Submission + - Clean slate Internet projects mean end to privacy?

Submitted by srijon
srijon writes: this article by Steve Watson observes that recently discussed clean slate Internet projects pay scant regard to privacy. From the article:

In tandem with broad data retention legislation currently being introduced worldwide, such "clean slate" projects may represent a considerable threat to the freedom of the internet as we know it. EU directives and US proposals for data retention may mean that any normal website or blog would have to fall into line with such new rules and suddenly total web regulation would become a reality.
Though the article lacks any "smoking gun", it provides a good summary of existing efforts to clamp down on the net. Certainly Standford's clean slate white paper is alarming because it pays scant regard to privacy, stating only that the new internet should "support anonymity where prudent, and accountability where necessary."

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Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky

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