Comment Re:How stupid, and useless (Score 1) 177
For sansa you don't even need rockbox
Comment Re:chi b star (Score 1) 144
It's not pronounced chi, it's pronounced xi. The chi particle is a meson not a baryon, the xi particles are baryons.
Submission + - As airlines caving in to PETA, scientists are urged to take a stand (nature.com)
mapkinase writes: Fresh issue of Nature features two articles on recent development in the war of animal rights activists against human health.
It turned out that
Many airlines, including Lufthansa, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, already refuse to carry research primates...
under the pressure of PETA and other ilk (I am actually shocked that airlines caved without even a whimper in any major news source). Author of the first article proposes that scientists should take a stand against luddites:
Picture a crowd of scientists waving placards plastered with photographs of stroke victims and sufferers of Parkinson's disease. They are demonstrating outside the corporate headquarters of British Airways, Lufthansa and Delta, demanding that the airlines stop impeding the biomedical research that could deliver big advances against these and other diseases.
if scientists want continued access to animals as research models, they will have to appear on the front line with every bit as much visibility, determination, organization and persistence as animal-rights activists now muster.
We, scientists, are the force to be reckoned with and every scientist who still believes that human rights to the best health care supersede rights of the animals, imaginary or not, should take a stand, not only scientists actively involved in medical research on primates.
Submission + - Cisco To Buy NDS (digitalspy.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: Is Cisco doing the right thing? After Cisco terminating the employment of almost 13.000 employees several months ago, is now adding about 5000 more employees from NDS. I am wondering what will be the repecursions for NDS as well as for Cisco, as once again, Cisco is taken over a company in an industry that is already quite full of competitors and that has its own way of operating
Submission + - Bug in OpenBSD's random() function (banu.com)
An anonymous reader writes: random() is a C library function which can generate reproducible random number sequences. The folks at ISC have found a bug in OpenBSD's implementation of random() which causes it to generate a sequence of zeros. Such an exposition of the bug is made possible because it is free software. It seems that OpenBSD have fixed it within a day too!
Submission + - Australian Greens demand public access to cloak and dagger anti-piracy meetings (delimiter.com.au)
Fluffeh writes: "Continuing the recent stories on the secret, closed door, FOI blocked talks, the Australian Greens have filed a motion in the Senate requesting that the Government release documents regarding its closed door meetings on Internet piracy which the Attorney-General’s Department has blocked from being released under Freedom of Information laws. This morning, Greens Communications Spokesperson Scott Ludlam filed an order in the Senate that the Government disclose details of the most recent meeting. “The Government refuses to reveal almost any information about the attendees, the substance or the outcomes of the meeting,” he said in a separate statement. “A Freedom of Information request from a journalist looks like it’s been met with maximum resistance.”"
Submission + - Neutrino Flavor Change Mystery Solved? (discovery.com)
astroengine writes: "Another piece of the neutrino puzzle has fallen into place, thanks to new results announced last week by the Daya Bay collaboration in China. The experiment has only been up and running for a couple of months, but the international collaboration's latest measurement might explain how neutrinos change "flavors" — akin to a costume change — as they move through space."
Submission + - Lego Used to Make Artificial Bones (youtube.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists at Cambridge University have used Lego Mindstorms robots to create an artificial bone-like substance. Their research is featured in a video for the Google Science Fair.
Submission + - Swiss vote against book price control (tagesschau.sf.tv)
hinterwaeldler writes: "2007 switzerland abandoned book price control (which requires publishers to fix prices for their books and forbids any dealer to sell at another price), reducing prices by 30% to 50% for online buyers. The brick & mortar book stores lobbied the parliament into creating a bill to reinstate the price fixing, against which a referendum was taken by liberals and the pirate party, forcing a popular vote. On march 11, after an intense debate, swiss voters decided against book price control with a large majority of 56%."
Submission + - Facebook Faces Patent Infringement Cases Against It from Yah (directphoneshop.co.uk)
ryanhanry writes: "If Yahoo has its way, then Facebook may just see itself falling flat on the face. Well, in a serious development, Yahoo has gone ahead and filed patent infringement cases against Facebook citing violation of its copyright in over 10 of its patents."
Submission + - Framesniffing attack against SharePoint and Linkedin (contextis.co.uk) 1
stonedyak writes: Context Information Security has highlighted a weakness in Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari web browsers that enables remote attackers to steal sensitive information held on private Microsoft SharePoint sites, as well as mine data from other public websites such as LinkedIn. In these Framesniffing Attacks, a hidden HTML frame is used to load a target website inside the attacker's malicious webpage to read information about the content and structure of the framed pages. The attack bypasses browser security restrictions that are meant to prevent webpages directly reading the contents of 3rd party sites loaded in frames.
Submission + - Using graph theory to predict NCAA tournament outcomes (biophysengr.net)
SocratesJedi writes: "Like many technically-minded people, I don't have a lot of time to keep up with sports. Nevertheless, trying to predict the outcome of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is a fun activity to share with friends, family and colleagues. This year, I abandoned my usual strategy of quasi-randomly choosing teams and instead modeled the win-loss history of all Division I teams as a weighted network. The network included information from 5242 games played during the 2011-2012 season. From this, teams came be ranked using tools from graph theory and those rankings can be used to predict tournament outcomes. Without any a priori information, this method accurately identified all the #1 seeds in the top 5 best teams. It also predicts that at least one underdog, Belmont (#14 seed), will reach the Elite Eight. Although the ultimate test will be how well it predicts tournament outcomes, initial benchmarks suggest 70-80% accuracy would not be unreasonable."
Submission + - Indian Govt uses special powers to slash cancer drug price by 97% (indiatimes.com) 1
suraj.sun writes: In a landmark decision( http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Govt-uses-special-powers-to-slash-cancer-drug-price-by-97/articleshow/12240143.cms ) that could set a precedent on how life-saving drugs under patents can be made affordable, the government has allowed a domestic company, Natco Pharma, to manufacture a copycat version of Bayer's patented anti-cancer drug, Nexavar, bringing down its price by 97%.
In the first-ever case of compulsory licencing approval, the Indian Patent Office on Monday cleared the application of Hyderabad's Natco Pharma to sell generic drug Nexavar, used for renal and liver cancer, at Rs 8,880 (around $175) for a 120-capsule pack for a month's therapy. Bayer offers it for over Rs 2.8 lakh (roughly $5,500) per 120 capsule. The order provides hope for patients who cannot afford these drugs. The approval paves the way for the launch of Natco's drug in the market, a company official told TOI, adding that it will pay a 6% royalty on net sales every quarter to Bayer. The licence will be valid till such time the drug's patent is valid, i.e. 2020.
In the first-ever case of compulsory licencing approval, the Indian Patent Office on Monday cleared the application of Hyderabad's Natco Pharma to sell generic drug Nexavar, used for renal and liver cancer, at Rs 8,880 (around $175) for a 120-capsule pack for a month's therapy. Bayer offers it for over Rs 2.8 lakh (roughly $5,500) per 120 capsule. The order provides hope for patients who cannot afford these drugs. The approval paves the way for the launch of Natco's drug in the market, a company official told TOI, adding that it will pay a 6% royalty on net sales every quarter to Bayer. The licence will be valid till such time the drug's patent is valid, i.e. 2020.
Submission + - Why Microsoft Can Afford To Lose With Windows 8 (infoworld.com)
snydeq writes: "Windows 8 is an experiment that may well fail, but Microsoft will cull invaluable feedback for Windows 9 in the process, long before Windows 7 runs out of gas, writes InfoWorld's Serdar Yegulalp. 'Can Microsoft really afford to alienate one of its biggest market segments for a whole product cycle? In a word: Yes. In fact, doing something this risky might well be vital to Microsoft's survival,' Yegulalp writes. 'Microsoft needs to gamble, and right now might well be the best time for the company to do it. The company needs to learn from its mistakes as quickly and nimbly as they can — and then turn around and make Windows 9 exceed all of our expectations. Because if Microsoft doesn't ... well, then there might well be a Mac in my future after all.'"
Submission + - Adopt national protection code for consumers, Rogers urges CRTC (theglobeandmail.com) 1
silentbrad writes: Canada’s largest mobile service provider is urging the federal telecom regulator to implement a mandatory national consumer protection code in order to diffuse the threat posed by a growing hotchpotch of provincial regulations for wireless services. Rogers Communications Inc. submitted that proposal to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in an application late Thursday. In doing so, Rogers becomes the second major carrier to ask the CRTC to resume active regulation of the terms and conditions for wireless service contracts, a practice that it largely abandoned during the 1990s. Nonetheless, those regulatory powers, while latent, remain in the Telecommunications Act, meaning the CRTC can still exercise its authority over those matters.
