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Submission + - Oregon man flies lawn chair 193 miles at 13,000 ft (newscloud.com)

Submitted by

Jeff

on Tuesday July 10, 2007 @02:22AM

Jeff writes: "Kent Couch, an Oregon cluster balloonist has flown a lawn chair above Oregon at an altitude of 13,000 feet using helium balloons. The AP reports he received rope burns trying to hang on during a bout of turbulence having forgotten to buckle his seat belt.

Couch, 47, is the latest American to emulate Larry Walters — who in 1982 rose three miles above Los Angeles in a lawn chair lifted by balloons. Walters surprised an airline pilot, who radioed the control tower that he had just passed a guy in a lawn chair with a gun.
Snopes confirms the Walter flight but has no entry yet for Couch."

Submission + - An American iPhone in London

Submitted by Stuart Stiegler on Monday July 09, 2007 @02:41PM

Stuart Stiegler writes: One Apple iPhone made the journey across the Atlantic and has taken to wandering the streets of London. "Marvel as the iPhone eats chicken, fights its way through the London Tube, does its laundry and goes shopping. Delight as the iPhone goes to the cinema and narrowly avoids muggings."

Submission + - Sprint cancels PCS wireless of over 200 soldiers (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Newer Guy on Monday July 09, 2007 @02:30PM

Newer Guy writes: Sprint has cancelled the PCS service of over 200 military members for "excessive roaming". This is on the heels of last week's news about Sprint where they were cancelling PCS service for "excessive complaining" to Customer Service. Time to cancel my Sprint PCS I guess!

Submission + - Apple announces 1 million Safari for Windows downl (macscoop.com)

Submitted by

Alexandros Roussos

on Thursday June 14, 2007 @05:16PM

Alexandros Roussos writes: "Apple announced today through a press release that downloads of Safari for Windows which was released on Monday have already reached the first million. In only 48 hours, Apple's web browser has probably gained considerable market share in a market dominated by Internet Explorer for over a decade and already quite successfully challenged by Mozilla's FireFox during the last four years."

Submission + - Why Do People Write Free Software Documentation? (onlamp.com)

Submitted by blackbearnh on Thursday June 14, 2007 @04:53PM

blackbearnh writes: Creating good documentation for Free/Open Source projects is one of the most thankless jobs around. If you do it well, no one notices, and if you do a bad job, everyone complains. O'Reilly's Andy Oram set out to discover what drives people to contribute documentation, and 354 survey responses later, he has some data and analysis.

Submission + - Toshiba's HD DVD Player Sales Spin Game

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @04:37PM

An anonymous reader writes: In a sign that high-def disc adoption rates are not quite as strong as recent reports may have suggested, in the same week that Toshiba has issued not just one, but *two* press releases crowing about strong HD DVD player sales, the manufacturer has separately announced that that it is reducing its HD DVD player sales projectionsby 44% for the 2007 fiscal year. Things that make you go hmmm...

Submission + - NC man fined for using vegetable oil as fuel (newsobserver.com)

Submitted by

mdsolar

on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @04:33PM

mdsolar writes: "The News and Observer reports on an Charlotte, NC driver who has been fined $1000 for not paying a fuel tax when he fills his tank with vegetable oil. Perhaps the funniest quote is this one:

"With the high cost of fuel right now, the department does recognize that a lot of people are looking for relief," said Reggie Little, assistant director of the motor fuel taxes division. "We're not here to hurt the small guy, we're just trying to make sure that the playing field is level."
since the field is so plainly tilted against Arab oil interests."

Submission + - A nanotechnology-powered electric SUV

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @04:24PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "If you live in California, you'll be able to buy an electric SUV by the end of the year. The Reno Gazette-Journal reports that this electric SUV will be using NanoSafe rechargeable, nano titanate batteries developed by Altairnano. The future SUVs will have an autonomy of more than 100 miles per charge at a factory set top speed of 95 mph. And by stopping at future Pacific Gas & Electric's "rapid charge stations," it will take less than 10 minutes to recharge these batteries. Phoenix Motorcars, which will assemble these all-electric vehicles, has focused on fleet use for 2007 and plans to deliver 500 vehicles for 2007 and 6,000 vehicles for 2008. Read more for additional details about this environmental friendly SUV."

Submission + - Build a Bang-for-the Buck PC (extremetech.com)

Submitted by

mikemuch

on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @03:41PM

mikemuch writes: "ExtremeTech has updated its bang-for-the-buck DIY PC configuration. Every part save the mouse is a new choice. At $1866, this one costs a bit less than last year's, yet outperforms that one significantly, getting 8121 3DMarks and delivering 184 FPS in Half-Life 2 benchmarks."

Submission + - Mutant Chernobyl fungi consume radiation

Submitted by

dmitriy

on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @03:37PM

dmitriy writes: "Sounds like a joke, but it is not. There is an article on PLoS ONE describing microorganisms metabolizing radiation using melanin."

Verizon Accused of Slighting Copper Infrastructure 249

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday June 12, 2007 @02:58PM from the don't-have-to-share-the-fiber dept.

High Fibre writes "Regulatory hearings in Virginia raise questions about Verizon's stewardship of its copper infrastructure, with workers accusing the telecom of cheaping out on maintenance in Virginia due to its preoccupation with its FiOS network. Ars covers the fracas and gives more time to Verizon than the local media do. From Ars: 'During testimony given before the Virginia State Corporation Commission last week... workers painted a dire picture of the state of Verizon's copper network, saying that the equipment required to make repairs — including tools and cable — is not even available.' Verizon disagrees, saying that while it's a challenge to manage and maintain both networks, they are not neglecting their copper infrastructure." A union official gave written testimony about the Verizon problems, presumably so that individual workers would not have to testify in public and open themselves to retribution.

Submission + - Phone Patent Battle Hurts Millions of Consumers (pcmag.com)

Submitted by

CorinneI

on Friday June 08, 2007 @03:04PM

CorinneI writes: "The patent battle, brewing since May 2005 when Broadcom Corp. filed suit against Qualcomm for infringing upon 10 Broadcom patents related to wired and wireless communications, has resulted in a International Trade Commission's decision to ban the import of new models of cell phones containing Qualcomm 3G broadband chipsets. This strikes a serious blow to consumers hoping to buy any one of Verizon's and Sprint's high-speed models and many AT&T phones. Collateral damage from this legal dirty bomb will hit Motorola, Samsung, LG, and HTC, all of whom use some Qualcomm components."

Submission + - Google DDoS'ed?

Submitted by

Dr.BackTrack

on Friday June 08, 2007 @02:58PM

Dr.BackTrack writes: "Today, Google was offline for an Entire hour. The buzz quickly spread across IRC and Forums. Now Google have recovered from the Unexpected outage. The Rumour is that there was a DDoS on the Google Server. This has not been confirmed but expect news soon from Google or somewhere else."

Submission + - Server not found (cnn.com)

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Friday June 08, 2007 @02:51PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "The CNN site has dropped from the internet since about 2:45 ET."

Submission + - Tech Industry Hates Foreign Visa Fees (dailytech.com)

Submitted by maeveth on Friday June 08, 2007 @02:15PM

maeveth writes: It's no secret that the US tech industry draws on a lot of foreign workers to help it along. The number of H1-B visas is capped at 65,000, with some provisions for foreign graduate degrees and meeting quotas. In May, Congress jacked the fees for these visas by five times — from an already rather steep $1000 to a whopping $5000 per visa. The proceeds are to go to US educational programs, presumably in an effort to keep these jobs at home. A number of companies — Indian outsourcing firms, Microsoft, Google, et cetera — make their case to loosen these restrictions.

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