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Networking

Submission + - Time Warner Cable Wins State-Wide Cable Franchise (state.oh.us) 1

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Time Warner Cable has received the second state-wide franchise agreement, covering 260 communities, in 60 of Ohio's 88 counties, for 10 years. AT&T was the first to earn a state-wide franchise contract, after a law was passed in September that allowed operators to negotiate a single state-wide agreement. Normally operators negotiate franchise agreements at the local level.
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Goodbye from the STARTREK.COM Team 1

Submitted by Curlsman
Curlsman writes: Goodbye from the STARTREK.COM Team

Sadly, we must report that CBS Interactive organization is being restructured, and the production team that brings you the STARTREK.COM site has been eliminated. Effective immediately.
We don't know the ultimate fate of this site, which has served millions of Star Trek fans for the last thirteen years.

If you have comments, please send them to editor @ startrek.com — we hope someone at CBS will read them.

Thank you for your loyal fandom over the years. It has been a pleasure to serve you.

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/article/2316633.html

Is this site worth a write-in campaign?
KDE

Submission + - Original KDE3 vs. KDE4 Memory Comparison Debunked (jarzebski.pl)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The author of the original KDE 3.5 vs KDE 4.0 memory comparison, which indicated that KDE 4.0 used less memory than the KDE 3.5 series, has come out with a more accurate benchmark. In reality, KDE 4.0 uses 110 MB more memory than KDE 3.5.8. This was no surprise to many KDE developers, who saw many mistakes in the way the original results were obtained. However, given the new composite window manager, Plasma/Oxygen bling, and numerous new features, the extra memory consumption is probably well worth it!
Space

Submission + - Cold patch found in the cosmic background (arxivblog.com)

Submitted by
KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: "Astronomers have found a cold spot in the cosmic microwave background radiation. This patch is huge: in terms of angular size, it's several times bigger than moon. And it represents a significant puzzle because no current scenario for the origin of the universe can explain it. For the moment theorists are just struggling to understand its properties (abstract on the physics arxiv)."
Movies

Submission + - Harry Potter 5 Standard DVD Defective by Design

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Many people I know — and unsurprisingly, many people online — have already written that the quality of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix standard DVD is of such poor quality that a VHS tape is a superior version. Even older DVDs from earlier movies in the series stand up with higher quality than this release. Is this a ploy by Warner Bros. to push the HD versions of the film?
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA protests Oregon AG discovery request (blogspot.com) 2

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA is apparently having an allergic reaction to the request by the State Attorney General of Oregon for information about the RIAA's investigative tactics, in Arista v. Does 1-17, the Portland, Oregon, case targeting students at the University of Oregon. See The Oregonian, December 1, 2007 ("UO suspects music industry of spying") and p2pnet, November 29, 2007 ("RIAA may be spying on students: Oregon AG"). Not only are the record companies opposing the request (pdf), they're asking the Judge not to even read it. (pdf)"
Communications

Submission + - Why wireless in the U.S. isn't wide open

Submitted by Geoffery B
Geoffery B writes: Even as the wireless industry chants a new gospel about opening mobile phone networks to outside devices and applications, some of the biggest U.S. carriers are quietly blocking new services that would compete with their own. Would-be mobile-service providers, ranging from startups to major banks to eBay's PayPal have encountered these roadblocks, erected by the likes of AT&T and Verizon Wireless. In some cases, cellular carriers have backed down, but only after inflicting costly delays on the new services.
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Moore's Law, Deep Thought and 42 3

Submitted by
Stephen Gwyn
Stephen Gwyn writes: "So in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" it took the supercomputer "Deep Thought" 7.5 million years to come up with the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything right? The answer was 42 as we now know. But supposing the computational philosophers had been just a bit more clever. Suppose they actually wanted a run-time of 1 year instead of 7.5e6 years. Since, according to Moore's law, computational speed doubles every 18 months they should have just waited until computers were 7.5e6 times faster. 7.5e6 is roughly 2**23 (or 2^23,depending on your notation) so we have 23 times 18 months which is about 35 years. Add one year for the actual run time, and you have 36 years in all, which is much less than 7.5 million. Wait a little bit longer, and you can run it on your laptop as "iLife, the iUniverse and iEverything" application. Probably as a screen saver.

There is a paper written by some astronomers ("The Effects of Moore's Law and Slacking on Large Computations") which tells you exactly how long to wait to buy your computer when faced with a long runtime."
Censorship

Submission + - Best Buy threatens to sue for blog about uniforms. (improveverywhere.com)

Submitted by arrenlex
arrenlex writes: Improv Everywhere (http://improveverywhere.com/), a NY-based comedy group, was served a Cease & Desist notice by Best Boy for selling "improv everywhere" shirts modelled after the blue BB uniform. But that's not the interesting part. From the blog post: "Here's where the story gets interesting. Today, Best Buy sent a C&D to our friend Scott Beale over at laughingsquid.com threatening legal action unless he removes the blog post referencing our shirts! They're threatening to sue someone for just covering the news story of the shirts!" First rule of Best Buy: don't talk about Best Buy?
Space

Submission + - The Solar System Is Bent (cnn.com)

Submitted by RWarrior(fobw)
RWarrior(fobw) writes: CNN reports today that Voyager 2 has found that the solar system is asymmetrical.

I suppose it's only a matter of time now before the Voyager crafts prove that the whole fabric of the space time continnum is not merely curved, it is in fact totally bent.
Education

Submission + - MediaDefender leaked shows lower student P2P (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The MPAA and the RIAA ,known affectionately as the **AAs, have been targeting Universities in a fury claiming that college students are causing them huge losses. However, some leaked MediaDefender emails may show that may be a huge exaggeration. "To make a long story short, MediaDefender's data shows that the average percentage of EDU IP addresses found to be on the Gnutella network during the time they sampled the data is 1.76%."
Censorship

Submission + - Is ISP Web Content Filtering Here? 1

Submitted by
unixluv
unixluv writes: "An ISP is testing web content filtering and content substitution software, see http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000337.html. While it seems innocent enough, is this the wave of the future? Will your ISP censor your web experience? Now consider it in the context of The MPAA asking for ISP Content Filtering on /. this week. Is the RIAA next? Will this spawn a war of web tools to circumvent ISP tools?"
Transportation

Submission + - Electric Cars to Help Utilities Load Balance Grid

Submitted by
Reservoir Hill
Reservoir Hill writes: "A team at the University of Delaware has created a system that enables vehicles to not only run on electricity alone, but also to generate revenue by storing and providing electricity for utilities. The technology, known as V2G, for vehicle-to-grid, lets electricity flow from the car's battery to power lines and back. When the car is in the V2G setting, the battery's charge goes up or down depending on the needs of the grid operator, which sometimes must store surplus power and other times requires extra power to respond to surges in usage. The ability of the V2G car's battery to act like a sponge provides a solution for utilities, which pay millions to generating stations that help balance the grid. Willett Kempton, who began developing the technology more than a decade ago, estimates the value for utilities could be up to $4,000 a year for the service, part of which could be paid to drivers. A car sitting there with a tank of gasoline in it, that's useless," says Kempton. "If it's a battery storing a lot of electricity and a big plug that allows moving power back and forth quickly, then it's valuable.""

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