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Microsoft

Submission + - Now Is Not the Time for Vista

Submitted by narramissic
narramissic writes: With nearly a month of Vista availability behind us, businesses don't seem to be in any rush to take the leap. An article on ITworld cites two significant reasons for the foot-dragging. First, Microsoft's case-by-case approach to Vista patches, which is leaving some problems unpatched until after the consumer release in January. Second, application (in)compatibility. From the article:
Some of the applications that still aren't compatible with Vista include IBM Corp.'s Lotus Notes e-mail and collaboration suite; Cisco Systems Inc.'s and Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.'s VPN clients; Intuit Corp.'s accounting software QuickBooks 2006 and earlier versions; and anti-virus (AV) software from Trend Micro Inc.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Chaos and Your Everyday Traffic Jam

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: What causes these mysterious traffic jams that continually appear throughout the day for no reason whatsoever? Is it simply the fact that most people just don't have a clue how to drive? That's very possible, and in reality there are so many variables involved in something like a traffic jam. But is it possible that the entire traffic jam could be both the continuing and end result of a chain reaction set in motion by a single driver who was in too much of a hurry?
User Journal

Journal Journal: LINUX: Flash Player 9 (Really) 2

Journal by eno2001
So there I was trying to get my fix of crappy American television via www.abc.com. What's this new "Ugly Betty" show all about I wondered? I hit the site and I get a message saying that I need to update my Flash 9 player. So I click the link and where do I go? To the same old download that Adobe has had for Linux users for the past 20 years. Dead as a parrot from a Monty Python sketch, only deader. Bah. Well, luckily someone recently informed me of a beta release program for Adobe's upcom
OS X

Submission + - Automator and Bootcamp

Submitted by
segafreak
segafreak writes: "I use Boot camp on my macbook pro and frequently boot between different systems. However as reboot takes a few seconds, I often use this opportunity to get up for coffee or somehow use the time better than sitting and staring at a boot screen. In order to achieve this, I use the startup disk pane of the System Preferences to choose Windows boot (rather than having to hold the option key). However I must have done this a thousand times now — it makes sense to automate it into a script or automator workflow — one which would open the system preferences, choose startup disk, choose the windows volume, and then reboot. However, the System Preferences pane is not scriptable, so I cannot use AppleScript for this. Is there some way to automate this action?"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Patents Air

Submitted by
CastleMonkey
CastleMonkey writes: "Okay not really, but just as ubsurd, Dave Winer must have a script to check the patent office for the word RSS. Several other sites are pointing to this patent application where MS is trying to obtain control of RSS. A serious revamping needs to happen of the entire process and idea of patenting. I dont have any really good ideas, but like most people Im pretty good at complaining and doing nothing."
Wii

Submission + - Wii Woes

Submitted by John Fletcher
John Fletcher writes: The Independent reports of some weird problem and mishap (Wiinjuries) with Wii: 1. If you play one near a lighted Christmas tree, you may need to switch the lights off or you might find it behaving very strangely. Nitendo said: "For the best performance of your Wii, avoid bright light sources behind or near the TV, shining towards the Wii remote or reflecting off the TV screen." 2. Nintendo offered to take back the 200,000 wrist straps in circulation after dozens of reported 'wiinjuries' when owners lost control of the wiimote causing bruised heads, blackeyes and even damaged TV.
Communications

Submission + - FCC kills build-out requirements for telecoms

Submitted by Frankencelery
Frankencelery writes: In a 3-2 partisan vote, the FCC has altered cable franchising laws in the U.S. to the advantage of AT&T and Verizon. 'The FCC order imposes a 90-day limit on local communities' franchising decisions, but, more importantly, does away with build-out requirements. Those requirements generally insist that companies offer service to all the residents in the town, rather than cherry-picking the profitable areas.' Good news for the telecoms, but bad for cities who want a say in the fiber deployments.
Biotech

Submission + - Humans not as similar to chimps as was believed

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Scientific American reports on research that found we humans are a good deal more genetically different from chimpanzees that we'd been lead to believe. The much quoted 1.5% difference between chimps and humans is more like 6%, which makes chimps slightly less closely related than we thought they were.
Power

Submission + - The Auto Efficiency Wedge

Submitted by
Prof. Goose
Prof. Goose writes: "In this piece, I wanted to take up a more precise consideration of how much auto efficiency improvements might contribute to solving what I called the terrible trio of energy dependence on unstable regimes, global warming, and the peaking or plateauing of liquid fuel supply. My examples are all US, but I think the lessons mostly carry over (if a little less urgently) to other developed countries.

I'll be reasoning mainly by looking at what we did in the 1970s, which was the last time we faced severe energy constraints that bled through into requiring a demand side response.

To begin with, let's refresh our memories about the history of oil prices, which tells the story of the oil shocks quite well.

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/12/17/1377/01 32"
The Internet

Submission + - Classic Rock Stars: Crazy, Stupid or just Greedy?

Submitted by Bob Cat - NYMPHS
Bob Cat - NYMPHS writes: Love 60's music? You can listen to streamed concerts at Wolfgang's Vault — at least until the courts shut it down. Concert promoter Bill Graham recorded the Doors, the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, CSN, &c, and stored it all away along with posters, shirts, tickets, handbills. The current owner of the trove is selling it off — how about buying an original unused ticket to Woodstock for your mom? A t-shirt from Woz's US Festival for yourself? You might think some of those bands would want to be paid for the streamed music, but no, they want a cut of the memorabilia sales. "Said Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek to The Times: "If people are buying something because it says the Doors on it then, you know, you should give the Doors some of the money. Look, I need to pay my electric bill. I play an electric keyboard."
Christmas Cheer

Evidence That Good Moods Prevent Colds 200

Posted by kdawson from the don't-worry-be-happy dept.
duguk writes in with another reason to keep happy over Christmas. A new scientific study suggests that people who frequently experience positive emotions are less likely to catch colds. Psychologist Sheldon Cohen and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University interviewed 193 healthy adults daily for two weeks and recorded the positive and negative emotions they had experienced each day. The researchers then exposed the volunteers to a cold or a flu virus. Those with "generally positive outlooks" reported fewer cold symptoms. From the article: "'We need to take more seriously the possibility that a positive emotional style is a major player in disease risk,' Cohen says... Although a positive emotional style bore no relation to whether participants became infected, it protected against the emergence of cold symptoms. For instance, among people infected by the influenza virus... 28 percent who often reported positive emotions developed coughs, congestion, and other cold symptoms, as compared with... 41 percent who rarely reported positive emotions."
Space

Submission + - NASA Sees Glow of Universe's First Objects

Submitted by Damek
Damek writes: New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope may show the universe's first objects.
"We are pushing our telescopes to the limit and are tantalizingly close to getting a clear picture of the very first collections of objects," said Dr. Alexander Kashlinsky... "Whatever these objects are, they are intrinsically incredibly bright and very different from anything in existence today." Astronomers believe the objects are either the first stars — humongous stars more than 1,000 times the mass of our sun — or voracious black holes that are consuming gas and spilling out tons of energy. If the objects are stars, then the observed clusters might be the first mini-galaxies...
Space

Submission + - The Beginning of the Universe in a Picture

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Yesterday, I found a Space.com article on what may be images of the universe's first objects. From the article, "The light comes from objects that are more than 13 billion light-years away. That means the light began its journey more than 13 billion years ago. The universe is just a smidgeon older, at 13.7 billion years, and astronomers are pretty sure it took a few hundred million years for the matter of the Big Bang to spread out enough, and cool, to allow the first stars to form. A little math therefore shows that these newfound objects are indeed the infants of the universe. But what are they? If they are stars, they are about 10 times more massive than theories suggest the first stars would have been." I didn't think much of this when I read it but there has been a lot of talk about it with some people even calling it "the holy grail" of astrophysicists."

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