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Space

Submission + - Wow! Its been 30 years.... (wikipedia.org) 1

Submitted by
Richard_at_work
Richard_at_work writes: "Thirty years ago today, the Big Ear radio telescope recorded a 72 second long signal that perfectly matched the expected signature of a signal that was not of local origin. This became known world wide as the 'Wow!' signal after the comment its discoverer, Dr. Jerry R. Ehman of SETI, scribbled in the margin of the print out, and while it has never been detected since, it has fueled arguments on both sides as to the existence of extraterrestrial life ever since."
Censorship

Submission + - How Far Can Confrence Attendies Go? 1

Submitted by bmore
bmore writes: Dave Winer is known for being outspoken, but some think he has recently taken it too far. The first incident occurred publicly at Gnomedex when Winer openly heckled Jason Calicanis during a presentation about Mahalo. Wired reports that this feud led to Winer's resignation form the TechCrunch20 conference. Winer's second recent feud happened when he turned the name of a student that heckled him into a domain name. In light of Winer's recent actions I think it is time to ask how far conference attendees in general can go. It also brings the idea that participants should be able to question speakers back to the forefront.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Going green now helps save companies money sooner (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Going green now is more cost effective than waiting for the next great discovery. That seems to be the point of two news items this week. The first, an item from the Philadelphia Inquirer, notes that PNC Bank, the nation's 20th largest bank, has opened 43 environmentally friendly, or "green," branches since 2002 with many more on the way. PNC officials would not say how much they spend on green branches, but said it had spent $100,000 less than an unspecified competitor spends on conventional branches.Meanwhile a data center energy meeting in Boston this week attended by a variety of large users and vendors such as IBM, EMC, AMD and HP said data center designers and operators often fail to take advantage of existing technology and design principles that could greatly reduce power consumption. The average data center probably uses three times more air conditioning and cooling than is needed. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18444"
Music

Submission + - Allofmp3.com owner acquitted (cnn.com)

Submitted by
192939495969798999
192939495969798999 writes: "CNN reports that Denis Kvasov was acquitted of copyright infringement, prosecuted on pressure from EMI Group Plc, NBC Universal and Time Warner Inc. From the article: "The prosecution did not succeed in presenting persuasive evidence of his involvement in infringing copyright law". Is this a lucky break or another sign of the traditional distribution model collapsing permanently?"
Supercomputing

Submission + - Quantum Computing & Optically Controlled Elect (physorg.com)

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "A new paper on quantum computing about using optically controlled electrons to make an ultrfast quantum computer. From the article, "Scientists have designed a scheme to create one of the fastest quantum computers to date using light pulses to rotate electron spins, which serve as quantum bits. This technique improves the overall clock rate of the quantum computer, which could lead to the fastest potentially scalable quantum computing scheme of which the scientists are aware.""
Editorial

Submission + - Lift Off: 50 Years of Hovercrafts (wired.com)

Submitted by ntmokey
ntmokey writes: While the flying car has seemingly lingered just out of grasp since the 1950's, its more-feasible brethren the hovercraft has been floating, skipping and vrooming around on all surfaces for the better half of a century. Wired has a look at the progress hovercraft have made over the last 50 years and some of the most promising new commercial models. If you're still dead set on a car that will let you buzz over other commuters on the way to work as you look down from 10,000 feet, well, they're on the way too.
Businesses

Submission + - Citrix to buy XenSource, raises OSS valuations (cnet.com) 1

Submitted by
mjasay
mjasay writes: "Citrix just agreed to buy XenSource for $500 million, showcasing just how hot virtualization and open source are. One significant data point that most people are missing is just how significant the valuation is: roughly 500 times 12-month trailing revenues. This is a shockingly big valuation, one that bodes well for other open-source companies, even those that can't trade off the virtualization hype. It's also a sign that under-investment in innovation by proprietary software vendors is due to bite these vendors in the rear-end."
Unix

Submission + - Novell Won't Pursue Unix Copyrights (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
calcutta001
calcutta001 writes: ""We're not interested in suing people over Unix," Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry said. "We're not even in the Unix business anymore."

A judge Friday upheld Novell's claims to Unix copyrights that SCO said it owned. Those copyrights were the basis for SCO's highly controversial and ongoing Linux patent-infringement suit against IBM Corp.

Lowry said the ruling means "the cloud has lifted over Linux." Users and distributors of the open-source OS finally can breathe a sigh of relief that they are not in violation of Unix copyrights."
Space

Submission + - Mars Phoenix Spacecraft Corrects Course (space.com)

Submitted by
Raver32
Raver32 writes: "NASA's Mars-bound Phoenix lander completed its first and biggest course correction planned during the spacecraft's journey. The second of the remaining five planned adjustments prior to landing is scheduled for mid-October. "These first two together take out the bias intentionally put in at launch," said Brian Portock, Phoenix navigation team chief at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Phoenix blasted off Earth aboard a Delta 2 rocket on Aug. 4 and now careens through space at 74,200 mph (33,180 meters per second)-a speed necessary to cover the 422 millions miles (679 million kilometers) between Earth and Mars by May 25, 2008."
Software

Submission + - Locating an earthquake in 5 minutes

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "When a powerful earthquake hit Indonesia's West Java on August 8, 2007, it took exactly 4 minutes and 38 seconds to be detected, located and sized by the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) currently under construction in Indonesia. Even more remarkable, the location of the earthquake was found after only 2 minutes and 11 seconds. 'For comparison, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Hawaii published the location and magnitude of this earthquake after about 17 minutes.' This very fast analysis was made possible by a combination of hardware and software developed in Germany. As said one German scientist who is leading the project, 'By the end of 2008 Indonesia will possess the most modern seismological network for tsunami early warning in the world.' Read more for additional references and an illustration showing the various GITEWS wireless components."
Microsoft

Cross-Platform Microsoft 348

Posted by kdawson from the good-tools-is-good-tools dept.
willdavid sends us to the ZDNet blogs for a provocative opinion piece by John Carroll. He points to Microsoft's evident cross-platform strategy with Silverlight, and wonders whether the company couldn't make money — and win friends — by extending its excellent development ecosystem cross-platorm. "Microsoft, apparently, is helping the folks at Mono to port Silverlight to Linux. This is good news, as the primary fear I've heard from developers is that Silverlight will be locked to Microsoft platforms and products. Microsoft has already committed to supporting Silverlight cross-browser on Windows, and has a version that runs on Mac OS X (which is even available from the Apple web site). The last step is Linux, and Microsoft is working with Novell and Mono to make this happen."
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Dispelling doubt over municipal wi-fi (mu-fi) (chron.com)

Submitted by
Christopher Blanc
Christopher Blanc writes: "BusinessWeek joins the list of major publications taking note of growing problems with buildouts around the nation of municipal Wi-Fi. What's happening is that, even if cities build wireless networks, users don't necessarily sign up to use them. Is having a reliable, ubiquitous and robust Internet access worth what must be paid?

Houston, of course, is in the process of starting to build its own citywide network, with EarthLink as the operator. I'm still bullish on the good instant Net access can bring to a community. For me, the growing pains are just that. They'll pass, and they're worth it.

http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2007/08/g rowing_doubt_over_municipal_wifi.html"

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