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Businesses

Submission + - Where are the science shortages?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: With Bill Gates talking about the shortages in people to fill positions in science and technology, I was wondering where the shortages really are in science? Are there really any science positions out there in high demand? It seems like a lot of the visa worker issues revolve around IT, but is there an impact in science or engineering?
Windows

Submission + - Command line list in Windows Vista

Submitted by
JamesVista
JamesVista writes: "Windows Vista is seen as a vast improvement graphically, over Windows XP, however for administrators and other power users, the command line will sill be open every half an hour to get to the core of the operating system when the mouse is lost in favor of the keyboard. Hundreds of programs can be spawned from the command line as well with additional switches to give you a much more powerful control over the GUI. The command line may not be Linux but it is still powerful enough not to forget about and sometimes finding those commands can require some serious searching! This list of commands explains it all in terms of commands easily found as well as those tucked away, plus commands to get straight into settings and less known GUI applications contained within the vista operating system."
Yahoo!

Submission + - Porn ads in Yahoo

Submitted by
johnsamuel
johnsamuel writes: "http://infomuncher.blogspot.com/2007/03/porn-ads-i n-yahoo.html Couple of days ago I saw porn ads at Yahoomail. I wondered what will happen to the porn ads displayed in Yahoo? When I Google searched, I came across this page on news.com A short excerpt from the news: Web giant Yahoo said it will pull adult-related entertainment products and banner advertisements from its site in response to concerns raised by its customers, article by Jim Hu. Over the next few weeks, Yahoo will pull all pornography-related products from the shopping, auction and classified areas of its site. In addition, the company will stop selling ad banner space to sellers of pornography. What surprised me was the date it was published was April 13, 2001. Now it is March 8th 2007, and yahoo still doesn't stop serving porn ads. Many users around the world have raised objection towards this."
Google

Submission + - Speculation: Signs of a GoogleTalk client coming?

Submitted by roscoetoon
roscoetoon writes: From Garett Rogers Blog:http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=499

There is another brand new entry into Google's robots.txt file — it's difficult to know why it's there, but I'll give it a shot. The new entry disallows robots from crawling the "/cricket" directory. But what is "cricket"?

Cricket is the codename for Google Talk according to several sources — including Andrew Girdwood, someone who seems to have contacts inside (or at least who have left) Google. The question is, why would they need to create this entry in the robots file?

I'll give it a shot, but I warn you this is purely speculation and shouldn't be taken for anything other than that. Maybe they are creating an embeddable Google Talk client for your website — direct access to you if you are online. I would assume you would need to be logged into your Google Account and on the person's contact list in order to communicate — or maybe that would be optional?

Do you have any other ideas why they would add this to their robots.txt file?

Or, more likely, it could simply be for a "cricket" gadget.
Graphics

Microsoft Move to be the End of JPEG? 447

Posted by CowboyNeal from the just-a-little-bit-better dept.
jcatcw writes "Microsoft Corp. will submit a new photo format to an international standards organization. The format, HD Photo (formerly known as Windows Media Photo), can accommodate lossless and lossy compression. Microsoft claims that adjustments can be made to color balance and exposure settings that won't discard or truncate data that occurs with other bit-map formats."
Biotech

Submission + - Type of stem cell found to reside in transplanted

Submitted by
stemceller
stemceller writes: "Type of stem cell found to reside in transplanted lungs from PhysOrg.com
A new study involving a type of stem cells from the lungs of transplant patients demonstrates for the first time that these progenitor cells reside in adult organs and are not derived from bone marrow, which leads to the possibility that the cells may be able to help with the rejection of donated organs and with various kinds of lung disease. [...]"
Censorship

Submission + - The fragile balance

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The mobile strategist Eduardo Cruz has posted an interesting article on his blog about the recent attacks to the net neutrality and they key role mobile operators play in a near future as they take over the figure of main Internet Service Providers. The article defends the basic foundations and principles of the "people's network" we know and calls for immediate action from the key leaders in the mobile industry. Read here.
Space

Orbital Express Launches Tonight 137

Posted by CowboyNeal from the packed-its-bags-last-night dept.
airshowfan writes "When a geosynchronous satellite is launched into space, no human ever gets to touch it again. This means that, other than for minor software issues, there is no way to fix it if it breaks, so it has to work perfectly, almost autonomously, for 20 years non-stop. There is also no way to refuel it once it's out of thruster fuel, the reason why it can't last more than 20 years even if it gets to that mark working very well, with batteries and solar cells still going, which is often the case. If only there were a robotic spacecraft in geostationary orbit that could change broken satellite components and refuel those older satellites, then satellites would be a lot less risky and would last a lot longer. Does this robotic spacecraft mechanic sound like science fiction? It launches tonight."
Businesses

Submission + - Are email disclaimers legally binding?

Submitted by
Bifurcati
Bifurcati writes: "Half the emails I receive have email disclaimers at the end, warning me of the dire consequences that would follow if I am the unwitting recipient of juicy details which I then divulge, or perhaps even read. IANAL, and I know most of /. aren't either, but I'm interested in knowing the legal status of such disclaimers. Slate says they're mostly useless, except perhaps for trade secrets. Surely, though, if a Coca Cola exec emails me their recipe by mistake, they have no legal protection? (Their "reasonable steps" at security are no more?) What if I discovered my friend's spouse was having an affair — would I be prohibited from informing my friend? Aside from secrets, what else can they protect against?"
Data Storage

Submission + - Samsung Starts Shipping Hybrid Hard Drives

Submitted by
RX8
RX8 writes: "Samsung started shipping their new 2.5 inch hard drives today that feature 80, 120 and 160GB capacities with either 128 or 256 MB of onboard OneNAND Flash cache and Microsoft's ReadyDrive software. Samsung is claiming that these new hybrid drives will speed up boot times by as much as 50% and use up to 90% less power."
Communications

Submission + - Vonage guilty in Verizon VOIP patent case

Submitted by 0110011001110101
0110011001110101 writes: A jury ordered Internet phone provider Vonage Holdings Corp. to pay $58 million for infringing on three patents owned by Verizon Communications Inc. Thursday.

The eight-member federal jury also said Vonage must pay a 5.5 percent royalty rate on Vonage sales going forward.

After a day of deliberations, jurors concluded that Vonage infringed on two patents covering technology to connect Internet calls to the traditional phone system and for features such as call-waiting and voice-mail. The jury said Vonage also infringed on a third patent involving wireless Internet phone calls.
Google

Submission + - Google Docs and Copyrights

Submitted by
Jim_Austin
Jim_Austin writes: "Hi folks I've been considering using Google Docs for an editorial effort I'm involved in (not-for-profit but professional) and our preliminary experiences are encouraging. But I'm quite troubled by the terms of use. In particular:

By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services.
That's not so good, but, since I'm not making anything public maybe I'm okay. However, my publication is international and one of my editors is in Spain. The version of the terms of service she sees (from Spain) does not include the phrase "which are intended to be available to the members of the public." Here's a link to that page: http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en-GB/terms. html And here's the language from that page:

By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.
Finally, note the provision 1.5, which says:

1.5 If there is any contradiction between what the Additional Terms say and what the Universal Terms say, then the Additional Terms shall take precedence in relation to that Service.
So are people who use Google docs signing over the copyright on everything that passes through it? Thanks, Jim Austin"

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