thesaint05 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Todays Mammal Ancestors Helped By Global Warming

Submitted by

happylucky

on Thursday March 29, 2007 @05:21AM

happylucky writes: "A new theory from the United Kingdom suggests that ancestors of todays mammals did not evolve quickly after the extinction of the dinosaurs as previously thought. Imperial College of London scientists compiled a Tree of Life from fossil records and molecular analysis.

Their decade long research discovered that todays mammal ancestors walked the planet 85 million years ago and survived the meteor impact that was thought to cause the dinosaur extinction.

The researchers say that the mammals that dominated the world after the Mass Extinction Event (MEE) either became extinct or became less diversified. Todays mammals got a kick-start in their evolution from a global warming period 10 to 15 million years after the MEE."

Submission + - New 1 TB PCs can store 16 days of DVD-quality porn

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17, 2007 @07:13AM

An anonymous reader writes: Starting today, Dell and Alienware customers purchasing select XPSTM , AuroraTM and Area 51 gaming desktop computers can super-size their storage space by adding the world's first consumer one terabyte ( TB ) hard drive from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

The hard drive of terabyte capacity provides enough space to store an incredible amount of data such as a million photos, a million minutes of music or 16 days of DVD quality video (which COULD be porn)!

Submission + - Caves on Mars ?

Submitted by RockDoctor on Saturday March 17, 2007 @06:40AM

RockDoctor writes: The BBC are reporting that the photo-surveying of Mars has revealed seven suspected cave entrances in the Arsia Mons volcanic area. This has been hinted at before — long sinuous channels in the same region have been interpreted as collapsed "lava tube" caves — but the scale of the suggested entrances (sheer drops of 80 to 130m from the surrounding surface) makes my troglodytic hands twitch for my abseiling gear. 130m would be a bit challenging for a successful base jump though ... hmmm ... ideas ... thin atmosphere ... rocket packs ...

Submission + - Global Warming Endangered by Hot Air?

Submitted by

oldwindways

on Saturday March 17, 2007 @05:58AM

oldwindways writes: "The BBC reports that leading climate researchers are concerned that the tone of speculation surrounding many reports (scientific as well as in the media) could be making it more difficult for legitimate science to make a case for the future. Is Hollywood to blame? Have we "cried wolf" too many times with global warming? Or is this just a case of some researchers who are not ready to face the truth?

Either way, it raises the interesting question of how greater public awareness of Global Warming might be affecting the course of research and vice versa. Not to mention what happens when public awareness is shaped by factors other than scientific findings."

Submission + - FTC sells national do not call list to spammers?

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Wednesday March 14, 2007 @01:40PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "About three years ago I signed up for the national do not call list at https://www.donotcall.gov/ using a sneakemail.com address that was unique for that site and never given to any other site. (Note how the link on the registration page which states "Learn why your email address is required" is a broken link, yes, very nice.) But they have a privacy statement at http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/privacy.htm which specifically states "We will not share your email address with telemarketers". However this morning I just got an e-mail from matchmaker.com that came in through that address. Does this not seem like the exact opposite of the purpose of a do not call list?"

Submission + - Using a laptop under bright sunlight

Submitted by

Phyllis Johnston

on Wednesday March 14, 2007 @11:59AM

Phyllis Johnston writes: "Are you an outdoors geek? Well, I am. My new job allows me to spend my days away hacking in a comfortable outdoors space. Winter is gone and we are in the South, so the sunlight will get pretty intense soon enough. I have a problem, though: how can one use a laptop for extended periods of time under strong sunlight without killing one's eyes? I have tried a bunch of old antiglare filters, yet they do not work well with sunlight. I also found references online to hacks such as this one, but I don't think I would be able to focus in a public space while using such a cover. Have you found a way to be productive doing computer work outdoors in bright days? How did you do it?"

Submission + - Want to be a CIO?

Submitted by DebNY on Tuesday March 13, 2007 @11:59AM

DebNY writes: According to the Society for Information Management, companies will face a significant shortage of qualified CIOs by 2010. The report, authored by Ritu Agarwal, professor of information systems at the University of Maryland, and Cynthia Beath, professor emeritus of information management at the University of Texas at Austin, discusses how the role of the CIO will change over the next five years, and details how companies should begin grooming future CIO candidates.

A Statistical Comparison of HD DVD & Blu-Ray Reviews 179

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 21, 2007 @06:46PM from the on-the-fence dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo today posted a statistical comparison of over 300 HD DVD and Blu-ray reviews published at High-Def Digest since the start of the high-def format wars last Spring. Their findings? Overall video quality between the two formats is nearly identical, however Blu-ray titles were slightly, but definitely superior in audio playback, while HD DVD titles had far superior standard def features and moderately superior high-def features."

Journal SPAM: Edwards is Out 1

Journal by Captain Splendid on Wednesday February 21, 2007 @06:27PM

Bye, John.

Submission + - DirectX10 drops Hardware Acceleration for Audio.

Submitted by

shrewd

on Sunday February 11, 2007 @06:42AM

shrewd writes: ""Imagine your surprise when you fire up one of your favourite games in Vista — say World of Warcraft or Prey — only to find your fancy EAX-endowed soundcard and 5.1 surround speakers are dribbling out flat, unenhanced stereo sound. Then, in a vain attempt to spruce up the audio by enabling EAX, you get a nice taut error message saying EAX is not detected on your hardware. What's going on? Welcome to the world of Vista audio. And a brave new world it is.""

Submission + - Samsug announces look-alike iphone killer

Submitted by goombah99 on Sunday February 11, 2007 @12:27AM

goombah99 writes: Samsung unveiled a prototype of their touchscreen phone. It's look, single button front, full-face touchscreen are the essentially identical to the iphone. The screen resolution is sufficiently worse that video viewing will be less of a pleasure, it's thicker, and it lacks Wi-Fi. But it has a slide-out full thumb-board, a 5 mega pixel camera, supports 3G (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access). Web connectivity however lacks the elegant full screen approach with a gestural interface of the iphone. Price, battery life and availability are not known. Read Here and here for first impressions. My impression is that hardware wise it's at the same level as the iphone so, as always, it's the apple polish of the interface that will be the deciding factor. Simultaneously, Microsoft revealed a workmanlike update of it's mobile version.

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