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Biotech

Photosynthesis May Rely On Quantum Effect 234

Posted by kdawson from the good-exitations dept.
forgethistory sends us to PhysOrg for a summary of new research suggesting that the near instantaneous energy transfer achieved by photosynthesis may rely on quantum effects. From the article: "Through photosynthesis, green plants and cyanobacteria are able to transfer sunlight energy to molecular reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with nearly 100-percent efficiency. Speed is the key — the transfer of the solar energy takes place almost instantaneously so little energy is wasted as heat. How photosynthesis achieves this near instantaneous energy transfer is a long-standing mystery that may have finally been solved."
GNU is Not Unix

Open Source Economics and Why IBM Is Winning 146

Posted by kdawson from the committed dept.
driehle writes "In an article published in IEEE Computer magazine I recently looked at the economics of open source. I argue that large system integrators will do best and that open source startups will keep struggling. For developers, open source creates independence and new career paths as committers, while non-committers will fall on hard times. The race is on!"

Sri Lankan Terrorists Hack Satellite 330

Posted by CowboyNeal from the can't-make-this-stuff-up dept.
SorryTomato writes "The Tamil Tigers Liberation Front a separatist group in Sri Lanka, which has been classified as a terrorist group in 32 countries has moved up from routine sea piracy to a space-based one. They have been accused of illegally using Intelsat satellites to beam radio and television broadcasts internationally. Intelsat says that they will end the transmissions 'within days.' Intelsat has been accused of having business links with Hezbollah before, but claim that they are blameless this time and LTTE was using an empty transponder."
Privacy

Police Objecting to Tickets From Red-Light Cameras 807

Posted by Zonk from the a-little-hair-of-the-irony-dontcha-think dept.
caffiend666 writes "According to a Dallas Morning News article, any 'Dallas police officer in a marked squad car who is captured on the city's cameras running a red light will have to pay the $75 fine if the incident doesn't comply with state law ... Many police officers are angry about the proposed policy. The prevailing belief among officers has been that they can run red lights as they see fit.' Is this a case for or against governments relying on un-biased automated systems? Or, should anyone be able to control who is recorded on camera and who is held accountable?"
The Internet

Submission + - .XXX domain name plan revived

Submitted by
Wim van Neuken
Wim van Neuken writes: "http://www.comcast.net/news/technology/index.jsp?c at=TECHNOLOGY&fn=/2007/01/06/556539.html&cvqh=itn_ redlight

After rejecting an earlier proposal to create the XXX tld for pornographic sites, it appears ICANN has now relented and is laying out a plan to create the tld. However, it looks like the policing will be stepped up as part of the revived plan."
Music

Submission + - Music Downloads in UK Charts

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The BBC are carrying a story about how the rules governing the Official Music Sales Charts have been changed to allow the downloads of singles to influence the top 75 songs on the chart. Previously, the downloads were only counted for the week prior to the CD release.
Operating Systems

Submission + - The Linux Desktop in 2007

Submitted by
Marcion
Marcion writes: "While other platforms will have to deal with upgrade issues involving Vista and OS X Jaguar, for the Linux desktop, 2007 promises to be a year of consolidation and expansion, a year where many of the long standing problems get resolved. My blog article covers 3D effects, a resurgence of Java in the open source world, improved wireless support, refugees from Windows Vista and whether Adobe will open source Flash."
Wii

Submission + - Wii Opera Vulnerability

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Wii seems to be susceptible to the same Opera SVG vulnerability as Windows and Linux as shown here. Right now it just crashes the system but hopefully this will yield a route for code execution and maybe eventually home brew software.
The Internet

Submission + - KHTML (aka Safari) on Windows: Swift releases 0.2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Last time I wrote about Safari for Windows (Win32) it was when a real port of WebKit was released. The problem was that the project quickly died, I think the main developer for the project did not have the time to work on this...I now see that there is a version 0.2 of Swift, I am not sure if it is the same people who is working on porting WebKit aka Safari for Windows or if it is them same developer. Does anyone have info on this? Screenshot of the browser (new window)
Media

Submission + - Reading a DVD with VLC is illegal in France

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Starting December 31st 2006, reading a DVD protected with CSS (as most DVD are) is illegal in France when it is done with software allowing to circumvent the protection, such as VLC or mplayer which can both use the libdvdcss library. This Journal Officiel (where laws and executive orders are published) says that you may be fined 135 (around $180) for doing so. This includes watching any DVD that you have legally purchased.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Men who love Linux are Sexier

Submitted by
caluml
caluml writes: "A female's tongue-in-cheek look at men who love Linux finds some interesting results. Among them are: We're passionate (and that rubs off in the bedroom too), not shy about spending our earnings, are problem-solvers, and are deep thinkers.

We need to make sure sites that lots of women read know about this!"

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