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Submission + - Air Canada told to provide nut-free zone

Submitted by JamJam
JamJam writes: Air Canada has been told to create a special "buffer zone" on flights for people who are allergic to nuts. The Canadian Transportation Agency has ruled that passengers who have nut allergies should be considered disabled and accommodated by the airline. Air Canada has a month to come up with an appropriate section of seats where passengers with nut allergies would be seated. The ruling involved a complaint from Sophia Huyer who has a severe nut allergy and travels frequently. Ms. Huyer once spent 40 minutes in the washroom during a flight while snacks were being served.
Idle

Submission + - Mexico wants payment for Aztec images (canoe.ca) 1

Submitted by innocent_white_lamb
innocent_white_lamb writes: Starbucks brought out a line of cups with images from prehistoric Aztec images on them. Now the government of Mexico wants them to pay for the use of the images. The copyright on an image lasted thousands of years?

Submission + - Windows 7 God mode (cnet.com)

Submitted by Hellswaters
Hellswaters writes: "Although its name suggests perhaps even grander capabilities, Windows enthusiasts are excited over the discovery of a hidden "GodMode" feature that lets users access all of the operating system's control panels from within a single folder. "
Image

Living In Tokyo's Capsule Hotels 269

Posted by samzenpus from the living-in-the-hive dept.
afabbro writes "Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 once offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home. Now with Japan enduring its worst recession since World War II, it is becoming an affordable option for people with nowhere else to go. The Hotel 510’s capsules are only 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide. Guests must keep possessions, like shirts and shaving cream, in lockers outside of the capsules. Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas says, 'It’s just a place to crawl into and sleep. You get used to it.'”
Google

Submission + - Google Nexus One - officially announced

Submitted by
Daniel
Daniel writes: ""Well, today we're pleased to announce a new way for consumers to purchase a mobile phone through a Google hosted web store. The goal of this new consumer channel is to provide an efficient way to connect Google's online users with selected Android devices. We also want to make the overall user experience simple: a simple purchasing process, simple service plans from operators, simple and worry-free delivery and start-up." — http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

and

"Today, the web store allows you to purchase the Nexus One without operator service or with service from T-Mobile USA. We expect to add more operators, more devices and more countries in the future, including Verizon Wireless in the U.S. and Vodafone in Europe." — http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

More information, tech details and photos at http://www.google.com/phone
Liveblog from the Nexus One event at http://live.gizmodo.com/"
Games

Palm Pre and WebOS Get Native Gaming 49

Posted by Soulskill from the break-out-your-rocket-launcher dept.
rboatright writes "WebOS developers have been waiting, and with the 1.3.5 release, Palm's open source page suddenly listed SDL. Members of the WebOS internals team took that as a challenge and within 24 hours had a working port of Doom running in SDL on the Pre, in a webOS card. 48 hours later, they not only had Quake running, but had found in the latest LunaSysMgr the requirements to launch a native app from the webOS app launcher from an icon just like any other app. At the same time, the team demonstrated openGL apps running. With full native code support, with I/O available via SDL, developers now have a preview into Palm's future intent with regard to native code SDK's, and a hint of what's coming."

Submission + - Best Buy $39.95 optimization exposed as a scam (consumerist.com)

Submitted by DCFC
DCFC writes: The Consumerist deconstructs the appliing scam that Best Buy call "optimzation". BB charge 40 bucks to give you a slower PC, and make bizarre claims that it makes it go 200% faster.
Yes, 200% faster.

Submission + - McAfee doesn't think HTML5, or URL Shorteners are (techie-buzz.com)

Submitted by PenquinCoder
PenquinCoder writes: According to a new study by McAfee, who are one of the top security software vendors, shortened URLs will be the heavy target for Cyber criminals on sites like Twitter and Facebook in 2010. In addition to that McAfee also has raised equal threat levels for Adobe Reader and Flash, which are one of the most exploited end-user software. One interesting point in the study is the prediction that HTML5 will induce more attacks, and entice more rogue sites, due to the fact that it is cross-platform and will help them attack more users. McAfee also says that web based OS such as Google Chrome OS would make malware creators shift towards attacking the web more than desktop users.
Windows

Submission + - Window 7 God Mode (winsupersite.com)

Submitted by CyBrett
CyBrett writes: Master Control panel in Windows 7 that has all the major functions right at your finger tips.

Submission + - Whatever happened to Second Life? (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: It's desolate, dirty, and sex is outcast to a separate island. In this feature, PC Pro's Barry Collins returns to Second Life to find out what went wrong, and why it’s raking in more cash than ever before. It's a follow-up to a feature written three years ago, in which Collins spent a week living inside Second Life to see what the huge fuss at the time was all about. The difference three years can make is eye-opening.
Medicine

Submission + - Can Tax Breaks Prolong Life?

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Wall Street Journal reports that new tax laws that came into effect starting January 1, 2010 may have motivated at least some terminally ill taxpayers to cling to life to see the new year. The federal estate tax — which can erase nearly half of a wealthy person's estate — goes away completely for 2010 but is scheduled to return in 2011 at a 55% rate with an exemption of slightly more than $1 million presenting some families with unprecedented ethical quandaries. "I have two clients on life support, and the families are struggling with whether to continue heroic measures for a few more days," says estate lawyer Joshua Rubenstein. The macabre situation stems from 2001, when Congress raised estate-tax exemptions, culminating with the tax's disappearance in 2010. However, due to budget constraints, lawmakers didn't make the change permanent so the estate tax is due to come back to life in 2011 — at a higher rate and lower exemption. Estate-tax experts didn't expect Congress to allow the tax to lapse, and are flabbergasted that it is actually happening. "I've been practicing for more than 30 years, and never has the timing of death made such a financial difference," says Dennis Belcher, president of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. "People have a hard enough time talking about death and addressing estate planning without this." Of course, plenty of taxpayers themselves have been eager to live to see the new year. But one wealthy, terminally ill real-estate entrepreneur told his doctors he was determined to live until the law changes. "Whenever he wakes up," says his lawyer, "He says: 'What day is it? Is it January 1 yet?'""
IBM

Submission + - SPAM: IBM makes open source project mainframe ready

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: IBM said this month it will offer the open source system EyeOS on its latest batch of mainframes. EyeOS is seen as a threat to Google Chrome and IBM's support of it on System Z mainframes as a way to develop cloud computing applications will no doubt give the system a boost. EyeOS defines the system as an open source web desktop that lets users access a virtual desktop through a Web browser. It is written in mainly PHP and XML and acts as a platform for web applications written using the EyeOS Toolkit. It includes a Desktop environment with 67 applications and system utilities and is accessible by portable devices via its mobile front end.
[spam URL stripped]
Link to Original Source
Transportation

Man Tries To Use Explosive Device On US Flight 809

Posted by Soulskill from the bad-at-terrorism dept.
reporter writes with news that a Nigerian man allegedly attempted to set off a small explosive device — possibly a firecracker — on a Delta Airbus 330 airliner bound for Detroit yesterday. "There was a pop and then smoke wafted through the cabin. A passenger then climbed over several seats, lunged across the aisle and managed to subdue the suspect, the eyewitnesses said. The Nigerian man was placed in a headlock before being dragged up to the first class cabin. Passenger Zeina Seagal told CNN that after the suspect was collared and parts of his burning pants were removed, flight attendants quickly grabbed fire extinguishers and doused the fire at his seat." The man has claimed links to al-Qaeda, though the investigation hasn't confirmed that yet. (They're not taking anything for granted given that his pants were literally on fire.)
Science

Submission + - Don't Steal Fossils! (newscientist.com)

Submitted by Omomyid
Omomyid writes: New Scientist has an interesting expose of Nate Murphy, an amateur fossil hunter in Montana and his rise to relative fame and subsequent fall. Short version: Stealing fossils is bad, doing it poorly is incredibly stupid and harms the science. Mr. Murphy has some very impressive finds including a very rare so-called "mummified" dinosaur (not mummified in the Egyptian sense, but quickly fossilized to preserve soft tissue features including stomach contents). Too bad the questionable legality of the finds has held up the science bonanza that some of these fossils represent.

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