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Gaffes That Keep IT Geeks From the Boardroom 652

Posted by kdawson from the to-say-nothing-of-the-pocket-protector dept.
buzzardsbay writes "Yes, it's all in good fun to point out the mismatched belt and shoes and the atrocious hairstyles, but honestly, I'm committing three of these errors right now! Is that why I can't get a key to the executive washroom? Or is it my rebellious attitude and pungent man-scent that's keeping me down? The shocker in here was pigtails on women... I love pigtails on women!"
Netscape

Netscape Finally Put Down 159

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the gone-the-way-of-old-yeller dept.
Stony Stevenson writes to point out that Netscape has finally reached end of line with the release of version 9.0.0.6. A pop-up will offer users the choice of switching to Firefox, Flock, or remaining with the dead browser, but no new updates will be released. "Nearly 14 years after the once mighty browser made its first desktop appearance as Mosaic Netscape 0.9, its disappearance comes as little surprise. Although Netscape accounted for more than 80 per cent of the browser market in 1995, the arrival of Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the same year brought stiff competition and surpassed Netscape within three years."
Robotics

Artificial Intelligence at Human Level by 2029? 678

Posted by Zonk from the i-need-me-an-implanted-robot-buddy dept.
Gerard Boyers writes "Some members of the US National Academy of Engineering have predicted that Artificial Intelligence will reach the level of humans in around 20 years. Ray Kurzweil leads the charge: 'We will have both the hardware and the software to achieve human level artificial intelligence with the broad suppleness of human intelligence including our emotional intelligence by 2029. We're already a human machine civilization, we use our technology to expand our physical and mental horizons and this will be a further extension of that. We'll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons.' Mr Kurzweil is one of 18 influential thinkers, and a gentleman we've discussed previously. He was chosen to identify the great technological challenges facing humanity in the 21st century by the US National Academy of Engineering. The experts include Google founder Larry Page and genome pioneer Dr Craig Venter."
Microsoft

Microsoft Battles Vista Perception With Prizes 342

Posted by Zonk from the you-too-may-already-be-a-winner dept.
LambAndMint writes "In what can only be described as an act of utter desperation to overcome Vista's mostly negative public perception issues, Microsoft has put together an online "Fact or Fiction" quiz about Windows Vista. Every person who submits themselves to Microsoft indoctrination gets a free shirt and the chance to win a $15,000 prize. Some of the supposed 'facts' will make you feel like you're reading a document from an alternate reality. Get ready to get a job as a computer salesman for a mass-market retailer as you go through the quiz."
Businesses

Submission + - AT&T's Direct Approach to P2P Bandwidth 2

Submitted by sporkme
sporkme writes: We have previously discussed ad nauseum Comcast's slight-of-hand with peer-to-peer bandwidth, and have more recently shone the spotlight on Time Warner as they have duped Texans with tiered bandwidth helpings and made land grabs in the Buckeye state.

The latest ISP to pile on is AT&T, with an automatic US$5-per-month increase in price for DSL service, impacting 13 states, effective in April. Exempt are those who already subscribe to exclusive or premium services such as "U-Verse" (a pilot all-inclusive system) and "Elite" (6 MiB/s). "Basic" users will see an increase of 33% from $14.99 to 19.95. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson fairly pointed out that when presented with a financial choice between a land line and a wireless one, consumers will choose the cellphone; DSL subscribership has suffered as a result.

Also a fair assessment:

"Even with this adjustment, our pricing still beats cable's standard pricing across the majority of our markets," AT&T spokesman Brad Mays said in an e-mail. "We're confident that customers will see the value in the service and that we'll continue to grow our customer base."


What remains to be seen is if AT&T might also achieve the litigiously acrobatic maneuver of implementing copyright filtering. One thing is now certain, though: an internet subscriber must now put a price on the ability to use P2P networks.
Portables

Submission + - 2008: The Future of Tablet PCs (cooltechzone.com)

Submitted by
jokerman
jokerman writes: "Gundeep Hora discusses the future of Tablet PCs in 2008. He says, "A few companies were still touting Tablet PCs, but they were more realistic about the future than previous years. Unlike Bill Gates and Microsoft's vision of Tablet PC taking over the mainstream market, companies said they don't expect that to happen anymore, at least not for quite sometime. In fact, they expect Tablet PCs to be a niche tool for a select few fields, such as medical and legal. While doctors and lawyers are still getting used to Tablet PCs and there isn't a lot of demand from them, companies said they expect these industries to flourish with more and more medical and legal professionals digitalizing their information for easy access and portability. Another emerging field for Tablet PCs is surprisingly real estate."
Earth

Submission + - Sat data: global temps dropped .6C in 12 months

Submitted by radioweather
radioweather writes: This week Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA released their Microwave Sounder Unit (MSU) data for the entire globe for the month of January. This data, processed from satellite measurements provides a measure of global temperature changes. This January, the temperature anomaly for the globe went negative -.080C, capping a 12 month drop in global temperature of 0.629 degrees Centigrade. Compared to the agreed upon global warming trend of 0.74C for the last 100 years, it is a significant drop in only 1 year.

Meteorologists blame a massive La Niña in the Pacific as well as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) flipping to a cold state as likely reasons for the abrupt change and odd weather seen in the northern hemisphere this winter, such as snow in Baghdad for the first time in memory. Veteran meteorologist Joe Bastardi of AccuWeather writes "It is straight out of the book of climate. The pattern is so much like the 1949-1950 La Nina, which was signaling the start of the reversal of the warming of the earth's climate in the 1930s, '40s and early 50s."
Software

Submission + - Gauging The Candidates' (website) Performance

Submitted by FairAndUnbalanced
FairAndUnbalanced writes: While the candidates battle it out on Super Tuesday, their respective web sites tell a different story. A performance evaluation shows that both the Republicans and the Democrats aren't going to win the hearts and minds of users with their web sites. Virtual unknown Mike Gravel is the leader for the Democrats while Mike Huckabee bested the Republican field.
The Courts

Submission + - EFF defends terrorist linked CAIR 1

Submitted by anonymous coward (not wanting to be a target)
anonymous coward (not wanting to be a target) writes: EFF defends terrorist linked Council for Islamic Relations (CAIR) against copyright and RICO violations in Savage v. CAIR and admits in their pleading (paragraph 91) that CAIR used images of the 9/11 world trade center in conjunction with the HAMAS terrorist linked "Holy Land Foundation's" website to collect donations supposedly destined to 9/11 survivors. EFF appears to be defending fair use by CAIR with "Savage v. CAIR: Another Year, Another Attempt to Misuse Copyright Law to Silence a Critic" while Savage claims: Paragraph 21: "The segment misappropriated was in excess of four minutes. As set forth in more detail herein, the misappropriated segment was used by CAIR for fund- raising purposes and the segment was used in a manner designed to cause harm to the value of the copyright material in the long and short term. This was the desired result and it was part of a greater plan and scheme to destroy public voices that express opposition to the criminal political agenda of CAIR as set forth more fully in the Second Cause of Action". And paragraph 29: "The copyright infringement was done to raise funds for CAIR so that it could self perpetuate and continue to perform its role in the RICO conspiracy set forth in Count Two and to disseminate of propaganda on behalf of foreign interests that are opposed to the continued existence of the United States of America as a free nation" Thanks to the EFF for defending one of the premier unidicted co-conspirators operating as a fifth column in the United States. Commenters on this topic should be aware that CAIR tends to be very litiguous against anyone who dares to criticize their organization
Robotics

Submission + - Robotic Telescope Installed on Antarctica Plateau

Submitted by
Reservoir Hill
Reservoir Hill writes: "Antarctica claims some of the best astronomical sky conditions in the world — devoid of clouds with steady air that makes for clear viewing — that unfortunately lie deep in the interior on a high-altitude plateau called Dome A with an elevation up to 4,093m known as the most unapproachable point in the earth's southernmost region. Now astronomers in a Chinese scientific expedition have set up an experimental observatory at Dome A after lugging their equipment across Antarctica with the help of Australia and the US. The observatory will hunt for alien planets, while also measuring the observing conditions at the site to see if it is worth trying to build bigger observatories there. The observatory is automated, pointing its telescopes on its own while astronomers monitor its progress from other locations around the world via satellite link. PLATO is powered by a gas generator, and has a 4000-litre tank of jet fuel to keep it running through the winter. The observatory will search for planets around other stars using an array of four 14.5-centimetre telescopes called the Chinese Small Telescope Array (CSTAR). Astronomers hope to return in 2009 with new instruments, including the Antarctica Schmidt Telescopes (AST-3), a trio of telescopes with 0.5-metre mirrors, which will be more sensitive to planets than CSTAR."
Robotics

Dutch Unveil Robot Gas Station Attendant 287

Posted by kdawson from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept.
Lucas123 writes "According to a Reuters' story, Dutch inventors today took the wraps off a $110,000 car-fueling robot they say is the first of its kind. (It was inspired by a cow milking robot.) After registering the car as it pulls up to the pump, the machine matches your fuel cap design with those in a database and your car's fuel type, and then a robotic arm fitted with multiple sensors extends from a regular gas pump, 'opens the car's flap, unscrews the cap, picks up the fuel nozzle and directs it towards the tank opening, much as a human arm would, and as efficiently.' Wait till Hollywood gets hold of this scenario."
Medicine

Submission + - Male Video Game Addiction Is Neural (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by
Dave Knott
Dave Knott writes: "According a new study in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, Stanford researchers have found that men are more rewarded by video games than women on a neural level. Participants were hooked up to an MRI machine and activity was measured in the brain's mesocorticolimbic centre, the region typically associated with reward and addiction. From the article: "Researchers discovered that, when playing video games, the part of the brain that generates feelings of reward is more stimulated in men than in women. That helps explain why they're more likely to get hooked.""

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