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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 5 declined, 59 accepted (64 total, 92.19% accepted)

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Portables

Submission + - 12 hour battery life in a high-end laptop? Asus sa (hjkladshjkladshjkladfs.org)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "Asus' new high end laptop could finally be the traveler's best accoutrement, touting twelve hour battery life thanks to intelligent, second-by-second, switching between the two GPUs and automatic on-the-fly re-clocking of the Intel Core i7 CPU. All this also comes in with a price tag of just over $1,000. "ASUS's solution is different because it's user-transparent; even a novice user will get the fullest possible benefit because the laptop itself is deciding when to switch. The same principle applies to the dynamic CPU clocking. ASUS includes a desktop widget to track CPU clock speed. While using the UL80JT, I could see it moving up and down with what I did; up with program openings and CPU-intensive processes, and way down at idle. Between the GPU switching, dynamic clocking, and ASUS's other power management features, the UL80JT manages to consume less than half as much power as the unibody Macbook while browsing.""
Sci-Fi

Submission + - What SciFi Should Get the Reboot Treatment Next? (adshjkladshjkladsfhjkladfshjkl.net) 1

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "Not long ago Wired ran their own list of which SciFi (not SyFy!) shows were in need of another go 'round in this era of the reboot. Well, it looks like many fans had their own opinions resulting in another list of reboots including everything from Firefly (please?) to The Outer Limits. Which SciFi shows could use a little extra TLC, and which ones might actually succeed it getting it?"
The Internet

Submission + - UPDATE: Court Unfriendly To FCC's Internet Slap At (dsalkjsdlfkjsdflkjasdflkjasfd.com)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Federal Judges have been harsh in their examination of the FCC's action against Comcast in 2008 for throttling of internet traffic from high-bandwidth file-sharing services. "'You can't get an unbridled, roving commission to go about doing good,' said U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Chief Judge David Sentelle during an oral argument. The three-judge panel grilled FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick on the parts of communications law it could cite to justify the Comcast punishment. The FCC argues that it was enforcing an open Internet policy implicit in the law. Judge A. Raymond Randolph repeatedly said the legal provisions cited by the FCC were mere policy statements that by themselves can't justify the commission's action. 'You have yet to identify a specific statute,' he said. The judges' decision in the case could throw into question the FCC's authority to impose open Internet rules.""
Technology

Submission + - Making a Liquid Invisibility Cloak (newscientist.com)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "Researchers at Fudan University in Shanghai, China are proposing a method which could lead to the first soft, tunable metamaterial, the key ingredient in building an invisibility device. "The fluid proposed by Ji-Ping Huang of Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and colleagues, contains magnetite balls 10 nanometres in diameter, coated with a 5-nanometre-thick layer of silver, possibly with polymer chains attached to keep them from clumping. In the absence of a magnetic field, such nanoparticles would simply float around in the water, but if a field were introduced, the particles would self-assemble into chains whose lengths depend on the strength of the field, and which can also attract one another to form thicker columns. The chains and columns would lie along the direction of the magnetic field. If they were oriented vertically in a pool of water, light striking the surface would refract negatively – bent in way that no natural material can manage.""
Hardware

Submission + - Technology changes 'outstrip' netbooks (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "The BBC is reporting that the netbook craze may already be nearing the end of its run. Citing rising netbook prices and many other evolving technologies that can potentially fill that gap some critics think that the limited power of netbooks will ultimately bring about the quick demise of the once popular device. "Ian Drew, spokesman for chip designer Arm, also believes netbooks are in for a shake-up. Consumers, he said, were chafing against the restrictions that using a netbook imposed on them. 'We have failed the consumer because we have imposed constraints on them,' he said. Changing web habits and greater use of social media will mean consumers will be looking for gadgets that are tuned to specific purposes. 'It will be a lot of different machines for a lot of different people,' he said. 'This whole market will be exploding in the next couple of years.' Impetus for this change will come, he believes, from the phone world where many, many types of gadgets are already blooming.""
Technology

Submission + - China's DIY Aviators Take Flight (wired.com)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
" rel="nofollow">ScuttleMonkey writes: "Aviation is by no means an exception, and it has its share of shanzhai builders. But there is more to it than that. China’s emerging aviator class is spreading its wings with a plethora of approaches, from the ramshackle to the sophisticated to the potentially revolutionary. They’re using everything imaginable, from old motorcycle engines to electric motors to even their own legs, like Mao Yiqing and his human-powered airplane shown above. You could easily plot these adventurous innovators on a graph, with the X axis showing their skill and the Y axis their financial means."
Communications

Submission + - Wired's Favorite 20 iPhone Apps, What Are Yours? (wired.com)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
" rel="nofollow">ScuttleMonkey writes: "As 2009 draws to a close Wired has chosen their favorite iPhone apps. What can't you live without on your smartphone? "2009 was the “year of the app,” especially for the iPhone, whose App Store is overflowing with more than 100,000 offerings. While it’s easy to make fun of the more ridiculous apps, some truly stellar wares stood out from that massive pile, and we’re taking the time to honor them. [...] The Wired staff has chosen its 20 favorite apps, broken into separate categories: productivity, games, hobbies, and travel and outdoors. These are apps we deemed exceptional either for their innovation, elegant design, usefulness or a combination of all these qualities.""
Science

Submission + - Extinct Ibex Resurrected by Cloning (telegraph.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
" rel="nofollow">ScuttleMonkey writes: "The Telegraph is reporting that for the first time an extinct animal has been brought back via cloning. The Pyrenean ibex, a type of mountain goat, was declared officially extinct in 2000 but thanks to preserved skin samples scientists were able to insert that DNA into eggs from domestic goats to clone a female Pyrenean ibex. While the goat didn't survive long due to lung defects this gives scientists hopes that it will be possible to resurrect extinct species from frozen tissue. "Using techniques similar to those used to clone Dolly the sheep, known as nuclear transfer, the researchers were able to transplant DNA from the tissue into eggs taken from domestic goats to create 439 embryos, of which 57 were implanted into surrogate females. Just seven of the embryos resulted in pregnancies and only one of the goats finally gave birth to a female bucardo, which died a seven minutes later due to breathing difficulties, perhaps due to flaws in the DNA used to create the clone.""

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