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Sci-Fi

Deathbed Confession Says Aliens Were at Roswell 1267

xnuandax writes "The army's explanation of weather balloons in the Roswell, New Mexico incident 60 years ago has been dealt a serious public relations blow. Late Army Lt. Walter Haut had signed a sealed affidavit prior to his death last year asserting that he had witnessed the wreckage of an egg-shaped craft and its extraterrestrial crew while working at the Roswell Army Air Field. An article at News.com.au reviews how Haut had worked as public relations officer for the Roswell base and was involved in the original weather balloon explanation of events at the time. This recent evidence would seem to confirm speculation that egg-shaped saucers are notoriously difficult to fly safely at low altitude."
Wireless Networking

Submission + - idea for wireless darknet published (ubuntuforums.org)

An anonymous reader writes: A few weeks ago the idea of a wireless darknet has been put forth, intended to eventually replace the way the internet works today, providing an anonymity not possible with today's centralized ways of routing data. It is essentially similar to freenet.
Media

Submission + - Thousands of rubber ducks to finally end journey (dailymail.co.uk)

Bert de Jong writes: "From the I-WANT-one-of-those! dept. The Daily Mail writes to report that thousands of rubber ducks who have traveled the seas of the world since 1992 are about to end their journey. After escaping out of a container fallen off a Chinese freight ship in a storm, scientists have followed them which turned out to be an invaluable source of information for studying ocean currents. Now it seems inevitable though that they will finally land on the shores of South-West England. Expect to see high bids on E-Bay soon, and beware of phoney ones!"
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Wowhead sells out to Affinity Media (wowhead.com) 1

MattHock writes: Wowhead, the fastest growing database of World of Warcraft in-game information, has been confirmed as having been sold to ZAM (Affinity Media), owners of several other WoW databases, including Thottbot and Allakhazam. Until recently, Affinity was also the owner of IGE, a highly controversial company that sold in-game wealth for real life money, until Affinity recently sold IGE, which Wowhead claims as the reason they allowed the sale to go through. But did ZAM really sell IGE? Industy insiders highly doubt IGE and ZAM actually distanced themselves from each other, believing that the supposed sale was just actually a means of restructuring to hide the relationship, similar to how IGE's relationship to Thottbot was hidden for a number of months through a convoluted set of parent companies.
Biotech

Submission + - Teams mimic Stem cells using skin cells (yahoo.com)

JagsLive writes: A Great Development in Stem Cell Research : In a leap forward for stem cell research, three independent teams of scientists reported Wednesday that they have produced the equivalent of embryonic stem cells in mice without the controversial destruction of embryos. They got ordinary skin cells to behave like stem cells. If the same could be done with human cells — a big if — the procedure could lead to breakthrough medical treatments without the contentious ethical and political debates surrounding the use of embryos. Experts were impressed by the achievement.
Portables

Submission + - Asus stuns Computex with £100 laptop (linuxdevices.com)

srinravi writes: According to linuxdevices.com, Asus chairman Jonney Shih sprang a surprise during Intel's Computex keynote today with the announcement of a $190 laptop.

The notebook measures roughly 120 x 100 x 30mm (WDH) and weighs only 900g. The notebook boots in 15 seconds from its solid-state 2GB flash drive. The huge auditorium then burst into applause as Shih revealed the astounding price tag. Dubbed the 3ePC, Shih claimed the notebook is the 'lowest cost and easiest PC to use'.

The notebook uses a custom-written Linux operating system, much like the OLPC, though unlike the OLPC, Asus has chosen a more conventional interface. The 3epc is based on an unspecified Intel processor and chipset. Given the laptop's low cost, it may well be among the first products based on Tolopai, Intel's forthcoming Pentium M-powered SoC (system-on-chip). Along with a Pentium M core clocked between 600MHz and 1.2GHz, initial Tolopai chips are expected to integrate components traditionally found in PC northbridges and southbridges — a graphics processing unit (GPU), external memory and storage controllers, and peripheral interfaces such as USB and Ethernet.

Software

Submission + - Open-Source Software Market Growing 26% Anually

MsManhattan writes: Adoption of open-source software by corporate IT is growing to the extent that research firm IDC predicts the market will be worth $5.8 billion by 2011. Last year open-source sales reached $1.8 billion, and IDC expects the market to grow 26 percent annually over the next four years. 'Companies are waking up to the fact that open source opens up more choices and gives them something to use as a bargaining chip with proprietary software vendors.' Revenue from open-source products has typically been slow to keep pace with distribution due to the open-source business model of offering free or subscription-based products.
Censorship

Submission + - Silenced Venezuelan TV station moves to YouTube

An anonymous reader writes: According to this article on CNN, Radio Caracas Television, the station silenced by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has found a way to continue its daily broadcasts — on YouTube, the popular video Web site. Although the station is officially off the air, CNN's Harris Whitbeck said its news department continues to operate on reduced staffing, and the three daily hour-long installments of the newscast "El Observador" are uploaded onto YouTube by RCTV's Web department.
Privacy

Submission + - LiveJournal Giving Russian Sites Your Username (livejournal.com)

An anonymous reader writes: As if LiveJournal didn't have enough problems, a member of the no_lj_ads community discovered that whenever you visit the Russian sites kommersant.ru or livejournal.ru (confusingly, not actually owned by Livejournal), it automatically hands them your currently logged-in username. Unlike normal OpenID, you don't get asked for permission first, or even told that this has happened. Better still, livejournal.ru has a JavaScript injection hole that allows any other site to discover your LiveJournal username too, without your knowledge.

The official solution? Log off from LiveJournal before visiting the sites. It may also be possible to get the same result by deliberately breaking OpenID on your journal, but it remains to be seen how long this loophole will last for.

Security

Submission + - Protect Your Data Deep Within the Alps (physorg.com)

eldavojohn writes: "How safe is your data physically? Would it survive a hurricane? Would it survive someone breaking in and stealing it? Well, the term "Private Swiss Bank Account" might be changed to "Private Swiss Data Account" as a Swiss company is offering data storage guarded underneath the Alps. This digital "Fort Knox" also alleges protection from computer viruses and hackers for its customers."
Announcements

Submission + - LLOOGG Analytics Web Site Statistics In Real Time

Ikaro.com writes: "LLOOGG is a brand new web analytics software which track visitors on your web site providing in real time landing pages URL, referring serp, navigation path and more.

It's sufficient to insert a JavaScript code, which will detect the user's visit into each content page that you want to track and the visitor information will start to fall into the web Ajax interface.

Even if geeks will enjoy the idea of a web analytics in a Matrix style, imho LLOOGG strongest point is about web marketing: in fact it allows to monitor the efficiency on the immediate of social news portals that we usually use to spread our contents.

It is currently available only on invitation. I have some invitations available for whom are interested in beta-testing.

Continue to read"
Portables (Games)

Submission + - I-play to be acquired by online casual firm Oberon (pocketgamer.co.uk)

Anonymous Coward writes: "Online gaming firm Oberon Media has announced plans to buy mobile publisher I-play, in a move that has big implications for the mobile games industry. The idea is to create a multi-platform publisher, releasing games online and on mobile, and capitalising on the crossover. It's the same strategy that's being tried by RealArcade, which has both online and mobile divisions. Meanwhile, casual games firm PopCap Games' move into mobile is part of a similar trend."

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