Red Flayer - Slashdot User

Submission + - Antigua wants compensation for US gambling law

Submitted by

Red Flayer

on Wednesday May 23, 2007 @04:09PM

Red Flayer writes: "Following yesterday's WTO formal adoption of the ruling that the US Law to restrict offshore online gambling is illegal:

The tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda seeks compensation from the U.S. over its illegal restrictions on Internet gambling sites based overseas and on Tuesday asked other countries to join in as it targets Washington over its failure to comply with global trade rules.

Antigua, the smallest country to successfully litigate a case in the World Trade Organization's 12-year-history, also threatened to target American trademarks, copyrights and telecommunications companies after the WTO on Tuesday formally adopted a landmark decision reached in March that the United States' restrictions on online gambling were illegal.
>See the article from November on this topic for previous discussion."

Powerful Supernova May Be Related To Death Spasms of First Stars 136

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @10:43AM from the we-need-a-few-more-heavy-elements-out-here dept.

necro81 writes "The New York Times is reporting on a discovery from a team of UC Berkley researchers, who may have discovered the brightest stellar explosion ever observed. Observations of the cataclysmic explosion of a 100- to 200-solar-mass star began last September, based on data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The researchers believe that the explosion is similar to the death spasms of the first stars in the universe. The super-massive star's collapse is believed to have been so energetic as to create unstable electron-positron pairs that tore the star apart before it could collapse into a black hole — seeding the universe with heavier elements."

Submission + - Supermassive Supernova

Submitted by

Red Flayer

on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @10:33AM

Red Flayer writes: "National Geographic has an article up about an unprecedentedly bright supernova. David Pooley (of UCal Berkeley), one of the coauthors of the study referenced by the article, has stated that the likely source of the light is from materia ejected into space, which has been theorized for supermassive stars, but never observed. FTA:

The finding has ramifications for Eta Carinae, the most massive star in our galaxy, which lies just 7,400 light years away. This star, estimated to be 100 to 120 times the sun's mass, has been experiencing preliminary eruptions that could mean it will explode in a manner similar to SN 2006gy.

The results of the study by Smith and Pooley will be published in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal."

Supreme Court Weakens Patents 331

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday April 30, 2007 @11:40AM from the any-lawyers-on-the-plane dept.

ajakk writes "The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, overturned the decades old test for determine whether a patent is obvious. The Court ruled that the Court had looked at obviousness in a "narrow, rigid manner." This should allow patents to be more easily invalidated because they are obvious."

Qantas Ditches Linux for AIX 360

Posted by Zonk on Monday April 30, 2007 @02:26AM from the hope-that-penguin-has-a-parachute dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Australia's No. 1 airline Qantas will shift their underlying platform running its internal finance systems from Linux to IBM's AIX next month as part of a wide-ranging technology transformation project. 'We're moving from a Linux platform to an IBM AIX environment — we did that to address some stability issues we were having', said Suzanne Young, Qantas group general manager for finance improvement and segmentation. The decision was made last year, as part of the planning for the rollout."

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