Comment WINE (Score 3, Interesting) 217
Can anyone (intelligently) comment on the implications for projects like WINE? It seems that having so much information released would benefit these efforts in some manner, yes?
Oil Deposit Could Increase US Reserves 10x 869
HighWizard notes the upcoming release, on Thursday, of a report by the US Geological Survey on the Bakken Formation. This is an oil field covering 200,000 square miles and underlying parts of North and South Dakota, Montana, and Saskatchewan. A geologist who began surveying the field, before dying in 2000, believed it may hold as much as 1 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Later estimates have ranged to the hundreds of billions of barrels. Such a reserve would go a long way toward securing US energy independence.
Rambus Wins Patent Case 146
Blowfishie writes "Rambus has won a major case they've been fighting since the late 90's. Rambus worked its technology into the standards for SDRAM and DDR data transfer, then waited for the major players (Hynix, Micron and Nanya) to be heavily committed before revealing that it had patents on the technology. 'At issue is whether the developer of a speedy new memory technology deserved to be paid for its inventions, or whether the company misled memory chip makers. "I think they (the jurors) misapprehended what the standards-setting organizations are about and the absolute need for good faith," said Jared Bobrow, an outside attorney for Micron. Wednesday's verdict comes after a judgment against Hynix in 2006 that resulted in a $133 million award to Rambus, Lavelle said, and potentially clears the way for Rambus to collect on that verdict.'"
Yahoo Sued for Spurning Microsoft 284
tuxgeek writes "In the continuing saga of Yahoo resisting a Microsoft buy out, Yahoo is now being sued by its shareholders. 'Two Detroit pension funds have sued Yahoo Inc. and its board of directors, saying they breached their duties to shareholders in trying to thwart a takeover by Microsoft Corp. The lawsuit was filed in Delaware Chancery Court on Thursday by lawyers representing Detroit's police and fire retirement system and general retirement system, as well as 'all other similarly situated public shareholders.'"
Netscape Finally Put Down 159
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."
Journal SPAM: "Anonymous" Internet Group Declares "War on Scientology" 2
A group referring to itself with the name "Anonymous" is combating the Church of Scientology on the Internet. A spokesperson said they want to end to the financial exploitation of Church members and protect the right to free speech - which they claim was consistently violated by Scientology in pursuit of its opponents. A
Researchers Create Beating Heart In Lab 258
Sunday Scientist writes "Minnesota researchers have created a beating heart in the laboratory. In a process called whole organ decellularization, they grew functioning heart tissue by using dead rat and pig hearts as a sort of flesh matrix, and reseeding them with a mixture of live cells. The goal is to grow replacement parts, using their own stem cells, for people born with defective tickers or experiencing heart failure."
Monster Black Hole Busts Theory 248
Genocaust writes "A stellar black hole much more massive than theory predicts is possible has astronomers puzzled. Stellar black holes form when stars with masses around 20 times that of the sun collapse under the weight of their own gravity at the ends of their lives. Most stellar black holes weigh in at around 10 solar masses when the smoke blows away, and computer models of star evolution have difficulty producing black holes more massive than this. The newly weighed black hole is 16 solar masses. It orbits a companion star in the spiral galaxy Messier 33, located 2.7 million light-years from Earth. Together they make up the system known as M33 X-7."
Feed Dell offers XP again amidst Vista complaints (theregister.com)
Users ask to party like its 2001
Dell is to once again offer Windows XP on new systems, responding to online customer complaints. The decision reverses a Vista-only policy the PC seller has moved to since the release of Microsoft's latest OS. The move is a reaction to online complaints at Dell's recently-launched Ideastorm website.
Feed RC Pirate ship with working cannon lets you rule the pool (engadget.com)
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Lifeguards beware: the stakes have been raised. This RC pirate ship would be way cooler if the cannon actually fired something, but those landlubbers in the shallow end don't know that you're unarmed. A switch on the waterproof transmitter triggers what is sure to be a terrifying light and sound display from speakers hidden in the 18-inch hull, and when you're done looting whatever booty you can find, the twin screws all but guarantee a swift retreat from that bruiser middle schooler trying to wreck your summer.
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Camera Phones Read Hidden Messages in Print 126
pikine writes "As reported by BBC News, Fujitsu has developed a technology that encodes 12-bytes of information in a printed picture by skewing yellow hue, which is difficult to discern by human eye but fairly easy for camera phones to decode using software written in Java." The first target uses are promotional contests and competitions, not entirely unlike those game pieces that need to be viewed through a colored filter.
Submission + - Grid computes 420 years worth of data in 4 months
Da Massive writes: A worldowide grid computing project has analysed a possible malaria cure faster than ever before: 4 months instead of 420 years.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;44613 6154;fp;16;fpid;1
Submission + - Interstellar Ark
xantox writes: "There are three strategies to travel 10.5 light-years from Earth to Epsilon Eridani and bring humanity into a new stellar system : 1) Wait for future discovery of Star Trek physics and go there almost instantaneously, 2) Build a relativistic rocket powered by antimatter and go there in 22 years by accelerating constantly at 1g, provided that you master stellar amounts of energy (so, nothing realistic until now), but what about 3): go there by classical means, by building a gigantic Ark of several miles in radius, propulsed by nuclear fusion and featuring artificial gravity, oceans and cities, for a travel of seven centuries — where many generations of men and women would live ? This new speculation uses some actual physics and math to figure out how far are our fantasies of space travel from their actual implementation."
DDoS Attacks Via DNS Recursion 192
JehCt writes "Associated Press is running a story about how the recursion feature of open DNS servers can be used to launch massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks: 'First detected late last year, the new attacks direct such massive amounts of spurious data against victim computers that even flagship technology companies could not cope.' A thread at WebmasterWorld explains, 'To make a long story short, having a DNS server that allows recursion for the Internet is like running an open SMTP relay.'"
