adeelarshad82 writes "According to managing director of Korean consumer electronics firm Enspert, Google's new Android Honeycomb tablet OS will require a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor to run properly. That means that many existing Android tablets will not be upgradeable to Honeycomb, as they lack the processor necessary to meet the spec. Currently, Nvidia's Tegra 2 platform is the only chipset in products on the market to include a Cortex-A9, although other manufacturers have said they're moving to the new processor architecture for 2011 products."

nibbles2004 writes "An article in the Guardian newspaper shows how parasitic fungi evolved the ability to control ants they infect, ultimately leading the ant to its death. The fungus controls the ant's movements to a suitable leaf and causes the ant to grip onto the leaf's central stem, allowing the fungus to spore, which will allow more ants to become infected."

Ponca City, We love you writes "When Google started, it would only update its index every four months. Then, around 2000, it started indexing every month in a process called the 'Google dance' that took a week to 10 days and would provide different results when searching for the same term from different Google data centers. Now PC World reports that Google has introduced a new web indexing system called Caffeine, which delivers results that are closer to 'live' by analyzing the web in small portions and updating the index on a continuous basis. 'Caffeine lets us index web pages on an enormous scale,' writes Carrie Grimes on the official Google Blog. 'Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database and adds new information at a rate of hundreds of thousands of gigabytes per day.' Now not only does Caffeine provide results that are 50% fresher than Google's last index, adds Grimes, but the new search index provides a robust foundation that will make it possible for Google to build a faster and more comprehensive search engine that scales with the growth of information online."

An anonymous reader writes "The media would have you believe that violent video games will be the downfall of our civilization and the cause of moral decline in young people. A recent study suggests that most people aren't so easily influenced by the violence; instead, just a few bad apples are likely to react poorly, with everyone else showing little or no effect from playing these games." The American Psychological Association has posted the academic paper (PDF) as well, in addition to a few related studies. One examines how games can be a force for good (PDF), and another looks at the motivations behind children playing such games (PDF).

Sockatume writes "Residents in Craigavon, South Africa complained of '[h]eadaches, nausea, tinnitus, dry burning itchy skins, gastric imbalances and totally disrupted sleep patterns' after an iBurst communications tower was put up in a local park. Symptoms subsided when the residents left the area, often to stay with family and thus evade their suffering. At a public meeting with the afflicted locals, the tower's owners pledged to switch off the mast immediately to assess whether it was responsible for their ailments. One problem: the mast had already been switched off for six weeks. Lawyers representing the locals say their case against iBurst will continue on other grounds."

RogueyWon writes "The Times is reporting that Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo 5, likely to prove a key title for the PlayStation 3, has been delayed indefinitely, despite an expectation that it would be released relatively early in 2010. The delay seems likely to impact Sony's plans to bundle the game with the PlayStation 3 console in time for the important spring sales period in Japan."

sonamchauhan writes "A Londoner helped his wife deliver their baby by Googling 'how to deliver a baby' on his mobile phone. From the article: 'Today proud Mr Smith said: "The midwife had checked Emma earlier in the day but contractions started up again at about 8pm so we called the midwife to come back. But then everything happened so quickly I realized Emma was going to give birth. I wasn't sure what I was going to do so I just looked up the instructions on the internet using my BlackBerry."'"

An anonymous reader writes "Last week's House Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science FY08 budget markup would prevent work on programs devoted to human missions to Mars. According to a House Appropriations Committee press release, the markup language states that NASA cannot pursue "development or demonstration activity related exclusively to Human Exploration of Mars. NASA has too much on its plate already, and the President is welcome to include adequate funding for the Human Mars Initiative in a budget amendment or subsequent year funding requests." The Mars Society is already leading an effort to get the language removed."

Lots of readers told us about the official release of Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn (screenshots here for Ubuntu and Kubuntu). Some readers report that the distribution servers are being hammered. Here is a review of Feisty Fawn. Reader LinuxScribe sends us to LinuxPlanet for the story on a pleasant Java surprise in the release.