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Hardware

Submission + - NCSA and IBM part ways over Blue Waters (illinois.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: IBM has terminated its contract with NCSA for the petascale Blue Waters system that was expected to go online in the next year. The reason stated was that NCSA found IBM's technology "was more complex and required significantly increased financial and technical support by IBM beyond its original expectations." The IT community is now wondering if NCSA will be renting out space in the new data center that is being built to house Blue Waters or if they will go with another vendor.
Windows

Microsoft is Screwing Up Live on Vista 114

Posted by Zonk from the get-with-the-program dept.
Joe The Dragon wrote with a link to an ExtremeTech article lambasting Microsoft for its confusing rollout of the Live service on the PC. While the vision of achievements, a gamerscore, a consistent friends list, and one sprawling multiplayer network is tantalizing, the reality falls somewhat short of that goal. "The biggest mistake Microsoft is making with Live on the PC is the way they're treating the PC as if it's a console platform they can control. They're trying to lock out the rest of the world and to charge for features that PC gamers have had for free for ages. It's a shortsighted, greedy scheme that could only come from a product manager or VP who simply doesn't "get" PC gaming. The free Silver level of Xbox Live lets you log in on the PC and earn Achievements just like you do on the 360--but only single-player Achievements. Multiplayer Achievements are only for those $50-a-year Gold members. Player matchmaking is for Gold members only. Voice in games is for Gold members only. Cross-platform play between 360 and PC is for Gold members only. In fact, the only thing silver members can really do is view a server list and hop onto a specific server." Article author Jason Cross warns Microsoft at the end of the piece that it is 'not too late' to turn things around. Vista is still a young platform, and once driver issues are ironed out and Vista becomes the standard there are still opportunities for success.
Biotech

Submission + - 3-D model of breast cancer in the lab

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "According to BBC News, U.K. researchers have built a 3-D version of breast cancer in a test tube. Their model contains cells from normal and cancerous breast tissue. The researchers used a collagen gel to form 3-D structures to create structures similar to the ones find in a woman breast. So far, they focused on a common pre-cancerous condition known as 'ductal carcinoma in situ' (DCIS). With this model, they hope to reduce experiments done on animals such as mice. In fact, these experiments are not always useful because similarities can be poor between mice and humans. Now it remains to be seen if this model will be endorsed by the scientific community. But read more for additional details about this new 3-D model."
Space

Submission + - Remains of James Doohan lost after landing

Submitted by
caffiend666
caffiend666 writes: "According to a Space.com news article the cremated remains of 200 people were lost in mountains after trip to space. 'The search for the UP Aerospace payload of experiments and the cremated remains of some 200 people — including "Scotty" of Star Trek fame, as well as pioneeering NASA Mercury astronaut, Gordon Cooper — continues within rugged New Mexico mountain landscape.' Is it just me, or does it appropriate that they lost the landing party? He wasn't wearing a red shirt, was he? Here's to a safe recovery!"
United States

Submission + - Anti-ID theft measures fought by credit industry

Submitted by
PetManimal
PetManimal writes: "Brian Krebs of the Washington Post has a very interesting article about the credit industry's fight against consumer rights measures that would force credit bureaus, credit card companies, retailers, banks and even private investigators to protect citizens from having their credit data accessed, by taking measures such as restricting access to credit reports and freezing new lines of credit. While several states have tried to enact consumer-friendly laws, the industry has lobbied hard on the state and national level to water down, eliminate, or reverse them and keep open access to easy credit.

'The banks, the insurance companies, credit bureaus and retailers really came out of the woodwork and fought hard against it,' [activist George Fitzgerald] said. 'I thought it was good for them and the banks. I thought with all the ID theft going on, people might even get to the point where they'd be afraid of using the [banking] system. I thought that since the credit bureaus were making a bundle of money off of trading consumers' information ... that they should offer a way to protect that information.'
The article says that the industry has backed down in some states and some credit-freeze laws have passed, but with conditions and business-friendly exceptions — for instance, Delaware had to eliminate a provision that included fines for merchants that failed to secure customer data, before the law could be passed."
Privacy

Submission + - RIAA Secretly Tries to Get ISP Subscriber Info

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA secretly went into federal district court in Denver, Colorado, the home town of its lawyers, and — in an attempt to change the rules of the game — made an ex parte application to a federal judge there, asking him to rule (pdf) that the federal Cable Communications Policy Act does not apply to the RIAA's attempts to get subscriber information from cable companies. ("Ex parte" means application was secret, no one else — neither the ISP nor the subscribers — were given notice that this was going on.). They were, in effect, asking the Court to rule that the RIAA does not need to get a court order to be able to force an ISP to disclose confidential subscriber information. The Magistrate Judge declined to rule on the issue (pdf), but did give them the ex parte discovery order they were looking for."
Biotech

Submission + - Nanolayers of water

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "What happens when you compress water in a nano-sized space? According to Georgia Tech physicists, water starts to behave like a solid. "The confined water film behaves like a solid in the vertical direction by forming layers parallel to the confining surface, while maintaining it's liquidity in the horizontal direction where it can flow out," said one of the researchers. "Water is a wonderful lubricant, but it flows too easily for many applications. At the one nanometer scale, water is a viscous fluid and could be a much better lubricant," added another one. Read more for additional references."
Education

Journal Journal: Math whizzes ho! 5

Journal by smooth wombat
I am not a math whiz. I can barely do differential algebra. However, to see why, at least, the Chinese are ahead of the U.S. and most other countries in the world when it comes to math, try out this example question from this BBC article to see how you compare.
Privacy

Submission + - Flixster Grabbing Users' AOL and Gmail Passwords

Submitted by Talaria
Talaria writes: The social networking movie review site Flixster is grabbing their users' AOL, Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail passwords, and using them to access their users' address books and send "invitations" to join Flixster to everyone in the address book, making it appear to be from the user. The password prompt screen looks very compelling, and even includes the ISP's logo right next to the password prompt. Rather than hiding this little "feature", Flixster brags about it in an interview following their receiving $2million in venture funding earlier this year.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Water logic gates built at MIT

Submitted by
ndogg
ndogg writes: "This story is all wet. Paulo Blikstein at MIT has created a water computer. The one boolean logic gate he created functions as a half-adder (i.e. both XOR and AND). He then proceeded to create a four bit adder."
Supercomputing

Quantum Computer Demoed, Plays Sudoku 309

Posted by kdawson from the more-qubits dept.
prostoalex writes "Canadian company D-Wave Systems is getting some technology press buzz after successfully demonstrating their quantum computer (discussed here earlier) that the company plans to rent out. Scientific American has a more technical description of how the quantum computer works, as well as possible areas of application: 'The quantum computer was given three problems to solve: searching for molecular structures that match a target molecule, creating a complicated seating plan, and filling in Sudoku puzzles.' Another attendee provides some videos from the demo." Anyone want to guess how long before "qubit" gets compressed to "quit" (as "bigit" became "bit" in the last century)?
The Almighty Buck

Amazon Adjusts Prices After Sales Error 756

Posted by kdawson from the double-dipping dept.
An anonymous reader writes "On December 23, Amazon advertised a 'buy one get one free' sale on DVD box-sets, but apparently did not test the promotion before going live. When anyone placed two box-sets in their cart, the website gave a double discount — so the 'grand total' shown (before order submission) was $0.00 or some very small amount. Despite terms stating that Amazon checks order prices before shipping, Amazon shipped a large number of these orders. Five days later (December 28), after orders had been received and presumably opened, Amazon emailed customers advising them to return the box-sets unopened or their credit cards would be charged an additional amount (more threads). Starting yesterday, Amazon has been (re)charging credit cards, often without authorization. On Amazon's side, they didn't advertise any double discount, and the free or nearly-free box-sets must have cost them a mint. But with Amazon continually giving unadvertised discounts that seem to be errors, is 'return the merchandise or be charged' the new way that price glitches will be handled?"
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Why Online Multiplayer isn't all that Important

Submitted by
cyrus_zuo
cyrus_zuo writes: "GameTunnel has published an article on why they believe online multiplayer is over-rated. From the article:
'Multiplayer gaming is awesome, don't get me wrong, but I don't think that online multiplayer modes are all that great. Unless I'm playing in the same room as the person I'm playing against, I lose the emotional and physical connection that makes multiplayer games fun.'
'It's like going to a party where you drink and dance by yourself in your living room, and connect to everyone else through headsets, video cameras and HD TVs. No matter how you look at it, the end result is a lame party.'"

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