In a small study conducted at the University of Illinois medical school, doctors and students maintained close to the ideal number of chest compressions doing CPR while listening to the Bee Gees hit, "Stayin' Alive." At 103 beats per minute, the old disco song has almost the perfect rhythm to help keep accurate time while doing chest compressions. The study showed the song helped people who already know how to do CPR, and the results were promising enough to warrant larger, more definitive studies with real patients or untrained people. I wonder what intrinsic power is contained in "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?"

LKM writes "Sony seems to think we should not be allowed to rip CDs we own to our iPods. In fact, doing so is stealing, and we should all re-buy songs, preferably one copy for each device. Says Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG: 'When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song. Making a copy of a purchased song is just a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'.' I guess somebody should tell Sony about all the devices Sony produces that allow this stealing to occur!"

jcatcw writes "While Firefox is very customizable, many of its settings aren't in the Options. Each setting is named and stored as a string, integer, or Boolean in a file called prefs.js and accessed via about:config from the nav bar. Computerworld provides instructions on 20 tweaks for speeding up page loads, making tabs behave, reducing memory drain, and generally making the interface act the way you want it to. Customization also comes through the must-have FF extensions (but be sure to skip these)."

Phanatic1a writes "New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is suing Dell, alleging bait and switch financing tactics, false advertising, and 'numerous other deceptive business practices relating to their technical support services, promotional financing, rebate offers, and billing and collection activity.' According to Cuomo himself, 'At Dell, customer service means no service at all.'"

An anonymous reader sends along a posting from the Grooveking blog on a group of Stanford students who got together to help promote Firefox and ended up releasing a long overdue eBay Toolbar for Firefox before Mozilla and eBay could release their jointly developed extension in Europe. Mozilla's COO said the preemptive release of the eBay Toolbar had ruffled some feathers among European eBay execs. "Besides basic search features, it removes external ads on the site and allows users to see thumbnail pictures on ALL search items, even those sellers didn't pay for. An eBay toolbar has been long overdue... eBay can't be too enthusiastic about this toolbar since it cuts directly into its main sources of revenue: ads and thumbnail fees. But eBay users get a really good deal."

Roland Piquepaille writes "Several companies have started to sell power 'pads' that can charge your cellphone when you put it on the pad's surface. But these silicon-based pads are expensive — and relatively 'specialized.' Now, Japanese researchers have built a plastic sheet which could power all the devices placed close to it. So far, this 4-layer sheet, which uses printed organic transistors and plastic MEMS switches, can deliver up to 40 watts of power — enough for some laptops. The technology is apparently efficient and inexpensive to produce. But as the devices to recharge will need to incorporate a special receiver, don't expect to see these plastic power sheets on sale before several years."

jcatcw writes "First there were the 20 must-have Firefox Extension and ensuing Slashdot discussion. Now Computerworld has the top 10 to avoid. For example, NoScript, which does make Firefox safer, but isn't worth the hassle, Or, VideoDownloader for slow downloads, when it works at all. Then there's Greasemonkey — on both lists."

An anonymous reader noted that Computerworld is running a story on the 20 must have Firefox extensions. Several of my favorites are in there so I'm looking forward to playing with the ones I haven't heard of.

AWhiteFlame writes "IPAction.org is reporting on a section of the Reform Act of 2006 that's very shocking and surprisingly not that publicized. From the article: 'This will be a busy week in the House -- Congress goes into summer recess Friday, but not before considering the Section 115 Reform Act of 2006 (SIRA). Never heard of SIRA? That's the way Big Copyright and their lackey's want it, and it's bad news for you. Simply put, SIRA fundamentally redefines copyright and fair use in the digital world. It would require all incidental copies of music to be licensed separately from the originating copy. Even copies of songs that are cached in your computer's memory or buffered over a network would need yet another license.'"

fistfullast33l writes "Groklaw has reported that the USPTO has ruled the broadest claims of the JPEG Patent held by Fogent to be invalid. PUBPAT, the organization that requested the review, released the news earlier today. According to PJ, the ruling will be hard to overturn as the 'submitters knew about the prior art but failed to tell the USPTO about it.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Some of the largest hardware firms in the world, like Cisco and 3M, have sent a letter to U.S. policymakers asking them not to be too hasty on mandated net neutrality laws." From the News.com article: "'It is premature to attempt to enact some sort of network neutrality principles into law now,' says the letter, which was signed by 34 companies and sent to House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. 'Legislating in the absence of real understanding of the issue risks both solving the wrong problem and hobbling the rapidly developing new technologies and business models of the Internet with rigid, potentially stultifying rules.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Slowing down light used to be considered a neat trick for physics wonks. But researchers in New York now say they've pushed light into reverse. And as if to defy common sense, the backward-moving light travels faster than light." While there's not much use to come of it yet, it will be interesting if Einstein himself is proved wrong.