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Microsoft

Submission + - Open Source's Battle in Africa (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: The BBC has more details about something we last discussed in 2008--the showdown of open source versus proprietary software in Africa. When discussing the issue of cost, the piece quotes Microsoft's chairman on the scene, Dr Cheikh Modibo Diarra, who alludes that open source continually costs you money by saying 'You buy Microsoft software, and you buy it once and for all, the cost that we tell you is the total cost for ownership.' On the other end of the story is Ken Banks from Kiwanja.net who has spent 15 years developing open source applications in Africa. His logic is that 'Today we're seeing growing open-source programmer, developer communities in South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and other African countries. Clearly, if you have this informal programming sector coming up, access to source code is almost critical if they are going to be able to take advantage of these new tools that are emerging.' Well, the battle rages on, hopefully the emerging African developers and users pick the tool(s) that suit their needs the best.
Windows

Submission + - Gartner tells businesses: forget about Vista (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "IT analyst firm Gartner has told businesses to skip Vista and prepare to roll out Windows 7. Companies have traditionally been advised to wait until the first Service Pack of an operating system arrives before considering migration. However, Gartner is urging organisations that aren't already midway through Vista deployments to give the much-maligned operating system a miss. "Preparing for Vista will require the same amount of effort as preparing for Windows 7, so at this point, targeting Windows 7 would add less than six months to the schedule and would result in a plan that is more politically palatable, better for users, and results in greater longevity." Even businesses that are midway through planning a Vista migration are urged to consider scrapping the deployment. "Consider switching to Windows 7 if it would delay deployment by six months or less.""
Space

Submission + - Shuttle and Hubble passing in front of the Sun

Submitted by
GvG
GvG writes: "An incredible photo clearly showing the silhouette of Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope as they passed in front of the Sun was taken Wednesday, May 13, 2009, from west of Vero Beach, Florida. The two spaceships were at an altitude of 600 km and they zipped across the sun in only 0.8 seconds."
The Courts

Submission + - Lawsuit says Google's Sale of Keywords is Illegal 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Google encourages advertisers to purchase other companies' trademarks as targeted search terms and they're expanding the practice into 190 countries so when Audrey Spangenberg typed the name of her small software company, into Google and saw the ads of competitors that had paid Google to display their marketing messages whenever someone searched for FirePond, a registered trademark, she was furious. This week her company filed a class-action suit against Google in federal court in Texas, saying that Google had infringed on her company's trademark and challenged Google's policies on behalf of all trademark owners in the state. Legal experts said it was the first class-action suit against Google over the issue. Google's acceptance of such competitive uses of trademarks has irked many other companies, including the likes of American Airlines and Geico, which have filed suits against Google and settled them. Many brand owners say the practice abuses their brands, confuses customers and increases their cost of doing business. "I know of several companies spending millions of dollars a year in payments to Google to make sure that their company is the very first sponsored link" on searches for their own names, said Terrence Ross, a partner at Gibson Dunn, who represented American Airlines in its suit against Google. "It certainly smacks of a protection racket.""
Medicine

Submission + - Daydreaming is really complex problem solving

Submitted by beefsprocket
beefsprocket writes: ScienceDaily reports that "A new University of British Columbia study finds that our brains are much more active when we daydream than previously thought. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that activity in numerous brain regions increases when our minds wander. It also finds that brain areas associated with complex problem-solving — previously thought to go dormant when we daydream — are in fact highly active during these episodes. "Mind wandering is typically associated with negative things like laziness or inattentiveness," says lead author, Prof. Kalina Christoff, UBC Dept. of Psychology. "But this study shows our brains are very active when we daydream — much more active than when we focus on routine tasks."

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