ThinSkin writes "It is appropriate to say that Antec was 'thinking outside the box' when the idea of the 'Skeleton' PC Case sprung to mind. The Antec Skeleton is an open-air PC case with a pair of shelves for the motherboard and other components — held up by arching arms. There are no side panels. This is ideal for the computer user who is constantly fidgeting with his PC parts, or someone who wants to show off his fancy components. Just have a compressed air can nearby. There is also a slideshow of Antec Skeleton images available."

AppScout interviews Office's Group Program Manager, Jensen Harris on the subject of Office 2007. Harris reveals that Clippy, the bane of all semi-sentient Office users everywhere, is officially dead. The decision apparently revolved not around the passionate hatred for the unfortunate sprite, but simply out of a desire for UI coherency.

dpbsmith writes "The Detroit Free Press reports that a Windows Automotive software suite named Sync will be featured in some cars available Spring 2007, all 2008 Ford models, and Lincoln and Mercury models later. The software does not, apparently, run the engine or do anything directly connected with transportation. It will, rather, allow the user to 'use their vehicle as a computer in key ways, such as hands-free cell phone calls or downloading music or receiving e-mail.' Bill Ford and Bill Gates were reported as saying that having high-definition screens in vehicles, speech recognition, cameras, digital calendars and navigation equipment with directions and road conditions will set car companies apart from their competitors in the future. 'There are going to be those who have it and those who don't. And even those who get it later are going to be a generation behind,' Ford said."

s31523 writes "With over 1 billion cell phone users worldwide, and with so many business travelers, using the cell phone on the airplane has been a recent hot topic. Emirate airlines is announcing they will give the OK for cell phone use on their planes, making them the first airline to do so. The FCC and FAA still ban the use, but are working to determine safety implications, if any."

An anonymous reader writes "Computers take too long to boot up, and it doesn't make sense to me. Mine takes around 30 seconds; it is double or triple that for some of my friends' computers that I have used. Why can't a computer turn on and off in an instant just like a TV? 99% of boots, my computer is doing the exact same thing. Then I get to Windows XP with maybe 50 to 75 megs of stuff in memory. My computer should be smart enough to just load that junk into memory and go with it. You could put this data right at the very start of the hard drive. Whenever you do something with the computer that actually changes what happens during boot, it could go through the real booting process and save the results. Doing this would also give you instant restarts. You just hit your restart button, the computer reloads the memory image, and you can be working again. Or am I wrong? Why haven't companies made it a priority to have 'instant on' desktops and laptops?"

massysett writes "Everybody has been frustrated by plastic retail packaging that's nearly impossible to open. New toys and electronic gadgets arrive encased in plastic bubbles. Manufacturers say the packages protect goods and make them look nice, but opening them can be difficult enough to cause injuries that land people in the emergency room. Manufacturers have an appropriate term for the frustration: wrap rage. One man even invented a cutter designed specifically for cracking open plastic clamshells."

chew827 writes "Nevrax has been suffering bankruptcy and is in the process of liquidation and are trying to sell the Saga of Ryzom, the #3 rated MMORPG on mmorpg.com, to any prospective buyers. A group has assembled to try and raise enough funds to buy the intellectual property and open it under the GPL license — something Ton Roosendaal did for Blender."

phil reed writes "University of Washington physicist John Cramer is attempting to send a signal back through time." From the article: "We're going to shoot an ultraviolet laser into a (special type of) crystal, and out will come two. lower-energy photons that are entangled," Cramer said. For the first phase of the experiment, to be started early next year, they will look for evidence of signaling between the entangled photons. Finding that would, by itself, represent a stunning achievement. Ultimately, the UW scientists hope to test for retrocausality — evidence of a signal sent between photons backward in time. The test will involve sending one of the photons down 10 miles of fiber optic cable, delaying it by 50 microseconds, then testing a quantum-mechanical aspect of the delayed photon. Due to quantum entanglement, the non-delayed photon would need to reflect the measurement made 50 microseconds later on the delayed photon. In order for this to happen, some kind of signal would need to be sent 50 microseconds back in time from the delayed photon to the non-delayed photon. (Confusing? Quantum physics is like that.)

Albert Sandberg writes, "KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) has created the first logo that is visible from space. The construction was made by 65,000 1x1-foot tiles and covers about 2 acres. The logo was built and assembled over about a month and is located in the Nevada desert near Area 51. The article also has a short video showing the construction in time-lapse. Now the aliens know where to get their slimy food :-)"

ClickOnThis noted that NASA is actually avoiding a Shuttle in Space over New Years. It says "The worry is that shuttle computers aren't designed to make the change from the 365th day of the old year to the first day of the new year while in flight. NASA has never had a shuttle in space December 31 or January 1. 'We've just never had the computers up and going when we've transitioned from one year to another,' said Discovery astronaut Joan Higginbotham. 'We're not really sure how they're going to operate.'" You may notice some deja vu while reading this story. Sorry. Not much happens on Sundays :)

nieske writes "Of course we all want webpages to load as fast as possible, but now research has finally shown it: four seconds loading time is the maximum threshold for websurfers. Akamai and JupiterResearch have conducted a study among 1,000 online shoppers and have found, among other results, that one third of respondents have, at one point, left a shopping website because of the overall 'poor experience.' 75% of them do not intend ever to come back to this website again. Online shopper loyalty also increases as loading time of webpages decreases. Will this study finally show developers of shopping websites the importance of the performance of their websites?"

An anonymous reader writes "From The Age article: Universal Tube, which sells used machines that make tubes, has said it has lost business because customers have had trouble accessing its site." So now Utube is suing YouTube seeking a cease and desist on the youtube domain. (I wonder if they think Google's pockets might be deeper that the previous owners'.) This again raises the problems of domain names colliding across different industries and countries, and reminds me of the etoys/etoy tussle a few years back. Should domain name simply be exempt from trademark legislation in all countries or is it a legit thing to fight for?"