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Social Networks

Facebook and Zynga Team Up To Merge Romance and Social Gaming 38

TechCrunch has the scoop on a really new project from Zynga and Facebook that aims to bring together two of the most popular segments of the social web: romance and gaming. Quoting: "Dubbed 'Relationships,' Facebook is going to soon a section of the site dedicated to helping users meet potential romantic . To do that, the company has been working with Zynga over the last four months to develop games that 'synthesize romance and foster relationships through social gaming mechanics,' helping users flirt and get to know each other using Farmville-like games to help break the . In the post, Facebook says that it will look at the profiles of your previous boyfriends/girlfriends to determine the you’re attracted to most, and that it will also use advanced photographic analysis to figure out your preferred facial structure and body type. In an attempt to privacy concerns before they begin, Facebook notes that all of this is done automatically, and that at no point are allowed to view these reports on your innermost psyche. How reassuring."
Displays

Toshiba Develops 3-D Monocle 69

For years, adoption of 3-D technology has been hampered by the cumbersome viewing glasses needed to properly perceive the , not to mention the loss in market share of people who have suffered the injury or loss of one of their . Now, Toshiba has laid those concerns to rest with the creation of the world's first 3-D monocle, dubbed the "Spectacle." "Two triangular polarizing lenses were melded in parallel and encased in black-plated tungsten carbide for a lightweight and durable ." The elegant, minimalist design leaves your second eye free for other .
Books

Vatican To Digitize Prohibited Archives 121

tiltowait writes "Hot on the heels of their successful iPhone app and drive-through confessional, the BBC News reports that the has announced plans to digitize their pornography collection and make it available online to subscribers. Given what the church has planned for the project's , here's hoping they learn lessons from the the New York Times paywall loopholes. Is anyone in on the Indulgentia beta?"
Cloud

Google Gmail Motion Beta 104

PB8 noted that has been following all the kinect projects that have been floating around the net, and decided to use detection along with a rich visual vocabulary including common gestures and American Sign Language to accelerate your gmail time. This is going to require a bit of a change in my email composition since normally I use those to vent frustration.

Comment Re:The Scarier Part... (Score 1) 947

A year of part-time study on top of years of study to make you proficient in your subject. Even worse, in some places, the classes are of no practical value, the costs can exceed $10,000, and a year of student teaching is required. I realize that there are many states that have streamlined paths to certification for specialists who seek to teach their area of expertise, but that is not the norm. In Arizona (no jokes, please), an expert in a science field requires 30 hours of classwork in education and a year of student teaching - essentially a Master's degree in time if not in degree. While having an advanced degree in math is not necessary to teach middle schoolers the pythagorean theorem, what about teaching high schoolers evolution, electrochemistry, or circuits? At what point would you rather have a physics major that can teach rather than a teacher who has taken some physics? How much compromise in content mastery (not knowledge) is acceptable?

Comment The Scarier Part... (Score 2) 947

The scarier part of the summary is this: "not every biology teacher was a science major". It is, unfortunately, true. Teachers can get certified to teach biology with a degree in education and a minor (or even less in some states) in biology. Contrariwise, a person with a B.S., M.S., or even Ph.D. in biology is considered unqualified to teach their subject without significant financial and time investment for certification. While I understand that not everyone who can do science or has an advanced degree can teach well, is it not better practice to at least have some path by which they can easily and practically attain a teaching position in a quick and inexpensive manner? When non-science majors with a minimum of science education are considered more qualified by the establishment to teach science than experts in the field, is it no wonder that we are lagging in science education?

Comment Re:Science (Score 1) 330

While many historians may consider Lavoisier the father of modern chemistry, most chemists (I am one) consider Robert Boyle's book The Skeptical Chymist, which came over 100 years before Lavoisier, to be the turning point to modern chemistry.

Comment Re:They want devs to choose (Score 1) 711

Read what I said again, and this time not for what you want it to say, but for what it really says. I didn't say the courts were wrong to convict MS. My point, to put it bluntly, was that if antitrust regulations deal solely with monopolies, as the prior post stated, then MS would have been wrongly convicted, and they weren't.

As to that being one definition, please cite the one you think most important and/or relevant that disagrees with mine. That one is from Merriam-Webster's American Dictionary, for your reference.

Comment Re:They want devs to choose (Score 0) 711

You do have to be a monopoly in order for leveraging market share against competitors to be illegal.

You have a contradiction in terms - in a monopoly, the commodity is controlled by one entity. There are no competitors, there is no market share except 100%.

monopoly

Main Entry: monopoly
Pronunciation: \m-nä-p(-)l\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural monopolies
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monoplion, from mon- + plein to sell
Date: 1534

1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly

Thus, in a monopoly, there are no competitors. Antitrust lawsuits specifically deal with companies that do not have a monopoly. For example, see the cases vs Microsoft, where although MS did not have a monopoly on browsers, they did leverage their market share to unfairly crowd out competition and were sued for it.

Comment Re:Publishing Research in Newspapers? (Score 2, Informative) 706

Disclosure: I am a teacher with science degrees (and no education degree, but some coursework and experience in science ed research). You are correct, and, what's more, the article lacks any sort of detailed methodology and statistical analysis. Something smells fishy here. In addition, it's bad science to think that because you did one experiment of randomized trials that you have some sort of real discovery. (Yes I did RTFA and know he had many test sites, but it's one experiment) The experiment is virtually useless and lacks any real, strong validity unless and until another experimenter can re-create the results.
Science

First LHC Data Hint At New Particle 124

Anonymous Dupeur writes "Only 12 hours after the start of operation of the Large Hardon Collider at an unprecedentedly high energy level, a discovery had been made. Today, in its press release, CERN disclosed the observation of a new class — paleoparticles. 'It's awful,' explains Alain Grand, still shocked by the discovery. 'It left horrible tracks inside the detector that made the physicists on duty at the time feel quite sick.' No wonder. The particle consists of two strange quarks and one top quark but no beauty or charm quark. The physicists have nicknamed it the 'neutrinosaurus.' This marks a first success of the — finally — started experiment."

Comment Re:Hey, Me Too! (Score 1) 243

If the photography requirement is discarded as a reason, as you suggest, then financially GoDaddy would have to realize that any number of registrations is greater than zero registrations, which is what GoDaddy would have if they pulled out. Why voluntarily take zero income as some sort of gesture against taking less income? Bit of a cutting-nose-to-spite-face dept thing to me.
Cellphones

Google Charges ETF For Nexus One On Top of Carrier's 165

dumbnose sends along the news that Google is double-dipping on the Nexus One early termination fee. Ars sorts out the double dose of fine print from Google and T-Mobile. What it boils down to is, if you give up on your Nexus One between 14 days and 120 days after the sale, it will cost you $550: $350 to Google (automatically charged to the credit card you used to buy the phone) and $200 to T-Mobile. After 120 days the Google fee goes away and after 550 days the T-Mobile ETF begins prorating. A poster on Dave Farber's email list provides another perspective on the "restructuring of the handset premium."

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