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Submission + - Remember that 70-solar-mass black hole announced last week? Yeah, not so much.

Submitted by The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: Last week, scientists announced the discovery of a stellar-mass black hole with 70 times the Sun's mass, far heftier than theory predicts they can get. Within days, though, four separate papers have come out casting extreme doubt on the claim. They show that the data weren't processed correctly, and that the black hole is closer to Earth than first assumed, which changes the calculations and makes it a more normal 5 — 20 solar mass object.

Bees Can Optimize Internet Bottlenecks 128

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the bee-all-that-you-can-bee dept.
prostoalex writes "Georgia Tech and University of Oxford scientists claim bees can help up develop a better Internet traffic algorithms. By observing bees, the researchers noticed that bees pass back information on route quality. 'On a basic level, the honeybee's dilemma is a tale of two flower patches. If one patch is yielding better nectar than the other, how can the hive use its workforce most efficiently to retrieve the best supply at the moment? The solution, which earned Austrian zoologist Karl von Frisch a Nobel Prize, is a communication system called the waggle dance.' Any practical applications of that? Well, apparently ad servers, serving banners across a variety of servers, can report back on the time it took to generate the page."

Feed Engadget: Dell Latitude XT tablet will have multi-touch, just not for a while (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs


If you're at all like us, you spent a little time scratching your head after the Latitude XT's launch wondering just what Michael Dell really meant when he mentioned the convertible having multi-touch. Sure, he talked up the laptop's myriad capabilities when he showed the XT at OpenWorld, but multi-touch was suspiciously absent from the official launch details, so we gave Dell a buzz and got this juicy tidbit: yes, XT buyers now (and in the future) will all have laptops capable of multi-touch input, thanks to that capacitive touchscreen, but the software and/or drivers needed to enable it won't be released "until a later date." We have no idea what that date is -- or if that date is even in 2008 -- but there you have it, the first would-be multi-touch tablet laptop is officially the first will-be multi-touch tablet laptop.

P.S. -To tide you over, we've got a total snooze-fest of a product demo video after the break. Capacitive touch was never so... boring.

Continue reading Dell Latitude XT tablet will have multi-touch, just not for a while

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Feed Engadget: USB missile launcher goes wireless (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Peripherals, Wireless

Never content with leaving their gimmicky products as is, the perfectionists over at Brando are prepping yet a third iteration of the wildly-popular USB missile launcher, with the new model featuring an upgrade to wireless control. Cubical commandos now have over a 15-foot range from their workstations to wage this geekiest form of warfare, thanks to a two-part system that connects transmitter and launcher with a proprietary RF signal. If you happen to work in the type of environment that condones this sort of silly behavior, or just want to go out with a bang, the set can be yours for $45 starting on the 20th.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Feed Engadget: iTunes Canada gets NHL and TV downloads (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Portable Video

Apple just confirmed that rumor floating around the last few days: Canada's top television programs, a few from the US, and the NHL are now available from Canadian iTunes. Downloadables include CBC's "Little Mosque on the Prairie," "South Park," and NHL Games of the Year. Each is available for CAN$1.99 which is something like 20 US pesos.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Portables

Asus Insider Claims Apple Tablet Is Real 358

Posted by Zonk from the pleasant-fantasy dept.
CaptainCrunchyApple writes "According to cnet.co.uk the oft-rumoured Apple Tablet PC is actually very real, and on its way soon. CNET claims to have spoken to an anonymous tipster at Asus who claims to be working with Apple to produce the tablet. 'We're guessing it'll be based on Intel Core architecture, a tweaked version of Leopard, and have all the multi-touch, CoverFlow goodness we've seen in the iPhone and iPod touch. All this begs the question: Can Apple turn the Tablet PC into a success when previous attempts have failed? The short answer is 'yes'. Any company that can make a mobile phone with no buttons, no picture messaging, slow Web access and no video capture into the most desirable phone on the planet can easily make tablets popular.'"

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