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Wikipedia

Submission + - Prosecutor Loses Case for Citing Wikipedia (inquirer.net) 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Phillipine Daily Inquirer reports on a recent case where the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) lost an appeal after seeking to impeach the testimony of a defendant's expert witness by citing an article from Wikipedia. In her brief, the defendant said "the authority, alluded to by oppositor-appellant, the 'Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders DSM-IV-TR,' was taken from an Internet website commonly known as Wikipedia" and argued that Wikipedia itself contains a disclaimer saying that it "makes no guarantee of validity." The court in finding for the defendant said in its decision that it found "incredible ... if not a haphazard attempt, on the part of the (OSG) to impeach an expert witness, with, as pointed out by (the defendant) unreliable information. This is certainly unacceptable evidence, nothing short of a mere allegation totally unsupported by authority.""

Submission + - Pinball Being Played for $10,000 (tiltwarning.com)

Submitted by siobHan
siobHan writes: The PAPA World Pinball Championships recently concluded in Scott, PA (near Pittsburgh), as covered on Slashdot already. The organizers recorded full 1080p/60 HD video of the playfield during the final games, and have uploaded the entirety of the crucial deciding game, with commentary. The winner of this game received $10,000 for his skillful play. Direct link to just the video can be found here.
Cellphones

Porting Lemmings In 36 Hours 154

Posted by Soulskill from the first-in-line dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Aaron Ardiri challenged himself to port his classic PalmOS version of Lemmings to the iPhone, Palm Pre, Mac, and Windows. The porting was done using his own dev environment, which creates native C versions of the game. He liveblogged the whole thing, and finished after only 36 hours with an iPhone version and a Palm Pre version awaiting submission, and free versions for Windows and Mac available on his site."
Australia

Australia Gets Its First Female Prime Minister 419

Posted by samzenpus from the sheila-in-chief dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Julia Gillard has been elected unopposed to the Labor leadership, seizing power in a bloodless Parliament House coup after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd decided not to contest this morning's leadership ballot. Ms. Gillard will now be sworn in as Australia's first female prime minister. Emerging from this morning's meeting, she said she felt 'very honored' and said she would be making a statement shortly. Treasurer Wayne Swan now steps up as deputy prime minister. He was also elected unopposed."

Submission + - DIY Synthetic Aperture Radar (makezine.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Here is a tutorial on how to build a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) from a bunch of junk found at swap meets, a garage door opener and a cordless drill. This system is capable of high resolution imaging of pins and model aircraft. Wonder why you were pulled over? build one of these then measure the radar reflectivity of your car.

Submission + - Increasing Solar Efficiency to 66% 3

Submitted by dptalia
dptalia writes: Scientists at the University of Texas have discovered a way to up solar cell's efficiency to about 66%. Using quantum dot technology the scientists can capture the sun's energy that is transmitted as heat, which could dramatically change solar technology.
Government

Submission + - FEMA & DHS Fund "Disaster Hero" Game (gamepolitics.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: In the amazing world of edutainment, the United States government has decided that a children's game is needed in educating children about what to do before, during and after an emergency or hazardous event. Collect an emergency kit! Create an emergency plan! Be informed of what to do! Suffer from heat exhaustion inside the Superdome! ... Wait, what? Oh, I guess FEMA omitted that last one. Disaster Hero! Coming in 2011--plenty of time before 2012.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft to add yet another smartphone OS this ye (infoworld.com)

Submitted by GMGruman
GMGruman writes: Someone at Microsoft either really loves mobile operating systems or can't make up his mind as to which to use, because Microsoft today announced yet another mobile OS, its fifth. The new Windows Embedded Handheld OS will succeed Windows Mobile 6.5 and run on at least some existing Windows Mobile smartphones. It is not the same mobile OS, known as Windows Phone 7, that Microsoft earlier this year said would replace Windows Mobile and break with it in terms of compatibility so Microsoft could better compete with the iPhone and Google Android OS.
NASA

Submission + - SpaceX Falcon 9 Relatively Cheap to NASA's New Pad (motherboard.tv)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As debate over the future of spaceflight rages on – and as the axe all but falls on NASA’s mission back to the moon and beyond – the successful launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 two weeks ago proved at least one of the virtues of the private option: it’s a heckava lot cheaper than government-funded rides to space.

In fact, the whole system was built for less than the cost of the service tower that was to be used for NASA’s proposed future spaceflight vehicle (yup, the service tower is finished, but the rocket isn’t, and the whole program may well be cancelled anyway).
Image

Study Shows Monkeys Like Watching TV 103

Posted by samzenpus from the jungle-news-network dept.
According to a Japanese study, monkeys are not immune to the siren call of the idiot box. It seems rhesus monkeys enjoy watching videos of circus animals. From the article: "The study found that when the monkey was witnessing the acrobatic performances of circus animals on a television screen, the frontal lobe area of its brain became vigorously active. The activity in such an area was significant in reflecting the monkey's pleasure, as the human equivalent is a neurological area associated with triggering delight in a baby when it sees the smile of its mother."

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