Barence writes "Microsoft has started certifying PCs as 'compatible with Windows 7' — and is looking to avoid the mistakes that dogged the Vista-Capable scheme. Whereas Microsoft certified PCs that could only run Vista Home Basic last time around, this time PCs will have to work with all versions of Windows 7 to qualify for the sticker, including 64-bit versions of the OS. Microsoft also claims, 'products that receive the logo are checked for common issues to minimize the number of crashes, hangs, and reboots experienced by the user.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Two MIT students have successfully photographed the earth from space on a strikingly low budget of $148. Perhaps more significantly, they managed to accomplish this feat using components available off-the-shelf to the average layperson, opening the door for a new generation of amateur space enthusiasts. The pair plan to launch again soon and hope that their achievements will inspire teachers and students to pursue similar endeavors."

An anonymous reader writes "I have written a nifty application that helps me run my own business, and could really help in running almost any business. It has been abstracted well enough that it could very plausibly be made a sale-able product. There are several very good, possibly patentable ideas within it. However, they are overshadowed by virtually an infinite number of possible bs challenges to its more mundane parts. I'm rather fearful of bringing this to market for that reason, and so far have only deployed it as a 'consulting' project with two other small companies (who love it). Does anyone have suggestions about how to proceed?" Other than a generic "hire a lawyer!", are there practical steps a software author can do here?

Brietech writes "Ever wanted to own your own supercomputer? This guy recreated a 31-processor SIMD supercomputer from the early 1980s called the 'Non-Von 1' in an FPGA. It uses a 'Non-Von Neumann' architecture, and was intended for extremely fast database searches and artificial intelligence applications. Full-scale models were intended to have more than a million processors. It's a cool project for those interested in 'alternative' computer architectures, and yes, full source code (Verilog) is available, along with a python library to program it with." Hope the WIPO patent has expired.