conq writes "BusinessWeek reports that Facebook has just raised another $25M from Venture Capital. Along the same lines, Rupert Murdoch has bought a minority stake in SimplyHired and just two days ago the social networking site, Visible Path said it raised $17M from Venture Capitals."

xzvf writes "Dvorak claims OS X and Apple in trouble. He suggests open sourcing OS X for an epic battle with Linux. In many ways, this is just insane rambling, but it's certainly entertaining on some levels." From the article: "That would make the battle between OS X and Linux the most interesting one on the computer scene. With all attention turned in that direction, there would be nothing Microsoft could do to stem a reversal of its fortunes. Let's start at the beginning. There's been a lot of fuss over Apple's rollout of the unsupported Boot Camp product, which lets Mac users run Microsoft Windows easily on an Intel-based Macintosh. I got into various levels of trouble when I suggested that Apple was going to gravitate towards Windows since it would be easy to do and there was some evidence that the company might want to do it."

Grench writes "The BBC has an article on Microsoft's purchase of Lionhead Studios. They focus in particular on Peter Molyneux, and the kind of talents and expertise that he can bring to Microsoft's future gaming efforts. A sequel to Fable was mentioned as a probable endeavor." From the article: "Some of the giants of the games industry, such as Electronic Arts and Ubisoft, were reported to have been interested in acquiring Lionhead. But Microsoft has emerged as the victor, adding the studio to its roster of British gaming talent. In 2002, it acquired developers Rare in a $375m deal."

compuguy84 asks: "I'm a Computer Science major. A Finance Major friend and I are starting a business based on an innovative idea I had. I came up with the concept and developed the overall model we would use. He loved it, and we've been working on our business plan ever since. We've both donated our respective expertise, covered major ground, and agreed from the start that everything will be split 50-50 (ownership, power, etc). Unfortunately, the time has come to incorporate, and potential investors have advised against assigning Co-CEO's. So who should be the CEO? Should the Finance Major get the job based solely on his Business knowledge, or should the Computer Science guy get the job because it was his idea? We've both have shown ourselves to be savvy business folks, but I don't have the 'schoolin'. All signs so far point to giving him the job, but I can't shake the feeling I'm getting robbed. If it was my idea, shouldn't I call the shots at the end of the day? Has anyone been through this? What did you do?"

mu22le writes "A recent study conducted by the Duke University Medical Center on 700 patients, found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. Researchers emphasized their work does not address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. This result seems to contradict a previous study by the same authors that reported "cardiac patients who received intercessory prayer in addition to coronary stenting appeared to have better clinical outcomes than those treated with standard stenting therapy alone"."

ThisNukes4u writes "The Economist reports that scientists in California are coming closer to creating real-life mythical animals. Basically, they re-create the natural selection process through a computer simulation and then clone the resulting set of DNA in a donor animal." From the article: "Each computer starts with a search image (dragon, unicorn, gryphon, etc), and the genome of the real animal most closely resembling it (a lizard for the dragon, a horse for the unicorn and, most taxingly, the spliced genomes of a lion and an eagle for the gryphon). The virtual genomes of these real animals are then tweaked by random electronic mutations. When they have matured, the virtual adults most closely resembling the targets are picked and cross-bred, while the others are culled."

V.Toulias asks: "Over the past few years, I have seen a rise in the percentage of applications installed in my Windows box that do not ask nicely for my attention but force themselves into view when they think they have something important to tell me. Mail clients that pop-up into view when a new email is sent or received, instant messengers that pop up when a new message arrives, browser pop-ups that... pop-up even though the page is loading in a 'background window', informational OS messages, It-seems-that-you're-writing-a-letter app helpers, security warnings and the list goes on. It doesn't take a science study to realize the adverse effects that this phenomenon is causing on your productivity and concentration. So, apart from the obvious suggestion of switching OS, is there any other solution to this disturbing trend?"

An anonymous reader writes "DeviceForge is reporting that researchers at Oregon State University claim to have created the worlds first 'completely transparent' ICs (integrated circuit) from inorganic compounds. From the article: 'The technology can enable extremely inexpensive electronics for use in "throw away" devices, and is expected to be used in automobile windshields, cell phones, TVs, games, and toys, among other applications, OSU said. OSU also believes that the technology might result in more efficient solar cells or improvements and LCD displays (liquid crystal displays), it said.'"

brian0918 writes "U.S. and Japanese researchers have announced results of a study showing that capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers hot, can cause prostate cancer cells to kill themselves. 'Capsaicin led 80 percent of human prostate cancer cells growing in mice to commit suicide in a process known as apoptosis, the researchers said.' This led to tumors one fifth the size of those in untreated mice."

With the growing amount of talk on the usability of Linux for beginners, there have been quite a few people who have mentioned a script called "Automatix" for Ubuntu as a means of easing the average joe into a life of Linux. Linux.com's (a Slashdot sister site) Tina Gasperson takes a closer look at Automatix and how it could help soften the blow of a Linux switch, at least in the short term. From the article: "Automatix lives up to its reputation. It's worth any time and small frustration it might take to get through the script. And it's even worth that 'over-the-shoulder' time you might spend with a new Linux user to walk them through it. I don't see any reason why a beginner would not be delighted with Ubuntu after a magic touch from Automatix."