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Feed Techdirt: Cisco Adds To Its Collection Of (Social) Networking Gear (techdirt.com)

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Cisco has always been an aggressive acquirer, as it has historically bought and integrated the technology of small networking firms. The company has been doing a lot of deals once again, but this time it isn't buying actual networking gear, but rather tools for social networking and collaboration. The company's latest purchase is of Five Across, which makes social networking tools to help companies interact with their clients. While some may argue that the move into social networking is an obvious evolution for the company, it's not clear that these acquisitions will work out just as well as they did in the past. Because the company is dominant in its core market of selling gear, the company can easily sell acquired technology at a nice premium. It doesn't enjoy anywhere near a similar position in this new market, so it won't be so easy to sell its clients on these new purchases. However, if it can convince its clients that social networking tools and physical networking tools are complementary in some way, it may become a player.

Consumer Electronics Causing 'Death of Childhood'? 758

Posted by Zonk from the ack-mein-childhood dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Top children's authors, including best-seller Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials), have written an open letter to the British Government claiming that consumer electronics have brought about the death of childhood. They say that children desperately need 'real play (as opposed to sedentary, screen-based entertainment), first-hand experience of the world they live in'. The letter writers also state that children have lost their imaginations because they are, 'pushed by market forces to act and dress like mini-adults and exposed via the electronic media to material which would have been considered unsuitable for children even in the very recent past.' The article asks, 'is modern life too fast for the supple human mind? Do children have a rev counter we're red-lining by exposing them to so much input?'" So what does Slashdot think? Are kids growing up too fast nowadays because of them new-fangled technologies?

Sony Pulls Controversial PSP Ad, Issues Apology 182

Posted by Zonk from the needs-a-new-ad-agency dept.
xenongamer writes "Sony has finally stepped up and pulled the racially controversial PSP ads out of the Netherlands. 'We... recognize that people have a wide variety of perceptions about such imagery and we wish to apologize to those who perceived the advert differently to that intended. In future, we will apply greater sensitivity in our selection of campaign imagery, and will take due account of the increasingly global reach of such local adverts, and their potential impact in other countries,' said Sony in a statement."

Bacterial DVD Holds 50TB 268

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the your-cdrom-wants-penicillin dept.
CAMags writes to tell us that a Harvard Professor is claiming to have developed a new variant of a protein called bacteriorhodopsin (bR) that, when layered on a DVD, can store up to 50TB of data. From the article: "The light-activated protein is found in the membrane of a salt marsh microbe Halobacterium salinarum and is also known as bacteriorhodopsin (bR). It captures and stores sunlight to convert it to chemical energy. When light shines on bR, it is converted to a series of intermediate molecules each with a unique shape and color before returning to its 'ground state.'"

Comment Think about it (Score 3, Insightful) 371

by dracho (#15485396) Attached to: Fraud in Internet Dating Prompting Regulation
The little heading under the title should sum it up, plain and simple: it's from the "you-mean-i-shouldn't-believe-everything-i-read dept." Do a little homework, and think things through. Common sense... the world is losing it all too fast in my opinion. Being uneducated is one thing, and not a bad thing, but is this what we're coming to? People make their own decisions without doing any homework and stubbornly stick to that no matter what? :\ Whatever, me just blowing off steam I guess...

Giant Ocean Vortex Discovered 141

Posted by timothy from the holy-overstatement-batman dept.
Darkman, Walkin Dude writes "Dubbed a "death trap" by a team of scientists from The University of Western Australia Murdoch University, CSIRO and three American, French and Spanish research institutions, a 200km in diameter and 1000m deep ocean vortex has been discovered off the Rottnest Canyon. Visible from space, scientists claim is has the potential to affect the local climate and the climate further abroad, the vortex is acting as a "death trap" by sucking in fish larvae from closer to the shore."

Azureus Inc. Moves Toward Commercialization 290

Posted by CowboyNeal from the buy-this dept.
SamBob writes "Future releases of the most popular BitTorrent client, Azureus, will come bundled with a 'platform' for media companies to promote their product to Azureus' multi-million users, reports Slyck.com. Azureus Inc., who are the newly formed company behind the Azureus software, plan to generate a profit from the platform in the future, but in the short-term are hoping to help independent film companies find their audience."

The European Grand Challenge 61

Posted by Zonk from the good-luck-eurobots dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A European version of the DARPA Grand Challenge is being held in Germany next month. Instead of a race through the desert, the EU challenge is split into three events. Urban, non-urban, and landmine detection will be the 'courses', with multiple winners in each event. Interestingly Sebastian Thrun, winner of last year's Challenge, has been forbidden from taking part despite being a European citizen." From the article: "The trials will take place in and around Hammelburg, a mockup of a town used by the German military for training exercises. In the non-urban course the robots will have to contend with a one-kilometer route containing ditches, barbed wire fences, cattle guards, fires, narrow underpasses, and inclines of up to 40 degrees. The urban and landmine 500-meter trials will require the robots to negotiate doorways, stairs, partially collapsed buildings, and poor visibility from smoke or partial lighting. Along the way, they will also have to search for designated objects and report their findings back to base."

Google Wireless Patents Published 186

Posted by Zonk from the going-onto-the-aethernet dept.
Ian wrote to mention a ZDNet article about several patents on wireless technology held by Google employees. From the article: "The patent applications, filed by Google employees Wesley Chan, Shioupyn Shen and former Google product management director Georges Harik, propose lowering the cost of wireless access by offsetting the costs via advertisements on the service. Google, which receives the bulk of its revenue from advertisers, is seeking to expand its potential advertising base by moving further into the wireless market."

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