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Submission + - Willow Garage Founder Scott Hassan Aims To Build A Startup Village (ieee.org)

Tekla Perry writes: Scott Hassan, founder of robotic research lab Willow Garage, is behind a large real estate development in Menlo Park, Calif. He reportedly plans to create an incubator village with 18,500 square meters of workspace and another 18,500 square meters of living space on a 30,000 square meter site, combining the advantages of a garage startup environment (what could be more convenient than working where you live) and an incubator (access to other smart entrepreneurs and ideas).

Comment Sorry students, Family Members *AND* "Amazon Moms" (Score 4, Informative) 218

Nor to anyone who currently get free Amazon shipping via a family member who is a member of Amazon Prime. The free video only applies to the single Amazon Prime member account:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200572880

"Prime instant videos require an Amazon Prime membership and are not included with the free shipping benefits provided by Amazon Mom, Amazon Student, or if you are a guest of an Amazon Prime member. To watch Prime instant videos, sign up for a $79 Amazon Prime membership at http://www.amazon.com/primevideos. If you are a member of Amazon Mom and sign up for a $79 Amazon Prime membership, you will lose any additional months of Amazon Prime shipping benefits you may have earned."

Amazon video on demand:
http://www.amazon.com/Video-On-Demand/b/ref=&node=16261631

Subset of "Prime Eligible" movies that Amazon will stream free to Prime members today (2153 results):
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=s9_al_bw_srch?rh=n%3A16261631%2Cp_85%3A1&page=1&rw_html_to_wsrp=1&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=1G4XGFTBQHGKXW5S6ZP3&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1288998822&pf_rd_i=16261631

Technology (Apple)

Submission + - Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago

evw writes: The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required, or google the url and click from Google) that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago. He is on track to return to work at the end of June. William Hawkins, a doctor specializing in pancreatic and gastrointestinal surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., said that the type of slow-growing pancreatic tumor Mr. Jobs had will commonly metastasize in another organ during a patient's lifetime, and that the organ is usually the liver. Having the procedure done in Tennessee makes sense because its list of patients waiting for transplants is shorter than in many other states. There are no residency requirements for transplants. Also in the Mercury News.
Apple

Steve Jobs Takes Leave of Absence From Apple 429

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Network World: "A number of sites are reporting that Apple's CEO Steve Jobs is taking a leave of absence till June at least. Speculation over Jobs' possibly failing health has run rampant in the past few weeks. Prior to the recent MacWorld show, Jobs said he had a hormone deficiency that had caused him to dramatically lose weight. In a memo today Jobs told workers his health issues are more complex than he thought." Reader Bastian227 adds a link to this letter from Steve Jobs on Apple's website, which also says that Tim Cook will be responsible for daily operations, though Jobs will remain involved with major strategic decisions.

Feed Denied Entrance Into The US Thanks To A Google Search Of Your Permanent Record (techdirt.com)

For a long time, people have talked about how Google has effectively created the infamous "permanent record" teachers always warned us about in school. And, now, it appears that it's not just being used for background checks on dates and job reference checks, but for official government purposes as well. Joe McEnaney writes in to alert us to a story of a Canadian man who was denied entrance to the US after border guards did a Google search on his name and discovered a peer-reviewed academic paper he'd written years earlier that mentioned his own LSD use over 30 years ago. Setting aside any thoughts one way or the other on whether or not that should be a criteria for entering the US, just think of what this means for teens today who are discussing their lives very publicly on sites like MySpace. We've already wondered what will happen once the MySpace generation runs for office, but right now they might just want to be careful leaving and entering the country.
Television

Submission + - Aqua Teen stunt costs Turner and Agency $2M

evw writes: The NYTimes reports that the Turner Broadcasting System and the ad agency responsible have reached a $2M settlement with the city of Boston and state and federal agencies that treated the light boards placed around the city as an act of terrorism (as covered earlier on /.) Half of the money is to cover direct costs associated with the response. The other $1M goes to "goodwill funds" that will be used for response training and public outreach.
OS X

Submission + - Worried about moving from Windows to Mac

Steve Ryan writes: "The direction Microsoft are taking with Windows (for example, the DRM issues in Vista) have led me to believe Windows will soon be an OS which controls the user, rather than the other way round. I like XP, and I find it stable, but I do not want to upgrade to an OS (Vista) which is restrictive. This leaves me with either Linux or OS X. I like Linux, but it may not work with my laptop, so I don't really want to risk it. OS X seems nice. I spend most of my time writing documents and surfing the web, so it should handle everything I want, and I would be happy to buy a lovely MacBook Pro. But... will Apple follow Microsoft's lead and implement a DRM loving policy? If so, Mac is not an option.

End result? I'm confused. Help!"
Microsoft

Submission + - Now Is Not the Time for Vista

narramissic writes: With nearly a month of Vista availability behind us, businesses don't seem to be in any rush to take the leap. An article on ITworld cites two significant reasons for the foot-dragging. First, Microsoft's case-by-case approach to Vista patches, which is leaving some problems unpatched until after the consumer release in January. Second, application (in)compatibility. From the article:
Some of the applications that still aren't compatible with Vista include IBM Corp.'s Lotus Notes e-mail and collaboration suite; Cisco Systems Inc.'s and Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.'s VPN clients; Intuit Corp.'s accounting software QuickBooks 2006 and earlier versions; and anti-virus (AV) software from Trend Micro Inc.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Chaos and Your Everyday Traffic Jam

An anonymous reader writes: What causes these mysterious traffic jams that continually appear throughout the day for no reason whatsoever? Is it simply the fact that most people just don't have a clue how to drive? That's very possible, and in reality there are so many variables involved in something like a traffic jam. But is it possible that the entire traffic jam could be both the continuing and end result of a chain reaction set in motion by a single driver who was in too much of a hurry?
User Journal

Journal Journal: LINUX: Flash Player 9 (Really) 2

So there I was trying to get my fix of crappy American television via www.abc.com. What's this new "Ugly Betty" show all about I wondered? I hit the site and I get a message saying that I need to update my Flash 9 player. So I click the link and where do I go? To the same old download that Adobe has had for Linux users for the past 20 years. Dead as a parrot from a Monty Python sketch, only deader. Bah. Well, luckily someone recently informed me of a beta release program for Adobe's upcom
Communications

Submission + - FCC kills build-out requirements for telecoms

Frankencelery writes: In a 3-2 partisan vote, the FCC has altered cable franchising laws in the U.S. to the advantage of AT&T and Verizon. 'The FCC order imposes a 90-day limit on local communities' franchising decisions, but, more importantly, does away with build-out requirements. Those requirements generally insist that companies offer service to all the residents in the town, rather than cherry-picking the profitable areas.' Good news for the telecoms, but bad for cities who want a say in the fiber deployments.
Christmas Cheer

Evidence That Good Moods Prevent Colds 200

duguk writes in with another reason to keep happy over Christmas. A new scientific study suggests that people who frequently experience positive emotions are less likely to catch colds. Psychologist Sheldon Cohen and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University interviewed 193 healthy adults daily for two weeks and recorded the positive and negative emotions they had experienced each day. The researchers then exposed the volunteers to a cold or a flu virus. Those with "generally positive outlooks" reported fewer cold symptoms. From the article: "'We need to take more seriously the possibility that a positive emotional style is a major player in disease risk,' Cohen says... Although a positive emotional style bore no relation to whether participants became infected, it protected against the emergence of cold symptoms. For instance, among people infected by the influenza virus... 28 percent who often reported positive emotions developed coughs, congestion, and other cold symptoms, as compared with... 41 percent who rarely reported positive emotions."
Space

Submission + - NASA Sees Glow of Universe's First Objects

Damek writes: New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope may show the universe's first objects.
"We are pushing our telescopes to the limit and are tantalizingly close to getting a clear picture of the very first collections of objects," said Dr. Alexander Kashlinsky... "Whatever these objects are, they are intrinsically incredibly bright and very different from anything in existence today." Astronomers believe the objects are either the first stars — humongous stars more than 1,000 times the mass of our sun — or voracious black holes that are consuming gas and spilling out tons of energy. If the objects are stars, then the observed clusters might be the first mini-galaxies...

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