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Submission + - Deformable Liquid Mirrors for Adaptive Optics (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Want to make a great concave mirror for your telescope? Put a drop of mercury in a bowl and spin the bowl. The mercury will spread out to a concave reflective surface smoother than anything we can make with plain old glass right now. The key problem in this situation is that the bowl will always have to point straight up. MIT's Technology Review is analyzing a team's success in combating problems with bringing liquid mirrors into the practical applications of astronomy. To fight the gravity requirement, the team used a ferromagnetic liquid coated with a metal-like film and very strong magnetic fields to distort the surface of that liquid as they needed. But this introduces new non-linear problems of control when trying to sync up several of these mirrors similar to how traditional glass telescopes use multiple hexagon shaped mirrors mounted on actuators. The team has fought past so many of these problems plaguing liquid mirrors that they produced a proof of concept liquid mirror just five centimeters across with ninety-one actuators cycling at one Kilohertz and the ability to linearize the response of the liquid. And with that, liquid mirrors take a giant leap closer to practicality.
Censorship

Submission + - China hits back at Google (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
sopssa
sopssa writes: "After Google yesterday started redirecting google.cn users to their uncensored Hong Kong based google.com.hk servers, Chinese government has now hit back at Google by restricting access to Google's Hong Kong servers. 'On Tuesday, according to The New York Times, mainland China users could not see uncensored Hong Kong–based content after the government either disabled certain searches or blocked links to results.' China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the country, has also been approached by the Chinese government to cancel a contract with Google about having google.cn on their mobile home page for search. China Unicom, the second largest carrier in China, has also either postponed or killed the launch of Android based mobile phones in the country."
Earth

Breaking the Squid Barrier 126

Posted by timothy from the calimari-for-the-5000 dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Steve O'Shea of Auckland, New Zealand is attempting to break the record for keeping deep sea squid alive in captivity, with the goal of being able to raise a giant squid one day. Right now, he's raising the broad squid, sepioteuthis australis, from egg masses found in seaweed. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because the squid he's studying grow rapidly and eat only live prey, making it hard for them to keep the squid from becoming prey themselves. If his research works out, you might one day be able to visit an aquarium and see giant squid."
Science

Why the First Cowboy To Draw Always Gets Shot 398

Posted by timothy from the more-guns-less-crime dept.
cremeglace writes "Have you ever noticed that the first cowboy to draw his gun in a Hollywood Western is invariably the one to get shot? Nobel-winning physicist Niels Bohr did, once arranging mock duels to test the validity of this cinematic curiosity. Researchers have now confirmed that people indeed move faster if they are reacting, rather than acting first."
Hardware

Submission + - Super Strong Metal Foam May Save Energy and Lives (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by MikeChino
MikeChino writes: Metal foams have been around for some time, but new research by Dr. Afsaneh Rabiei of North Carolina State University has revealed the strongest metal foam ever. It can compress up to 80% of its original size under loading and still retain its original shape. Applications for the new material are numerous — naturally, it could be integrated into the bodies of cars to minimize the impact from crashes, but it could also be used for body armor or even in artificial limbs. It’s even foreseeable that the metal foam could be used in buildings and help absorb shocks from earthquakes.
Intel

Submission + - Fertiliser dump spoils Intel's pure water (pcauthority.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Intel had to shut part of its Irish plant for a while because of the extreme cold and the fact the local council polluted the water supply with fertiliser. Apparently it got down to -12 degrees C at the Intel plant in Leixlip, County Kildare. But to make matters worse, the local council ran out of rock salt to grit the roads and opted for fertiliser instead. There were fears that ammonia and nitrates in the fertiliser might have contaminated the local water supply.The problem for the chipmaker is that it needs extremely pure water for its manufacturing processes.

Feed Techdirt: Digg And Others Sued For Infringing Infamous Computer Solitaire Patent (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
The Patent Troll Tracker is back from holiday vacation and he's got quite a post listing out a bunch of interesting (i.e., depressing) lawsuits involving questionable patents and even more questionable patent holders. In one case, the Troll Tracker even manages to track down a bizarre set of circumstances making it look like an associate at a well known IP law firm spent millions of dollars scooping up a bunch of patents for himself.

However, perhaps the most interesting is the third case discussed by the Troll Tracker. It involves the somewhat infamous patents of Sheldon Goldberg, which got plenty of attention back in 2004 when he started claiming that computer solitaire was covered by his patents. The two key patents are for a network gaming system and a method for playing games on a network.

It appears that after years of threats about these patents, Goldberg has now actually started filing lawsuits -- and some of the targets are a bit surprising. The one that stood out was Digg, as you don't often see company's like Digg involved in patent infringement suits (and, as far as I can tell, the news that Digg was being sued for patent infringement hasn't been mentioned anywhere else). Others sued over those same patents include some of the "usual targets" such as Google, AOL and Yahoo. However, it also includes a variety of media properties both big and small -- including the NY Times, The Washington Post, CNET, Tribune Interactive and (another slightly odd one) eBaum's World. While the patents themselves seem quite questionable, it's even harder to understand how these sites could possibly be violating those patents. Either way, perhaps the fact that Digg is now on the receiving end of a silly patent infringement lawsuit, it'll get more of the Digg crowd even more interested in the massive problems with the patent system.

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Comment Re:An idea... (Score 1) 219

by fireflew (#13929675) Attached to: Supreme Court Rejects Microsoft Eolas Appeal
There is it's called publication... that is assuming whomever at the patent office examines the application can find your publication and realize that it teaches on the claims of the application. Since in theory all patent applications should be checked against both patent and non-patent literature for prior art sources your publication should in theory exclude anyone from patenting what you disclose.

But then this is all theory...and the law...

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