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Science

Morphing Metals 121

aarondubrow writes "Imagine a metal that 'remembers' its original, cold-forged shape, and can return to that shape when exposed to heat or a magnetic pulse. Like magic out of a Harry Potter novel, such a metal could contract on command, or swing back and forth like a pendulum. Believe it or not, such metals already exist. First discovered in 1931, they belong to a class of materials called 'shape memory alloys (SMA),' whose unique atomic make-up allows them to return to their initial form, or alternate between forms through a phase change."
Google

Google Wins European Trademark Victory 39

adeelarshad82 writes "A European court has ruled in Google's favor, saying that allowing advertising customers to use the names of other companies as search keywords does not represent a trademark violation. The court also went on to say that Google's AdWords program is protected by a European law governing Internet hosting services. Google's main line of defense was claiming that companies that want to extend trademark law to keywords are really interested in 'controlling and restricting the amount of information that users may see in response to their searches.' The decision is the first in a series of decisions from the court about how trademark rights can be used to restrict information available to users. Google is currently battling several trademark keyword cases in the US, including a case against Rosetta Stone, Inc."
Earth

Breaking the Squid Barrier 126

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."
Businesses

GameStop, Other Retailers Subpoenaed Over Credit Card Information Sharing 117

New York State's Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, has subpoenaed a number of online retailers, including GameStop, Barnes & Noble, Ticketmaster and Staples, over the way they pass information to marketing firms while processing transactions. MSNBC explains the scenario thus: "You're on the site of a well-known retailer and you make a purchase. As soon as you complete the transaction a pop-up window appears. It offers a discount on your next purchase. Click on the ad and you are automatically redirected to another company's site where you are signed up for a buying club, travel club or credit card protection service. The yearly cost is usually $100 to $145. Here's where things really get smarmy. Even though you did not give that second company any account information, they will bill the credit or debit card number you used to make the original purchase. You didn't have to provide your account number because the 'trusted' retailer gave it to them for a cut of the action." While there is no law preventing this sort of behavior, Cuomo hopes the investigation will pressure these companies to change their ways, or at least inform customers when their information might be shared.

Comment Re:Size queens... (Score 1) 285

"Somehow I think this "evolution" started well before someone thought to take a truck and bolt a "trunk" on it."

Actually SUV's are Minivans with Trunks. Trucks by design have a seperate cab from the bed and that resulted in too many complications when trying to design SUVs. So the solution was to take a minivan and convert it by giving the front of it a "truck look" to make it appeal to men.

Basically the SUV was designed for people who have lots of kids but are too insecure to buy the minivan to accomodate them.

Comment In the event that... (Score 1) 141

In the event that you actually manage to send enough units to beat your opponent in the past and the time wave moves forward and wipes out your opponent in the present you are still stuck with one problem.

What if the other player has started reversing time when they notice they are losing and is now back to the beggining creating his first unit again when you wipe out his base in the future?

"Hey I won!"
- "No, you didn't, I'm just starting."
"Well you're dead in the future."
- "The future is not written. I'm just starting."
"This is Bullshyt, man!"
- "Pardon? Why dont you create a unit and stop typing because i'm about to zerg rush you."
"aaaaahhhh!"

Comment Re:Relativity (Score 1) 381

"Why don't we ask him to write about homework ("a near-epidemic in America")"

Probably because he's not an American?

He over generalizes throughout the entire report and failed to backup any point with real study statistics. This entire report is basically one kid's opinion of how his friends prioritize their extremely limited expenses. Why on earth this generated so much attention is beyond me.

The worst part? He's now in a position to leverage this momentary popularity to continue spouting his BS as fact.

Comment Does anyone remember when... (Score 5, Insightful) 737

Blizzard used to make games because they were fun to play? Given that Blizzard has basically dominated the market why do they continue to stray from their roots... Remember KALI? Warcraft 2 owed ALL of its success to KALI and that would have never existed if LAN play wasn't an option. But battle.net takes in HUGE profits all by itself so I guess its better to force players to use it then make it optional. Control is the name of the game these days. Oh yah.. I forgot, DRM and other Piracy measures work sooooo well don't they?

Comment Translations for those dont like BS (Score 1) 173

"There was a great deal of discussion about Wrath of the Lich King at Blizzcon"

Translation - How can we prevent the loss of players moving to Warhammer for serious pvp?

"Players will be able to swap between two specs in order to facilitate their participation in both PvE and PvP."

Translation - For the first time since release players will be able to enjoy the game and have decent gear! OMG!

"Blizzard wants to diversify the options for PvP and take the focus off arenas. They also want to develop more and more PvP content and create some sort of mechanism for players to gain experience in battlegrounds."

Translation - Ok guys... everyone who used to enjoy PvP is going to warhammer, quick, steal their ideas!

"They said they wanted to help the shortage of tanks by creating another class that could fill the role."

Translation - After 4 years of every class who tanks asking for a viable method of actually tanking we've decided to offer them the option to reroll. LOL

"Another major goal was to get each talent tree for each class a specific playstyle"

Translation - We hope that this time around we'll give all classes 3 actual trees instead of just our favorites.

"Blizzard considered revamping the dispel system too -- they aren't satisfied with the current implementation -- but said they didn't want to introduce another huge set of changes at this time."

Translation - There were talks here at blizzard of allowing certain classes to use more then one button in raids and still win. Sadly, that was shot down because we don't want everyone having fun.

"In addition, they talked about their decision to unify several itemization stats in order to make it easier on some classes to switch roles, and to reduce the number of items required to support all possible specs."

Translation - THIS JUST IN! Hybrids are going to finally have a functional inventory!

"As you may recall, we asked you for interview questions for various Blizzard employees; stay tuned, their answers will be up soon."

Translation - You are cordially invited to watch us stroke our Massive E-Peen.

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