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Space

Planck Mission Releases Images of Galactic Dust 40

Posted by Soulskill from the break-out-the-galactic-pledge dept.
davecl writes "The Planck satellite has released its first new science images, showing the large scale filamentary structure of cold dust in our own galaxy. This release coincides with the completion of its first survey of the entire sky a couple of weeks ago. There's lots more work to be done, and more observations to be made, before results are ready on the Big Bang, but these images demonstrate Planck's performance and capability. More information is available on the Planck mission blog (which I maintain)."
Patents

Is Microsoft About To Declare Patent War On Linux? 204

Posted by Soulskill from the looking-for-an-excuse dept.
Glyn Moody writes "Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, has just published a piece called 'Apple v. HTC: A Step Along the Path of Addressing IP Rights in Smartphones.' In it, he notes that today's smartphones are all about the 'software stack,' not the 'radio stack,' and that 'as the IP situation settles in this space and licensing takes off, we will see the patent royalties applicable to the smartphone software stack settle at a level that reflects the increasing importance software has as a portion of the overall value of the device. In the interim, though, we should expect continued activity.' That 'activity' obviously means lawsuits against those producing those software stacks, and Gutierrez seems to be hinting strongly that Microsoft intends to join in. So where does that leave all the Linux-based stacks such as the increasingly-popular Android? Is this just a clever way for Microsoft to start a patent war on Linux without appearing to do so?"
Image

The Perfect Way To Slice a Pizza 282

Posted by samzenpus from the equal-distribution-of-the-pie dept.
iamapizza writes "New Scientist reports on the quest of two math boffins for the perfect way to slice a pizza. It's an interesting and in-depth article; 'The problem that bothered them was this. Suppose the harried waiter cuts the pizza off-center, but with all the edge-to-edge cuts crossing at a single point, and with the same angle between adjacent cuts. The off-center cuts mean the slices will not all be the same size, so if two people take turns to take neighboring slices, will they get equal shares by the time they have gone right round the pizza — and if not, who will get more?' This is useful, of course, if you're familiar with the concept of 'sharing' a pizza."
Earth

Yellowstone Supervolcano Larger Than First Thought 451

Posted by timothy from the even-superer dept.
drewtheman writes "New studies of the plumbing that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park shows the plume and the magma chamber under the volcano are larger than first thought and contradicts claims that only shallow hot rock exists. University of Utah research professor of geophysics Robert Smith led four separate studies that verify a plume of hot and molten rock at least 410 miles deep that rises at an angle from the northwest."
Google

Google Unveils goo.gl URL Shortening Service 242

Posted by timothy from the boiling-a-frog-in-google dept.
eldavojohn writes "The Sultan of Search is unveiling a new service (currently only available for Google Toolbar and Feedburner) that will tackle a very old problem usually solved by bit.ly or tinyurl — URL shortening. Now, we've heard cries for sanity to prevent potential issues (like what if tr.im had shut down and broken millions of links?) but with one of the goliaths of the industry jumping in the ring it looks like URL shortening is here to stay. And a quick note for people who enjoy privacy, goo.gl explicitly states: 'Please note that Google may choose to publicly display aggregate and non-personally identifiable statistics about particular shortened links, such as the number of end user clicks.' You didn't think Google was going to sit back and let bit.ly harvest juicy data on 2.1 billion links that were clicked in November without trying to corner some of that action to make their ad suggestions more accurate, did you?" Google's shortening service is called Goo.gl.
First Person Shooters (Games)

Infinity Ward Fights Against Modern Warfare 2 Cheaters 203

Posted by Soulskill from the be-careful-they-cheat dept.
Faithbleed writes "IW's Robert Bowling reports on his twitter account that Infinity Ward is giving 2,500 Modern Warfare 2 cheaters the boot. The news comes as the war between IW and MW2's fans rages over the decision to go with IWnet hosting instead of dedicated servers. Unhappy players were quick to come up with hacks that would allow their own servers and various other changes." Despite the dedicated-server complaints, Modern Warfare 2 has sold ridiculously well.

Comment Free Phone (So Far) (Score 2, Interesting) 206

by ian13550 (#27167389) Attached to: GrandCentral Reborn As Google Voice
I setup my GC account a year or more ago. It's pretty slick for the most part. I have GC forward my incoming calls to my free Gizmo (http://gizmo5.com/pc/) SIP soft phone or SIP desk phone depending on whether I'm on the road or at my home office. For my friends I also have it ring my cellphone/homephone.

I was also able to have GC import my Outlook address book (before they removed the feature) so all my contacts are already loaded.

The nice part is that ALL calls are in-bound to me (so far) so I essentially pay nothing (if sent to a phone other than my cellphone). If I need to make a call I can make it through my GC Address Book. There are even some free apps floating around that let you quickly dial your contacts or a phone number without having to log into the GC website.

I'm happy that Google is *finally* doing something with the technology. I'm willing to give Google Voice a shot once my account gets the upgrade.
Television

Submission + - National Hockey League Embraces TV Placeshifting (slingcommunity.com)

Submitted by
Egadfly
Egadfly writes: "The increasingly popular placeshifting of TV programming naturally roils corporate controversy, among other things because it enables sports fans to view locally blacked-out games over the Internet. Now, in a blow for info-freedom, the National Hockey League (NHL) has actively supported placeshifting by signing an agreement with SlingBox-maker Sling Media which allows the company's "Clip+Sling" technology to share both live and recorded NHL programming over the Internet. Significantly, this happen only days after Major League Baseball (MLB) launched a public denunciation of placeshifting: accusing SlingBox owners of violating the law by sending television content over the Internet and accusing Sling Media itself of violating contracts with cable and satellite TV companies."

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