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Submission + - One step closer to superfast, bootless computers (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Physicists at the University of California at Riverside have made a breakthrough in developing a 'spin computer,' which would combine logic with nonvolatile memory, bypassing the need for computers to boot up. The advance could also lead to superfast chips. The new transistor technology, which one lead scientist believes could become a reality in about five years, would reduce power consumption to the point where eventually computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices could remain on all the time. The breakthrough came when scientists at UC Riverside successfully injected a spinning electron into a resistor material called graphene, which is essentially a very thin layer of graphite, just like you might find in a pencil. The graphene in this case is one-atom thick. The process is known as 'tunneling spin injection.' A lead scientist for the project said the clock speeds of chips made using tunneling spin injection would be 'thousands of times' faster than today's processors. He describes the tech as a totally new concept that 'will essentially give memory some brains.'
Nintendo

Submission + - Happy 25th Birthday, Nintendo Entertainment System (technologizer.com)

Submitted by harrymcc
harrymcc writes: On October 18th 1985, Nintendo launched its NES console in the US, reviving a near-dead video game industry and establishing Nintendo as a leader in home consoles. We've celebrated with a roundup of some of the stranger spinoffs that NES has inspired over the last quarter century, from odd controllers to a lock parents could use to disable the console to do-it-yourself projects like an NES built into a Super Mario cartridge.
Image

NASA Tests Flying Airbag 118

Posted by samzenpus from the drop-the-cloud-anchor dept.
coondoggie writes "NASA is looking to reduce the deadly impact of helicopter crashes on their pilots and passengers with what the agency calls a high-tech honeycomb airbag known as a deployable energy absorber. So in order to test out its technology NASA dropped a small helicopter from a height of 35 feet to see whether its deployable energy absorber, made up of an expandable honeycomb cushion, could handle the stress. The test crash hit the ground at about 54MPH at a 33 degree angle, what NASA called a relatively severe helicopter crash."
Mozilla

Mozilla Thunderbird 3 Released 272

Posted by kdawson from the hot-bits dept.
supersloshy writes Today Mozilla released Thunderbird 3. Many new features are available, including Tabs and enhanced search features, a message archive for emails you don't want to delete but still want to keep, Firefox 3's improved Add-ons Manager, Personas support, and many other improvements. Download here."
Open Source

Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195

Posted by CmdrTaco from the download-compile-reboot-repeat dept.
diegocg writes "Linus Torvalds has officially released the version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. New features include virtualization memory de-duplication, a rewrite of the writeback code faster and more scalable, many important Btrfs improvements and speedups, ATI R600/R700 3D and KMS support and other graphic improvements, a CFQ low latency mode, tracing improvements including a 'perf timechart' tool that tries to be a better bootchart, soft limits in the memory controller, support for the S+Core architecture, support for Intel Moorestown and its new firmware interface, run-time power management support, and many other improvements and new drivers. See the full changelog for more details."
Censorship

Submission + - Scientology Charged with Slavery, Human Traffickin (courthousenews.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: A formal complaint was filed in California last week by John Lindstein naming David Miscavige and, most importantly, the Church of Scientology International as defendants. He claims that for sixteen years (age 8 on) he was forced to work as a slave at Gold Base, a secret CoS site run by Golden Era Productions with 'razor wire, security guard patrols, surveillance posts and three roll calls each day.' The pay was $50 a week. The allegations include 'Violations of wage and hour laws as well as unfair/illegal business practices actionable under California B&P 17200 Et. Seq.' and are laid out on Infinite Complacency's blog with members of the group Anonymous praising the summons.

Comment AT&T does the same (Score -1) 543

by jlbooker (#28420859) Attached to: SSN Required To Buy Palm Pre
For what it's worth, this isn't an un-common practice. AT&T required my SSN to do a credit check before opening my account (back when I bought an iPhone 3G). If your credit rating is poor, you are required to pay a deposit on your account, which seems like a reasonable business practice to me.

Feed Techdirt: RIAA Caught Lying About Stopping Lawsuits (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
The RIAA and the record labels who make up its main membership keep asking folks like us to "trust them" when they come up with new plans to force people to hand over money. They say that we shouldn't criticize them until the plan is set, but they haven't yet shown the slightest reason to grant them an ounce of trust. Just last week, we suggested that they stop suing people, if they were so intent on turning over a new leaf. And, while they did finally announce plans to abandon mass lawsuits, the fine print is anything but encouraging (and, it's increasingly clear that it was done more to save money than out of any more reasoned strategy).

However, there was a bit of surprising news that came out of the press barrage after the announcement about giving up on the mass lawsuits: the RIAA claimed that it had stopped filing lawsuits months earlier. That certainly didn't fit with the story we had just seen earlier in the week of new lawsuits, and now Ray Beckerman has put together a list of recently filed lawsuits by the RIAA and its major record label members in the last few weeks.

In other words, the RIAA has been caught lying yet again. Shocking. And, yet, they expect us to "trust them" to come up with a better solution -- one negotiated in backrooms behind closed doors without major stakeholders getting to take part? Forgive us for being skeptical that any such deal will be reasonable. What's really disappointing, though, is to see some major tech publications get taken in by this, insisting that somehow the RIAA really has turned over a new leaf. You would think that reporters covering this space wouldn't be so gullible.

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Press Favored Obama Throughout Campaign 1601

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the kudos-for-owning-up-to-it dept.
narcberry writes "After complaints of one-sided reporting, the Washington Post checked their own articles and agreed. Obama was clearly favored, throughout his campaign, in terms of more favorable articles, less criticism, better page real-estate, more pictures, and total disregard for problems such as his drug use. 'Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Reporters, photographers and editors found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic. Journalists love the new; McCain, 25 years older than Obama, was already well known and had more scars from his longer career in politics. The number of Obama stories since Nov. 11 was 946, compared with McCain's 786. Both had hard-fought primary campaigns, but Obama's battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton was longer, and the numbers reflect that. McCain clinched the GOP nomination on March 4, three months before Obama won his. From June 4 to Election Day, the tally was Obama, 626 stories, and McCain, 584. Obama was on the front page 176 times, McCain, 144 times; 41 stories featured both.'"
Space

Hubble Stops Sending Data, Mission On Hold 141

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the try-to-do-as-little-dying-as-possible dept.
mknewman writes to tell us that NASA is no longer receiving data from the Hubble Space Telescope, which could possibly delay the shuttle launch planned just two weeks from now. There is a backup system installed which may be used instead of training the astronauts on the installation of the new component, but that would itself leave no fallback option. "NASA is reviewing whether the mission should be delayed a couple of months so that plans can be made to send up a replacement part for the failed component, said NASA spokesman Michael Curie. It would take time to test and qualify the old replacement part and train the astronauts to install it in the telescope, Curie said. NASA also would have to work out new mission details for the astronauts who have trained for two years to carry out five Hubble repair spacewalks."
Image

Man Dies After Eating Homemade Hot Sauce On a Dare 7

Posted by samzenpus from the 1-million-scoville-units dept.
Andrew Lee, 33, challenged his girlfriend's brother to an eating contest to see who could eat the spiciest homemade chili sauce. After eating his tomato-based chili sauce, Andrew suffered intense discomfort and itching. The next morning he was found dead by his girlfriend. An inquest was told that Andrew was in perfect health and had just passed a medical examination at work. Toxicology tests are being conducted to try to establish if he suffered a reaction to the food.

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