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Introducing Magnet-Responsive Memory Foam 69

Posted by timothy from the had-this-stuff-in-my-head-for-years dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has recently reported that two research teams have developed a new porous foam of an alloy that changes shape when exposed to a magnetic field. The NSF states that this new material is able to remember its original shape after it's been deformed by a physical or magnetic force. This polycrystalline nickel-manganese-gallium alloy is potentially cheaper and lighter than other materials currently used in devices ranging from sonar to precision valves. It also could be used to design biomedical pumps without moving parts and even for space applications and automobiles."
Patents

Submission + - MP3's Loss, Open Source's Gain

Submitted by
nadamsieee
nadamsieee writes: "Eliot Van Buskirk has an interesting piece over at Wired about the fall-out from Microsoft's recent courtroom loss to Alcatel-Lucent over MP3 patents. From the article: "Alcatel-Lucent isn't the only winner in a federal jury's $1.52 billion patent infringement award against Microsoft this week. Other beneficiaries are the many rivals to the MP3 audio-compression format... Now, with a cloud over the de facto industry standard, companies that rely on MP3 may finally have sufficient motivation to move on. And that raises some tantalizing possibilities, including a real long shot: Open-source, royalty-free formats win.""
Microsoft

VMware-Microsoft Battle Looming 258

Posted by kdawson from the he-who-controls-the-iron dept.
An anonymous reader writes "VMWare released a white paper detailing its concerns with license changes on Microsoft software that may limit the ability to move virtual-machine software around data centers to automate the management of computing work. Two choice quotes: '"Microsoft is looking for any way it can to gain the upper hand," said Diane Greene, the president of VMware.' And, '"This seems to be a far more subtle, informed and polished form of competitive aggression than we've seen from Microsoft in the past," said Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University. "And Microsoft has no obligation to facilitate a competitor."'"
Supercomputing

Submission + - 12 crackpot deas that could transform tech

Submitted by
InfoWorldMike
InfoWorldMike writes: "Technologies that push the envelope of the plausible capture our curiosity almost as quickly as the could-be crackpots who dare to concoct them become targets of our derision. Here are a dozen, from the harebrained to the practical, that have a history of raising eyebrows and just might have a hand in transforming the future of the technology landscape: Superconducting computing, solid-state drives, autonomic computing, DC power, holographic and phase-change storage, artificial intelligence, e-books, desktop web apps, Project Blackbox, quantum computing/cryptography, and the semantic Web. Check out InfoWorld's slideshow of these top crackpot contenders and nominate your favs here."
United States

Journal Journal: FBI Training Elite Swedish Anti-Piracy Force

Journal by godzilla808
"When it comes to piracy Sweden is no stranger to controversy. Gaining worldwide notoriety as the country that hosts The Pirate Bay BitTorrent tracker and recently being labelled as a piracy safe haven by an International Intellectual Property Alliance report, they even have their own political party dedicated to piracy. In response (some might argue, in desperation) the FBI and the MPA are combining resources to train an elite anti-piracy force in Sweden to counter was is seen as a growing and

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Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job? A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.

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