Microsoft: No battery problem in Windows 7

The software maker says that an error message warning users that their batteries may need replacing appears to be working as intended

02/09/2010 09:01 AM

ID commissioner sees risks in IPS's two-stage IT

Sir Joseph Pilling has expressed concerns about the Identity and Passport Service's two-stage approach to its core technology

02/09/2010 08:37 AM

BT may share ducts with rival broadband providers

The telco is reportedly in talks with Ofcom about opening access to its ducts and poles so other providers can install their own broadband fibre lines

02/09/2010 08:19 AM

Mozilla drops Mac OS X 'Tiger' support

Firefox 3.6 will be the last to work with Mac OS X 10.4, as supporting the older OS is a drag on the browser's competitiveness, Mozilla says

02/08/2010 05:11 PM

Torvalds gives thumbs-up to Google's Nexus One

Despite being a self-confessed mobile-phone hater, Linus Torvalds has said the Nexus One's apps make the Google handset a winner

02/08/2010 04:37 PM

IBM introduces 'green' Power7 systems

The new offerings include features to reduce power consumption and for enabling large-scale, real-time systems such as smart grids

02/08/2010 04:31 PM

Smartphone keys get quantum trick
A quantum physics trick is set to give smartphones and hand-held devices pressure-sensitive switches and touchscreens.
02/09/2010 01:04 AM

Online safety for five-year-olds
Children as young as five are being targeted in a safety campaign launched as part of EU Internet Safety Day.
02/09/2010 12:58 AM

China shuts down hacking website
Three people are arrested as China's largest training website for hackers is shut down, state media reports.
02/08/2010 12:12 PM

Pirate bill could 'breach rights'
An influential group of MPs and peers says the government's plans on illegal file-sharing could breach the rights of net users.
02/05/2010 05:49 PM

Shuttle makes final night flight
The US space agency (Nasa) has launched its shuttle Endeavour on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
02/08/2010 09:17 AM

Microsoft tackles 17-year-old bug
A 17-year-old vulnerability that dates from the days of DOS is being patched in Microsoft's February security update.
02/05/2010 11:36 AM

IT glitch causes more tax errors
Revenue staff tip off Radio 4's Money Box that there are more tax code problems than their bosses are admitting to.
02/06/2010 02:50 PM

US objects to Google books plan
The US Department of Justice says that it is still not satisfied with a deal that would allow Google to build a digital library.
02/05/2010 10:54 AM

Toyota adds new Prius to global recall list
TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp said it is recalling nearly half a million of its flagship Prius and other hybrid cars for braking problems as it seeks to address criticism over the handling of its worst safety crisis.
02/09/2010 09:47 AM

Iran says starts work on making 20 percent nuclear fuel
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran began work on Tuesday to make higher-grade nuclear fuel, a senior official said, and the Pentagon said the United States wanted a U.N. Security Council resolution on Iran "within weeks" over its nuclear program.
02/09/2010 09:07 AM

Obama's healthcare summit sets stage for end-game
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's call for a healthcare summit including both his fellow Democrats and Republicans sets the stage for a final push to get stalled legislation through Congress, but skeptical Republicans said on Monday the only solution is to start over.
02/09/2010 04:02 AM

Weather closes government offices a second day
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal government agencies in the capital region will remain closed for a second day on Tuesday as residents brace for another blizzard while trying to clean up from a weekend storm that paralyzed the area with two feet of snow.
02/09/2010 01:11 AM

U.S. missionary in Haiti says trusts God to free her
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - A Haitian judge made no decision at a hearing on Monday whether to free or prosecute 10 U.S. missionaries accused of kidnapping children, and their leader said she trusted in God they would be cleared and released.
02/08/2010 11:42 PM

Taiwan drops request for U.S. military subs: source
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan has effectively dropped a request for U.S. submarines to help shore up the balance of power with political rival China, a military source said on Tuesday, dissolving what could be a new rift in tense Sino-U.S. ties.
02/09/2010 08:51 AM

Improving Education Through Social Gaming
A piece up at Mashable explores how some schools and universities are finding success at integrating social gaming into their education curriculum. Various game-related programs are getting assistance these days from sources like the government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "For the less well-to-do educator, the Federation of American Scientists has developed a first-person shooter-inspired cellular biology curriculum. Gamers explore the fully-interactive 3D world of an ill patient and assist the immune system in fighting back a bacterial infection. Dr. Melanie Ann Stegman has been evaluating the educational impacts of the game and is optimistic about her preliminary findings. 'The amount of detail about proteins, chemical signals and gene regulation that these 15-year-olds were devouring was amazing. Their questions were insightful. I felt like I was having a discussion with scientist colleagues,' said Stegman. Perhaps more importantly, the video game excites students about science. Motivating more youngsters to adopt a science-related career track has became a major education initiative of the Obama administration. So desperate to find a solution that motivates students to become scientists, the government has even enlisted Darpa, the Department of Defense’s 'mad scientist' research organization, to figure out a solution."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

02/09/2010 09:11 AM

Google Reduces Its Nexus One Termination Fee
CWmike writes "The only smartphone Linus Torvalds doesn't hate is that much less unlikable now that Google has quietly chopped $200 off its early termination fee on the Nexus One. Customers who cancel the service had been on the hook for $550, including a $350 Google cancellation charge. Google has reduced their fee to $150 — but users are still liable for a $200 ETF from T-Mobile. Users have a 14-day grace period during which they do not have to pay either charge, although they may be hit with a restocking fee. The $350 total fee matches one of the highest in the industry, charged by Verizon. Google did not announce the change but simply altered its online terms-of-service document." The price cut could add momentum to a phone that, by one reckoning, costs only $49 unlocked.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

02/09/2010 07:31 AM

Game Development In a Post-Agile World
An anonymous reader writes "Many games developers have been pursuing agile development, and we are now beginning to witness the debris and chaos it has caused. While there have been some successes, there have also been many casualties. As the industry at large is moving away from the phantasmagoria of Agile, Gwaredd Mountain, Technical Director at Climax Studios, looks at Post-Agile and what this might mean for the games industry."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

02/09/2010 06:28 AM

IBM Releases Power7 Processor
Dan Jones writes "As discussed here last year, IBM has made good on its promise to release the Power7 processor (and servers) in the first half of 2010. The Power7 processor adds more cores and improved multithreading capabilities to boost the performance of servers requiring high up-time, according to Big Blue. Power7 chips will run between 3.0GHz and 4.14GHz and will come with four, six, or eight cores. The chips are being made using the 45-nm process technology. New Power7 servers (up to 64 cores for now) are said to deliver twice the performance of older Power6 systems, but are four times more energy efficient. Power7 servers will run AIX and Linux." And reader shmG notes Intel's release of a new Itanium server processor after two years of delays. The Power7 specs would seem to put the new Intel chip in the shade.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

02/09/2010 04:40 AM

Oracle Drops Sun's Commitment To Accessibility
An anonymous reader writes "What I feared has come true: after buying Sun, Oracle had a look at its accessibility group and made big cuts in it by firing the most important contributors to the Linux accessibility tools. This is a very sad day for disabled people, as it means we do not really have full-time developers any more." The coverage in OSTATIC has a few more details, including the caution: "This just shows that all too few companies are sponsoring a11y work. If one company laying off a couple of developers spells trouble for the project, then there were problems before that happened" (thanks to reader dave c-b for pointing this out).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

02/09/2010 02:43 AM

Virtualizing a Supercomputer
bridges writes "The V3VEE project has announced the release of version 1.2 of the Palacios virtual machine monitor following the successful testing of Palacios on 4096 nodes of the Sandia Red Storm supercomputer, the 17th-fastest in the world. The added overhead of virtualization is often a show-stopper, but the researchers observed less than 5% overhead for two real, communication-intensive applications running in a virtual machine on Red Storm. Palacios 1.2 supports virtualization of both desktop x86 hardware and Cray XT supercomputers using either AMD SVM or Intel VT hardware virtualization extensions, and is an active open source OS research platform supporting projects at multiple institutions. Palacios is being jointly developed by researchers at Northwestern University, the University of New Mexico, and Sandia National Labs." The ACM's writeup has more details of the work at Sandia.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

02/09/2010 12:49 AM

Study Says OOXML Unsuitable For Norwegian Government
angry tapir writes "Microsoft's XML-based office document format, OOXML, does not meet the requirements for governmental use, according to a new report published by the Norwegian Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (DIFI). The agency wants to start a debate over the report as part of its work on standards in the Norwegian government. (As we discussed a week ago, Denmark has already decided to choose ODF over OOXML.)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

02/08/2010 11:57 PM

Virus-Detecting "Lab On a Chip" Developed At BYU
natharward writes "A new development in nano-level diagnostic tests has been applied as a lab on a chip that successfully screened viruses entirely by their size. The chip's traps are size-specific, which means even tiny concentrations of viruses or other particles won't escape detection. For medicine, this development is promising for future lab diagnostics that could detect viruses before symptoms kick in and damage begins, well ahead of when traditional lab tests are able to catch them. Aaron Hawkins, the BYU professor leading the work, says his team is now gearing up to make chips with multiple, progressively smaller slots, so that a single sample can be used to screen for particles of varying sizes. One could fairly simply determine which proteins or viruses are present based on which walls have particles stacked against them. After this is developed, Hawkins says, 'If we decided to make these things in high volume, I think within a year it could be ready.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

02/08/2010 11:05 PM