Ant tips us to a story making the rounds lately, based on reporting a couple of weeks old, that owning a cat could cut your heart attack risk by one third. No such effect was seen from dog ownership, but the researchers say that could be because there weren't enough dog owners in the study population to provide meaningful statistics. The study: "...analyzed data on 4,435 Americans, aged 30 to 75, who took part in the federal government's second National Health and Nutrition Examination Study, which ran from 1976-1980. According to the data in the survey, 2,435 of the participants either owned a cat or had owned a cat in the past, while the remaining 2,000 had never done so. [The] team then tracked rates of death from all causes, including heart and stroke. Cat owners 'appeared to have a lower rate of dying from heart attacks' over 10 years of follow-up compared to feline-free folk..."
At O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference last week, I hosted a panel on the future of "mind hacks," from cognitive fitness programs to smart drugs to neuro-implants. One of the panelists was Timo Hannay, publishing director of Nature.com, who talked about a recent heated debate taking place on the journal's site around the ethics of using brain drugs for wakefulness, focus, and other cognitive "enhancements." Nature is continuing that discussion with a public "brain boosting drugs" survey. Today's New York Times "Week In Review" takes a look at the controversy. From the New York Times:
“Suppose you’re preparing for the SAT, or going for a job interview — in those situations where you have to perform on that day, these drugs will be very attractive,” said Dr. Barbara Sahakian of Cambridge, a co-author with Sharon Morein-Zamir of the recent essay in Nature. “The desire for cognitive enhancement is very strong, maybe stronger than for beauty, or athletic ability.”
Jeffrey White, a graduate student in cell biology who has attended several institutions, said that those numbers sounded about right. “You can usually tell who’s using them because they can be angry, testy, hyperfocused, they don’t want to be bothered,” he said...
One person who posted anonymously on the Chronicle of Higher Education Web site said that a daily regimen of three 20-milligram doses of Adderall transformed his career: “I’m not talking about being able to work longer hours without sleep (although that helps),” the posting said. “I’m talking about being able to take on twice the responsibility, work twice as fast, write more effectively, manage better, be more attentive, devise better and more creative strategies.”
Wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson AB did not violate the OMX exchange's listing regulations by making an announcement about sales forecasts at an analyst conference last year, OMX... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 11:29 am
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A 5.5 magnitude earthquake hit a copper-rich area of Chile on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 11:22 am
By Paula Wolf County native receives national award for research into sea turtles and blue whales using satellite data. Saving endangered species It's been quite a while since Peter Etnoyer won an award. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By Chip Smedley Mayor's plan cuts to chase on trashy properties. Mayor Rick Gray believes people pay attention to tickets. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By Oren Dorell Eskimos in Alaska and Canada have joined to stop polar bears from being designated as an endangered species, saying the move threatens their culture and livelihoods by relying on sketchy science for animals that are thriving. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By Ventura County Star, Calif. Mar. 10--A Laguna Beach man who fell while hiking in Los Padres National Forest near Ojai was rescued Sunday by helicopter. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson Mar. 10--The irresistible urge some Arizona lawmakers feel to insert inappropriate provisions into the state Constitution has struck again. Someone really should make a pill for this kind of thing. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By Kinea White Epps, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C. Mar. 10--RALEIGH -- Fox Road Elementary School fifth-grader Heveen Cheko and an elite cadre of classmates have the extra duty of combing through school bathrooms, checking for leaky pipes and toilets or dripping faucets. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By Melissa Santos, The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. Mar. 10--A Pierce County Superior Court judge has ruled that Puyallup cannot withhold water service from an outlying property owner who opposes being annexed into the city. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C. Mar. 10--The Raleigh City Council has now agreed to a tiered-rate water-pricing structure, in which those who used more than the normal amount of water for an individual, family or business would pay more. It's meant to encourage conservation. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By Matt Weiser, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Mar. 10--J.D. Richey caught his first salmon in the American River as a seventh-grader. It was just over 13 pounds, hooked on a spinning lure from a canoe downstream of the Howe Avenue bridge. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By David Hendee, Omaha World-Herald, Neb. Mar. 10--As Nebraska and Kansas water czars wade closer to nonbinding arbitration to settle troubles over sharing Republican River water, Colorado is moving ahead with plans to divert itself out of the fray. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By David Ponce When GM invited me (disclosure: expenses paid) to California to test the 2008 Cobalt SS, now turbocharged… I half expected a schmaltzy sales pitch and a somewhat spirited drive. And... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 10:39 am
By Andrew Liszewski I rarely travel for leisure reasons these days, so it seems anytime I’m in a hotel room I’m exhausted from being at a trade show all day. And if it wasn’t for the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 10:21 am
Saudi Arabia said yesterday anyone who received a voice recording from Al Qaedas deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri on their mobile phone must inform the authorities within a week to avoid arrest. The interior... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 10:08 am
A grand total of 47,000 pounds of outdated computer equipment was safely and properly disposed at the Dalbey Education Institute's community recycling event. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Mar 2008 | 10:00 am
TO address the needs of the commercial market, the Hewlett- Packard (M) Sdn Bhd's HP Total Care Customer and Partner was launched recently at the G Hotel, Penang, where a full range of personalised services for every stage of the device/ computer lifecycle: from choosing, to using, protecting to transitioning, were provided for HP's customers and partners from 62 companies. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Mar 2008 | 10:00 am
TECHNOLOGY has become a business enabler for companies to overcome their challenges and drive competitive advantage. By investing in the appropriate equipment and technology, a small business can dramatically improve productivity and reach new markets. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Mar 2008 | 10:00 am
By Bridget Carey, The Miami Herald Mar. 10--Miguel Merino's online resume has the usual rundown of work experience and education. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Mar 2008 | 10:00 am
By Bridget Carey, The Miami Herald Mar. 10--There are two sides to regulating your online reputation. For starters, if you have a social network showcasing party pictures and friends posting crude inside jokes on a message board, censor it. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Mar 2008 | 10:00 am
Text of report in English by Japan's largest news agency Kyodo Tokyo, March 10 Kyodo - The Japanese government announced Monday that it will extend up to 185.58bn yen in yen loans to India to help build a subway system, roads and other infrastructure in the country. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Mar 2008 | 10:00 am
By Marty Crisp A rousing world premiere production of "Treasure Island" at Fulton Opera House is a pleasure to watch - on its own merits. But if you dwell too long on the likelihood of it going straight from Lancaster to Broadway, you might be disappointed. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Mar 2008 | 10:00 am
Mobile operator Vodafone Australia has awarded a network upgrade contract worth approximately $500m to Ericsson, and selected it to be the primary hardware and software vendor to support its national mobile broadband roll-out. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Mar 2008 | 10:00 am
By Evan Ackerman Andrew has an Asus EEE PC laptop. I’m totally jealous. And why shouldn’t I be, it’s an awesome little machine. So awesome, in fact, that it’s spawned some new competition... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 10:00 am
Netbytes: Sites such as Friends Reunited can give everyone their 15 minutes of fame, says Jack Schofield Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 9:46 am
By Andrew Liszewski The Teleport 2.0 is an innocuous looking device which allows a telephone to be connected to a PC via USB. Using a Windows-only piece of software called Paliha-Teleport, the PC can then... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 9:45 am
By Evan Ackerman So many unfortunate people live in places where it’s really, really cold for much of the year. Me, I went to college up in Maine, and suffered through a couple days of wind-chill... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 9:40 am
Quite a few readers are sending in stories about ThruVision's products, slated to be demonstrated in Britain next week, that are claimed to use Terahertz radiation ("T-rays") to detect foreign objects under clothing, without revealing body details, from a distance of 25 meters and while the subject is in motion. T-rays lie on the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared and microwaves, and are the subject of lively research efforts worldwide. ThruVision says it developed its products in cooperation with the European Space Agency.
Y Combinator startup MightyQuiz just launched with the intent of bringing user generated content to quizzes. The concept is straightforward: users can write their own quiz questions on any topic (e.g... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 9:30 am
The Web companies are, in effect, taking the trail of crumbs people leave behind as they move around the Internet, and then analyzing them to anticipate peoples next steps. So anybody who searches for... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 9:25 am
Two top models competed for media attention in Brussels. Both were stunning - but one was an expensive fake. The real model - Yasmin Le Bon, wife of pop star Simon -... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 9:14 am
Data Traffic management, viewed as a vile practice on the wired networks could actually prove to be useful when it comes to smooth functioning of wireless broadband networks, thanks to a novel new approach... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 9:00 am
I recently spoke with Ray Ozzie, Microsofts Chief Software Architect and industry luminary, about everything from Microsoft's services strategy, to the economics of cloud computing, to the relevance of... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 9:00 am
Tony sez, "StarShipSofa will bring you, in conjunction with the British Science Fiction Association all five of the short stories that have been shortlisted for the BSFA Award for Best Short Story 2007 in audio narrated format for FREE. Starting Monday 10th March (tomorrow) StarShipSofa will upload one of the narrated stories each day. First off, to give you a heads up will be Chaz Brenchley narrating his own story Terminal.
Now this means they will all be up online for free for you to listen to, well in advance of voting time at Eastercon."
Link
SAN DIEGO, March 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mad Catz Interactive, Inc. (Amex: MCZ; TSX), a leading third-party interactive entertainment accessory provider, and the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 7:00 am
LOS ANGELES, March 10 /PRNewswire/ -- At the Championship Gaming Series (R) (CGS) 2008 North America Draft today, the league's North America teams set their rosters... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 7:00 am
As musician David Byrne found out, Internet access doesn't mean all-access. Denver International uses Web-filtering software to block 'offensive' sites. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 7:00 am
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, March 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Grupo Clarin S.A. ("Grupo Clarin" or the "Company" - LSE: GCLA; BCBA: GCLA), the largest ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 7:00 am
njondet recommends an article at The Economist that sheds light on the identity crisis faced by Wikipedia as it is torn between two alternative futures. "'It can either strive to encompass every aspect of human knowledge, no matter how trivial; or it can adopt a more stringent editorial policy and ban articles on trivial subjects, in the hope that this will enhance its reputation as a trustworthy and credible reference source. These two conflicting visions are at the heart of a bitter struggle inside Wikipedia between 'inclusionists,' who believe that applying strict editorial criteria will dampen contributors' enthusiasm for the project, and 'deletionists' who argue that Wikipedia should be more cautious and selective about its entries."
SHANGHAI, China, March 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IIC-China Conference & Exhibition -- CEVA, Inc. (Nasdaq: CEVA); (LSE: CVA), a leading licensor of silicon... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 7:00 am
Gore Verbinski is applying his creative vision to the world of gaming -- and hopes to eventually strike gold. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 7:00 am
SHAVERTOWN, Pa., March 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Solid Cactus(R), an award- winning web design company and total solutions e-commerce provider, announces that it has been... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 7:00 am
Mergers and acquisitions involving California companies reached a record $290 billion in total announced value last year, and there are early indicators that 2008 could be just as big or bigger. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 7:00 am
WALL, N.J., March 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BIO-key International, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: BKYI), a leader in finger-based biometric identification and wireless... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 7:00 am
FLORHAM PARK, N.J., March 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Global Crossing (Nasdaq: GLBC), a leading global IP solutions provider, today announced it has expanded capacity on Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 7:00 am
The pranksters at Improv Everywhere describe their latest noble work thusly:
For our latest mission, 16 agents staged a spontaneous musical in the food court of a Los Angeles shopping mall. We used wireless microphones to amplify the vocal performances and mix them together with the music through the mall’s PA system. We filmed the mission with hidden cameras, mostly behind two-way mirrors. Apart from our performers, no one in the food court was aware of what was happening.
South Korea's Fair Trade Commission said Monday it has levied a fine of 696 million won (US$729,000; euro476,000) on Motorola Korea Inc. for helping three South Korean companies collude to get orders from... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 5:25 am
Like God, I also have an inordinate fondness for beetles, especially when they are as shiny and dapper as this industrious fellow making his way up the trail to the Vanalden Cave in Tarzana, Calif.
Link to full-size photo
TaeKwonDood writes "Biology post-doc Dr. Michael White takes a look at the '2007 Best American Science and Nature Writing' and doesn't like what he finds in an article called Bad Science Journalism and the Myth of the Oppressed Underdog. Turns out it's not just political writers who pick a position they want to advocate and then write stories to confirm it. Science journalism gets a scolding and it's been a long time coming."
The South by Southwest Web Awards celebrate the websites that were launched or redesigned in the past year. Wired.com wins one in the "Classic" category.
Every year at South by Southwest, one web service captures all the buzz by proving itself to be innovative, geek friendly and insanely useful. This year, Sched.org, a simple calendaring service is proving to be a godsend to overwhelmed attendees trying to figure out where to go, when to get there, what the most popular events are and who they'll see when they get there.
Steven Noonan sends us to a page where he is collecting and updating results for various browsers on the newly released Acid 3 test. No browser yet scores 100 on this test. (We discussed Acid 3 when it came out.) He writes, "It's not surprising that Internet Explorer is losing to every other modern browser, but how did IE 5.5 beat IE 6.0 and 7.0?" All of the IE versions score below 20 on Acid 3.
Fun first-person account of designing the cartridge version of Donkey Kong for Atari, written by Landon Dyer, who was 21 years old when Atari hired him.
The Atari Program Exchange (a captive publishing house) was holding a contest. The grand prize for the winning game was $25,000. I’d spent a semester of college blowing off most of my courses and doing almost nothing except work on Myriapede. I finished it with a week or two to spare and submitted to the contest.
A few weeks after I mailed Myriapede off to the contest, I got a letter from Atari that said (1) they were very impressed with the work, but (2) it looked to them like a substantial copy of Centipede (well, it was) and that they’d rejected it for that reason. The subtext was they would probably sue me if I tried to sell it anywhere else, too. I was crushed. I wound up going to a local user group and giving a couple copies of it away; I assume that it spread from there. I hear that people liked it (”best download of 1982″ or something like that).
A few weeks later I got a call from Atari; they wanted to know if I was interested in interviewing for a job. I was practically vibrating with excitement. I flew out and did a loop, and made sure to show Myriapede to each interviewer; it was a conversation stopper every time. Until they saw it they kind of humored me (”yeah, okay, you wrote a game”), then when the game started up they started playing it, got distracted and (”ahem!”) had to be reminded that they were doing an interview! One of the guys I talked to was the author of Atari’s “official” Centipede cartridge. He said on the spot that my version was better than his.
Any purist will tell you that iPods and MP3s are for sissies. Vinyl records are where it's at. Get the best in all-natural retro sound by properly calibrating your turntable.
Any purist will tell you that iPods and MP3s are for sissies. Vinyl records are where it's at. Get the best in all-natural retro sound by properly calibrating your turntable.
Malcolm C. McKenna, a paleontologist who hunted fossils from the Rockies to the Gobi Desert, from Patagonia to the Canadian Arctic, and who published an authoritative classification of mammals, died last... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 12:37 am
George B. Litchford Sr., a prolific aviation inventor who had a vital role in the development of the collision warning system now used on every airliner in the United States, died on Feb. 28 in Albany... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 12:37 am
They are often wedged in closets, collecting dust. Some inevitably end up between banana peels and apple cores in a landfill. In New York City, finding an appropriate final resting place for aging computers,... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 10 Mar 2008 | 12:37 am
AtomBOB suggests a Phoronix review comparing the performance of a Quadro graphics card on Windows Vista Ultimate, Solaris Express Developer, and Ubuntu Linux. The graphics card used was a NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700 mid-range workstation part. The cross-platform benchmark used was SPECViewPerf 9.0 from SPEC. Quoting Phoronix: "Using the Quadro FX1700 512MB and the latest display drivers, Windows Vista wasn't the decisive winner, but the loser... Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 5 with the 169.12 driver had overall produced the fastest results within SPECViewPerf. In only three benchmarks had Solaris Express Developer 1/08 outpaced Ubuntu Linux, but with two of these tests the results were almost identical.""
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, this year's keynote speaker at SXSW, is interviewed by author and journalist Sarah Lacy, who attempts to get the notoriously tight-lipped Zuckerberg to open up. But the discussion rarely strays beyond the usual business fare and eventually descends into a string of awkward moments punctuated by the audience's heckling.
At this year's SXSW, Meebo-sponsored chat rooms are a major part of the panel-going experience. The success or failure of speakers is being chronicled in the web service's in-panel chat rooms. They provide live feedback on panelists' performances with all the decorum and kindness you associate with blog comments.
MikeURL alerts to a AP story just published after a months-long investigation on the vast array of pharmaceuticals present in US drinking water. These include antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers, and sex hormones, as well as over-the-counter drugs. Quoting: "To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe. But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health."
An anonymous reader notes the considerable irony in Microsoft asking for relief from further discovery in the Windows Vista Capable debacle. This is the lawsuit that was recently granted class-action status, and Microsoft wants the wheels of justice to stop while it appeals that designation. It's easy to see why Microsoft wants to prevent further digging around in their and their OEMs' email archives, with stories like this one from the NYTimes (registration may be required) revealing Redmond's highly embarrassing internal emails to a mass audience.
LeCaddie writes "Last week German investigators raided 51 exhibitor stands at CeBIT, the German information technology fair in Hanover, looking for goods suspected of infringing patents. Some 183 police, customs officers, and prosecutors raided the fair on Wednesday and carried off 68 boxes of electronic goods and documents including cellphones, navigation devices, digital picture frames, and flat-screen monitors. Of the 51 companies raided, 24 were Chinese. Most of the patents concerned were related to devices with MP3, MP4, and DVB standard functions for digital audio and video, blank CDs, and DVD copiers, police said." In the US there are no criminal penalties associated with patents, and such a raid could not be conducted, especially in the absence of a court ruling of infringement.
jillduffy writes "Steve Schnur, a high-level music exec at Electronic Arts, talks about how video games are launching the careers of top musical artists these days. Some of his examples: 'Avril Lavigne was first introduced to European audiences through FIFA 2003. Fabolous was first introduced in America via NBA Live, and went on to sell over 2 million albums here. JET got their American iPod commercial based on exposure in Madden 2004. Avenged Sevenfold were an unsigned act when we featured them in Madden 2004...' Schnur explains how the phenomenon is made possible by the new generation of media junkies, who feel a song becomes real when they 'play it.'"
MIT dropped its subscription to the database of past articles from the Society of Automotive Engineer because SAE had was using anti-copying DRM technology on the papers that made them less useful for scientists and researchers. After a presentation from an MIT professor about the boycott, the SAE publication board eliminated DRM for its papers:
Professor of Mechanical Engineering and SAE fellow Wai Cheng presented MIT’s concerns at the SAE’s Publication Board meeting in April 2007, which resulted in an immediate stay of DRM implementation on university campuses, and ultimately (November 2007) in a changed policy: FileOpen would not be required for university access to the SAE Digital Library.
While the MIT Libraries have not been able to get all the assurances we would like regarding SAE’s plans for implementing other DRM tools in the future, after consulting with faculty we have decided, as Professor Cheng put it, to “work with SAE in good faith,” reentering what we hope will be a productive partnership.
Wired's Adam Rogers wrote a lovely, sweeping obit for Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax in this weekend's New York Times that included this flowchart showing how D&D was a gateway drug into every kind of nerd-dom:
We live in Gary Gygax’s world. The most popular books on earth are fantasy novels about wizards and magic swords. The most popular movies are about characters from superhero comic books. The most popular TV shows look like elaborate role-playing games: intricate, hidden-clue-laden science fiction stories connected to impossibly mathematical games that live both online and in the real world. And you, the viewer, can play only if you’ve sufficiently mastered your home-entertainment command center so that it can download a snippet of audio to your iPhone, process it backward with beluga whale harmonic sequences and then podcast the results to the members of your Yahoo group...
Geeks like algorithms. We like sets of rules that guide future behavior. But people, normal people, consistently act outside rule sets. People are messy and unpredictable, until you have something like the Dungeons & Dragons character sheet. Once you’ve broken down the elements of an invented personality into numbers generated from dice, paper and pencil, you can do the same for your real self.
Designer Tobias Wong created this gold-plated wireless lightswitch in a Lucite box. The "ON/OFF Switch" is just, er, $250, from Vivre.
