| Researchers force bacteria to evolve for life in a fuel cell
August 6, 2009 at 10:25 pm
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|   While a recent report from the National Academies of the Sciences concluded that conservation is the short-term key to many energy issues, work continues on alternative energy production techniques like wind, solar, biomass, and fuel cells. For mobile applications, fuel cells have quickly become the technological leader because they offer high energy density (relative to other green technologies), low weight, and generally high mechanical durability. In this month's Biosensors and Bioelectronics, a research team from University of Massachusetts Amherst describes their work on microbial fuel cells enhanced by directed evolution. A wide array of fuel cell technologies exist, but most fall into two catagories: solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) or polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). SOFCs conduct O2- across ceramic membranes and produce high current densities with little degradation over time. Unfortunately, the ionic conduction mechanism requires high operating temperatures—usually several hundred degrees centigrade. PEMFCs conduct either protons or hydroxyls, but suffer from low current densities and significant degredation over time. While these systems show substantial promise, there is no clear leader for most mobile applications and there is room in several niche markets for other types of fuel cells. 
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| Pirate Bay sale imminent, but who owns it to begin with?
August 6, 2009 at 8:17 pm
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|   Who owns The Pirate Bay? It sounds like a simple question, but it turns out to have a surprisingly complicated answer. As Swedish company Global Gaming Factory X tries to round up the money to purchase the site's domain name by the end of August, we were curious to figure out exactly who GGF will be paying if the deal goes through. When the answer involves "a mysterious company registered in the Seychelles," it's clear that "transparency" won't be the deal's hallmark. The three young men who were sued in Sweden this spring might run The Pirate Bay, but they have long said that they no longer own the site. A whois search on thepiratebay.org shows that the domain is registered to a firm called Reservella, though the contact information points to Pirate Bay defendant Fredrik Neij and lists a Stockholm address.
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| July 2009: 189,297 km2 of imagery added to Bing Maps
August 6, 2009 at 6:34 pm
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|   Throughout July 2009, Microsoft has added 189,297 km2 of imagery to Bing Maps. In other terms, this is apparently equivalent to 41TB of new satellite imagery, aerial photography, and vector data (all new roads in Japan). Compared to the previous month it's a huge improvement (Microsoft didn't add anything, or at least didn't say it did) but compared to May 2009 it's a slight decrease. We're staying on top of the releases to see whether Microsoft is adding more or less as Bing matures.
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| Schiller: Apple to "learn and quickly improve" App Store
August 6, 2009 at 5:54 pm
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|   Apple has been criticized quite frequently for issues surrounding its iPhone developer program and how apps are approved or rejected for sale via the App Store. Though Apple has essentially avoided answering any of these criticisms so far—it actually abruptly ended a WWDC session on the App Store without the usual Q&A session this summer—senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller addressed some of those criticisms directly in an e-mail to a popular Mac blog. Earlier this week, Daring Fireball had fiercely criticized Apple for seemingly censoring a dictionary app called Ninjawords. The problem, as the story went, was that the developers of Ninjawords had to censor a number of words form the app to gain approval, and even then was required to carry a 17+ rating. However, Schiller explained, the actual events were quite different.
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| Microsoft Hardware unveils pressure-sensitive keyboard
August 6, 2009 at 5:44 pm
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|   Microsoft Hardware plans to debut a new keyboard prototype at the User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) conference in October. The device will be put to use in the first annual Student Innovation Contest in Victoria, Canada, where contestants will be supplied with a keyboard prototype and challenged with developing new interactions for it. Contestants will demo their creations and attendees will vote for their favorite at the conference on October 5. $2,000 prizes will be given to the authors of programs deemed as the most useful, the best implementation, and the most innovative.
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| Fox joins Universal's war on Redbox DVD rental kiosks
August 6, 2009 at 5:16 pm
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|   20th Century Fox has followed in Universal's footsteps by yanking its DVDs out of Redbox, the bargain-basement-priced DVD rental kiosks. Ars was tipped off by a reader that the studio, which has never entered into an agreement directly with Redbox, has ordered its wholesalers not to sell its DVDs to Redbox until 30 days after release. The move reflects the movie industry's fear and loathing of this new DVD rental market, reducing people's visits to places like Blockbuster and reducing the studios' ability to try and sell DVDs to customers. Redbox is jointly owned by Coinstar and a subsidiary of McDonald's and acts as a self-service DVD distributor that operates kiosks at over 10,000 retail locations in the US (including McDonald's, Walmarts, Walgreens, and grocery stores). The kiosks, which each house more than 600 DVDs, rent out movies for $1 per day and sell used movies for $7. The company's Web-based inventory system makes it possible for consumers to select their movies over the Internet and reserve them in advance at a specified Redbox kiosk. The company has more kiosks than Blockbuster has stores, and each kiosk rents out an average of 50 movies per day.
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| Microsoft Patch Tuesday for August 2009: nine bulletins
August 6, 2009 at 5:04 pm
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|   According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue nine Security Bulletins on Tuesday, and it will host a webcast to address customer questions on the bulletin the following day (August 12 at 11:00am PST, if you're interested). Five of the vulnerabilities are rated "Critical," and the other four are marked as "Important." All of the Critical vulnerabilities earned their rating through a remote code execution impact, meaning a hacker could potentially gain control of an infected machine. At least seven of the nine patches will require a restart.
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| Microsoft buys Office.com domain
August 6, 2009 at 3:23 pm
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|   On Tuesday, Microsoft acquired the domain Office.com. Microsoft likely paid a pretty penny for the valuable domain name. Some may find it surprising that the software giant didn't already own it, but it's true: it previously belonged to a US resident and was operated by ContactOffice, a Belgian startup that markets virtual office solutions under a revenue-share agreement. The transfer, however, isn't yet complete. At publishing time, Office.com was showing the following message:
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| Results confirm theory as Kepler tracks extrasolar planet
August 6, 2009 at 3:23 pm
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|   The people who build and run the hardware we send into space probably experience a lot of sleepless nights. It's possible to design multiple redundant systems and test everything on the ground, but that's no guarantee that things will operate as you expect them to once they get sent into space (witness the originally distorted optics of the Hubble). For the people running the Kepler observatory, which is designed to detect planets that have orbits and sizes which approximate Earth's, it's apparently time to breathe easily. Scientists have now calibrated its camera against a known planet, and found that its sensitivity is up to its intended task. The Kepler was launched in early March and went operational in the middle of May, so these results have come very quickly. That's partly the result of the planet it has observed, HAT-P-7b. The planet is what's called a "hot Jupiter" that orbits close to its host star, and completes one orbit (a HAT year?) in a brisk 2.2 days. As a result, the folks running Kepler were able to observe multiple orbits in just 10 days of work that took place during the commissioning period. The results are published in today's issue of Science, and NASA has hosted a press conference to describe them.
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| Microsoft releases Open XML fix for Mac Office 2008 SP2
August 6, 2009 at 3:12 pm
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|   Microsoft's Mac Business Unit has released a minor update to Office 2008 for Mac that fixes a bug when opening Open XML files. The update, version 12.2.1, has just been posted to the Office for Mac downloads site. The Open XML incompatibility came to light earlier this week after users began updating their versions of Office 2008 to Service Pack 2. Although SP2 came with a number of speed improvements and bug fixes, it also brought some strange behavior when users tried to open XML files generated by some versions of Office for Windows. In some cases, Office 2008 for Mac couldn't identify which version of the XML format was being used, and therefore would not open the file. Although the Mac BU had posted a list of workarounds (many of which suggested rolling back to a previous version of the software), these were obviously inconvenient for most users. Thankfully, the company stayed on top of the bug and released an update today that should fix the issue for Office 2008 SP2 users. According to software development lead Erik Schwiebert on Twitter, the English version is available now while other languages are coming "soon." 
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| On demand in command; 51% of young 'Net users view TV online
August 6, 2009 at 2:35 pm
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|   In the six months between September 2008 and April 2009, long-form streaming video exploded in popularity—the percentage of US Internet users watching online TV shows and movies doubled in that timeframe alone. Such huge gains might seem at first to be chalked up to the fact that doubling from one percent to two percent is much simpler than doubling from 25 percent to 50 percent. Isn't watching TV shows online still a niche activity? But that's exactly what makes the new numbers so compelling; the percentages involved are significant, showing that online streaming has quickly become the on-demand method of choice for half of all young Americans.
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| Apple looking to avoid warranty ripoffs with abuse detection
August 6, 2009 at 2:04 pm
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|   "The customer is always right" is an adage that makes a point about customers being the focus of any business. But that doesn't mean it's always true in the literal sense, and there are some people who are willing to take advantage of a business' desire to help a customer in any way it can. Apple may be hoping to avoid being scammed by customers trying to pass off abuse and damage as defects by implementing a "consumer abuse detection system." The company recently filed for a patent on a method of detecting instances of consumer abuse and recording the instances in memory. If a customer were to bring in, say, a MacBook or iPod for repair under warranty, an Apple Genius could then tap into the detection system and see if any "incidents" were recorded. That could help the company avoid paying for costly repairs or replacements in the event that a problem was caused by misuse or abuse.
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| Mixed results on the threat of malaria in a warming world
August 6, 2009 at 2:03 pm
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|   The speed with which the recently discovered H1N1 flu has spread has provided a sobering reminder of the heightened risks posed by diseases in a globalized world. There are now growing concerns about the potential health effects of our warming planet, which public health experts believe could worsen an already tenuous situation in developing countries. In recent years, those fears have centered around the impacts a changing climate could have on the transmissibility of infectious, vector-borne diseases like malaria. Since the early 1990s, when researchers first began to suspect that climate change could facilitate the spread of diseases, several studies have shown a strong temperature dependency in the transmission of malaria, dengue fever, and other infectious diseases. It was generally assumed that higher temperatures and humidity, among other climatic variations, would increase disease rates by expanding the range of both the infectious agents—protozoa, bacteria, and viruses—and their associated vectors—mosquitoes, ticks, and sandflies.
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| Windows 7 RTM arrives on Connect, MSDN, and TechNet
August 6, 2009 at 1:05 pm
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|   Windows 7 RTM (build 7600.16385) is now available on Microsoft Connect for testers, as well as for MSDN and TechNet subscribers. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available for download in English. French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese are supposed to hit on August 14 and the remaining languages are to arrive on August 21. Windows 7 RTM should arrive on MSDNAA on August 14 as well.
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| Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 released
August 6, 2009 at 1:00 pm
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|   Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009, which features a highly customizable user interface that gives all employees access to information such as inventory levels and purchase history, has arrived in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. Redmond describes it is a scalable solution that helps midmarket companies and specialty retailers provide solid customer service, drive employee productivity, and make business decisions with confidence. The interface is optimized for touchscreens and can be tailored for specific roles or individuals. In addition, retailers have the ability to create custom buttons for completing common tasks.
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| MotionPlus a huge hit for Nintendo with 500K sold in 8 days
August 6, 2009 at 12:46 pm
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|   Wii Sports Resort has been a major focal point of Nintendo's strategy for the past couple of years, and the game carries the not insubstantial responsibility of selling the MotionPlus peripheral to the gaming public. The $20 hardware has succeeded where Nintendo has so far failed with the Vitality Sensor: it ships with its own killer app in the sequel to the original Wii Sports. The strategy has paid off; Nintendo has shared the numbers for the game's first week of availability, and the $50 game and peripheral package has sold over 500,000 units.
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| Games on Demand titles announced, pricing is hard sell
August 6, 2009 at 11:20 am
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|   The newest update for the Xbox 360 dashboard goes live next week, on August 11. Not only will gamers be able to experience the additions and improvements we discussed in our preview, but the Games on Demand Marketplace will likewise go live, allowing gamers to purchase full versions of Xbox 360 games. Microsoft has announced what games will launch with the service, along with some hints at pricing.
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| Judge rebukes SCO, blocks sale, appoints bankruptcy trustee
August 6, 2009 at 11:05 am
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|   The SCO Group attempted to stave off liquidation in June by signing a last minute deal with Gulf Capital Partners and a tech firm called unXis. The terms of the agreement, which were finalized only moments before a court hearing, stipulated that SCO would sell its remaining UNIX assets for $2.4 million—a maneuver that could have potentially made it possible for SCO to continue pursuing its bogus litigation against the open source Linux operating system. In a decision this week, a bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross blocked the asset sale and suggested that SCO should not be permitted to continue burning money to the detriment of its creditors while the litigation goes on forever. He notes that the proposed sale would leave SCO without any tenable reorganization strategy and would make the company's sustainability entirely dependent on the pending litigation. Expressing frustration with SCO's stalling tactics, the Judge astutely suggests that SCO's hopes for successful litigation are looking increasingly like a bad remix of Waiting for Godot.
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| Persona PSP sees digital release, sans physical bonuses
August 6, 2009 at 10:50 am
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|   The upcoming PlayStation Portable port of the original Shin Megami Tensei: Persona is due to be released on September 22, not long before Sony launches its UMD drive-free PSP Go. To take advantage of the timing, Atlus has announced that the game will be released simultaneously as both a retail game and a downloadable release on the PlayStation Network.
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| Do engineering majors have the highest dropout rate?
August 6, 2009 at 10:36 am
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|   The National Academy of Sciences and Engineering have issued reports calling for renewed efforts to train new scientists and engineers to help the nation to remain competitive on the global scene. This raises the question of what can be done to help US colleges and universities produce more engineers. The common perception is that engineering disciplines produce more ex-students than other majors, which would not help the US' lack of young engineering graduates, but is that true, or a common misperception? New research shows that engineering actually does not have a higher drop-out rate than any other field of study, but it does show that very few people drop into the field in the first place. The work also finds that women drop out at a rate no higher than their male counterparts, which runs counter to another widely held fallacy.
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| Apple's high-end strategy paying off in the mobile market
August 6, 2009 at 10:28 am
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|   Apple only has a small share of the overall mobile market when measured by units—about 2 percent. The fact that it earns about 8 percent of the revenue earned in the mobile market is a respectable achievement. But Apple also happens to be earning 32 percent of the profit on that 8 percent of revenue. The latest analysis from Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi estimates that Apple is pulling in almost a third of the operating profits generated by the entire mobile handset market. Even ignoring significant losses reported by Sony Ericsson and Motorola, Apple still earns a quarter of the profits. Apple has long enjoyed significant margins on its products, but by Sacconaghi's calculations, Apple's margin on iPhones is roughly 40 percent, nearly double that of the next highest margin of 21 percent that RIMM is earning on its BlackBerry devices.
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| Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade to show up in 1 vs. 100
August 6, 2009 at 10:20 am
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|   The live, online Xbox Live game show 1 vs. 100 continues to roll on, with what seems like a positive response from gamers. The game can be amazingly fun if you're a trivia fan, and the schedule is even beginning to see guest stars during the live events. This Friday, Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade will grace the game with their presence. "This is just a quick note to say that Tycho and I will be guests on 1 vs. 100 this Friday on Xbox Live," Gabe wrote on Wednesday. "The 'show' starts at 7:00 and we'll be there the entire time with the host Chris Cashman. There will be some PA related questions in the mix and you'll be able to call in and shoot us questions." As anyone who has been to PAX will tell you, Gabe and Tycho are just as funny in person as they are in the comics, and this is a great incentive to log into the game and give it a try. The idea of having guests during the show interacting with gamers and adding some flavor to the proceedings is neat, and shows yet another advantage to the live format of 1 vs. 100. 
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| Modern Warfare finally hits the Wii with COD4 port
August 6, 2009 at 10:00 am
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|   With Modern Warfare 2 on the way, Activision has a surprise for Wii fans, though it may not be quite what they were expecting. Nintendo's console will finally be getting some modern day Call of Duty action with a port of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, also known as CoD4. The game, which originally hit the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC back in 2007, will be released on the same day as Modern Warfare 2. No details were given about how the game will be changed in the Wii port, but development duties will be handled by Treyarch, the team behind last year's Call of Duty: World at War.
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| Cisco's income plunges 46 percent from last year
August 6, 2009 at 9:54 am
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|   Cisco's earnings are out, and it's about as bad as you'd expect: the company's net income plunged 46 percent year-over-year, with earnings per share down 42 percent, all despite aggressive layoffs and other cost-cutting moves. Cisco's CEO also says he isn't yet seeing a recovery—just some positive signs that seem to indicate a bottom, and which may spell a turnaround if they keep up over the next few quarters. The networking equipment maker blames the credit crunch for a lot of its pain, noting that clients are having a hard time getting the money to pony up for its higher end products. Clearly, the company needs to find a way to get in on the Chinese stimulus action, which the semiconductor sector has been enjoying this past quarter.
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| Google Chrome gets skins and JavaScript performance boost
August 6, 2009 at 9:31 am
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|   Google has announced the availability of a new beta release of its Chrome Web browser. This version introduces several new features and user interface improvements, including support for a theming system that allows users to customize the browser's look. Chrome was first released last year and hit 1.0 on Windows in December. Although the product was somewhat feature-anemic at launch, Google has been fleshing it out and adding a lot of useful features. The browser is attracting a growing number of users and is said to have overtaken Opera based on marketshare statistics published by several analytics firms. Google is building an entire operating system around the browser and is planning to thrust it into the fragmented netbook market later next year.
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