| Researchers force bacteria to evolve for life in a fuel cell August 6, 2009 at 10:25 pm |
| 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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| Fox joins Universal's war on Redbox DVD rental kiosks August 6, 2009 at 5:16 pm |
| 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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| Results confirm theory as Kepler tracks extrasolar planet August 6, 2009 at 3:23 pm |
| 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 |
| 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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| Mixed results on the threat of malaria in a warming world August 6, 2009 at 2:03 pm |
| 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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| Microsoft Dynamics POS 2009 released August 6, 2009 at 1:00 pm |
| 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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| Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade to show up in 1 vs. 100 August 6, 2009 at 10:20 am |
| 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 |
| 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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