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Humanity Responsible For Current Climate Change

Zonk — 2005-11-26T02:37:00+00:00

tehanu writes "Scientists working with Antarctic ice have found that the level of greenhouse gases is at the highest level in over half a million years. Carbon dioxide is 27% higher now than any other time over the last 650 000 years. Methane, an even stronger greenhouse gas is 130% higher. The period of time studied covers eight full glacial cycles including a time when the earth's position relative to the sun is the same as it is today. Other scientists have found that the annual rate at which the sea has risen since the industrial revolution is twice that of over the last 5000 years. It is predicted that by 2100 the sea level will be 40cm higher. These results provide strong evidence that human activity since the industrial revolution, rather than just natural processes, has strongly altered the world's climate. As one of the scientists involved in the research put it: 'The levels of primary greenhouse gases such as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are up dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, at a speed and magnitude that the Earth has not seen in hundreds of thousands of years.'"

LocationFree Television In Tokyo

Zonk — 2005-11-26T00:31:00+00:00

Jonny Marx writes "A hands-on review from Tokyo suggests that LoctionFree Television works at long last. There are also photos of it in action, streaming pre-recorded TV over the net to a mobile PSP." From the article: "Sony's previous LocationFree TV products required the use of a dedicated portable terminal -- essentially a portable LCD TV with Wi-Fi connection -- that not only added to the cost of the system but could also be a hassle to carry around, especially for people who already travel with a laptop PC. Recognizing this, or perhaps responding to competition from two U.S. start-ups offering similar products, the latest iteration of the technology, the LF-PK1, isn't so fussy and will stream to laptop PCs running Sony's LocationFree Player or to a PlayStation Portable (PSP) running firmware version 2.5 (a free upgrade to this version is available via the PSP's network update function)."

Canadian Ex-Minister Calls For Serious ET Study

Zonk — 2005-11-25T23:26:00+00:00

Nom du Keyboard writes "A former Canadian Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister wants Canada to hold public hearings on Exopolitics - relations with Extraterrestrials - to avoid the possibility of intergalactic war. Unfortunately he also proposes starting a 'Decade of Contact', which seems to mean spending a whole lot of public money on UFO education. Is he on the right track here, that we can't afford to ignore the rest of the Universe any longer?" From the article: "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning ... The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide."

Royal Society Wants to Keep Science off Web

Zonk — 2005-11-25T22:40:00+00:00

truckaxle writes "Britain's national academy of science, The Royal Society, which publishes one of the world's oldest journals, Philosophical Transactions, has joined the debate of the publishing of scientific publications on the internet. In a article by the Guardian a spokesman for the Royal Society was quoted as saying: 'We think it conceivable that the journals in some disciplines might suffer. Why would you pay to subscribe to a journal if the papers appear free of charge?' They believe that internet publishing would harm the exchange of knowledge between researchers."

MS Has Free Software Removed From U.N. Paper

Zonk — 2005-11-25T21:35:00+00:00

linumax writes "Microsoft asked for references to free software to be removed from a document presented at last week's UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) conference, the software giant admitted on Friday. The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is unhappy that the document was changed and claims that even though it was on the panel discussing the document, it was not made aware of Microsoft's changes. The document (2.8MB PDF), known as the Vienna Conclusions, discusses issues around IT and creativity. The original draft of the document discussed how the free software model is changing the way people do business."

Is Fear Reducing the Publicity for Open Source?

Zonk — 2005-11-25T20:42:00+00:00

sebFlyte writes "Are companies deliberately keeping quiet about moves to open source because they are afraid of the reactions of proprietary vendors they still have relationships with? ZDNet raises and tries to answer this question in a two-part special report, 'Open source behind closed doors'. It comes to the conclusion that, in all probability, companies are keeping quiet to avoid reprisals of one sort or another. One part of the fear of publicizing migrations is nicely summed up in the second part by Tristan Nitot of Mozilla Europe: 'Guys are really shy -- it's the Munich Linux thing. They start talking about it and suddenly Ballmer comes in and twists your arm until you cry.'"

Nokia Declares N-Gage A Failure

Zonk — 2005-11-25T19:30:00+00:00

chrisbtoo writes "Nokia's VP of corporate strategy has admitted that the company's ill-fated N-Gage was not the success they'd hoped it would be, and they won't develop the platform further. The device sold 2 million units in 3 years, against projections of 6 million. They'll continue to build the gaming software into their Series 60 phones, but gaming won't be a priority for them until 2007." From the article: "The company launched the N-Gage in 2003 but sales have been disappointing and, according to the company's roadmap, mobile gaming will not be a focus until 2007. Nokia is concentrating on mobile music for the rest of this year, and next year's main push will be on driving mobile television."

Podcasting Hacks

samzenpus — 2005-11-25T18:27:00+00:00

jsuda writes "Podcasting appears to be one of the more interesting developments in current culture and technology. It is one of the earliest nonbusiness representations of the value and power of XML (Extensible Markup Language). XML is subtly and quietly being used to link digital documents together, and more significantly, databases, much like the Internet itself linked individual computers into a global network." Read on for the rest of Jsuda's review.

Red Hat Begins Testing Core 5

Zonk — 2005-11-25T17:18:00+00:00

Robert wrote to mention a CBR Online article which reports that Red Hat has begun testing on Fedora Core 5. From the article: "The next version of Raleigh, North Carolina-based Red Hat's enterprise Linux distribution is not scheduled for release until the second half of 2006 but will include stateless Linux and Xen virtualization functionality and improved management capabilities. Fedora Core 5 Release 1 includes updated support for XenSource Inc's open source server virtualization software, as well as new versions of the Gnome and KDE user interfaces, and the final version of the OpenOffice.org application suite."

TiVo Files Patent For RFID Schema

Zonk — 2005-11-25T16:29:00+00:00

JamesAlfaro wrote to mention an article on the site TechWeb, which reports that Tivo has filed a patent for an RFID-based preferences schema. From the article: "The multimedia mobile personalization system would have a remote control that recognizes the viewer's RFID tag closest to the PVR. The remote control identifies and notifies the multimedia device through the RFID chip in the person's clothing or body to tailor the media content to their preferences. The remote control device would identify and link the viewer to the system using an 'RFID tag that is attached to a key ring, necklace, watch, in his wallet, or even a sub dermal tag inserted somewhere in the user's body.'"