smitty777 writes "In what is being hailed as a breakthrough in male infertility, researchers from Muenster and Ben Gurion Universities were able to actually grow mouse sperm cells in a petri dish. Researchers feel this is just a short step away from human in vitro sperm cell production. The details of how this will be accomplished are still being worked out. FTA: '[According to Professor Richard Sharpe], "What this research shows is that it will be possible to make human sperm outside the body. The germ cells just need the right environment. That's the tricky part getting them to think they are in the testes." Professor Sharpe believes that one novel way may make.it possible. He proposes using a live mouse as a "host" to make human sperm. He said: "What you would do is take some human testicular tissue with germ cells and place that under the skin of the mouse and use it to incubate the cells. You could then extract any sperm and use it in fertility treatment. But we would have to demonstrate that there were no mouse cells present in the extracted sperm if we were to use this technique and I believe that's possible."'"
An anonymous reader writes "Australian English instructor Tony Mitchell recently moved to Bahrain where he was offered a job at the state-run Polytechnic University. He described himself as a witness of the various horrifying events in the struggling country (see The Atlantic's four-part series). Mitchell was eventually fired, evicted, and forced to flee because of posts he made on Facebook."
jehan60188 writes "I want a camera that's better than my phone, but I don't have the technical knowledge to fully appreciate a DSLR. I think the MILC style will be a happy compromise, but I'm concerned that it might be all 'marketing' and no 'technology.' I don't have a lot of demands, but I do like taking macro shots of things from time to time. Also, my sister is going to China in a few months, so a telephoto lens would probably be good for sight seeing (since I could employ optical zoom instead of the imaginary 'digital zoom')."
Gallenod writes "In an op-ed for the New York Times, Vint Cerf writes that civil protests around the world, sparked by Internet communications, 'have raised questions about whether Internet access is or should be a civil or human right.' Cerf argues that 'technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself,' and contends that for something to be considered a human right, it 'must be among the things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience. It is a mistake to place any particular technology in this exalted category, since over time we will end up valuing the wrong things.'"
A Wired article (as carried by CNN) attempts to answer the question of why 3D television hasn't caught on. The reasons listed there (high price, paltry content, the need for 3D glasses for typical sets, headaches and strain) all seem to be on the money, in themselves, but I think don't go far enough. 3D on a set small enough for home use outside a high-end home-theater rig seems to me like a clever novelty that I can't even enjoy unless I've given it my full attention. It's nothing like the jump from black-and-white to color, or even the jump from my old (circa 1993) 19" Trinitron to a flat-panel display. On the big screen, it's another story — there, 3D can be arresting and involving, even when it's exaggerated (and it is). On home sets, even quite large ones, to my eye 3D usually looks phony and out of place. Never mind that the content is limited and often expensive, or that there are competing standards for expensive glasses to wear — I just don't like that the commitment is greater than that required for casual, conventional TV; I can't readily scan email, skim through a magazine, or keep watching out the corner of my eye from another room. (I'm hoping to find some actually watchable no-glasses 3D sets at CES next week, but I'm skeptical.)
First time accepted submitter sweetpea86 writes "An executive who uploaded his CV to LinkedIn was forced to quit his job because he ticked a box stating he was interested in 'career opportunities'. John Flexman is demanding hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation from his former employer, gas exploration firm BG Group, where he earned £68,000 pounds a year as a Graduate and Development Manager. He is thought to be the first person in the UK to bring a case for constructive dismissal. The case highlights a grey area around employees' use of social networks such as LinkedIn. According to Kate Hodgkiss, Partner at law firm DLA Piper, employers have every right to seek to protect confidential company information by restricting LinkedIn and other profiles, but cannot prevent employees from looking for a new job. The news echoes a report in December that a Californian Twitter user was being sued for $340,000 by his former employer for taking his online followers with him when he switched jobs. PhoneDog launched legal proceedings against Noah Kravitz, seeking damages of $2.50 a month per follower for eight months."
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla for some time after switching to the rapid release process talked about releasing Extended Support Releases that would give companies and organizations some breathing space in the race to test and deploy new browser versions. With the first ESR release (which will be Firefox 10), comes the Firefox 3.6 end of life announcement. Firefox 3.6 users will receive update notifications in April to update the browser to the latest stable version by then."
MrSeb writes "Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, will provide push-button Reset and Refresh in Windows 8. Reset will restore a Windows 8 PC to its stock, fresh-from-the-factory state; Refresh will reinstall Windows 8, but keep your documents and installed Metro apps in tact. For the power users, Windows 8 will include a new tool called recimg.exe, which allows you to create a hard drive image that Refresh will use (you can install all of your Desktop apps, tweak all your settings, run recimg.exe... and then, when you Refresh, you'll be handed a clean, ready-to-go computer). Reset and Refresh are obviously tablety features that Windows 8 will need to compete against iOS and Android — but considering Windows' malware magnetism and the number of times I've had to schlep over to my mother's house with a Windows CD... these features should be very welcome on the desktop, too."
Griller_GT writes "According to the top researchers of the Fraunhofer-Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organization (IAO) in Stuttgart, the human mind is set up to work at its best under the open sky, with changing illumination caused by clouds passing overhead. The unvarying glare of office lighting is sub-optimal, therefore, and in order to wring the last ounce of efficiency from German workers whose productivity has already been pushed to unprecedented heights they have decided to rectify this with a LED cloud ceiling."
SharkLaser writes "In a leaked letter sent to Spain's outgoing President, the US ambassador warned that if Spain didn't pass SOPA-like file-sharing site blocking law, Spain would risk being put into United States trade blocklist. United States government interference in Spain's intellectual property laws have been suspected for a long time, and now the recent leaks of diplomatic cables confirm this. Apart from the cables leaked earlier, now another cable dated December 12th says U.S. expresses "deep concern" over the failure to implement SOPA-style censorship law in the country. 'The government has unfortunately failed to finish the job for political reasons, to the detriment of the reputation and economy of Spain,' read the letter. Racing against the clock in the final days of the government, Solomont had one last push. 'I encourage the Government of Spain to implement the Sinde Law immediately to safeguard the reputation of Spain as an innovative country that does what it says it will, and as a country that breeds confidence,' he wrote."
hypnosec writes "Microsoft's Flight Simulator series, which was in dormant state until now, will see a re-launch this spring and that too for free. The name of this series will be simply Flight, and players will have free access to the digital sky with this simulator. In other words, it will be available as a free download; however, the user would need to buy additional content to enhance their experience. The content that can be purchased includes aircraft as well as new environments. Microsoft states that the most amazing part of this game is the user can experience some real life locations like Big Island of Hawaii along with 'region-specific weather patterns, foliage, terrain and landmarks.'" [Video demo here.] I'd like to know where the ESRB finds "crude humor" or "mild violence" in there.
Zoxed writes "IERS have just announced a leap second due at midnight, June 30th this year. Are your systems ready?" The last leap second added was at the end of 2008.
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Presidential candidate Mitt Romney received eight more votes than candidate Rick Santorum or 0.007 percent of the total number of caucus votes in the Iowa caucus, 'eking out a victory' on the path to winning the Republican nomination for president but experts in statistics say Romney and Santorum actually tied. 'From a statistical point of view, you can't say Romney won any more than you can say Santorum won,' says Charles Seife, a professor of journalism at New York University who studies election error. That's because in the Iowa caucus, where voters marked their choices with check marks or by writing the candidates' names in by hand, the error rate in counting the votes, which is also done by hand is orders of magnitude above the victory margin — around 0.5 to 1 percent. There are several sources of error that could easily render eight votes meaningless." (Read on for more.)
The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) in Paris -- the grand arbiters of time on our big blue marble -- has declared that a leap second will be introduced on 30 June, 2012.
Virginia Rometty took over this week as IBM"s first female CEO in its storied history. She's new, but is she a new kind of leader? On her first day at the job, there was one difference. When it came time to reach out to company employees, Rometty decided to skip that staple of Sam Palimsano communications: the company-wide email. Instead, she made a video, outlining her priorities as leader, and posted it to Connections, the company's Facebook-like internal social network.
The Fifth Amendment right against compelled self incrimination in the digital age is at issue in a Colorado federal prosecution where the government is demanding a defendant decrypt a laptop so the files may be used against her as evidence in a bank-fraud case.
The e-reader business may be moving faster in the last six months than it did in the previous six years. Even Barnes & Noble, the brick & mortar book retailer that?s best managed the transition to digital reading, has been taken by surprise. Now the company has to reread, restock and re-sort its own future ? possibly one where the B&N and the Nook go separate ways.
Instant messages are ubiquitous and convenient, but something primal may be lost in translation.
While the future is unknown and unknowable, bureaucratic agencies such as NASA like to know their agendas far in advance. Luckily, this means that we can look forward to a great deal of exciting events in the coming year.
Ronald D. Moore's reboot of bliss.
Engines are powering ever heavier, ever more powerful automobiles. As a result, the technological advancements of the past 30 years have brought only small gains in real-world fuel economy, says MIT economist Christopher Knittel.
Ramnit, a worm first discovered in April 2010, has made the leap from Windows to Facebook, where it's using stolen login credentials to spread itself through the social networking site.
You just knew a boatload of bootleg Steve Jobs merch would start flooding in after his passing last year. Like street vendors outside of the World Series, online retailers started producing T-shirts, books and other various and sundry items. But after a Chinese manufacturer unveiled a miniature Steve Jobs prototype doll, Apple's legal team pounced.
The President announced his vision for the future of the U.S. military today. Kiss big counterinsurgencies goodbye. Get ready for more shadow wars, drone attacks and online combat, with the military's eyes on the Pacific, rather than Afghanistan.
The venerable Apache web server continues to dominate the web server market, but its open source rival Nginx has already overtaken Microsoft's IIS to become the second most popular server on the web.
A team of biologists has discovered that male spiders spy on their rivals during courtship ceremonies, so they can mimic and pinch their most successful dance moves.
It seems like humans have always wanted to fly like a bird. Does this seem like a reasonable thing to expect? Dot Physics blogger Rhett Allain weighs in with science.
A look at features on the PS Vita that could make it a break-out hit for families (if Sony markets it right).
The son of a slave saves agriculture in the old Confederacy. The South shall raise again.
highlights all the best fastest stuff: immediate music relevance, superfast superheroes, and leaping ahead to the punchline.
Assuming the world doesn?t end in 2012, here are the videogames we?re most looking forward to playing this year.
Bruce Rosenbaum's steampunk love affair started with a beautiful behemoth of a stove. Now he's outfitted his Massachusetts home with numerous antique objects that have been ingeniously updated to perform modern functions.
Dave Andersen looked into a desk drawer filled with tiny computers. Each was no bigger than a hardback novel, and they ran no faster than 600 MHz. But when he strung them together, they could run massive applications each could never run on their own. It's an idea that could reinvent the way the world builds its servers.
It's 2012. You just got a new laptop, smartphone, or TV for the holidays, and now your old gear is obsolete. If you don't mind putting in some effort, you can get rid of last year's gear in an eco-friendly way -- and even earn cash in the process.
Beats by Dre headphones from Monster now come in a wireless Bluetooth version.
Google's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.
The European Union wants airlines to pay for the CO2 they emit. At least two airlines are passing that cost on to consumers.
Today, the FDA announced that it is forbidding certain agricultural uses of a class of antibiotics known as cephalosporins. While limiting the use of these drugs is a step in the right direction, this class makes up only a small fraction of the antibiotics used in agriculture, and the new rule has exceptions. The move is good news for doctors, however, because cephalosporins are among the limited antibiotics approved for pediatric use, and protecting their usefulness is vital.
Soldiers could one day conduct covert operations in complete secrecy, now that Pentagon-backed physicists have figured out how to mask entire events by distorting light.
New show in NYC will celebrate the effect of Dungeons & Dragons on art and culture.
Microsoft is celebrating the demise of Internet Explorer 6, but unfortunately for web developers, while IE 6 may be disappearing, IE 7 and IE 8 will likely be around for years to come.