someWebGeek writes "From PhysOrg's 'Taking biofuel from forest to highway,' University of British Columbia biofuel expert Jack Saddler says, 'we will become less dependent on fossil fuels and will become more dependent on fuels made from the sugars and chemicals found in plants.' Nothing too new there; the idea of biofuels eventually taking over from petroleum distillates has been around for ages. However, Saddler contends further that 'Similar to an oil refinery that processes crude oil to make thousands of supplementary products like plastics, dyes, paints, etc., the biorefinery would use leftover agricultural and forest material to make many of the same products, but from a sustainable and renewable resource.' I remember my organic chem instructor back in '81 telling us that eventually the textbooks would have to be rewritten. There would be no presumption of fractional distillation of thousands of basic compounds from petroleum, and the teaching emphasis would shift to synthesis from simple hydrocarbons. He noted that we'd all miss 'the good, ole days' when synthetic fibers, plastics, etc. were cheap... or even an economically viable option. I can live without rayon, but, dang, I'm gonna miss polyvinyl chloride!"
Zothecula writes "Oxford Nanopore has been developing a disruptive nanopore-based technology for sequencing DNA, RNA, proteins, and other long-chain molecules since its birth in 2005. The company has just announced that within the next 6-9 months it will bring to market a fast, portable, and disposable protein sequencer that will democratize sequencing by eliminating large capital costs associated with equipment required to enter the field."
c0mpliant writes "Two friends and I were up until the wee hours of the morning over the weekend debating what real space combat would look like. I've spent some time looking it up online, and there doesn't seem to be any general consensus. So, I thought I'd ask a community of peers what they think. Given our current technology and potential near-future technology, what would a future space battlefield look like? Would capital ships rule the day? Would there be equivalents of cruisers, fighters and bombers, or would it be a mix of them all?"
New submitter SpockLogic writes "The Telegraphs has a tongue in cheek essay in praise of eternal copyright by the founder of an online games company. Quoting: 'Imagine you're a new parent at 30 years old and you've just published a bestselling new novel. Under the current system, if you lived to 70 years old and your descendants all had children at the age of 30, the copyright in your book – and thus the proceeds – would provide for your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. ut what, I ask, about your great-great-great-grandchildren? What do they get? How can our laws be so heartless as to deny them the benefit of your hard work in the name of some do-gooding concept as the "public good," simply because they were born a mere century and a half after the book was written? After all, when you wrote your book, it sprung from your mind fully-formed, without requiring any inspiration from other creative works – you owe nothing at all to the public. And what would the public do with your book, even if they had it? Most likely, they'd just make it worse.'"
redletterdave writes "Samsung Electronics announced Monday that it will spin off its LCD business division to launch a new entity, provisionally called Samsung Display Co., set to go live on April 1, 2012. The new business will launch with about $668 million in capital, but Samsung plans to invest about $5.8 billion in 2012 to develop better displays. The move, which now awaits shareholder approval, has been rumored for months since Samsung's LCD business announced operating losses of $666 million in 2011, citing sluggish TV sales. The company's spin-off display business may eventually merge with Samsung Mobile Display, which makes the company's organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels that are currently in high demand."
An anonymous reader writes "This controversial post by Adobe's Kas Thomas asks if splash screens are just a sign of program bloat and callous disregard for users. It suggests that big programs should launch instantly (or appear to), perhaps by running against an instance in the cloud while the local instance finishes loading. Users of cell phones and tablets are accustomed to apps being instantly available. This is the new standard for performance, the author argues. Nothing short of it will do, any more."
Orome1 writes "After creating the 'Decaptcha' software to solve audio CAPTCHAs, Standford University's researchers modified it and turned it against text and, quite recently, video CAPTCHAs with considerable success. Video CAPTCHAs have been touted by their developer, NuCaptcha, as the best and most secure method of spotting bots trying to pass themselves off as human users. Unfortunately for the company, researchers have managed to prove that over 90 percent of the company's video CAPTCHAs can be decoded by using their Decaptcha software in conjunction with optical flow algorithms created by researchers in the computer vision field of study."
ananyo writes "A burger made entirely from lab-grown meat is expected to be unveiled by October this year. But costing in excess of $250,000, it's not going to be flying off supermarket shelves quite yet. The lab meat is produced using adult stem cells, which are then grown on scaffolds in cell-culture media. Because such lab-assembled muscle is weak, it has to be 'bulked up' by exposing to electric shocks. The researchers, based in the Netherlands, had already grown goldfish fillets in 2002, then fried them in breadcrumbs before giving them to an 'odor and sight' panel to assess whether they seemed edible." While I'm not overly enthusiastic about this Dutch attempt at growing burgers, it is a huge step-up from the Japanese effort.
1sockchuck writes "Google is seeking permission to place satellite antennas on land near its data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The 4.5 meter antennas could be used to receive content feeds from broadcast networks that could be bundled with a high-speed fiber service. The FCC filings were made by Google Fiber, which is currently laying fiber for a high-speed network in Kansas City that will provide Internet connectivity 'at speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have today.'"
NetDanzr writes "I work for an IT company that has a steady stream of projects, new features to our existing products and technical support issues. As it is customary, though, our development resources are not sufficient to cover the amount of projects. As a result, our delivery dates are slipping, and as a result the average priority of projects is rising. Where the goal was to have only 10% of projects rated high, within a year nearly 50% of projects are rated as such. Our solution is to completely wipe out the project list once per year and start a new, properly prioritized list. How does your company deal with this inflation of priorities?"
zacharye writes "A lawyer representing Proview International on Monday announced that the Intermediate People's Court in Huizhou, a city in southern China, ruled that distributors should stop selling iPads in China. From the article: 'The ruling, which was also reported widely in China's state media, may not have a far-reaching effect. In its battle with Apple, Proview is utilizing lawsuits in several places and also requesting commercial authorities in 40 cities to block iPad sales. Apple Inc. said in a statement Monday that its case is still pending in mainland China. The company has appealed to Guangdong's High Court against an earlier ruling in Proview's favor.'"
judgecorp writes "The UK government is proposing a law that would require phone and Internet companies to store information on all communications, and hand it to the security services when required. The Communications Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP) abandoned by the last government is back on the table, proposed as a means to increase security, and likely to be pushed through before the Olympics in London, according to reports."
First time accepted submitter shirleylopez1177 writes "Approximately 50,000–100,000 people die in America because of preventable adverse events (PAE). These PAEs or medical errors are among the leading causes of death, ranking higher than breast cancer, AIDS and motor vehicle accidents in terms of the number of fatalities caused. As a response to the problem of medication errors, e-prescription systems have emerged. Few studies have looked at how e-prescribing systems compare to traditional systems in their potential to reduce medical errors. However, a study from Australia published two weeks ago in PLoS Medicine examined the impact of e-prescription systems on medication errors in the inpatient setting and demonstrated that these systems are indeed effective."
itwbennett writes "Following Tuesday's FCC ruling saying that the company's LTE network interferes with GPS, LightSquared's primary investor Philip Falcone is looking to sue the FCC and the GPS industry. Alternately, Falcone is considering ways to appeal the FCC's decision or even swap spectrum with the Department of Defense."
Mountain Lion ist für den Sommer 2012 angekündigt. Bei uns finden Sie umfangreiche Tipps und Ratgeber zur aktuellen OS X Version: Lion.
Outlook 2010 kennt viele Tastenkombinationen, welche die Arbeit deutlich erleichtern können. Wir haben für Sie die wichtigsten Hotkeys für Outlook tabellarisch übersichtlich zusammengefasst.
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Netgear präsentiert den Universal Dualband WLAN Range Extender WN2500RP, der speziell für die Erweiterung der WLAN-Reichweite in drahtlosen Heimnetzwerken entwickelt wurde.
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Testen Sie Ihr IT-Wissen! Jeden Tag finden Sie bei TecChannel eine Frage aus dem IT-Bereich, deren richtige Antwort Sie als IT-Experte kennen sollten. Machen Sie kostenlos mit und erweitern Sie Ihre IT-Kenntnisse!
Das Tool Opened Ports Viewer unterstützt den Anwender, die Kommunikation der eigenen Programme im Auge zu behalten. Lokale Programme tauschen über geöffnete Ports Informationen mit dem Internet aus und ...
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Die Summe aller aus dem Festnetz abgehenden Gespräche sei 2011 um 2 Prozent gesunken, so der Branchenverband BITKOM. Damit hätte jeder Deutsche rund 39 Stunden im Jahr per Festnetz telefoniert. Der Anteil, ...
Klein, leicht, leistungsstark: Das ThinkPad X220 ist ein potentes Sub-Notebook für mobile Arbeiter. Wir haben aktuelle Tests, Bilder und technische Daten für Sie zusammengetragen. Alles Wichtige finden ...
IrfanView ist eine leichtgewichtige Software zur Bildbetrachtung. Das Tool taugt allerdings auch für einfache Bildbearbeitung und Dateikonvertierung. Besonders praktisch ist die Batch-Verarbeitung, mit ...
Tools unterstützen den Anwender bei seiner täglichen Arbeit. Die Auswahl an Utilities ist riesengroß, die Qualitätsunterschiede auch. Wir haben die beliebtesten Hilfsprogramme für Sie zusammengestellt.
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