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13 Nov 2009 16:38

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Tech: A drop in the bucket? NASA finds tons of water on the moon

  • I’m here today to tell you that indeed, yes, we found water. And we didn’t find just a little bit; we found a significant amount.
  • NASA scientist Anthony Colaprete • Describing the excitement caused by the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, which crashed into the moon last month with the specific purpose of finding water. And oh boy, it found a lot of it: A dozen two-gallon buckets of water. This is promising for many reasons, including the fact that this makes a lunar space station seem possible. We just made a ton of nerds’ days with this news. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

13 Nov 2009 11:09

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Tech: Verizon nickels-and-dimes its customers even more

  • We cancel these unintended requests as fast as we can hit the End key, but it doesn’t matter; they’ve told me that ANY data–even one kilobyte–is billed as 1MB. The damage is done.
  • A Verizon customer writing to New York Times tech columnist David Pogue • Discussing how the company has price-gouged them at $1.99 a pop. Hit the wrong button, and it goes to a screen that starts downloading data. When you try downloading that data, Verizon rounds up to a full megabyte and charges you. Pogue is livid about these kind of charges – along with the company’s new $350 penalty for switching providers early. These nickel-and-dime schemes make the company millions of dollars each year. And it isn’t right. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Nov 2009 22:29

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Tech: Dear Wolfram Alpha: Working with Bing is actually smart

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  • Wolfram Alpha is a smart idea that has been neutered by bad decision-making – charging an embarrassingly-high price for their iPhone app, treating copyright like something they can control. Well, now they have something to grasp onto: Bing. While their searches aren’t all that useful by themselves (too insular), combined with a decent general-purpose search engine, it starts to feel like a killer app. This specific execution is why people got excited about the product at launch. Not the $50 iPhone app.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Nov 2009 20:55

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Biz, Tech: 3Com and HP sitting in a tree, M-E-R-G-I-N-G

  • $2.7 billion for 3Com’s marbles to mix with HP’s source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

11 Nov 2009 10:01

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Tech: Study: Guys, BPA is ruining your sex life. Uh, what’s BPA?

  • BPA is a chemical used in many plastics. New research into bisphenol-A, a chemical often mentioned as being dangerous for humans, suggests that guys in heat should be most concerned about its potential dangers. Research of 550 Chinese factory workers suggests that those who work closest with the chemical – used in a variety of products – have four times the normal level of sexual dysfunction. Thanks, random plastic we’ve never heard of. Thanks for nothing. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Nov 2009 21:06

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Tech: Roomba Pac-Man is officially the nerdiest thing ever

  • Someone with more time on their hands somehow made a fully-functioning Roomba-based version of Pac-Man. Laugh now, but when these Roombas are human-sized and get a taste for human blood, you won’t be laughing anymore.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Nov 2009 20:57

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Biz, Tech: Google to News Corp.: Come on, we dare you to block us

  • Publishers put their content on the web because they want it to be found, so very few choose not to include their material in Google News and web search. But if they tell us not to include it, we don’t.
  • A statement from Google • Describing its stance on the whole Rupert Murdoch thing we posted about yesterday. That sounds like a dare to us. Will News Corp. match Google’s dare with a double dare? Will Murdoch then pull out a double dog dare, or will he go straight to the triple dog dare? We don’t know, but we’re glued to our seats in excitement. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

10 Nov 2009 11:10

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Tech: Google has a great gift for weary tech-savvy travelers

  • 47 airports will offer free holiday Wi-Fi access. Whoa, thanks! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Nov 2009 11:05

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Tech: Wolfram Alpha doesn’t understand copyright, either

  • Copyright, as Wolfram seems not to understand, is a bargain between creators and their public. As an *incentive* to create, the former are given a time-limited monopoly by governments. Note that it is *not* a reward for having created: it is an incentive to create again.
  • ComputerWorld U.K. columnist Glyn Moody • Noting the should’ve-been-game-changing service’s overbearing copyright policy, which states that “failure to properly attribute results from Wolfram Alpha is not only a violation of [its license terms], but may also constitute academic plagiarism or a violation of copyright law.” So in other words, Wolfram Alpha is worse than the Associated Press. AND is has a laughably expensive iPhone app, too. It’s like the service was created by a bunch of scientists who don’t understand how the real world works! • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

10 Nov 2009 09:37

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Tech: Hackbooks/Hackintoshes a victim of latest Snow Leopard update

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  • You’ve been killed, hackbook. The newest version of Apple’s Snow Leopard had been rumored to lock out Mac using Atom chips – in other words, netbooks. And despite initial contrary reports, this actually turned out to be the case. Will it last? And will Apple just bite the bullet and get into the netbook market to kill this debate once and for all?source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink
 
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