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The Media

Time Warner/Viacom Rift Healed, Pending Details 75

Posted by timothy from the idiot-boxers-hit-the-showers dept.
jwilcox154 writes "Yesterday a dispute over fee hikes had threatened a damaging blackout at a minute past midnight Thursday that would have prevented TWC subscribers from watching their favorite shows such as 'SpongeBob SquarePants' and 'The Colbert Report.' The two sides reached an agreement on Thursday, the first of January 2009. The companies stated the terms of the deal were not disclosed. Details must still be finalized over the next few days."
Sci-Fi

Voltron Headed For The Big Screen 283

Posted by CmdrTaco from the thank-god-its-the-lion-voltron dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Following the success of the Transformers movie, Hollywood is preparing to make another live-action film featuring giant robots from the 1980s: 'Voltron: Defender of the Universe'. The script, by Justin Marks, is described as '...a post-apocalyptic tale set in New York City and Mexico. Five ragtag survivors of an alien attack band together and end up piloting the five lion-shaped robots that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron that helps battle Earth's invaders.' Let's go, Voltron force!"
Science

Baiji River Dolphin May or May Not Be Extinct 175

Posted by Zonk from the they-don't-want-to-go-on-the-cart dept.
ozmanjusri writes "Major news outlets are reporting that after 20 million years, Baiji (Yangtze River Dolphin) are now officially extinct. This is apparently actually old news; it was announced on a Baiji conservation website in December of last year. One outlet, though, is claiming they may not quite be completely dead yet. The same scientist that filed the report leading the the declaration of extinction is still hopeful: '"This is only one survey and...you can't have a sample in a survey, so you cannot say the baiji all is gone by the result of only one survey," he said. "For example, there is some side channels or some tributaries [where] we cannot go because of a restriction of navigation rules, and also we don't survey during the night-time so we may miss some animals in the Yangtze River." Professor Ding says based on anecdotal evidence, he remains confident the dolphins are still out there. "I'm pretty much sure there are a few of them left somewhere in the Yangtze River," he said. "I keep receiving reports from fishermen, they say they saw a couple of baiji somewhere, sometime."'"
Power

Submission + - Untapped Energy Below Us (yahoo.com) 1

Submitted by
EskimoJoe
EskimoJoe writes: "BASEL, Switzerland — When tremors started cracking walls and bathroom tiles in this Swiss city on the Rhine, the engineers knew they had a problem. "The glass vases on the shelf rattled, and there was a loud bang," Catherine Wueest, a teashop owner, recalls. "I thought a truck had crashed into the building." But the 3.4 magnitude tremor on the evening of Dec. 8 was no ordinary act of nature: It had been accidentally triggered by engineers drilling deep into the Earth's crust to tap its inner heat and thus break new ground — literally — in the world's search for new sources of energy. On paper, the Basel project looks fairly straightforward: Drill down, shoot cold water into the shaft and bring it up again superheated and capable of generating enough power through a steam turbine to meet the electricity needs of 10,000 households, and heat 2,700 homes. Scientists say this geothermal energy, clean, quiet and virtually inexhaustible, could fill the world's annual needs 250,000 times over with nearly zero impact on the climate or the environment. A study released this year by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said if 40 percent of the heat under the United States could be tapped, it would meet demand 56,000 times over. It said an investment of $800 million to $1 billion could produce more than 100 gigawatts of electricity by 2050, equaling the combined output of all 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S."
Education

Submission + - Indiana University Dumps Google for ChaCha

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Come Monday, no more Indiana University searches will be powered by computer-driven Google. Only by people-powered ChaCha. The move was announced by new IU President Michael McRobbie, who until recently sat on ChaCha's Board of Directors (5-29 SEC filing, PDF). IU will draft hundreds of librarians and IT employees to be ChaCha Guides for the university's websites, although a FAQ accompanying IU's press release tells librarians not to expect any checks for their efforts from ChaCha, which IU notes is backed by Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Compaq founder Rod Canion."

Feed Science Daily: Red Blood Cells 'Talk' To Platelets, With Implications For Diabetes (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Amid growing indications that the traditional image of red blood cells (RBCs) falls short of reality, chemists are reporting evidence that RBCs are key participants in a communication system among cells in the bloodstream. Messaging between RBCs and platelets (blood components that cause clotting) they say, could explain the effects of a drug suggested for use in preventing heart attacks and other complications of diabetes.

Feed BBC, ITV to launch free satellite HDTV in UK by 2008 (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Although there's a lot of grumbling in the UK about that £135 ($270) yearly television license fee (only $87 for a black and white set!), it's hard to complain that the BBC doesn't try to use all that money in cool ways. Adding to their already-ambitious plans to distribute HDTV through torrent, datacasting, and IPTV, the Beeb announced today that, after years of delays, they've been approved to pair up with ITV and launch a free 200-channel HD-capable satellite service called Freesat in the spring of 2008. The move is designed to provide digital service to the estimated 25% of the British public that can't get the successful Freeview DVB-T service, but it'll also be free to any license payer who ponys up for one of the several available interactive receivers. Hmm, that's an interesting version of "free," must be the British spelling.

[Via TechDigest]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Google

Submission + - Google Deletes Rogue Ads, Dangers Persist

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google has removed ads that appear alongside Google search results that re-directed users to malicious sites. But, according to security experts, the fix is temporary and search engine users should not assume sponsored links are all trustworthy.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/004248 .html

"Search engines are just too easy a target for bad guys," says Roger Thompson of Exploit Security Labs. On April 25, Exploit Prevention Labs reported that malware distributors were using advertisements placed via Google's automated AdWords system to infect unsuspecting end-users with spyware designed to capture bank login user names and passwords.
Space

Submission + - NASA's Mars life-detector

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "With the financial help of NASA, American and European researchers have developed a new sensor to check for life on Mars. It also should be able to determine if traces of life's molecular building blocks have been produced by anything alive. The device has already been tested in the Atacama Desert in Chile. And it should be part of the science payload for the ExoMars rover planned for launch in 2013. Read more for additional details and a picture of the new NASA's Mars life-detector."

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