1743643
submission
penguin_dance writes:
The AP is reporting that National Geographic is getting into video games. A subset of the parent company, called National Geographic Ventures, will "work with game publishers to turn its material into games for PCs, consoles and handheld devices." The first title is out for the PC and i-phone. It's a hidden-objects game, called "Herod's Lost Tomb" and is built around their program on King Herod and an article in the magazine.
They also plan to publish and distribute games for the console market, including PS3 and Wii, as well as the handheld market. "The games will be drawn from a broad range of content and themes across National Geographic's properties."
"National Geographic: Africa," will be out next month, from Sony. Other upcoming titles include, "Rain Forests" and "Greencity." Available this month will be "National Geographic: Panda" for the Nintendo DS.
1291233
submission
penguin_dance writes:
The Register reported that, "OpenOffice.org is throwing a launch party in Paris on 13 October" to celebrate 8 years and hopefully announce the release of version 3.0.
Some notes: It will support OpenDocument Format 1.2 standard, be able to open files created by MS Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac OSX.
803593
submission
penguin_dance writes:
There's been a suicide of a scientist in the anthrax case that's been under investigation since anthrax contaminated letters where sent to the media and various politicians in 2001. But it's not the first person that might come to mind. According to USA Today "The Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against the scientist, 62-year-old Bruce E. Ivins, a leading military anthrax researcher who worked for the past 18 years at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md." They were also going to seek the death penalty. Ivins, who knew of the pending prosecution, took his life on Tuesday.
Another scientist, Steven Hatfill, who had been identified by the FBI as a "person of interest" was exonerated in the attacks. The government paid Hatfill $5.82 million to settle a lawsuit against the Justice Department, who he claimed had violated his privacy rights by speaking to reporters about the case.
Hopefully information will be released showing that the government actually had a case this time.
738413
submission
penguin_dance writes:
ABCNews is reporting that there may be a silver lining to the high oil and gas prices — at least for the US. More jobs. It's becoming more and more expensive to ship the finished product from other countries, so some companies are moving the manufacturing back to the US. Even the cheap, foreign labor isn't enough to offset the price of doing business when you are shipping the product for sale to the US. Some economists are calling it "reverse globalization."
486846
submission
penguin_dance writes:
Ready to put on your thinking cap? There's a report out of the UK regarding an "experimental helmet which scientists say could reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease within weeks of being used is to be tried out on patients."
The helmet is to be worn for ten minutes every day and stimulates the growth of brain cells using infra-red light. The article explains, "Low level infra-red red is thought to stimulate the growth of cells of all types of tissue and encourage their repair. It is able to penetrate the skin and even get through the skull."
The creators believe it could reverse symptoms of dementia and memory loss after four weeks. Human trials are due to start this summer.
365599
submission
penguin_dance writes:
A Texas School District is threatening to sue a parent over what it terms, "libelous material" or other "legally offensive" postings on her web site and are demanding their removal. Web site owner, Sandra Tetley, says they're just opinions. The legal firm sending the demand cited 16 items, half posted by Tetley, the rest by anonymous commentators to her blog. The alleged, libelous postings, "accuse Superintendent Lynne Cleveland, trustees and administrators of lying, manipulation, falsifying budget numbers, using their positions for 'personal gain,' violating the Open Meetings Act and spying on employees, among other things."
The problem for the district is that previous courts have ruled that governments can't sue for libel. So now, in a follow up story, the lawyers say, "the firm would file a suit on behalf of administrators in their official capacities and individual board members. The suit, however, would be funded from the district's budget." Tetley, so far hasn't backed down although she said, "she'll consult with her attorneys before deciding what, if anything, to delete."
What was that about "personal gain"?
350109
submission
penguin_dance writes:
A Pennsylvania mom is fighting back, suing Universal Music Publishing Group for having a home movie taken down off of YouTube. The movie, featuring her 18-month old bouncing to Prince's song, "Let's Go Crazy," was cited for removal by the Group for copyright infringement. Mom Stephanie Lenz was first afraid they'd come after her — then she got angry. She got YouTube to put the video back up and now she's enlisted the help of Electronic Frontier Foundation and filed a civil lawsuit.
"I thought even though I didn't do anything wrong that they might want to file some kind of suit against me, take my house, come after me. And I didn't like feeling afraid," she continued. "I didn't like feeling that I could get in trouble for something as simple as posting a home video for my friends and family to see."
321039
submission
penguin_dance writes:
The UK is apparently having rethink on human hybrid experiments.
If approved by regulators, "the move opens the door to experiments involving every known kind of human-animal hybrid. These could include both 'cytoplasmic' embryos, which are 99.9% human, and 'true hybrids' carrying both human and animal genes." Previous calls for an outright ban on all human-animal embryos outraged scientists, according to the article. Scientist believe, "work on human-animal hybrid embryos will greatly speed up progress in stem cell research." It claims there will be a provision for regulation of the research to incorporate any "unforeseen developments."
Let the Island of Dr. Moreau comparisons begin!
