Nov 17th, 2008 · It appears Dell has been caught red-faced by yet another pricing mistake on their Australian website. Many customers thought they had spotted a fantastic deal when they came across a 55%-off offer. Dell later denied that this was a valid special and telephoned …
Nov 16th, 2008 · NASA has built a new software package to track problems with the Space Shuttle using open source tools from Mozilla. '[Alonso Vera, the lead of the Ames Human-Computer Interaction Group] wouldn't say exactly how much the new systems cost to build, but …
Nov 8th, 2008 · Analysts at Bloomberg noticed the tumble in Microsoft's traditional software sales last quarter and blamed it on netbooks: 'The devices, which usually cost less than $500, are the fastest-growing segment of the personal-computer industry — a trend …
Nov 2nd, 2008 · Reader Justblair recommends his blog entry detailing how he made a hard drive silencer for a pittance. "This article demonstrates a very easy-to-make hard drive silencer that not only outperforms most commercially available devices, but is cheaper to …
Nov 1st, 2008 · Here's another example of 'German Engineering' — The Foreign Ministry in Germany is migrating all of its 11,000 desktops to GNU/Linux and other open source applications. According to the article, 'this has drastically reduced maintenance costs in …
Oct 24th, 2008 · A US firm Thursday unveiled plans to build a massive one-billion-dollar charging network to power electric cars in Australia as it seeks cleaner and cheaper options to petrol. Better Place, which has built plug-in stations for electric vehicles in Israel …
Oct 7th, 2008 · Obfuscated TCP attempts to provide a cheap opportunistic encryption scheme for HTTP. Though SSL has been around for years, most sites still don't use it by default. By providing a less secure, but computationally and administratively cheaper, method of …
Oct 7th, 2008 · I just heard from a good friend and Linux kernel hacker in Brazil that they have just finished their municipal election with 128 million people using Linux to vote. They voted nationwide for something like 5,000 city mayors. Voting is mandatory in Brazil. …
Oct 7th, 2008 · I just heard from a good friend and Linux kernel hacker in Brazil that they have just finished their municipal election with 128 million people using Linux to vote. They voted nationwide for something like 5,000 city mayors. Voting is mandatory in Brazil. …
Oct 2nd, 2008 · Honda's challenger to the Prius—the Insight hybrid that we discussed so lividly a month ago—got its official unveiling today at the Paris auto show, with insiders confirming it would be cheaper than the world's most popular "green" car while …
Oct 2nd, 2008 · I know your first reaction is that this story is gonna be an ad, but SpuriousLogic's story is actually about insurers considering giving a discount to elderly gamers. The question is: does gaming improve mental agility and make you a safer driver? And …
Oct 2nd, 2008 · I know your first reaction is that this story is gonna be an ad, but SpuriousLogic's story is actually about insurers considering giving a discount to elderly gamers. The question is, does gaming improve mental agility and make you a safer driver. And …
Sep 1st, 2008 · Newark Mayor Cory Booker is betting that cutting-edge technology will reduce crime and spark an economic renaissance. From a newly opened Surveillance Operations Center, cops armed with joystick controllers monitor live video feeds from more than 100 …
Aug 28th, 2008 · I am currently tasked with finding a cost effective solution to our 30+ degree celcius server room. The only air conditioning currently provided is a single duct pipe from one of two air conditioner units. I was thinking of stealing air from the second …
Aug 22nd, 2008 · The NY Times reports that Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss, who graduated this year from the Trinity School in Manhattan, took on a freelance science project to check 60 samples of seafood using a simplified genetic fingerprinting technique called DNA …
Aug 17th, 2008 · An international team of researchers led by Monash University has used chemicals found in plants to replicate a key process in photosynthesis, paving the way to a new approach that uses sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The breakthrough …
Aug 9th, 2008 · First Solar, a start-up from Arizona, is making photovoltaic cells at a fraction of the usual cost. Their secret: increasing the light-catching area 'from postage-stamp to traffic-sign dimensions,' reducing the manufacturing time to 1/10th of the competition's, …
Aug 8th, 2008 · Mike sends in the story of a new fingerprint technology with interesting potential for both crime detection and rights violations; there are also intriguing possibilities in fighting cancer. "Using a variation of mass spectrometry called 'desorption electrospray …
Aug 6th, 2008 · The $12 computer that a bunch of designers and grad students are talking up at an MIT conference this month as a potential, cheaper alternative to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) for Third World students is actually a knockoff of the original Nintendo …
Jul 28th, 2008 · To combat piracy, the MPAA's latest idea involves a site that would allow users to search for a movie and then provide links to legit legal downloads or ticket purchases for it. Why are they doing this? Because their research showed 'many users have a …
