Nick Farrell the Inquirer , Monday 8 September 2008. 08:50:00
Rumour mill pushes Samdisk
THE DARK satanic rumour mill claims that Samsung is pretty much certain to buy US computer memory card maker Sandisk. The rumours are coming from South Korea rather than the US. Samsung and Sandisk neither confirmed nor denied the report....
Aharon Etengoff the Inquirer , Monday 8 September 2008. 08:34:00
Defensive NHS denies claim
UK DOCTORS have reportedly developed a nasty habit of storing unencrypted patient data on USB memory sticks. According to the Health Service Journal, a shocking 92 out of the 105 doctors surveyed admitted to carrying sensitive patient records on unsecured thumb drives....
Nick Farrell the Inquirer , Monday 8 September 2008. 08:24:00
Shinto goes 21st century
SHINTO FAITHFUL are dragging their computers and gadgets into the local shrine in a bid to protect them from viruses and Trojan horses. At Tokyo's Kanda-Myojin Shinto shrine, priests are using centuries-old ceremonies to ask the gods for help and protection for computers....
Aharon Etengoff the Inquirer , Monday 8 September 2008. 08:14:00
Blames Symantec for incompatibility woes
MOZILLA HAS CONFIRMED that running Firefox 3.0.1 alongside various Norton Symantec security programs could cause the popular browser to suddenly drop a number of crucial features. According to Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's director for Firefox, old and outdated Norton software was responsible for preventing the browser from properly terminating....
Nick Farrell the Inquirer , Monday 8 September 2008. 06:24:00
Not clever and not funny
VOLISH ATTEMPTS to improve profile of Vista with a $300 million advertising campaign starring comedian Jerry Seinfeld are proving about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Advertising reviewers have been looking at the first offering, which stars Software King of the World (retired) Sir William Gates III buying shoes....
Nick Farrell the Inquirer , Monday 8 September 2008. 08:54:00
Google does not crash
A HIGH RESOLUTION satellite which will be used by Google Earth and others has been launched into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Central California coast The Delta 2 rocket carrying the GeoEye-1 satellite lifted off at 11:50 am Saturday....
It may be fanciful but let's try the analogy anyway. An outfit called 3Tera has set up partnerships with data centre hosters around the world and says it can run apps in these data centres as if they were in a single cloud data centre. Is this virtualizing data centres like servers?...
I have a hard time getting over-the-air signals at my house in San Jose. That's become an issue lately, because I've been reviewing some big-screen digital TVs and been wanting to tune them into the high-definition and other digital signals being sent over the air by local stations.
Expert terms Indo-US nuke deal
Washington, Sep 8 : The Indo-US civil nuclear agreement approved by the 45 nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is a "foolish and risky deal" that will make every country free to sell nuclear technology to India while "asking virtually nothing from India in return", said an US based expert.
Nick Farrell the Inquirer , Monday 8 September 2008. 08:16:00
Four people collared
INSPECTOR KNACKER of the Seoul Yard has fingered the collars of four people after what is being called South Korea's largest-ever data leak. The four, including two employees of a subsidiary of refiner GS Caltex, nicked the data of more than 11 million punters , the National Police Agency said....
Nick Farrell the Inquirer , Monday 8 September 2008. 08:04:00
Rubber ducked
CB RADIO has received an upgrade after years of providing truckers with a reason to talk bollocks across the airwaves. In the mid-seventies every kid and his puppy were chatting in CB talk after the popular beat combo artist C.W....
MobileMe subscribers: Watch out for phishing scam
A scammer is targeting MobileMe users with an email purporting to be from Apple. The email claims there are problems with the user's subscription renewal information, and directs them to a web site that asks them to reenter their credit card information, reports AppleInsider.
Increase in Eskom greenhouse emissions
Eskom says it is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, but the amount of carbon dioxide it released in 2007 increased to 223,6 million tons.
WiMax Far Ahead of LTE at Japan's NEC
NEC's WiMax equipment will be running in up to three networks and 20 trials by the end of this year, while its LTE equipment...
Google upgrades Gmail for IE 6 users
The online e-mail application is faster for those using the seven-year-old browser and gets features already available to more modern browsers, Google said.
A few years ago, Constance Steinkuehler -- a game academic at the University of Wisconsin -- was spending 12 hours a day playing Lineage , the online world game. She was, as she puts it, a "siege princess," running 150-person raids on hellishly difficult bosses. Most of her guild members were teenage boys.
But they were pretty good at figuring out how to defeat the bosses. One day she found out why. A group of them were building Excel spreadsheets into which they'd dump all the information they'd gathered about how each boss behaved: What potions affected it, what attacks it would use, with what damage, and when. Then they'd develop a mathematical model to explain how the boss worked -- and to predict how to beat it.
Often, the first model wouldn't work very well, so the group would argue about how to strengthen it. Some would offer up new data they'd collected, and suggest tweaks to the model. "They'd be sitting around arguing about what model was the best, which was most predictive," Steinkuehler recalls.
That's when it hit her: The kids were practicing science.
They were using the scientific method. They'd think of a hypothesis -- This boss is really susceptible to fire spells -- and then collect evidence to see if the hypothesis was correct. If it wasn't, they'd improve it until it accounted for the observed data.
This led Steinkuehler to a fascinating and provocative conclusion: Videogames are becoming the new hotbed of scientific thinking for kids today.
This makes sense if you think about it for a second. After all, what is science? It's a technique for uncovering the hidden rules that govern the world. And videogames are simulated worlds that kids are constantly trying to master. Lineage and World of Warcraft aren't "real" world, of course, but they are consistent -- the behavior of the environment and the creatures in it are governed by hidden and generally unchanging rules, encoded by the game designers. In the process of learning a game, gamers try to deduce those rules.
This leads them, without them even realizing it, to the scientific method.
This is what Steinkuehler reports in a research paper -- " Scientific Habits of Mind in Virtual Worlds " (.pdf) -- that she will publish in this spring's Journal of Science Education and Technology. She and her co-author, Sean Duncan, downloaded the content of 1,984 posts in 85 threads in a discussion board for players of World of Warcraft.
What did they find? Only a minority of the postings were "banter" or idle chat. In contrast, a majority -- 86 percent -- were aimed specifically at analyzing the hidden ruleset of games.
More than half the gamers used "systems-based reasoning" -- analyzing the game as a complex, dynamic system. And one-tenth actually constructed specific models to explain the behavior of a monster or situation; they would often use their model to generate predictions. Meanwhile, one-quarter of the commentors would build on someone else's previous argument, and another quarter would issue rebuttals of previous arguments and models.
These are all hallmarks of scientific thought. Indeed, the conversations often had the precise flow of a scientific salon, or even a journal series: Someone would pose a question -- like what sort of potions a high-class priest ought to carry around, or how to defeat a particular monster -- and another would post a reply, offering data and facts gathered from their own observations. Others would jump into the fray, disputing the theory, refining it, offering other facts. Eventually, once everyone was convinced the theory was supported by the data, the discussion would peter out.
"It blew my mind," Steinkuehler tells me.
And here's the thing: The (mostly) young people engaging in these sciencelike conversations are precisely the same ones who are, more and more, tuning out of science in the classroom. Every study shows science literacy in school is plummeting, with barely one-fifth of students graduating with any sort of sense of how the scientific method works. The situation is far worse for boys than girls.
Steinkuehler thinks videogames are the way to reverse this sorry trend. She argues that schools ought to be embracing games as places to show kids the value of scientific scrutiny -- the way it helps us make sense of the world.
One of the reasons kids get bored by science is that too many teachers present it as a fusty collection of facts for memorization. This is precisely wrong. Science isn't about facts. It's about the quest for facts -- the scientific method, the process by which we hash through confusing thickets of ignorance. It's dynamic, argumentative, collaborative, competitive, filled with flashes of crazy excitement and hours of drudgework, and driven by ego: Our desire to be the one who figures it out, at least for now. It's dramatic and nutty and fun.
And it's pretty much how kids already approach the games they love. They're already scientists; they already know the value of the scientific method. Teachers just need to talk to them in their language, so that the kids can begin to understand the joy of puzzling through the offline, "real" world too.
At one point, Steinkuehler met up with one of the kids who'd built the Excel model to crack the boss. "Do you realize that what you're doing is the essence of science?" she asked.
He smiled at her. "Dude, I'm not doing science," he replied. "I'm just cheating the game!"
- - -
Clive Thompson is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a regular contributor to Wired and New York magazines. Look for more of Clive's observations on his blog, collision detection .
Japanese Schoolgirl Watch: Transform Yourself in a Dressing Room for Hire
Many Japanese gals lead double lives: Mild-mannered students in plain-Jane uniforms by day; French maids, furries, and goth Lolitas by night. Legions run around Tokyo, wheeling suitcases full of makeup and costumes. But Superman had a phone booth - where are schoolgirls supposed to suit up? Luckily, Japanese company COS-Pa has introduced tiny dressing rooms for women in the trendy Shibuya district, where 500 to 700 yen (roughly $5 to $6) buys 30 minutes of private mirror time, free Wi-Fi, beauty supplies, and a nonalcoholic beverage. Says COS-Pa's owner firmly: "Ladies should not have to get beautiful in a bathroom."
1966: Star Trek makes its network television debut.
Given the cultural impact and enormous franchise spawned by the original Star Trek series , it's hard to believe that the show lasted just three seasons -- 80 episodes -- and was canceled by NBC in 1969 because of low ratings.
But if network numbers-crunching and the short-sightedness of advertising sponsors doomed it, Star Trek 's long-term survival, evidenced by its ongoing syndication, not to mention the numerous TV spinoffs and feature-length films it inspired, is both a vindication of and a tribute to its creator and executive producer, Gene Roddenberry .
And Roddenberry was a guy badly in need of vindication. His career began promisingly: Roddenberry wrote scripts for some popular 1950s TV shows like Naked City , Highway Patrol and Have Gun, Will Travel . But the original Star Trek TV series, as well as the first feature-length film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture , were conspicuous successes in an otherwise unremarkable and often problematic association with Hollywood.
The commercial success of the first Star Trek movie would spawn other films and a new TV series, Star Trek: The Next Generation , although Roddenberry's involvement with those projects was diminished. But if his relationship with the industry had its rough patches, his reputation as a futurist and visionary -- which begins and ends with Star Trek -- is assured.
The original show's most visionary aspects were social, not scientific, and that had everything to do with the times. The country was in turmoil, embroiled in Vietnam and the growing civil rights movement. Roddenberry said later that these events influenced many of the themes, as well as the multicultural makeup of the crew.
Roddenberry remained in demand on the lecture circuit to the end of his life, speaking not only at universities but at some other pretty significant places, too, including the Smithsonian Institution and NASA.
Star Trek 's impact on popular culture is matched by only a handful of other television shows, and surpassed by precious few .
The original cast members on the USS Enterprise 's 1966 flight deck became household names: Capt. James T. Kirk ( William Shatner ), First Officer Mr. Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ), Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy ( DeForest Kelley ), Chief Engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott ( James Doohan ), Communications Officer Nyota Uhura ( Nichelle Nichols ) and Helmsman Hikaru Sulu ( George Takei ). Navigator Pavel Chekov ( Walter Koenig ), who joined the cast in the second season to give the Russians their due in space, was also a popular character.
Phrases like "Beam me up, Scotty" and "Live long and prosper" and "to boldly go ..." entered the lexicon, and the show's cult following, kept visibly alive by the numerous and rollicking Star Trek conventions, remains strong to this day. An 11-foot model of the starship Enterprise is on display at the Smithsonian.
On the tech front, the communicator used by Enterprise crew members is said to have been the inspiration for the flip-open cellphone.
The original pilot episode for the series, " The Cage ," was filmed in 1964 but not aired in its entirety until 1988. After the original pilot was rejected by NBC, "The Cage" was chopped up and heavily edited, and eventually shown under the title "The Menagerie" during Star Trek 's three-year run.
Nimoy's Mr. Spock was the only character from the pilot to later appear in the TV series, although he was most un-Spock like, showing a lot more emotion than your average Vulcan. In the pilot, the Enterprise was commanded by Capt. Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter).
Because of all the spinoffs that resulted from it, Roddenberry's Star Trek is often referred to as The Original Series . For a lot of us who came of age watching Shatner chewing on all that alien scenery and nibbling on all those alien necks, it was The Only Series.
Have some favorite Star Trek moments you'd like to share with us? Wired.com wants to hear about your favorite Star Trek series, episode and feature film. Have a copy of the Animated Series on Laserdisc? Please, do share.
Source: Various
Birds recognise themselves in the mirror
Birds recognise their own reflection in the mirror as being themselves and not that of another bird, according to German researchers.
Flip4Mac WMV Player updated
With the Windows Media Components for QuickTime by Flip4Mac, you can play Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv) in QuickTime Player and view Windows Media content on the Internet using a web browser. The Windows Media Components for QuickTime have been highly optimized and support playback of Windows Media HD.
Holly Tree Dental: Reason to Smile
Over the last decade, Dr. Robin Feltoon has made a healthy living by renovating her patients' mouths. In becoming sole owner of Holly Tree Dental in Hanover in January, Feltoon also took a close look inside the business itself.
Christina Lampe-Onnerud: Power surge
As a university student in Sweden, Christina Lampe-Onnerud had to choose between studying biochemistry and genetics or energy and materials science. She chose the latter, assuming her research could be used to make a positive difference in the way the world uses power..
Image and reputation
After more than 20 years in business, Christopher Rose, owner of two Fast Signs franchises in Memphis, says the key to his longevity has been customer service.
BitTorrent CFO braces for a flood of new users
Anyone who has watched a video over the Internet may be a BitTorrent fan. The company, founded in 2004, allows viewers to stream high-resolution video rather than the slow, grainy pictures common on many sites.
Deal sealed to seek oil in West Texas
Energy A subsidiary of Austin-based Providence Resources Inc. has partnered with an oil and gas exploration company, Elm Ridge Exploration Company LLC of New Mexico, and a Midland-based drilling and completion company, R.K. Ford & Associates Inc., to start a drilling program in Val Verde County near the Texas-Mexico border. Elm Ridge paid Providence an initial $7.2 million and now has a 50 percent interest in the prospect under the agreement, as well as a promise to help Providence reap $2 million off the profits from the first two wells. Providence surveyed the Val Verde Prospect in 2007 under an agreement with Midland-based TRNCO Petroleum Corp. The company identified up to 25 drilling sites and plans to begin drilling in the fourth quarter of this year. About 18 percent of all oil and 30 percent of all natural gas produced onshore in the United States comes from Texas.
Eaton to invest $160 million in data centers
Eaton Corp., a Fortune 250 company that manufactures products for a variety of industries, plans to build identical data centers in Shelby and Jefferson counties.
Tech institute lets students interface with companies
A team of Northern Kentucky University students built the Cincinnati Museum Center's Web presence to celebrate its 75th anniversary, freeing the nonprofit museum to focus on the exhibit and celebration.
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