The Air Force is going to use their Sony Playstation super computer for solving things like world hunger, Black Ops, and some mean Zelda.

The actual idea of linking together thousands of computers in order to use their combined power is not new (SETI) but the idea of using the Sony Playstations… well, that’s not new either, but connecting hundreds and thousands of the game console together with programming to utilize them is something quite impressive.

It will be a while until Microsoft finds any government agency willing to buy a thousand XBox’s but with Microsoft being so rich and powerful, maybe they can give the Air Force a discount.

Mark Barnell heads up the high-performance computing project, said the following, “This particular system is about half a petaflop, or capable of about 500 trillion calculations per second,” he said. “In the current time that we can measure it, it’s about the 35th- or 36th-fastest computer in the world, and with some things that are going to be changing in the next eight or nine months with some upgrades, we could boost it to maybe the 20th-fastest computer in the world, and at the same time make it, at that moment in time, the greenest computer.”

A super computer that can handle that many operations, that quickly, means that there will be a Trojan soon infecting a gaming console and eventually turning its mighty power to find Nemo and Wally.

Source: Air Force

The iPhone app is referred to as “Ugly Meter” but the idea behind the iPhone app is not to be insulting but instead to be entertaining. Is it entertaining though? Not according to many comments found throughout iPhone developer forums.

iPhone developer Eugene Overline, who is co-owner and lead developer for the company Dapper Gentlemen which has other iPhone apps, claims development responsibility for this “app”, but is this a real program or is it just something that a sarcastic programmer came up with, possibly in defense of childhood issues?

According to 9 out of 10 beauty contest judges, the software application is a complete failure in every way except to getting attention and making some money for the sellers.

Michael Smith, world’s leading authority on beauty judgment states “the Ugly Meter is a non-functional program that was meant for humor purposes.” Where’s the joke?

Source: Fox News

Internet speed and connectivity in Africa’s largest economy are poor because of a bandwidth shortage. It is also expensive.

Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80 km (50 miles) from Unlimited IT’s offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card was strapped to his leg.

Including downloading, the transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds — the time it took for only four percent of the data to be transferred using a Telkom line.

SAPA said Unlimited IT performed the stunt after becoming frustrated with slow internet transmission times.

The company has 11 call-centers around the country and regularly sends data to its other branches.

Telkom could not immediately be reached for comment.

Internet speed is expected to improve once a new 17,000 km underwater fiber optic cable linking southern and East Africa to other networks becomes operational before South Africa hosts the soccer World Cup next year.

Local service providers are currently negotiating deals for more bandwidth.

Because of the genetic defect they are likely to have a host of health problems including leukemia at rate twenty times the average.

They are also likely to develop respiratory problems, heart defects, kidney disorders, Alzheimer, thyroid defects, hearing and vision loss.

One disease they seem to have a high resistance to is cancer, people with downs syndrome have only about 10% the rate of cancer compared to the general population.

The additional chromosome gives them extra versions of 231 different genes including DSCR1, also known as RCAN1.

Research compiled by Harvard University shows that extra DSCR1 genes slowed or even blocked tumor growth.

It is likely that this gene in combination with perhaps five others acts to block blood supply to the cancerous cells.

The so called “calcineurin-signaling pathway” is interrupted and the cancerous cells cannot grow beyond a clump of cells.

Anti-cancer drugs have tried to create similar results with very little success, although this research could help lead to more effective anti-angiogenic therapy in the future.

Healthnews Article

The impact on everyday users could be significant and impact smartphone sales.

If the US system fails rivals from Europe, Russia, India and China could expand their own networks.

Replacement satellites are due to begin launching in November many doubt the system will actually be allowed to fail.

The replacements were due to start launching in 2007 but have faced numerous delays leading to the current crisis.

Tom Coates of Yahoo doubts the failure will be allowed to happen because it is so important to industry and the military.

More from the Guardian

Christopher Jacquette and two accomplices installed keystroke loggers on university computers, stole login credentials and used them to access accounts that allowed them to change grades.

The trio’s activities left enough digital footprints to allow auditors to identify them.

The three also used their unauthorized access to change some people’s residency status to reduce the amount of their fees.

Jacquette must also serve three years of supervised release following completion of his prison term. One of the other defendants, Lawrence Secrease, has pleaded guilty and a jury convicted the third, Marcus Barrington. Neither has been sentenced.

Pirate bay founders Peter Sunde and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, and two of their employees Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundström were found guilty of making 33 copyright protected files available for download on the site.

They were also ordered to pay $3.6 million dollars in damages to the copyright holders which included Sony, Universal, MGM and Warner Brothers.

Some experts thing this ruling will further limit illegal file sharing, along with similar rulings against Grokster and Kazaa.

An estimated 22 million users use Pirate Bay to download movies, music, games and software.

They had argued they were innocent because the site did not technically host the material only providing forums for people to find torrents.

The court disagreed saying the site was guilty of “providing a website with … sophisticated search functions, simple download and storage capabilities, and through the tracker linked to the website”.

The fact that the site was commercially driven was taking into account by the Judge.

The music industry is encouraged by the ruling, but evolving means of file sharing including could make the ruling insignificant.

Read more from the Telegraph

Insurance agent Dave Conn opened his post office box in the community of Hudson last week and found the mailing sent from Helena, Mont., in 1962.

It was sent to Marion White, the previous renter of the box, who had died in 1988. The writer signed the postcard “Fran” and mentioned having “had a marvelous time in Montana.”

After asking around, Conn says he determined the card must have come from White’s well-traveled friend Frances Murphey, a longtime reporter at the Akron Beacon Journal. She died in 1998 at age 75.

U.S. Postal Service spokesman Victor Dubina says the postcard may have been stuck in equipment or lost behind a mail chute.

Source : Akron Beacon Journal

This week, three teenage girls who allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves, and three male classmates in a western Pennsylvania high school who received them, are charged with child pornography.

In October a Texas eighth-grader spent the night in a juvenile detention center after his football coach found a nude picture on his cell phone that a fellow student sent him.

Roughly 20 percent of teens admit to participating in “sexting,” according to a nationwide survey (pdf) by the National Campaign to Support Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

“This is a serious felony. They could be facing many years in prison,” CBS News legal analyst Lisa Bloom said of the six teens in Pennsylvania.

But, Bloom added, “What are we going to do, lock up 20 percent of America’s teens?”

Police in Greensburg, about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh, say the girls are 14 or 15 and the boys charged with receiving the photos are 16 or 17. None are being identified because most criminal cases in Pennsylvania juvenile courts are not public.

Police say they first learned about the pictures in October. They say a student had a phone turned on in class, a violation of school policy, which prompted an administrator to confiscate the phone and subsequently find the pictures, reports CBS station KDKA-TV.

Card counting by players is not illegal in Nevada but using a device to count cards is considered a felony.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board warned casinos of the program last week.

Nevada learned of the program from California gambling regulators who said officials at an Indian casino found customers using it.

But board member Randy Sayre says the agency hasn’t received any reports of the program being used in Nevada.

Card counting can help blackjack players determine when they are likely to win a hand and should adjust their bets.

Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal