Linklist

Astronomers criticise plans to allow cellphone use on planes

Maggie McKee reports for NewScientist: “Using cellphones on aeroplanes could drown out faint radio signals from space, astronomers are warning. They told a US agency considering lifting in-flight restrictions on cellphones that special devices should be installed on planes to limit damage to research if the regulations change.”

Intel Chips Will Get Apple to the Next Level

Mac Observer: “Saying it is not as big an announcement as many are calling it, Apple Computer co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs told CNBC Monday, its decision to switch to Intel’s microprocessors over the next two years will get us to where we want to be to build the kind of future products we want.”

Google launches Sitemaps (beta)

Google: “Google Sitemaps is an easy way for you to help improve your coverage in the Google index. It’s a collaborative crawling system that enables you to communicate directly with Google to keep us informed of all your web pages, and when you make changes to these pages.”

Apple to Intel announcement at WWDC?

Ars Technica: “CNET is reporting that Steve Jobs is going to drop a bombshell during his keynote address on Monday, June 6: Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it’s scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel’s microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned.”

Cold, dry and lifeless - a new take on Mars

NewScientist: “New research on a green mineral that degrades easily in water and is present over much of the Martian surface is fuelling debates over the history of water and the current existence of life on the Red planet.”

IBM will unlock door to Cell

EETimes: “The three developers of the Cell processor are preparing to release full chip specifications and software libraries in an effort to rally the open-source community around the device that powers the Sony Playstation 3.”

Star's erratic conduct hides predictable nature

Maggie McKee reports for NewScientist: “A massive star known for violent and erratic behaviour shows a surprisingly predictable and regular pattern in brightness, reveals the most detailed study ever done on the star. But the clockwork signal has stumped astronomers, who hope to unravel how other such stars sow the universe with heavy elements.”

Are blogs more propaganda than press-worthy?

Ars Technica: An interesting read, and in case of the Big Party, its very true. From the article: “We can say that if people still have that idea that the bloggers are the new fifth estate, that the bloggers are the new kingmakers, that’s not the case.”

Densest materials known made to float on air

Maggie McKee reports for NewScientist: “The densest materials known have been made to levitate on a pool of liquid air, reveals a new study. The trick may one day be used to separate precious minerals, metal and gems from rock and soil.”

Xbox specs revealed

C|net: Well Microsoft has revealed its new box, and the tech specs are pretty incredible, including having “three symmetrical cores running at 3.2Ghz each, a 500MHz ATI graphics processor, 500 million triangles per second and 48 billion shader operations per second.”

Computers Grade Students' Writing

Wired News: “Students in Brent’s Introduction to Sociology course at the University of Missouri-Columbia now submit drafts through the SAGrader software he designed. It counts the number of points he wanted his students to include and analyzes how well concepts are explained… And within seconds, students have a score.”

Nanotechnology + Superconductivity = Spintronics?

PhysOrg: “As the ever-increasing power of computer chips brings us closer and closer to the limits of silicon technology, many researchers are betting that the future will belong to ‘spintronics’: a nanoscale technology in which information is carried not by the electron’s charge, as it is in conventional microchips, but by the electron’s intrinsic spin.”

Google Releases Web Accelerator

Antone Gonsalves reports for InternetWeek: “Google Inc. has launched in beta software that the company says will speed up the time it takes to search the Internet and to load web content. Web Accelerator, which is available at no charge, runs alongside a browser and directs all searches and page requests through Google’s servers.”

Saturn's Odd Moon Out

Wired News: “Scientists this week got two steps closer to proving that Saturn adopted one of its 34 known moons, thanks to two new studies of data captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The studies, which explore the density and chemistry of the moon Phoebe, show how the moon is closer in composition to the mysterious balls of ice and rock at the outer edges of the solar system than it is to Saturn’s other moons.”

Sea birds might pay for green electricity

NewScientist: “Available evidence suggests that wind farms reduce the abundance of many bird species at the wind farm site… [a]mong the worst affected are waders and ducks in shallow coastal waters. The findings could be especially significant for the UK, which has the biggest offshore wind energy programme in the world.”