Yahoo

GENEVA (AFP) – The foundation run by American computer software multi-billionaire Bill Gates (news – web sites) is to donate 750 million dollars (575 million euros) over 10 years for worldwide infant vaccination.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (news – web sites) said the money would go to the Geneva-based Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation (GAVI), a partner of the World Health Organisation.

“In just five years, GAVIs efforts have saved hundreds of thousands of childrens lives, and its work in the coming years will save millions more,” said Bill Gates, founder and president of the software giant Microsoft.

“GAVI will use the funds announced today to support national immunization programs in 72 of the worlds poorest countries,” he said in a statement. “Supporting childrens immunization is undoubtedly the best investment weve ever made.”

“These large contributions will help save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and prevent immense suffering and disability over the coming years,” said Dr Jong-wook Lee, WHO Director-General and GAVI chairman.

In its less than five years of existence GAVI has been responsible for the vaccination of some 54 million children against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, influenza type B, and yellow fever.

People may have things to say about his business policies and products, but this is undoubtedly a good thing for everyone.

MSNBC

An Arvada woman who allegedly supplied sex, drugs and alcohol to high school boys told police she did it because she wanted to be a “cool mom,” according to an arrest affidavit. Sylvia Johnson, 40, admitted to police that she gave marijuana, methamphetamine and various kinds of alcoholic drinks to eight Arvada West High School boys at parties she hosted almost every week at her home…

…Johnson also admitted having sex with five of the boys and said she used methamphetamine for “self- medication to help with her ADHD,” according to the affidavit.

What a cool MOM!!

MSNBC

The White House has eliminated funding for a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request and directed NASA to focus solely on deorbiting the popular spacecraft at the end of its life, according to government and industry sources.

Seems to me the Hubble has done more for the space program than almost any of our other expenditures. I for one would like to see the Hubble’s use continued. Is W’s asinine plan to take us to Mars still in effect? Are we actually wasting money on that? I’m still unclear as to why we are determined to continue the Space Shuttle program at all when we all know that manned space flight is unnecessarily expensive and dangerous. We should be focusing on robotics to provide a boom to that industry. Plus, it is likely to cost far less than launching/recovering re-usable manned shuttles.

BusinessWeek|online

BW does an in-depth profile of Linux including online photo essay, slideshows and several articles: “Linux, inc“, “Where’s Linux?”, “How To Profit From Free Software”, “How Linux Inc. Works”.

IDC predicts Linux’ market share based on unit sales will rise from 24% today to 33% in 2007, compared with 59% for Windows — essentially keeping Microsoft at its current market share for the next three years and squeezing its profit margins. That’s because, for the first time, Linux is taking a bite out of Windows, not just the other alternatives, and is forcing Microsoft to offer discounts to avoid losing sales. In a survey of business users by Forrester Research Inc. (FORR ), 52% said they are now replacing Windows servers with Linux. On the desktop side, IDC sees Linux’ share more than doubling, from 3% today to 6% in 2007, while Windows loses a bit of ground. IDC expects the total market for Linux devices and software to jump from $11 billion last year to $35.7 billion by 2008.

Yahoo

SPOKANE, Wash. – David Atkinson spent 18 years designing an experiment for the unmanned space mission to Saturn. Now some pieces of it are lost in space. Someone forgot to turn on the instrument Atkinson needed to measure the winds on Saturn’s largest moon.

“The story is actually fairly gruesome,” the University of Idaho scientist said in an e-mail from Germany, the headquarters of the European Space Agency. “It was human error — the command to turn the instrument on was forgotten.”

That is horrible. After 18 years of planning and waiting. I understand however they may be able to interpolate a lot of wind speed data so that he still has some information to work with. We should be thankful, however that the probe was nevertheless successful.

InfoWorld

Patents could provide an “arms race” capable of possibly destroying the industry, said Fleury. He noted that Sun Microsystems (Profile, Products, Articles) recently lost a patent lawsuit to Kodak and deciding to pay up rather than continue fighting.

“I think patents are horrible,” Leone said. “They’re meant to stall, they’re meant to intimidate.”

CNet

Researchers at the University of Toronto have developed particles that potentially will make it easy, and cheap, to see in the dark.

The nanoparticles–developed under a project directed by professor Ted Sargent–can essentially detect infrared light, unseen by humans because of its long wavelengths. And like a solar panel, they can channel the energy to beneficial purposes.

Night vision binoculars and low-light cameras currently can produce images using the infrared spectrum, but the semiconductors inside these devices are complex to manufacture and expensive.

Conceivably, a manufacturer could mix the particles developed by Sargent into coatings, fabrics or plastics, and devise far less-expensive products. A specially treated camera lens could capture images in the dark by fielding infrared signals. Walls treated with infrared-sensitive paint could detect intruders or animals by intercepting their thermal signature, or body heat.

The Register

Intel’s upcoming dual-core ‘Smithfield’ desktop processor will dissipate up to 130W of power – 13 per cent more than today’s Pentium 4 chips – it has emerged.

The revelation comes from Tom’s Hardware Guide (THG), which claims to have glanced at internal Intel documentation covering Smithfield’s thermal design power (TDP) characteristics.

According to the document, Smithfield will consume up to 130W and draw 125A of current, up from the 115W and 119A specifications of the 5xx and upcoming 6xx series of single-core 90nm ‘Prescott’ P4s.

Smithfield will require more power than Intel’s hottest burning CPU so far, the 1.6GHz Itanium 2, which has a TDP of 122W. The 3.46GHz P4 Extreme Edition consumes 116.7W.

THG assumes that Smithfield will be fabbed using a 65nm process and thus attributes the increased power requirement to leakage. However, it’s almost certain that Smithfield is a 90nm part – Intel’s first 65nm chip is expected to be the dual-core Pentium M, ‘Yonah’, and that’s not due to appear in volume until Q1 2006.

Indeed, Smithfield may not even be a true ‘two cores on one die’ processor, but instead simply feature two separate Prescott cores wired together in a single package. Certainly, comments from Intel last year suggest that that may be the case. In a discussion with The Register at the time, Steve Smith, VP for the Intel’s Desktop Platforms Group, would not confirm or deny the exact nature of Smithfield’s dual-core status.

This is great as an alternative heat source for heating your home. Or, if you put it in a notebook it can be used as male birth control.

Seven open source business strategies for competitive advantage

Open source presents a large potential competitive advantage for hardware and software vendors, and vendors of complementary or substitute services. Linux has contributed greatly to the adoption and success of OSS. Companies such as IBM, HP, Red Hat, Oracle, and recently, Novell, have invested in, and legitimized the use of Linux for enterprise applications — including datacenter operations.

Linux-related services deliver more than $1 billion in annual revenue to both IBM and HP. Oracle strongly promotes and likewise derives revenue from the Linux platform, with the so-called “unbreakable Linux” guarantee. In an attempt to catch the Linux wave, companies such as Computer Associates and Peoplesoft are porting their applications to Linux on ambitious timeframes.

In this article, we examine seven open source strategies that can give your company a competitive advantage. (Editor’s note: Each of the following links will take you directly to a particular section of the story.)

Wired News

The FBI has effectively abandoned its custom-built internet surveillance technology, once known as Carnivore, designed to read e-mails and other online communications among suspected criminals, terrorists and spies, according to bureau oversight reports submitted to Congress.

Instead, the FBI said it has switched to unspecified commercial software to eavesdrop on computer traffic during such investigations and has increasingly asked internet providers to conduct wiretaps on targeted customers on the government’s behalf, reimbursing companies for their costs.

This is idiotic. These fools at the FBI have no excuse for this monumental waste of tax dollars. Their IT/CS incompetence knows no bounds. And to think, there is more talent available in the market now than probably ever before. Of course, the budget is classified, they don’t want to announce that they have spent $3B over the last 7 years (of course, I really have no idea, but you have to suspect that this has reached into the Billions over the last seven years).