News For Tuesday Oct 7, 2008 News For Tuesday Oct 7, 2008

Science  & Technology Science  & Technology

Web ad sales dipped from previous quarter - Added 31 minutes ago

U.S. Internet advertising revenue dipped slightly in the second quarter from the previous three-month period, which likely is a ripple effect from the bad economy given that prior to 2008 the market had seen several...

`Mail Goggles' might prevent e-mail regrets - Added 41 minutes ago

Here's the scenario: It's Friday night, and what began as an innocent happy-hour margarita morphed into a few pitchers. After all, those tacos were salty. Bidding friends adieu, you jump in a cab, head home and decide...

Ads to the rescue as distraction from root canals - Added 1 hour ago

Talk about your captive audience. Advertising is coming to the dentist's chair in the form of personal video goggles that patients wear while getting their cleaning or root canal. The company behind InChairTV figures...

New Google tool reveals marine protected areas - Added 2 hours ago

Conservationists working with Google Inc. have unveiled a tool that lets people view protected marine areas with the click of a mouse _ a bid to harness the Internet's top search engine to raise awareness of endangered...

Asustek's low-priced Eee PC helps boost revenue - Added 4 hours ago

A low-price laptop product line is helping Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc. generate record revenue despite signs of slowing global growth, a senior company executive said Tuesday. Chief Executive Jerry Shen said the...

Robot suit for rent in Japan to help people walk - Added 5 hours ago

A robotic suit that reads brain signals and helps people with mobility problems will be available to rent in Japan for $2,200 a month starting Friday _ an invention that may have far-reaching benefits for the disabled...

AMD to spin off factories in bid to save money - Added 5 hours ago

In a move to dramatically cut costs and better compete with Intel Corp., chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said Tuesday it will spin off its factories into a new joint venture with investors in the Persian Gulf...

Penguins ride air force jet to South Atlantic - Added 5 hours ago

More than 370 penguins that mysteriously washed up on Brazil's equatorial beaches were flown south on a huge air force cargo plane and released closer to the frigid waters they call home, animal advocates said Monday. ...

Deadlines set for designating polar bear habitat - Added 16 hours ago

The federal government will designate "critical habitat" for polar bears off Alaska's coast, a decision that could add restrictions to future offshore petroleum exploration or drilling. Federal law prohibits agencies...

Penguins ride air force jet to South Atlantic - Added 17 hours ago

More than 370 penguins that mysteriously washed up on Brazil's equatorial beaches were flown south on a huge air force cargo plane and released closer to the frigid waters they call home, animal advocates said Monday. ...

Small asteroid headed for light show over Africa - Added 20 hours ago

A small asteroid was headed for a fiery but harmless dive into Earth's atmosphere early Tuesday morning over Africa, astronomers said in a first of its kind advance warning. Harvard scientists announced late Monday...

Judge orders RealNetworks to pull copying software - Added 20 hours ago

RealNetworks Inc. said Monday it had temporarily stopped distributing its DVD copying software, RealDVD, at a federal judge's request in a copyright case brought by Hollywood studios. "We temporarily suspended...

SAP says business turmoil hurting its revenue - Added 21 hours ago

Shares of SAP AG plunged Monday after the business software maker said it saw a sudden drop in business at the end of September as global financial turmoil escalated. "The market developments of the past several weeks...

Sector Snap: Internet stocks slide with market - Added 23 hours ago

Shares of major Web companies dropped sharply Monday amid a massive market sell-off that sent the Dow skidding below 10,000 for the first time in four years. Shares of Google Inc., the leading Web search and...

Summary: eBay to cut work force by 10 percent - Added 23 hours ago

THE LAYOFFS: EBay Inc. is eliminating 1,600 jobs, about 10 percent of its work force. The online auction site operator will cut 1,000 full-time employees and let several hundred temporary and part-time workers go. It...

Ask.com hopes to make search faster, more relevant - Added 1 day ago

Assuming your company's name isn't a verb synonymous with looking things up online, how do you get Web surfers to not just try your search engine, but also frequent it? For Oakland, Calif.-based Ask.com, part of the...

EBay buys Bill Me Later for $945 million - Added 1 day ago

EBay Inc. did a little shopping of its own on Monday, saying it would pay $1.34 billion for online payments site Bill Me Later and two Danish classified ad Web sites. Separately, eBay said it would cut 10 percent of...

Scientists: 1 in 4 mammals faces extinction - Added 1 day ago

Conservationists have taken the first detailed look at the world's mammals in more than a decade, and the news isn't good. "Our results paint a bleak picture of the global status of mammals worldwide," the team led by...

Recordings aim to capture calls of the wild West - Added 1 day ago

Rattlesnakes aren't to be trifled with, but if you're trying to collect the sound of every creature in the West that slithers, hops, flies or flops, distance isn't a luxury you can afford. "You get yourself in some...

Fraud plagues prepaid calling card market - Added 1 day ago

!!-- pobj:WAYAK301-0907061017 -->Rosalba Posada can tick off a list of problems she has encountered trying to use prepaid calling cards to stay in touch with family back in Colombia. There were the cards that didn't...

Venus flytraps caught in shrinking natural habitat - Added 1 day ago

Laura Gadd pauses at the edge of a pristine savanna, delicately lifting her feet to avoid trampling any venus flytraps hidden underfoot. Buried below wisps of wire grass, a few of the plants advertise their presence...

Beaches once thick with birds quiet thanks to Ike - Added 3 days ago

One of North America's renowned bird migration and bird watching areas is strangely silent. Blame Hurricane Ike. "We had red-winged blackbirds, sparrows, a bunch of migrating birds," recalled Ernest Stone, 75, leaning...

CNN hands over info on author of Steve Jobs rumor - Added 3 days ago

A CNN-owned Web site called iReport.com, which publishes reports written by ordinary citizens, said Friday it will give the Securities and Exchange Commission information about the author of an item that claimed Apple...

Google agrees to brief delay of Yahoo ad deal - Added 3 days ago

Google Inc. agreed to delay the start of a Web advertising partnership with rival Yahoo Inc., giving U.S. antitrust regulators more time to review the deal. Under a plan announced in June, Google would provide...

Ex-McAfee executive clear of illegal option dating - Added 3 days ago

A jury on Friday acquitted the former top lawyer at computer-security software maker McAfee Inc. of illegally tampering with his stock option grants to boost his pay package. Kent Roberts, who served as McAfee's...

RIM CEO: AT&T still testing delayed BlackBerry - Added 3 days ago

A delayed top-of-the-line BlackBerry phone from Research in Motion Ltd. is still undergoing testing by AT&T Inc., and RIM's co-CEO implied that the carrier wants to avoid the chorus of complaints about performance...

Labor report indicates squeeze on tech sector - Added 4 days ago

The economic slowdown has started to squeeze the technology sector. So far this has not led to wide-scale job cuts, but a slowing demand for computers and other electronics may already be weighing on some payrolls. ...

Strippers, armadillos inspire Ig Nobel winners - Added 4 days ago

Deborah Anderson had heard the urban legends about the contraceptive effectiveness of Coca-Cola products for years. So she and her colleagues decided to put the soft drink to the test. In the lab, that is. For...

New Sony Reader has light, note-taking stylus - Added 4 days ago

Sony Corp. unveiled a new e-book reader Thursday with a built-in light and a touch-sensitive display, features that set it apart from Amazon.com Inc.'s competing Kindle reader. The PRS-700 is Sony's third model of the...

Chinese snoop on Skype, but are they alone? - Added 4 days ago

A Canadian researcher has discovered that a Chinese version of eBay Inc.'s Skype communications software snoops on text chats that contain certain keywords, including "democracy." The revelation is not only of interest...

Ig Nobel winners inspired by fleas, Coca-Cola - Added 4 days ago

The 2008 Ig Nobel winners, awarded Thursday at Harvard University by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine: NUTRITION: Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence for demonstrating that food tastes better when it...

Copyright board leaves royalty rate unchanged - Added 4 days ago

The federal Copyright Royalty Board on Thursday left the royalty that songwriters receive on sales of CDs and digital downloads at 9.1 cents per song for the next five years. Both songwriters and music sellers...

Senator urges DOJ to monitor Google, Yahoo deal - Added 4 days ago

A key senator is urging the Justice Department to keep up its investigation into the antitrust implications of the Internet advertising partnership that Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. plan to launch this month. In a letter...

Researchers find that tuna swim across Atlantic - Added 4 days ago

Bluefin tuna from both sides of the Atlantic get together as juveniles, a discovery that could affect how the tuna fishery is managed. While North American and Mediterranean bluefin return home to spawn, a study...

Showgoers viewing fare on screen, not stage - Added 5 days ago

As the house lights dim and the maestro lifts his arms, a hush comes over the crowd. It's opening night at The Metropolitan Opera _ only we're 2,800 miles away. Retiree Ellen Gifford sits with popcorn and a soda inside...

Star-Ledger owner hopeful it could avoid closure - Added 5 days ago

New Jersey's largest newspaper came one step closer toward averting a closure or sale as at least a quarter of its full-time nonunion employees applied for a buyout. The president of the company that owns The...

Outsourcing aids many data thefts, Verizon says - Added 5 days ago

The reliance of restaurant chains and retail stores on outside companies to handle credit-card processing and other information-technology functions is partly to blame for a rash of consumer data breaches over the last...

Industry group: August chip sales rose 5.5 percent - Added 5 days ago

Semiconductor sales totaled $22.7 billion in August, up 5.5 percent from a year ago and 2.4 percent from the previous month, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Thursday. The industry group said that sales for...

Outsourcing aids many data thefts, Verizon says - Added 5 days ago

The reliance of restaurant chains and retail stores on outside companies to handle credit-card processing and other information-technology functions is partly to blame for a rash of consumer data breaches over the last...

Hollywood studios agree to digital rollout - Added 5 days ago

Five Hollywood studios have agreed to help pay for a $1 billion-plus rollout of digital technology on about 20,000 movie screens in North America, a precursor to showing movies in 3-D. Digital Cinema Implementation...

Standard Microsystems 3Q guidance disappoints - Added 5 days ago

Chip maker Standard Microsystems Corp. said Wednesday it has seen a "significant decline" in third-quarter demand for notebook and desktop PCs, especially from corporate customers, and gave a forecast below Wall...

Standard Microsystems 2Q profit declines - Added 5 days ago

Semiconductor maker Standard Microsystems Corp. said Wednesday its fiscal second-quarter profit declined, and shares fell after-hours after its outlook fell short of expectations. For the three months ended Aug. 31,...

Diller: IAC `extremely lucky' with split timing - Added 5 days ago

Barry Diller is feeling very lucky right now. The consummate deal maker split his Internet conglomerate, IAC/InterActiveCorp, into five publicly traded companies in late August _ and not a moment too soon, he told The...

Micron Technology posts wider 4Q loss - Added 5 days ago

Memory chip maker Micron Technology Inc. said Wednesday its fiscal fourth-quarter loss widened as the industry continues to face oversupply problems and pricing pressures. The company also said it is implementing a 20...

How can I make my computer run faster, for free? - Added 5 days ago

Q. My computer has gotten slower and slower at doing basic things like booting up and running multiple programs at once. How do I improve its performance without spending any money? A: You're wise to try to fix this...

Apple drops secrecy pledge for iPhone developers - Added 5 days ago

Apple Inc. will no longer force iPhone software developers to sign a nondisclosure agreement that many had said was hampering their ability to work. The switch, announced Wednesday, comes a week after the introduction...

Allstate testing whether games can improve driving - Added 5 days ago

Could playing computer games enhance mental agility enough to turn people over 50 into better drivers? Allstate Corp. wants to find out, and if the answer is yes, it might offer insurance discounts to people who play...

Congress targets rogue online pharmacies - Added 6 days ago

Congress has passed a bill intended to crack down on rogue online pharmacies that sell drugs without a valid prescription. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., would prohibit the sale of controlled...

Review: Xpaper eases digitizing of paper documents - Added 6 days ago

Promises of the paperless office have been circulating ever since the first IBM clones started showing up on desks in the early 1980s. Yet we're still tied to printed documents and there's no sign that's going to...

AT&T unites fixed-line, wireless consumer units - Added 6 days ago

AT&T Inc., the country's largest telecommunications company, is reorganizing to put one executive in charge of both its wireless and consumer fixed-line phone businesses. The shake-up disclosed Wednesday could make...