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alphadogg writes to tell us that one freshman class has a little more than usual to be excited about. When student at Abilene Christian University showed up for their first days of class they were greeted with the choice of either a new iPhone 3g or an iPod Touch plus a package of custom web apps to use on them. "The hardware is part of the Texas university's pilot mobile learning project, which has been gestating for over a year. About 650 first-year students chose the iPhone, and about 300 the iPod Touch, which is a very similar device but without the 3G radio (both devices incorporate an 802.11g Wi-Fi adapter). ACU pays for the hardware, student (or their parents) select and pay for their monthly ATamp;T service plan."pa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1815229amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/1815229"/a/ppa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1815229amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/028_8gqekNEKD7POXNEo_ZmF1F0/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/028_8gqekNEKD7POXNEo_ZmF1F0/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/2OtQfvXBmTg" height="1" width="1"/
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Fallout 3 is due to be released in a few weeks, and Bethesda recently announced that all versions of the game have gone gold. They provided the systems specs for the PC release as well. Unfortunately for them, the Xbox 360 version was leaked onto torrent sites almost three weeks early. Bethesda is "looking into" how the game was distributed. In preparation for the launch, game director Todd Howard spoke at length with Gamasutra about the scope of the project, and the differences from their previous games, such as Oblivion. CrispyGamer recently ran a three-part series detailing their four hours of hands-on time with the game. We've previously looked at some gameplay videos for Fallout 3, and discussed the fact that no mod tools will ship with the game.pa href="http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/187225amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/187225"/a/ppa href="http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/187225amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/P_eBBpRV1YefCtzSdhpGkqCVdUY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/P_eBBpRV1YefCtzSdhpGkqCVdUY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/H-0lu4X3QXU" height="1" width="1"/
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A. B. VerHausen writes to tell us that over 200 release-critical bugs continue to push back Debian Lenny's release date. Originally slated for a September release, there is still a long road to be traveled before Lenny sees the light of day. Project leader Steve McIntyre says they may consider dropping some packages for the release if they continue to cause problems, and while an end of October release is the goal, only time will tell.pa href="http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1716220amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/1716220"/a/ppa href="http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1716220amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/x1-OvTUSUFxgf8Wi4htKUSE2kpQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/x1-OvTUSUFxgf8Wi4htKUSE2kpQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/mVQexELLR_k" height="1" width="1"/
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A recent examination of current scientific publishing methods shows that they are problematic at best, treating the entire process like an economic system, with publishers as bidders at an auction, authors as sellers, and the community at large as consumers. "The authors then go on to discuss a variety of economic terms that they think apply to publishing, but the quality of the analogies varies quite a bit. It's easy to accept that the limited number of high-profile publishers act as an oligarchy and that they add value through branding. Some of the other links are significantly more tenuous. The authors argue that scientific research suffers from an uncertain valuation, but this would require that the consumers mdash; the scientists mdash; can't accurately judge what's significant. "pa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/173252amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/173252"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/173252amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/NHU3w9s2Sc_803M715qsx0W1UVk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/NHU3w9s2Sc_803M715qsx0W1UVk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/l1KwsEfLZTM" height="1" width="1"/
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holy_calamity writes "After launching in a blaze of publicity that even warmed Slashdot, Google's browser grabbed a 3% share of the market, but has been slipping ever since, and now accounts for 1.5%. Google has also stopped promoting the browser on its search page. Assuming they wanted it to grab a significant share of the browser market, have they dropped the ball, or is this part of the plan?" On Slashdot, Chrome is still the #4 browser (after FF, IE, and Safari) but it was ahead of Safari for a few days, hitting almost 10% of our traffic.pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/161238amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/161238"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/161238amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/L0gXaYIwjERC0mBjnv91z8VGJuc/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/L0gXaYIwjERC0mBjnv91z8VGJuc/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/YqGgE625VAM" height="1" width="1"/
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dewilso4 writes "Of the five computer finalists at this year's Loebner prize Turing Test, at least three managed to fool humans into thinking they were human conversationalists. Ready to speak about Eminem to Slaughterhouse Five and everything in between, these machines are showing they we're merely a clock cycle away from true AI. '...I was fooled. I mistook Eugene for a real human being. In fact, and perhaps this is worse, he was so convincing that I assumed that the human being with whom I was simultaneously conversing was a computer.' Another of the entrants, Jabberwacky, can apparently even woo the ladies: 'Some of its conversational partners confide in it every day; one conversation, with a teenaged girl, lasted 11 hours.' The winning submission this year, Elbot, fooled 25% of judges into thinking he was human. The threshold for the $100K prize is 30%. Maybe next year..."pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1450205amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/1450205"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1450205amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/l82mYXlVQ1JvOslGmlhiZhkdoRE/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/l82mYXlVQ1JvOslGmlhiZhkdoRE/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/2OwlI-w6Bs8" height="1" width="1"/
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fprintf writes "A recent NY Times article discusses links between personal music players and hearing loss. This is not anything new; personally, I have hearing loss from listening to my Sony Walkman cassette player many years ago. However, given the widespread use of the personal music players, I see people using earbuds everywhere; is there a technical solution to the potential danger?"pa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1355220amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/1355220"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1355220amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/2diCJ_Il1owPQw0gUh8R8voVaT4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/2diCJ_Il1owPQw0gUh8R8voVaT4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/OhO3Dof2n70" height="1" width="1"/
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Someone noted that there are more macbook case leaks which look to all but confirm a new MacBook and possibly a MacBook Pro expected to be announced for later this week. There seems to be fewer ports, and no leaks of a 17" aircraft carrier laptop.pa href="http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1324206amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/1324206"/a/ppa href="http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1324206amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/UNespK-Yk86UaNGDptm2k9GNfIo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/UNespK-Yk86UaNGDptm2k9GNfIo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/aBvEHVJ6ru8" height="1" width="1"/
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An anonymous reader writes "Eight years ago Mafiaboy (Michael Calce) knocked Yahoo offline. Today he he works as a legitimate security consultant and has just published a book documenting his criminal career and offering advice on how people can protect themselves from people like him on the Internet."pa href="http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1217216amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/1217216"/a/ppa href="http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1217216amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/y1cC3alloz6ihtvpgaH-uPY4eB4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/y1cC3alloz6ihtvpgaH-uPY4eB4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/yMQa5pKeRYQ" height="1" width="1"/
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SNate writes "After a grinding three-year development cycle, the OpenOffice.org team has finally squeezed out a new release. New features include support for the controversial Microsoft OOXML file format, multi-page views in Writer, and PDF import via an extension. Linux Format has an overview of the new release, asking the question: is it really worth the 3.0 label?"pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1211224amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/1211224"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/1211224amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/9aJP3hH9s3pjAgb0VGNvQqv_kto/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/9aJP3hH9s3pjAgb0VGNvQqv_kto/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/bVBa8o4xs7Q" height="1" width="1"/
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thefickler writes "YouTube has moved to put full-length television shows on its site for the first time. Historically, YouTube has hosted a bewildering and attractive variety of video clips, the vast majority of which have been under ten minutes in length. YouTube has announced that it had finalized a deal with CBS to offer shows such as Star Trek, MacGyver, Beverly Hills 90210, and The Young and the Restless. I can't wait to watch The Young and the Restless!"pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0147235amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/0147235"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0147235amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/NbV3Yo5O98sxcKHNFEmt_i-cS8c/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/NbV3Yo5O98sxcKHNFEmt_i-cS8c/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/H6x5-VhzdbY" height="1" width="1"/
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fatalfury writes "Researchers from the University of Vienna asked 20 males and 20 females to rank vehicles based on their appearance. The list of traits included arrogant, afraid, agreeable, disgusted, extroverted, sad, and others. Cars with 'meaner' traits (such as BMW) ranked higher, whereas cars with 'nicer' traits (such as Toyota's Prius) ranked lower. With billions spent on developing new products in the automobile industry, this could spur a trend in meaner-looking cars and perhaps explain why sales of the Prius and other green cars are slow to take off with average consumers."pa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0631240amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/0631240"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0631240amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/IP0frcepqntVMOuUM4Uyy0kYwtY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/IP0frcepqntVMOuUM4Uyy0kYwtY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/py3CFmIdFcc" height="1" width="1"/
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One of the seemingly eternal questions in managing personal computers within organizations is whether to centralize computing power (making it easy to upgrade or secure The One True Computer, and its data), or push the power out toward the edges, where an individual user isn't crippled because a server at the other side of the network is down, or if the network itself is unreliable. Despite the ever-increasing power of personal computers, the New York Times reports that the concept of making individual users' screens portals (smart ones) to bigger iron elsewhere on the network is making a comeback.pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0557215amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/0557215"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0557215amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/t4MPKYpriPNitzjGKg2WVSic5n8/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/t4MPKYpriPNitzjGKg2WVSic5n8/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/J4zIpBiVw1A" height="1" width="1"/
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hackingbear writes "The National Debt Counter, erected in 1989 when the U.S. debt was 'merely' a tiny $2.7 trillion, has been moving so much that it recently ran out of digits to display the ballooning figure: $10,150,603,734,720, or roughly $10.2 trillion, as of Saturday afternoon. To accommodate the extra '1,' the clock was hacked: the '1' from "$10.2" has been moved left to the LCD square once occupied solely by the digital dollar sign. A non-digital, improvised dollar sign has been pasted next to the '1.' It will be replaced in 2009 with a new clock able to track debt up to a quadrillion dollars, which is a '1' followed by 15 zeros. That should be good enough for a few more months at least, I believe." Adds reader MarkusQ, "I know Dick Cheney has assured us that 'Deficits don't matter' but I can't help wondering if we should be fixing the problem rather than the sign."pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0140259amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/0140259"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0140259amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/9nSnBJlBrMlV0rub7odvt-9JRng/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/9nSnBJlBrMlV0rub7odvt-9JRng/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/irbUYirz_3M" height="1" width="1"/
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jonbryce writes "The court of appeal in England has ruled that companies should be granted patents for 'complex' software products. In this particular case, Symbian had written something that makes mobile phones run faster. The court case has received very little attention because of the bank crisis, but it can be appealed to the House of Lords and then the European Court of Justice."pa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0010210amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/13/0010210"/a/ppa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0010210amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/yoFcUUdefzq4K6k18V6FBkuzdkk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/yoFcUUdefzq4K6k18V6FBkuzdkk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/CREKIZBl51w" height="1" width="1"/
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vile8 writes "With the high gas prices and ongoing gas gouging in my hometown many people are trying to find a reasonable way to save gas. One of the things I've noticed is people driving exceptionally slow, 30mph in 45mph zones, etc. So I had to take a quick look and find out if driving slow is helpful in getting better mileage. I know horsepower increases substantially with wind resistance, but with charts like this one from truckandbarter.com it appears mileage is actually about the same between 27mph and 58mph or so. So I'm curious what all the drivers out there with the cool efficiency computers are getting ... of specific interest would be the hemis with MDS; how do those do with the cylinder shutoff mode at different speeds?" Related: are there any practical hypermiling techniques that you've found for people not ready to purchase a new car, nor give up driving generally?pa href="http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/12/2243204amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/12/2243204"/a/ppa href="http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/12/2243204amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/T8C177x6gSFI-4C5y8YCWsWe9ok/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/T8C177x6gSFI-4C5y8YCWsWe9ok/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/fh5fG789oI0" height="1" width="1"/
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notthatwillsmith writes "On Friday, Microsoft invited members of the Windows Feedback Program to try out a preview of a new application, the Microsoft PC Advisor. The new tool promises to 'continuously monitor your PC for problems and give you the solutions to fix them, in real time.' After testing on several Vista machines with a variety of problems, Maximum PC has written a full report on the Microsoft PC Advisor. The short version? Like every other 'PC Repair' tool they've tested, the new apps signal-to-noise ratio is quite bad, and it misses the obvious and important problems, like out-of-date videocard drivers."pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/12/213205amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/12/213205"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/12/213205amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/-XpAU51EIeuVlqGu5LIH_RGH2eE/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/-XpAU51EIeuVlqGu5LIH_RGH2eE/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/CT1jAgRjHyI" height="1" width="1"/
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FiReaNGeL writes "Researchers conducted a genome-wide association study of 1,125 Caucasian men who had been assessed for male pattern baldness. They found two previously unknown genetic variants on chromosome 20 that substantially increased the risk of male pattern baldness. They then confirmed these findings in an additional 1,650 Caucasian men. 'If you have both the risk variants we discovered on chromosome 20 and the unrelated known variant on the X chromosome, your risk of becoming bald increases sevenfold. What's startling is that one in seven men have both of those risk variants.'" So maybe gene therapy will finally have a real purpose.pa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/12/1931233amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/12/1931233"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/12/1931233amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/-reO