eldavojohn writes "Both the EU and US are using a strategy to merge what used to be two separate searches: the search for exoplanets that may harbor life and the search for dark energy. In an effort to develop 'robust, low-risk missions that maximize the scientific return,' the article analyzes how, without any changes, a space-based dark energy telescope could also check for microlensing events indicating an exoplanet."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

lbalbalba writes "Electronic Arts is shutting down its Westwood-based game developer Pandemic Studios just two years after acquiring it, putting nearly 200 people out of work. 'The struggling video game publisher informed employees Tuesday morning that it was closing the studio as part of a recently announced plan to eliminate 1,500 jobs, or 16% of its global workforce. Pandemic has about 220 employees, but an EA spokesman said that a core team, estimated by two people close to the studio to be about 25, will be integrated into the publisher's other Los Angeles studio, in Playa Vista.' An ex-developer for Pandemic attributed the studio's struggles to poor decisions from the management."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In July we announced that we were working on Google Chrome OS, an open source operating system for people who spend most of their time on the web.

Today we are open-sourcing the project as Chromium OS. We are doing this early, a year before Google Chrome OS will be ready for users, because we are eager to engage with partners, the open source community and developers. As with the Google Chrome browser, development will be done in the open from this point on. This means the code is free, accessible to anyone and open for contributions. The Chromium OS project includes our current code base, user interface experiments and some initial designs for ongoing development. This is the initial sketch and we will color it in over the course of the next year.

We want to take this opportunity to explain why we're excited about the project and how it is a fundamentally different model of computing.

First, it's all about the web. All apps are web apps. The entire experience takes place within the browser and there are no conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to deal with installing, managing and updating programs.

Second, because all apps live within the browser, there are significant benefits to security. Unlike traditional operating systems, Chrome OS doesn't trust the applications you run. Each app is contained within a security sandbox making it harder for malware and viruses to infect your computer. Furthermore, Chrome OS barely trusts itself. Every time you restart your computer the operating system verifies the integrity of its code. If your system has been compromised, it is designed to fix itself with a reboot. While no computer can be made completely secure, we're going to make life much harder (and less profitable) for the bad guys. If you dig security, read the Chrome OS Security Overview or watch the video.

Most of all, we are obsessed with speed. We are taking out every unnecessary process, optimizing many operations and running everything possible in parallel. This means you can go from turning on the computer to surfing the web in a few seconds. Our obsession with speed goes all the way down to the metal. We are specifying reference hardware components to create the fastest experience for Google Chrome OS.

There is still a lot of work to do, and we're excited to work with the open source community. We have benefited hugely from projects like GNU, the Linux Kernel, Moblin, Ubuntu, WebKit and many more. We will be contributing our code upstream and engaging closely with these and other open source efforts.

Google Chrome OS will be ready for consumers this time next year. Sign up here for updates or if you like building your operating system from source, get involved at chromium.org.

Lastly, here is a short video that explains why we're so excited about Google Chrome OS.



Update at 8:55PM: Watch the video of our Google Chrome OS event, which took place earlier today.

Posted by Caesar Sengupta, Group Product Manager and Matt Papakipos, Engineering Director

jenkin sear writes "Data visualization guru Edward Tufte developed Sparklines, a great way to display condensed data as an inline graphic. Excel's new version has incorporated the design element — and Microsoft has applied for a patent on them — without so much as a by-your-leave from Tufte."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When it comes to role-playing games, there isn't a bigger name than Square-Enix. PopCap Games enjoys a similar reputation, albeit in the casual games market. When the company behind the Final Fantasy series and the developer responsible for titles like Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies announced they were going to join forces on a new project called Gyromancer, people wept for their free time. Now, the game is here, both on Xbox Live and Steam, and the enthusiasm surrounding the game certainly seems well-placed.

The bottom line is that Gyromancer is wonderful title, an amalgamation of the two companies' strengths. PopCap's fast-paced and addictive gameplay, coupled with the high amount of gloss and polish that Square-Enix is known for, is a winning combination. Everything about the game is fun, and once you start playing, you're not going to want to stop.

The following letter to the editor was printed in The Hoboken Reporter (11/14/09), a local paper in Hoboken, NJ. The letter can also be found on line by clicking HERE. The letter raises some very interesting issues around school uniforms and public education. I would recommend anyone wanting a better idea of the legal issues centering around this issue to visit a posting by David L. Hudson Jr, a First Amendment scholar. He has published a nice summary article on the topic entitled: "Clothing, dress codes, and uniforms"
A quick summary of the issues is that many school districts have turned to dress codes and uniforms to promote a better learning environment. They argue that these policies decrease tensions, reduce socio-economic differences and enhance safety. Others contend these dress codes are merely Band-Aid solutions that do not improve safety. Further, they charge that these policies infringe on students’ First Amendment rights of free expression.

The courts have divided over how to resolve dress-code disputes and reached different results. The legal landscape remains muddled over dress codes and uniforms. -Dr. Petrosino

----------------------

Dear Editor:

Over the past few weeks, there has been renewed talk about school uniforms. Admittedly, there is much room for improvement in the Hoboken Public Schools. Hallmarks of successful schools usually include high expectations of students and teachers, a rigorous curriculum, and a sense of community, or belonging among the student body and faculty. The implementation of a school uniform policy does nothing to address these factors. Bringing up this tired band-aid of a solution is administrative laziness masquerading as educational policy. Let’s look at the facts

1. There is NO conclusive evidence of advantages of school uniforms in terms of reduced school violence or gang related problems. Nor do statistics prove that uniforms increase academic achievement. Supporters who promote uniforms are using misleading statistics. Moreover, these problems are deeply rooted and far beyond the scope of any uniform policy.

2. School uniforms DO NOT save families money. Making a kids’ current school wardrobe obsolete for school brings on additional expense. School uniforms also bring on additional administrative and legal costs for schools, which ultimately we would all have to pay for. 

3. The opinion of the American Civil Liberties Union is that school uniform policies do violate First Amendment rights.

4. A mandatory school uniform policy stifles freedom of expression. Our society already has enough drones who continue making the mistakes of our predecessors. We need to foster creativity and independent thinking. We are obligated to provide an environment where children openly express their opinions and learn tolerance for the opinions of others.

Allowing kids to decide what to wear to school gives them the opportunity to develop decision-making skills and take responsibility for their choices in life. Schools can be happy, successful, peaceful places without uniforms. The proposal of mandatory school uniforms is a passive approach to solving some of the problems that plague our schools. Skeptical parents have every right to wonder whom on the Hoboken Board of Education or the new administration has ties to the uniform company.

There is much to be lauded in the Hoboken Public Schools. As the parents of two sons who have attended Hoboken Public Schools for the past 17 years, we can say that we have seen progress on a number of fronts. But sometimes it seems as if for every step forward, we take two steps backward. Implementing a policy of mandatory school uniforms would definitely be a step backwards. More often than not the causes for these backwards steps include a.) Board of Education politics and b.) An ever changing cast of administrators including the superintendent. For once, let’s actually put our children first and (with some parental involvement) trust them to make the right decisions.
Danny and Caroline Schott

Picture: The Hoboken Terminal, built in 1907, is a two-story Beaux-Arts structure designed by Kenneth Murchison, an architect with the firm of McKim, Mead & White, which designed the original Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. The picture features the original Tower which was demolished in 1950.  The entire structure sits over water on a steel and concrete foundation, accommodating six ferry slips and fourteen rail lines. The individually roofed train shed arches are an innovative design by Bush. The entire structure is sheathed in copper.

angry tapir writes "The Chinese Authors Society has demanded that Google present a resolution plan by the end of the year and quickly handle compensation for Chinese authors whose books the US company has scanned without permission as part of its Book Search program. A local copyright protection group, co-founded by the authors group, has said it found at least 17,000 Chinese works included in Google's scanning plan."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While my trip to Australia this last week and a half was primarily pleasure with my family, I did get a few days to work with teachers in Brisbane and throughout Victoria (a la our PLP cohort there), and I had some great conversations about the state of the education world with some good friends. Since the trip also came on the heels of my annual two-day visit to Skywalker Ranch as a GLEF board member, these last couple of weeks have provided a lot to think about, but between travel and exorbitant internet fees and surfing expeditions, not a lot of time to write. (As usual, these days.)

One thread that seemed to pop up almost regularly throughout those conversations was the idea of “getting it,” as in how do we help school leaders or teachers or parents “get it” when it comes to understanding the shifts that social learning technologies are bringing about, and which group needs to “get it” most, etc. And while there is no doubt that there are still a lot of folks out there who haven’t wrapped their brains around what’s changing and what going to change when it comes to learning and education, what I’ve noticed is different definitions of what “getting it” mean depending on the conversation.

Level 1 seems to be “getting” that there are all these new tools and technologies out there and that we can now publish all sorts of content really easily. And that kids are already using social networks and that these tools are cropping up more and more in classrooms around the world. When I hear the question “How do we help other teachers to “get it?” I think this is what most people are asking. How can they get their colleagues to start incorporating some of these tools in the classroom?

Level 2 takes it a step further and implies that “getting it” means that there is some real change involved in what’s happening right now, that it’s not just about tools, but about connections and building learning networks for ourselves and for our students. I hear this most often in the context of leadership and vision, that the people steering the ship need to “get” that this is more than budgeting for a few more computers and revising the AUP.

Those two levels account for about 95% of the “getting it” conversations I hear. But I wonder if that’s what “getting it” really means? I’m not in any way suggesting that I completely “get it” myself, but there is much to suggest that the talk about tools and even learning networks is not really the end game here at all. That to really “get” what the implications of all of this might be, you have to really be willing to really think differently. That Level 3 is not so much about what happens in our practice or in our classrooms but what happens to our schools. That at a time when learning can be individualized and where creativity and passion are just as important as reading and math, our expectations for the roles of schools in educating our kids have to be more than just playing on the edges.

Each year at the GLEF meeting, George Lucas spends about 45 minutes with us talking about education and answering our questions. What he said this year was in that Level 3 area. To paraphrase, schools as we know them are going away. Not that we won’t still have physical spaces and teachers, but that the way we do school is going to have to change, will be actually forced to change by the Web and other technologies. That the questions we should be asking (and these are the ones I got listening to him talk, not words out of his mouth) are should we still be sorting kids by age or by discipline? How do we truly individualize instruction around kids’ interests and passions? How do we redefine the school day? What do we really want to assess and how do we assess it? Why should we bring kids together for physical space learning when much of what they can now learn doesn’t require it? As he describes the role of Edutopia.org in that context, the whole point is to keep finding schools who are grappling with those types of questions and share their stories with the world.

All of which leads me to wonder, when we talk about leaders and parents and teachers “getting it,” what are we really talking about when it comes to social learning technologies? What should we be talking about?

Yesterday at 11:30am, the Queen made her way to Parliament in a coach, entered the robing room to receive her crown, and headed to the Lords Hall as the "Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod" went off to the Commons (where the sovereign is not allowed to enter). The Gentlemen Usher banged thrice upon the Commons door with his black rod, was allowed to enter, and headed to the Table of the House to "announce the Queen's summons." The Commons all trooped over the the Lords to see the Queen, seated on her throne, who then opened a new session of Parliament with her customary speech laying out the government's agenda.

Though it sounds like something straight out of the 1570s, this is pomp and circumstance, 21st century style. The ritual opening of the Parliament was tweeted on the official "ukparliament" account, transcripts went up immediately on the Web, an official Flickr photo set captured the magic—and the Queen's speech made clear that legislative action against Internet file-swappers would be coming, and soon.

Lucas123 writes "Scientists at Intel are working on developing sensors that would be implanted in a person's head in order to harness brain waves that could then be used to control computers, televisions, cell phones and other electronic equipment. Intel has already used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) machines to determine that blood flow changes in specific areas of the brain based on what word or image someone is thinking of. People tend to show the same brain patterns for similar thoughts. 'Eventually people may be willing to be more committed ... to brain implants. Imagine being able to surf the Web with the power of your thoughts.' said Intel research scientist Dean Pomerleau."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Camino—the Gecko-based browser with native Cocoa interface and more seamless Mac OS X integration—has finally landed an official 2.0 release. The browser uses a much newer version of Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine (the same one used in Firefox) along with updated tabs and improved security features. However, Camino still lags Firefox in support for Web fonts and advanced HTML5 features like <video> and offline storage.

Camino 2.0 has a number of new features over the 1.x series, which has been mostly in maintenance mode for the last couple of years. Tabbed browsing has been significantly improved, with support for drag-and-drop tab rearranging—though you can't move tabs to a different window or "tear" them off to create a new window. Command-click now defaults to opening link in new tabs instead of new windows—I always change the preference to this behavior, but it might encourage more people to try tabbed browsing if they haven't already.

CWmike writes "Microsoft has denied that it has built a backdoor into Windows 7, a concern that surfaced yesterday after a senior National Security Agency (NSA) official testified before Congress that the agency had worked on the operating system. 'Microsoft has not and will not put "backdoors" into Windows,' a company spokeswoman said, reacting to a Computerworld story Wednesday. On Monday, Richard Schaeffer, the NSA's information assurance director, told the Senate's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security that the agency had partnered with the developer during the creation of Windows 7 'to enhance Microsoft's operating system security guide.' Thursday's categorical denial by Microsoft was accompanied by further explanation of exactly how the NSA participated in the making of Windows 7. 'The work being discussed here is purely in conjunction with our Security Compliance Management Toolkit,' said the spokeswoman. The company rolled out the Windows 7 version of the toolkit late last month, shortly after it officially launched the operating system."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The smart grid is rapidly becoming a reality in the US, as utilities have been installing networked monitoring and control equipment, both in their own facilities and in their customers' homes. The pace of these installations should accelerate due to recent initiatives from the Department of Energy and the state of California; across the border, the Province of Ontario will see smart meters installed in every home by the end of next year. Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner has now worked with members of the Future of Privacy Forum to analyze the privacy implications of these initiatives. The resulting report indicates that there are a variety of potential privacy concerns, some of which are best addressed before the deployments begin in earnest.

Nearly half of the report simply reviews what the smart grid entails, specifically from the consumer perspective. In general terms, a smart meter, combined with smart appliances and other hardware, will allow consumers to obtain fine-grained information about their energy use patterns, and exercise a greater degree of control over them. As the report notes, this can have a wide variety of positive consequences, from more efficient use of energy resources to lowered electric bills. So the general message is that concerns about privacy shouldn't derail plans to deploy smart grids.

Anne Smith’s English Literature class recently discussed Act III of Hamlet with Debi Ohayon’s AP class. Not that unusual, perhaps, except that Anne’s class is here at Arapahoe in Centennial, Colorado, and Debi’s class is at The Lovett School in Atlanta, Georgia.

Anne tweeted out that she was looking for classes that might be interested in interacting with her class around Hamlet, and Laura Deisley – who’s the Director of 21st Century Learning at Lovett (great job title, btw) – responded that she knew a teacher that might be interested. Anne’s students are pretty comfortable using the fishbowl with live blogging method of discussing a book, but we wondered if we could make it work with two inner circles, one in Anne’s classroom and one in Debi’s classroom in Atlanta. As Laura writes:
after some traditional back and forth emailing and a Skype conference call, Anne, Karl, Upper School English Department Chair Debi Ohayon and I settled on a collaboration: two joint classroom Skype and live blog sessions on Hamlet.So, one inner circle of discussers in Anne’s classroom, and an outer circle of live bloggers. One inner circle of discussers in Debi’s classroom, and an outer circle of live bloggers. One Skype connection so the two classes could see (sort of) and hear (most of the time) each other and have an oral discussion. One CoverItLive blog so that the outer circles could discuss via live blogging. While the technology wasn’t perfect (pretty wide shot with the webcams and at times the audio broke up a little, but the students just asked each other to repeat what they said), it worked pretty well (see Anne's post for pictures from her classroom). As Anne writes:
Debi’s students rose to the challenge that the technology and new discussion method presented, and my students didn’t back down when discussing Hamlet with an advanced placement class. Both sides walked away commenting about how great it was to hear different points of view than from the students in their own class.And, on Laura’s blog, Debi reflects that:
Boy, am I glad my curiosity or sense of duty or both propelled me forward, as it has been a thrill to watch this pilot project become reality, despite the time commitment, logistical challenges, and alterations of my syllabus. The excitement that both my students and I have felt being pioneers as well as participants in a joint classroom experience across the country has been enormous. As Laura suggested, just the concept of kids in the 21st century talking in different time zones about an early 17th century text is intriguing. It's certainly not just about the fun (though it is really fun); the students agree that the Skype/LiveBlog shared classroom has enriched their learning experience. Meredith captured this sentiment today in class during our feedback session when she said, "We got to branch out beyond our own classroom and discuss similar ideas as well as gain insight about other ideas from students we didn't know." Furthermore, Mark said, "It was not only a blast, but a highly intellectual experience that I will always remember." I know many educators fear technology being pushed for the wrong reasons, but I'm quite convinced this was an example of technology enhancing pedagogical goals.We’re going to do this again on December 9th (over the entire play) and it will be interesting to see if it goes even better. I expect it will, as we’ll probably position the microphones a little better and certainly the students will have more experience under their belts and should be more comfortable with the format.

I think this was not only a valuable experience in terms of students learning about Hamlet, but also because of the sense of community that it engenders. As Debi said:
I'm pretty certain that the something special was a uniquely communal learning environment. Since I also have a personal invested interest in character education, I would be remiss not to note as a bonus what a delight it was to see teenagers from different parts of the country, representing both public and private schools, using literature to discuss timeless, universal moral issues.Yeah, it was a good day.

aaaaaaargh! writes "I'm using a laptop with Ubuntu 8.04 for work, a netbook with Ubuntu 9.10 when I'm outside, Mac OS X 10.5 for hobby projects, and Windows XP for gaming. For backups, I'm currently using Jungle Disk and Apple's Time Machine, and I use a local svn repository for my work data. Now I need to frequently exchange and synchronize OpenOffice and Latex files and source code in various cross-platform programming languages between one machine and another. Options range from putting everything online (but Jungle Disk disks seem to be too slow for anything else than backup), storing my data on external media like USB sticks or SD cards, or working with copies by synchronizing folders over the network. I don't want to give my data away to some server outside without strong encryption (controlled by me, including the source code) and external media like USB sticks are a bit too fragile according to my taste. The solution should be reliable, relatively failsafe, as simple as possible, and allow me to continue to use Jungle Disk for backup. So what would you recommend?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Gamers are used to confronting invading terrorists, nuclear attacks, and natural calamities—in virtual form. But those living in New York State could soon receive warnings about real emergencies through their favorite video console. State authorities are testing a plan that would see the Emergency Management Office issue alerts over online gaming networks in addition to regular channels."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This year, it's especially important to have clear information on what you can do to prepare for the flu season. With this in mind, we are happy to share a new feature for the U.S. which allows you to more easily find locations near you for getting both the seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccine. After expanding Google Flu Trends to a total of 20 countries and 38 languages, allowing more people to see near real-time estimates of flu activity, we began brainstorming with the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services (HHS), their flu.gov collaborators and the American Lung Association on the flu shot finder and other ways Google can be helpful to people this flu season.

You can check out the flu shot finder at www.google.com/flushot. The same tool will also be available shortly on www.flu.gov and the American Lung Association websites. It's important to note that this project is just beginning and we have not yet received information about flu shot clinics for many locations. In addition, many locations that are shown are currently out of stock. We launched this service now in order to help disseminate information about locations where vaccines are available, and also to make more vaccine providers aware of the project so that they can contribute.


Especially given slower than expected vaccine production, we think it's important to bring together flu shot information in a coherent manner. We've been working with HHS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local health agencies to gather information on flu vaccine locations across the country, particularly for the H1N1 flu vaccine (both the nasal-spray vaccine and the shot). At the moment we have data for locations of flu vaccine directly from 20 states and counting. We are also continuing to add information from chain pharmacies and other providers in all 50 states; today, you'll find results from chains such as Walgreens, CVS and PDX participants, such as Kmart, Duane Reade, WinnDixie and Giant Eagle.

Of course you should still call flu vaccine providers ahead of time to find out more about availability and eligibility for the two vaccines.

We hope to continue providing you with relevant information to help keep you and your loved ones healthy.
Update on 11/19: We just added the flu shot finder as a search feature on Google.com. Now, if you search for terms like [flu], [flu shot], [h1n1 shot] or [flu vaccine], information will appear at the top of your search results, including flu tips from flu.gov as well as the flu shot finder box with an expanding map that displays locations where you can receive seasonal and/or H1N1 flu shots.

Posted by Roni Zeiger, M.D., Product Manager and Jennifer Haroon, Product Marketing Manager

Kelson writes "Google has released the source to what will eventually become Chrome OS, and will begin developing it as an open source project like Chromium. The OS differs from the usual computing model by (1) making all apps web apps (2) sandboxing everything and (3) removing anything unnecessary, to focus on speed." Reader Barence adds "Google said consumers won't be able to download the operating system — it will only be available on hardware that meets Google's specifications. Hard disks are banned, for instance, while Google said it will also specify factors such as screen sizes and display resolutions. Google said it plans to officially launch Chrome OS by the end of next year."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When I first started at Google, Craig Nevill-Manning, engineering director here in New York, said to me: "The Google homepage doesn't belong to us. It belongs to the millions of people who use it." Besides the fact that Craig can make one of those insanely cool leaf patterns in his latte, I find the simple truth of his statement inspiring. I often refer to it as a guidepost for our work.

So when we got together with the search team to brainstorm ways to talk about our latest innovations (like music in search results), we decided to feature them through stories inspired by our users. Because while we're proud of the innovations we're making in search, we're proudest of the things people use search to accomplish. In other words, the best search results don't show up on a webpage — they show up in somebody's life.

So in that spirit, we made a bunch of videos. There's one about grandma dipping her toe into technology. One about friends taking a Kerouac inspired road trip. And yes, there's even one about Bruce Wayne.

Here's the first one:


You can see them all here.

As they say in the movies, all the characters in these videos are fictional, any resemblance to persons alive or dead are purely coincidental.

We hope you enjoy them.

Posted by Robert Wong, Google Creative Lab

We now have the full legal theory behind BlueBeat.com's attempt to sell remastered Beatles tracks online for a quarter each. It's so odd that the federal judge overseeing a music industry lawsuit against the site decided he didn't even need to hold the hearing scheduled for tomorrow. Instead, he blasted BlueBeat's "psycho-acoustic modeling" defense and extended his temporary injunction into something more permanent.

In a strange declaration that covers all sorts of ground completely unrelated to the lawsuit (and is littered with typos), BlueBeat founder Hank Risan told the court last week that the songs for sale on his site are totally new recordings that he created and that he in fact owns the copyrights on. This is possible thanks to the wonder of psycho-acoustic simulation, which Risan describes this way: