eldavojohn writes "China's rare earth monopoly has resulted in a shortage as China blocks their export and the rest of the world resumes their operations. Now, in a first-ever joint filing from three members of the World Trade Organization, Japan, the EU and the U.S. are not sitting idly by as China repeatedly ignores the WTO's orders to export rare earth metals and raw materials at a fair price to other countries. China claims the embargoes are in place to protect its environment, while Obama denounces China as being unfair and not playing by the rules of the WTO. In 2009, the WTO released a report (PDF) that explained how actions like China's hurt trade partners."
New submitter 0111 1110 writes "Attempting to emulate Double Fine's success to fund another currently dead genre of computer game, Brian Fargo of Interplay fame has started a kickstarter project for a sequel to Wasteland, his1988 post-apocalyptic RPG which inspired Fallout. It will be turn-based and party-based, with a top-down perspective and 2D graphics. Fargo has managed to attract many of the original developers, such as Alan Pavlish and Mike Stackpole, as well as Jason Anderson, who was a designer for Fallout, and Mark Morgan, who did the music for Planescape: Torment and both of the original Fallout games. Fargo's goal has been set at $900,000. Anything above that will be used for additional game content. At $1.5 million he will offer an OS X version. An interview with Fargo by Rock, Paper, Shotgun provides some additional insight into what he and his group are planning, as does a video interview with Matt Barton."
snydeq writes "IT pros feeling the pressure to boost tech skills should expect little support from their current employers, according to a recent report on IT skills. '9 in 10 business managers see gaps in workers' skill sets, yet organizations are more likely to outsource a task or hire someone new than invest in training an existing staff. Perhaps worse, a significant amount of training received by IT doesn't translate to skills they actually use on the job.'"
An anonymous reader writes "Adoption of the HTML5 video element has been hampered by the lack of a universal video format that is supported in all browsers. Mozilla previously rejected the popular H.264 video codec because it is patent-encumbered and would require implementors to pay royalty fees. The organization is now rethinking its position and is preparing to add support for H.264 video decoding in mobile Firefox via codecs that are provided by the underlying operating system or hardware. The controversial proposal has attracted a lot of criticism from Firefox contributors, including some employed by Mozilla."
Zothecula writes "Not too long ago, brothers Randy and Michael Gregg were out on a hunting expedition. It was the day after deer season had ended, yet they spied a handsome animal bedded down in the snow. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity, they silently crept up on their quarry, raised their rifle, lined the deer up in the crosshairs ... and then took a picture through the scope with a mobile phone. That photo provided all the proof they needed that they had successfully stalked their prey, without bringing home an illegally-obtained carcass. It also inspired them to create the Kill Shot — a replica hunting rifle, that takes pictures instead of firing bullets." The Kill Shot isn't just for hunters. Think of how great this would be at sporting events or family reunions!
chrb writes "British student Richard O'Dwyer, creator of the TVShack website, has had his extradition to the United States approved by Conservative Home Secretary Theresa May. Mr. O'Dwyer now has 14 days to appeal the decision. The extradition was requested by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which has accused O'Dwyer of aiding copyright infringement by publishing links to pirated content hosted on external sites."
New submitter Warmlight writes "The BBC reports that 'Bahrain and Belarus have been added to Reporters Without Borders' annual list of "enemies of the internet." They join 10 other nations on the campaign group's register of states that restrict net access, filter content and imprison bloggers. India and Kazakhstan have also joined RWB's list of "countries under surveillance" because of concerns that they are becoming more repressive.' I wonder how ACTA will affect this in the next year? In their report, they say, 'Resistance to ACTA is stronger than ever and the treaty may not see the light of day. Vigilance must be maintained.'"
MrSeb writes "Twin Creeks, a solar power startup that emerged from hiding today, has developed a way of creating photovoltaic cells that are half the price of today's cheapest cells, and thus within reach of challenging the fossil fuel hegemony. As it stands, almost every solar panel is made by slicing a 200-micrometer-thick (0.2mm) wafer from a block of crystalline silicon. You then add some electrodes, cover it in protective glass, and leave it in a sunny area to generate electricity through the photovoltaic effect. There are two problems with this approach: Much in the same way that sawdust is produced when you slice wood, almost half of the silicon block is wasted when it's cut into 200-micrometer slices; and second, the panels would still function just as well if they were thinner than 200 micrometers, but silicon is brittle and prone to cracking if it's too thin. Using a hydrogen ion particle accelerator, Twin Creeks has managed to create very thin (20-micrometer), flexible photovoltaic cells that can be produced for just 40 cents per watt; around half the cost of conventional solar cells, and a price point that encroaches on standard, mostly-hydrocarbon-derived grid power."
New submitter dalosla writes "Chicago's mayor is pushing to change red light cameras near schools and parks into speed cameras. Just about everybody sees it as a cash grab by the city. Today's Chicago Tribune has an article about how the expanded speed camera program would benefit Redflex, the company Greg Goldner, one of the mayor's long time political supporters, lobbies for. This is of merely local interest, but of wider interest in the article would be information about Goldner's astroturfing for Redflex around the country. Redflex is the sole financial supporter for the Traffic Safety Coalition, a 'grassroots' organization to promote more traffic camera usage and fight any attempts to restrict such cameras. Goldner has already successfully facilitated the killing of one anti-camera ballot measure in Texas."
New submitter derchris writes "We will be on vacation in the U.S. next month for about 3 weeks. We are going to do a road trip between San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. To not use roaming for data, and get a heart attack once back home looking at the mobile bill, I was looking at so called 'MiFi' devices, portable 3G Wi-Fi hotspots. As far as I know, more or less all of the U.S. carriers have such devices available. But as I'm not from the U.S., I have no idea what would give me the best 3G coverage in the areas we are travelling. Another question would be whether I can buy one of these devices off eBay, and use it with any SIM card. Let's hope there are users available who could give some advice on this topic."
hapworth writes "Google's engineering culture is 'wasting profits,' according to a new report published today that refers to $16 billion worth of Google projects that are going nowhere. According to the analysis, it's not that the ideas — such as the Kansas City Fiber Project, driverless cars, and other engineering efforts — are bad. Rather, it's Google's poor execution that is killing the company and adding billions of dollars worth of projects to its 'trash pile.'" On the obvious other hand, Google's done a lot of interesting things over the years that they've managed to make work well, and that strayed from their initial single-text-field search bar.
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists at Cambridge University have used Lego Mindstorms robots to create an artificial bone-like substance. The toy robots proved to be much easier to set up and vastly more economical than more high-tech solutions. Their research is featured in a video for the 2012 Google Science Fair."
New submitter hinterwaeldler writes "In 2007 Switzerland abandoned book price control (which requires publishers to fix prices for their books and forbids any dealer to sell at another price), reducing prices by 30% to 50% for online buyers. The brick & mortar book stores lobbied the parliament into creating a bill to reinstate the price fixing, against which a referendum was taken by liberals and the Pirate Party, forcing a popular vote. On March 11, after an intense debate, Swiss voters decided against book price control (German-language original) with a majority of 56%."
Die Seagate Cheetah 15K Festplatten bieten eine hohe Leistungsfähigkeit für den Einsatz in Unternehmen. Die Festplatten kommen im 3,5-Zoll-Format und in Kapazitäten von 73,4 bis 600 GByte. Wir haben den ...
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Testen Sie Ihr IT-Wissen! Jeden Tag finden Sie bei TecChannel eine Frage aus dem IT-Bereich, deren richtige Antwort Sie als IT-Experte kennen sollten. Machen Sie kostenlos mit und erweitern Sie Ihre IT-Kenntnisse!
Das Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime fährt schwere Geschütze auf: Quad-Core-CPU NVIDIA Tegra 3, Android 4.0, hochauflösendes Display und Docking-Tastatur. Damit wird das Transformer Prime zur ersten Wahl ...
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Dells UltraSharp U2412M gehört den Business-Geräten an. Das Display löst 1920 x 1200 Bildpunkte über 24 Zoll auf - es handelt sich also um ein 16:10-Gerät.
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Mit USBDLM kann man die Ordnung der Laufwerksbuchstaben ganz erheblich optimieren. Das ist hilfreich, insbesondere wenn beispielsweise Card-Reader älteren Datums zum Einsatz kommen oder häufig mit externen ...
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Wer bevorzugt mit PDF-Dokumenten arbeitet, kann das Adobe-Format mit Horland's Scan2PDF direkt beim Scannen generieren. Außer dieser Grundfunktion beherrscht das Gratis-Tool noch weitere pfiffige Features.
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Symantec Critical System Protection ist ein Intrusion Detection System, dass die Sicherheit auf virtuellen und physischen Servern verbessern soll. Dabei helfen die konfigurierbaren Richtlinien, die auch ...