olddotter writes "Apple has sold over 1 million videos through iTunes since the release of the Video iPod service. Personally I am surprised by this success, it raises many questions. Will this encourage more people to put their video content on the iTunes store? Is there a vast market for cheaper stuff at reduced prices? Why am I willing to pay more for music than I would for video?"

JR writes "CoolTechZone.com has reviewed IBM's ThinkPad X41 Tablet PC that works as a standard notebook computer as well as a tablet PC. Generally with hybrid products, there are quite a few limitations attached, is that the case with X41? According to the article, "The notebook has a lot of drawbacks, lacks important features and tries to make up all that with its lightweight and a fingerprint reader that works like a charm. If you are looking for a small lightweight tablet and won't do much more than e-mail and note taking, along with basic office stuff, we would seriously recommend this one for it's battery life, the extreme lightweight design and the brilliant IBM support, but be ready to pay anywhere from $1800 to upwards of $2000 for a common purpose machine."

Zoxed writes "Builder.com reports that mTLD will force anyone wishing to register in .mobi will require its customers to stick to rules on how their users' Web sites are developed. Assuming this can/will be policed are there any *disadvantages* to the approach ? Could it be enforced in other TLDs ?" That is the real question: How and what effect would be done? And how sterile would an environment like that be?

A Dafa Disciple writes "Post-Gazette.com reports that roboticist Daniel H. Wilson, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, has written a humorous guide, 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion.' Even before the 178-page book was completed, the rights to a movie were sold to Paramount Pictures, who has already delegated the screenplay writing to writers/actors from Comedy Central's 'Reno 911,' Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. From Daniel Wilson's manual: 'Any robot could rebel, from a toaster to a Terminator, and so it is crucial to learn the strengths and weaknesses of every robot enemy.' I for one welcome our new robotic overlords."

Paul Heavens writes "A Japanese company has developed technology to transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds, the world's fastest speed achieved with fibre-optic cables in the field, it says. Kansai Electric used fibre-optic cables on power-transmitting steel towers to achieve the speed of one terabit per second, which is more than 100 times faster than inter-city data transmissions currently in use, a spokesman says. The company, Japan's second-largest power supplier, has not decided when to put the technology into practical use but says it is possible that it would come in 2010 or later."

josath writes "The DS Wifi Bounty Milestone 1 has been completed! (previously on /.) The hardware registers to use the wifi built into the Nintendo DS has been documented. This is a huge step, as this was done with absolutely no documentation on the hardware. Stephen Stair has received ~$1400 for this milestone, and is working towards getting the other half by creating a tcp/ip stack. Once a TCP/IP stack is implemented on top of the hardware layer, homebrew NDS developers can start using the wifi in their own apps/games! This comes before Nintendo has officially released any wifi-capable games."

An anonymous reader writes "Robots might allow for delicate surgeries in space, reports the Washington Post." From the article: "The tiny, wheeled robots, which are about 3 inches tall and as wide as a lipstick case, can be slipped into small incisions and computer-controlled by surgeons in different locations. Some robots are equipped with cameras and lights and can send back images to surgeons. Others have surgical tools attached that can be controlled remotely ... Officials hope that next spring, NASA will teach astronauts to use the robots so that surgeries could one day be performed in space. Delays in communication because of the distance to space would mean surgeons on earth would have tell astronauts what commands to give the robots"

Gregg writes "Most of the time these mice are marketed towards people suffering from RSI, however anyone feeling discomfort using a regular mouse should be able to switch to any of these pointing devices that were created with ergonomics, and only ergonomics in mind. TechSpot's comparison includes three products: the Perific Wireless Dual Mouse, 3M Ergonomic 'Renaissance' Mouse, and Evoluent's VerticalMouse 2." From the article: "People are sometimes under the impression that only those who work at a computer all day are at risk of repetitive stress injuries (RSI). Unfortunately that is not true and even people spending an hour or two per day using a computer are now suffering from RSI. Even if you aren't going to purchase ergonomic products for your everyday use, there are still some very helpful tips on how to lower the risk of someday suffering from RSI. Many specialists recommend taking short breaks after long periods of computer use to reduce risk. It is also a good idea to do a few quick and simple hand/wrist stretches that will help make sure you are doing your best to try and stay healthy."

bacterial_pus writes "Tom's Hardware has a very interesting article on how to build a $500 gaming rig. 'Instead of the newest killer rig from Alienware, Falcon Northwest, Voodoo, etc... how about a system for the rest of us with a realistic budget starting from scratch? We set out to build a reasonable gaming system that will get you through today's game titles without breaking the bank for around $500.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Japan's largest mobile carrier has announced two new Linux phones with support for push-to-talk, multiple numbers, and other advanced features. Of the six models models in NTT DoCoMo's new 902i-series, the two running embedded Linux are made by NEC and Panasonic, who have been collaborating on a Linux-based software platform for 3G mobile phones. The NEC-manufactured N902i boasts a four megapixel camera, while the Panasonic-made P902i aims to appeal to music lovers, with music jukebox software and an available 1GB MiniSD card. Between these and Motorola's Linux mobile phones, Linux seems to be doing well in Asia, in the rapidly growing feature-phone space, which is projected to comprise the majority of global mobile phone shipments by 2010."

DIY News writes "Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and IBM unveiled the Blue Gene/L supercomputer Thursday and announced it's broken its own record again for the world's fastest supercomputer. The 65,536-processor machine can sustain 280.6 teraflops. That's the top end of the range IBM forecast and more than twice the previous Blue Gene/L record of 136.8 teraflops, set when only half the machine was installed."

mstansberry writes "Much like the rest of the country, IT is facing an energy crisis. The utilities are bracing companies for price spikes this winter and according to experts and IT pros, those prices aren't going to come down any time soon. This is thefirst article in a four-part series investigating the impact of energy issues on IT."

spagiola writes "There's a nice little story on CNN about a doctor in Geneva who has developed ways to use iPods to view medical images. His software, called Osirix (OSS, BTW) enables medical professionals to view medical images on their iPods, saving them and the hospitals they work for thousands of dollars in expensive equipment."

RX8 writes "Canon, Inc., has taken the wraps off prototype rechargeable hydrogen fuel cells, the likes of which may one day power digital cameras, media players, and printers. Canon's demonstrated fuel cells win even more points on the environmental front: while companies such as Toshiba, Sanyo, and NEC have also been working on fuel cells (and had been expected to have developed fuel cell-driven notebook computers by now), those efforts are based on DMFC technology which derives hydrogen from methanol, producing small amounts of carbon dioxide (itself a greenhouse gas) in the process. Canon's cells obtain hydrogen from a refillable cartridge with no toxic byproducts."

dacaldar writes "According to Yahoo Finance, noted Finnish over-clockers Sampsa Kurri and Ville Suvanto have made world history by over-clocking a graphics processor to engine clock levels above 1 GHz. The record was set on the recently-announced Radeon® X1800 XT graphics processor from ATI Technologies Inc."

Gamasutra reports on an official release regarding the problems at Wal-Mart stores with the 360 console. From the article: "Wal-Mart's 'network-based inventory management systems can be impacted by products using modern wireless signals,' a claim borne out by some of the Wal-Mart employees noting that other wireless devices, such as wireless phones, would accomplish the same thing. Microsoft has already addressed the problem, and 'a solution to this issue was developed within 24 hours of identifying the issue and we are currently deploying the fix to the affected locations.'" We've reported on this issue previously. A quick call to my local store confirmed that they do have a kiosk installed, but it's still down because of the issue.

sebFlyte writes "Silicon.com is running a story on a little problem the BBC is having with their email. Apparently, the BBC has suspended service to all its executives BlackBerrys, because the server software was randomly sending chunks of messages to arbitrary users, thus showing execs each others emails. Not what you want from your remote-working solution, really."

An anonymous reader writes "ViewSonic has recently released a very exciting product, a nineteen inch LCD display with a 3ms response time. This is the fastest LCD panel currently available to consumers, and it is clearly aimed at gamers and movie watchers. Dubbed the VX924, the display is part of ViewSonic's X series which tries to comnbine performance with style. The word on the street is that Samsung will have a 4ms display available this year, but this may be the only 3ms."

Sterling D. Allan writes "In a story at the new Open Source Energy Network site, Paul Noel says: "Energetically speaking, the vortex that forms in these storms is also a natural particle accelerator, and a massive capacitor bank. As the harmonic circuit develops, it resonates acoustically and functions as a capacitor, extracting the heat from the storm and transmitting it away. Without this electrical circuit, the storm would fail almost instantly due to the accumulation of heat from condensation of water." He also asserts that understanding these phenomena better could help us harness the power of nature, seen and unseen."

An anonymous reader asks: "I've been asked to build a massive storage solution to scale from an initial threshold of 25TB to 1PB, primarily on commodity hardware and software. Based on my past experience and research, the commercial offerings for such a solution becomes cost prohibitive, and the budget for the solution is fairly small. Some the technologies that I've been scoping out are iSCSI, AoE and plain clustered/grid computers with JBOD (just a bunch of disks). Personally I'm more inclined on a grid cluster with 1GB interface where each node will have about 1-2TB of disk space and each node is based on a 'low' power consumption architecture. Next issue to tackle is finding a file system that could span across all the nodes and yet appear as a single volume to the application servers. At this point data redundancy is not a priority, however it will have to be addressed. My research has not yielded any viable open source alternative (unless Google releases GoogleFS) and I've researched into Lustre, xFS and PVFS. There some interesting commercial products such as the File Director from NeoPath Networks and a few others; however the cost is astronomical. I would like to know if any Slashdot readers have any experience in build out such a solution? Any help/idea(s) would be greatly appreciated!"