My Scene Goes Hollywood Lindsay Lohan Doll Teenage actress Lindsay Lohan is re-created as a stylish My Scene doll following her role in the DVD movie My Scene Goes to Hollywood, where the gang is cast as extras in her movie. In her cartoon cameo, Lohan plays a gracious and down-to-earth movie star (which, […]

Soyuz, Shuttle Cited in Drinking Reports
After drinking heavily, an astronaut flew on a Russian spacecraft and another was cleared to launch on a space shuttle, according to interviews by a panel of outside experts, the panel’s chairman said Friday. In the case of the shuttle, the mission was delayed for mechanical reasons and the astronaut wanted to fly a jet from Florida back home to Houston, said Col. Richard Bachmann Jr., head of the panel, created to assess astronaut health. He said he didn’t know the outcome. “In none of these can we say factually they did or did not occur,” he added, speaking by telephone to a news conference held in Washington. He said it was not the panel’s mission to investigate allegations and that NASA would have to ferret out details. The independent panel was created by NASA after the arrest of astronaut Lisa Nowak in February on charges she tried to kidnap her rival in a love triangle. NASA said it is unaware of any astronauts who were drunk before a flight but that it is investigating. Deputy Administrator Shana Dale said the panel provided no details and did not verify the troubling revelations and promised the space agency would pursue the truth. Bachmann, an aerospace medical specialist with the Air Force, said his panel deliberately did not seek out pertinent details, such as exactly when the heavy drinking occurred. The overriding concern, he said, was that flight surgeons were ignored. “There’s certainly no intent to impugn the entire astronaut corps,” Bachmann said. “We don’t have enough data to call it alcohol abuse. We have no way of knowing if these are the only two incidents that have ever occurred in the history of the astronaut corps or if they’re the tip of a very large iceberg.” NASA has long had a policy that prohibits any drinking in the…

‘Nerd’ Fued Goes Offline, Leads to Arson
A Navy man who got mad when someone mocked him as a “nerd” over the Internet climbed into his car and drove 1,300 miles from Virginia to Texas to teach the other guy a lesson. As he made his way toward Texas, Fire Controlman 2nd Class Petty Officer Russell Tavares posted photos online showing the welcome signs at several states’ borders, as if to prove to his Internet friends that he meant business. When he finally arrived, Tavares burned the guy’s trailer down. This week, Tavares, 27, was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading no contest to arson and admitting he set the blaze. “I didn’t think anybody was stupid enough to try to kill anybody over an Internet fight,” said John G. Anderson, 59, who suffered smoke inhalation while trying to put out the 2005 blaze that caused $50,000 in damage to his trailer and computer equipment. The feud started when Anderson, who runs a haunted house near Waco, joined a picture-sharing Web site and posted his artwork and political views. After he blocked some people from his page because of insults and foul language, they retaliated by making obscene digitally altered pictures of him, he said. Anderson, who went by the screen name “Johnny Darkness,” traded barbs with Tavares, aka “PyroDice.” Investigators say Tavares boiled over when Anderson called him a nerd and posted a digitally altered photo making Tavares look like a skinny boy in high-water pants, holding a gun and a laptop under a “Revenge of the Nerds” sign. Tavares obtained Anderson’s real name and hometown from Anderson’s Web page about his Museum of Horrors Haunted House. Tavares took leave from his post as a weapons systems operator at the AEGIS Training and Readiness Center in Dahlgren, Va., and started driving. Investigators say he told them he planned to point a shotgun at…

AMD Lays Out Ambitious Chip Road Map
AMD laid out an ambitious product road map for analysts and reporters on Thursday. “The big takeaway,” said IDC analyst Richard Shim, “is that they are being aggressive again. They are not circling the wagons.” The road map, outlined in a meeting at AMD’s Sunnyvale, California headquarters, is designed to reposition the company against the stream of products and price cuts from arch-competitor Intel. Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds, who attended the briefing, said that “we’re going to be seeing a lot of mud-wrestling” as AMD and Intel struggle to get the upper hand in various markets. One part of AMD’s plan, he said, is to release new chips on a more aggressive timetable, to counter Intel’s “tick-tock” strategy of a new chip architecture every other year. End-Run Around Intel Reynolds also said that AMD is trying for an “end-run” around Intel, by emphasizing faster but fewer threads of task-execution in its chips. Another area that will receive a new emphasis at AMD is the consumer market, so that the company can expand beyond its core server and PC markets. “That’s where the growth is,” Shim noted. One product for that market is Bobcat, a lower-powered processing core that “might go into cell phones” or other consumer devices where power and portability is important, according to Reynolds. Scheduled for 2009, Bobcat could run on as little as 1 watt of power. Bobcat is not the only aggressive-sounding name in AMD’s forest of codenames. The company is using the name of a shark for a new, eight-core, high-performance, 45-nanometer chip — Sandtiger — scheduled for release in 2009. Barcelona on Track Analysts say that being perceived as aggressive was not the only goal for the briefing. AMD was trying to turn the tide of perception that it was, as Shim said, “circling the wagons.” The company reported that the important…

Windows Vista Hits the 60 Million Mark
At Microsoft’s annual meeting with analysts, Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner announced that the software giant had sold 60 million copies of Windows Vista since the product’s launch in late January. During the first five weeks alone, Turner said, sales numbers of Windows Vista exceeded the number of computers that Apple currently has as its total installed base. But not everyone was impressed. “There were probably nearly 120 million PCs shipped in the first two quarters of 2007, so I’m not sure 60 million is that great,” observed Gartner Client Computing research vice president Michael Silver. Microsoft is “trying to dampen Apple’s latest quarterly results, which saw a significant increase in shipments,” he said. Lacking the Killer App? Turner said he thinks Vista’s prospects going forward are “huge” — especially in emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Nevertheless, the software giant has just reduced its Vista sales growth forecast to roughly 10 percent over the next 12 months. The continuing popularity of Windows XP is one reason Vista sales haven’t been as strong as some analysts had expected initially. In addition, Vista’s lack of a “killer app” means that potential buyers have no compelling reason to migrate from XP aside from Vista’s “coolness” factor, wrote analysts at Forrester Research on the eve of Vista’s launch. In addition, the research firm’s analysts wrote, Vista needs to be seen and experienced to be fully understood by consumers. “Until must-have applications are available on the Vista platform, the purchase experience will play an important role in Vista adoption,” they noted. “We certainly expect businesses to continue installing Windows XP for some time, even on PCs they buy with Vista licenses,” Silver said. “Especially in the enterprise, it takes a good 12 to 18 months until they can support a new OS in their environment,” he…

July 26th, 2007: Cartoon #4237
‘Your parents aren’t outsourcing, I’m the babysitter.’ For Your health: Nutritional Support for healthy Nerves Your nervous system is responsible for sending, receiving and processing nerve impulses throughout your body. Optimal nerve function is important to many areas of health, including cardiovascular, muscle and joint, respiratory, vision and […]

Google Promises Digital Fingerprinting for YouTube
Jon Stewart will be digitally fingerprinted. On Friday, Google told a judge that a digital video fingerprinting system would ensure that clips of Stewart from Comedy Central’s The Daily Show — and other copyrighted material — would not show up on YouTube. Philip Beck, an attorney representing Google and YouTube, reportedly said Friday in a preliminary hearing at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that a library of digital video fingerprints would be used to filter clips. The system would remove those clips that are owned by companies such as Viacom, parent of Comedy Central. Viacom and others are suing YouTube for copyright infringement. The envisioned system, which Google has previously said will be called “Claim Your Content,” would block access to anyone attempting to post a clip if the library recognizes the clip as copyrighted. ‘Claim Your Content’ Because the creators of all original work, such as a home video maker, automatically receive a copyright to their work, the system would likely have to find a match with a third-party copyright holder. The date for launching such a digital fingerprint library is not clear. Beck said that the system could be ready by September. But a Google spokesperson told ZDNet that “it’s difficult to forecast specific launch dates” as the library is “one of the most technologically complicated tasks that we have ever undertaken.” The antipiracy video system was announced last year, and its delivery date has been delayed several times. Executives from NBC and other networks have complained that Google is dragging its feet in preventing their copyrighted material from showing up on YouTube. Whatever the launch date might be, it would be too late for some litigants. Lawyers for a class action suit filed against YouTube in May by English soccer’s Premier League said that a video…

Intel Faces Antitrust Charges in Europe
Intel has abused its position of dominance in an attempt to force AMD out of the x86 chipset market, the EU’s European Commission charged in a statement of objection, which the commission confirmed on Friday. The commission claims that Intel provided massive rebates to computer makers if they bought the vast majority of their chips from Intel, paid off manufacturers to delay or cancel AMD-based products, and sold chipsets below cost to beat AMD on price. Intel general counsel Bruce Sewell countered the charges in a statement, saying the market is “functioning normally and … Intel’s conduct has been lawful, procompetitive, and beneficial to consumers.” Pointing out that the statement of objection is a preliminary finding, Sewell said AMD’s troubles are the normal result when competitors “falter and underperform.” Giuliano Meroni, AMD president for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, said, “This is a moment of truth for the entire I.T. industry. We are confident that this statement of objection will be a catalyst in opening the global microprocessor markets for the benefit of consumers and PC companies alike.” Action ‘Enormously Important’ A month ago, AMD CEO Hector Ruiz told an antitrust group that AMD competes on a daily basis with “an abusive monopolist. It makes no difference whether you are just as efficient — or even more efficient — than they are.” The news of the European Commission action is “enormously important to the world and to American consumers,” said Albert A. Foer, president of American Antitrust Institute, based in Washington, DC, in a telephone interview. “If AMD’s allegations are sustained, than Intel has been engaged in a global strategy to monopolize the microchip industry,” he said. If AMD is left “severely crippled,” Foer said, “the world is left with single player for a very important commodity. Innovation depends on a competitor…

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