Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Friday, February 7, 2003

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Deep Junior forces Kasparov to draw: "In a brilliant display of cyberchess power, Deep Junior sacrificed a bishop early on in its penultimate game against Garry Kasparov to force a draw by perpetual check nine moves later in a fighting Nimzo-Indian Defense." [Google Technology News]

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Was Columbia struck by space debris? "Now that they have studied the foam impact theory, Nasa investigators do not think that it was the cause of the Colummbia accident." [Google Technology News]

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IBM pushes out virtual database technology: "IBM is offering a technology that it boasts will slash integration costs for companies that want to seamlessly integrate disparate data and content repositories without having to reformat it." [Google Technology News]

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Chemical Cousin Of Vitamin A Restores Gene Function In Former Smokers: "Use of a Vitamin A derivative in former smokers restored production of a crucial protein believed to protect against lung cancer development, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have found." [Google Technology News]

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Ridiculous Patents: "After reading this and this, both today at LawMeme, I've decided to apply for a patent on breathing." [jenett.radio]

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Why Users Hate IT Products and Developers: "Computer training has become the living hell of the American workplace... each new system is more confounding than the last, and each new product strips away many of the advantages of the previous system." [Slashdot]

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Journalist perpetrates online terror hoax: "Abdul Mujahid of Karachi, the registrant of a purported terrorist Web site, is really journalist Brian McWilliams." [Computerworld News]

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Call me Nostradamus: "You can call me a prophet now. I said that someone will port KHTML to Windows. And someone did." [Krzysztof Kowalczyk's Weblog]

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Paint it blacker than black: "British scientists have come up with the blackest surface ever, an invention that could help with spacecraft navigation and the manufacture of optical instruments." [Google Technology News]

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Slammer: Why security benefits from proof of concept code: "The UK security expert who discovered the flaw which was exploited by the Slammer worm has concluded it does more good than harm to publish proof of concept code.<" [Google Technology News]

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The Linux Kernel's Next Incarnation: "The Linux kernel determines how well the overall operating system scales -- for example, how many processors the system can address, how well it switches between tasks, and so on. In short, the kernel truly is the heart and mind of a Linux system. So, what is on tap in version 2.6, and which features will thrill IT managers?" [osOpinion]

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Why doesn't MSN work with Opera? 'MSN looks for "Opera" in the User-Agent string and purposely sends Opera7 a style sheet which distort pages.'

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Nokia N-Gage: First impressions: "In summary, we're a bit underwhelmed by Nokia's effort. The company seems to be making some basic and potentially fatal mistakes, both with its hardware and with its business model, and the existing software for the device - even taking into account that it's in a pre-Alpha state - isn't shockingly impressive. Super Monkey Ball and Tomb Raider would probably be more stunning if they weren't already available in handheld form on the GBA and PocketPC respectively." [The Register]

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European Apple Retail Stores 'In 6-18 Months': "In an interview with Sunday Business newspaper, Pascal Cagni, Apple's vice president and general manager of Europe, Middle East and Africa, revealed that the company is planning aggressive expansion into the consumer retail market." (Macworld UK via MyAppleMenu) [MyAppleMenu]