Sprint, its cellular division Sprint PCS and Cingular Wireless–say they have created wireless messaging services that are secure enough for use by corporations and their mobile work forces.

The new services, two of which were launched Monday, are expected to put pressure on Research in Motion, the maker of the popular Blackberry wireless paging devices that now dominate the wireless corporate e-mail market with approximately 289,000 subscribers. Most are corporate clients, among whom the devices have the nickname “Crackberry” because of their addictive nature.

Continue reading… “Crackberry: Wireless Email for the Office”

Hundreds of Internet radio stations and channels across America are shutting off their music streams on Wednesday, May 1st, in a “Day of Silence” to highlight their concern over the upcoming U.S. Copyright Office ruling on royalty rates that may shut down or bankrupt the vast majority of the nascent Internet radio industry.

The Librarian of Congress is required to set “sound recordings performance royalty” rates for Internet radio stations by May 21st — and an arbitration panel (a “CARP”) working for that office has recommended a rate of $.0014 per listener per song (or $.0007 for broadcast simulcasts). Many webcasters say the proposed royalty rate is the equivalent of 200% or more of their revenues.

Continue reading… “Internet Radio ‘Day of Silence’ Protest”

NASA and university scientists are watching the Sun in an effort to learn how better to predict space weather ‚ blasts of particles from the Sun that impact the magnetosphere, the magnetic bubble around the Earth.

With improvements in solar-storm prediction methods, scientists are looking toward advancements that may offer the opportunity to issue solar-weather watches, similar to tornado watches. This advance warning will give people on Earth more time to prepare by placing satellites in a safe configuration, planning the best time for astronaut space walks or rocket launches, and implementing contingency plans to deal with any power outages.

Continue reading… “Scientists Closer To Predicting Space Weather”

A healthy bull calf born on a ranch in southeast Brazil astonished scientists who were expecting a female cloned from an adult cow.

Although not Brazil’s first cloned calf, it may be the first cloned from somatic, or adult, cells. And scientists have yet to explain how they got a bull from ear cells of a cow.

The project’s chief veterinarian, Jose Visintin, said on Monday the experiment “either erred in the laboratory or in the field.”

Continue reading… “Bull Clone Stumps Scientists Expecting Cow”

Google has yet another application: measuring the rate of decay of information on the web. By plotting the number of results at 3,6, and 12 months for a series of phrases, this study claims to have uncovered a corresponding 60-70-80 percent decay rate. Essentially, 60% of the web changes every 3 months.

You may be amused by some of the phrases he notes as exceptional.
Continue reading… “Calculating the Rate of Information Decay on the Web”