Looks like there is a correlation between under-abundance of lithium in sun-like stars and having a planetary system.
Exoplanets Clue To Sun’s Curious Chemistry
“For almost 10 years we have tried to find out what distinguishes stars with planetary systems from their barren cousins,” says Garik Israelian, lead author of a paper appearing this week in the journal Nature. “We have now found that the amount of lithium in Sun-like stars depends on whether or not they have planets.”
It looks like HP is about to take on Cisco/EMC and their relentless march into the data center.
HP Acquires Networking Giant 3Com for $2.7 Billion
Technology powerhouse Hewlett Packard (HP) has just announced that it has struck a deal to acquire 3Com, one of the world’s leading networking hardware and software companies, for a giant $2.7 billion price tag.
Compaq. I’m just sayin’
Carly Fiorina 2.0: The U.S. Senate Edition | Epicenter | Wired.com
Carly Fiorina, once one of the most powerful captains of Silicon Valley, has set her sights on Washington: the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, unceremoniously shown the door after shareholder dissatisfaction with the merger with Compaq she engineered, officially announced her candidacy Wednesday for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif).
For the Mini Enthusiast …
The State of the Mac mini October 2009
We’ve already secured the new 2.26 and 2.53 Mac minis and taken them apart a couple hours after they were announced. Inside, they are designed the exact same as the previous models, just with the upgraded processor and RAM. (see pictures of the last generation minis here)
So this is interesting. The Gulftown is a 32 nm hexacore chip due about Q2 of 2010 from Intel. It uses Westmere cores rather than Nehalem cores, the same as Intel’s earlier Dunnington hexacore model. Unlike Dunnington, however, the 6 cores are native, not just 3 dual cores stapled onto one piece of silicon.
A Mac Pro with 12 cores and 24 threads of execution at 2.4 GHz would be an impressive piece of desktop equipment. Almost certainly 10Gb Ethernet and 8 or 16 GB RAM module support would be needed to keep the cores fed.
If Apple had exclusive use of the chip for any serious length of time, it would either quickly dominate the power user market segment or force the competition to adopt an alternative: AMD’s Thuban.
We currently do not know if all future Mac Pro models will be using this hexacore Xeon or if Apple will keep quad core XEon for the entry level model. This could decrease significantly the price of the first Mac Pro, and maybe convince some Mac users desperately waiting for a Mac Pro mini to finally get one. It is also unclear if the enclosure will be modified or not.
So it looks like the baseline model runs about $200.
Official Google Blog: Google PowerMeter’s first device partner
The TED 5000 from Energy Inc. is an energy monitor that measures electricity usage in real-time (TED stands for “The Energy Detective”). As of today, we’re pleased to announce that anyone in North America can purchase and install the TED 5000 and see personal home energy data using our free software tool, Google PowerMeter, from anywhere you can access the web including through iGoogle for mobile phones.
Apparently, the GE product is designed for backwards compatibility with Blu-ray and DVD, keeping the drive cost lower and data rates faster than InPhase. Details in the article below.
GE tries to refocus image of holographic storage • The Register
Currently holographic storage products inhabit a graveyard or deep freeze. InPhase is currently seemingly in hibernation – not dead but showing little sign of life – though with a late 2009 ship date coming for its troubled $18,000 Tapestry drive and $180 per CD-size disks. UDO developer Plasmon is dead and gone, with a slight phoenix possibility in the shape of its asset purchaser, AST.
This is a very good article that explains why RAID arrays are about to become obsolete. I might have liked a few graphs that project when an EMC CX4 would no longer be a viable Enterprise storage option, but overall this article is a gem. If you work in data management, now is the time to start worrying.
RAID’s Days May Be Numbered – www.enterprisestorageforum.com
The bottom line is this: Disk density has increased far more than performance and hard error rates haven’t changed much, creating much greater RAID rebuild times and a much higher risk of data loss. In short, it’s a scenario that will eventually require a solution, if not a whole new way of storing and protecting data.
There’s the Apple Event, The Beatles Rockband, and last but not least the HST Servicing Mission 4 first public data release.
Why 09/09/09 Is So Special | LiveScience
Have special plans this 09/09/09?
We would never do this. Its probably illegal, but more to the point its expensive. Its a clever idea, though, and someday you may see one being sold on eBay for pennies on the dollar. If so, it may be worth bidding on.
How to run Mac OS X on a generic PC • Register Hardware
ASEM calls it EFI-X – or EFiX; they don’t seem to have made up their minds about this – as it’s an eXtension of Intel’s Extensible Firmware Interface. The ASEM extension includes everything the Intel hardware needs to assure a Mac OS X installation or update that it’s dealing with a kosher Macintosh.
