A new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, published on USENET newsgroups has revealed that snatching some daytime shut-eye can improve cognitive abilities. Newsgroup subscribers are reporting that the study suggests taking a brief siesta not only refreshes the mind, but can also make you smarter. The new findings support previous data from the same research team that pulling an all-nighter – a common practice at college during midterms and finals –- decreases the ability to cram in new facts by nearly 40 percent, due to a shutdown of brain regions during sleep deprivation.
“Sleep not only rights the wrong of prolonged wakefulness but, at a neurocognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap,” said lead investigator Matthew Walker.
Walker and his team gave 39 students a tricky learning task at noon, and then packed half of them off for forty winks. Later that day, they were all given a new set of tests. The findings come as other reports cited a study which linked insomnia and sleep deprivation to the shrinking of grey matter in the brain. The participants were given another round of tasks at 6 p.m. The researchers said that the no-nap group became worse at learning as the day progressed. The nap takers, however, actually improved their learning capacity, the researchers said.
However, not everyone in the newsgroup community shares that belief, with some experts claiming there’s no clear evidence to suggest daytime naps provide a person with more obvious brain benefit than when they simply get a good dose of sleep once every 24 hours. The research found that chronic insomnia compromised brain capacity and had consequences for decision-making.
Walker has presented the preliminary findings on Sunday, Feb. 21, at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego, Calif.
Microsoft is transforming Outlook from an e-mail client, or messaging platform, to a social networking hub with the addition of social connectors. The product, called Outlook Social Connector, has been available in the Office 2010 beta for some time now and now expands the service to 2003 and 2007 Office versions.
In a Tuesday blog post, Microsoft said the LinkedIn partnership, which was the first add-on for Outlook Social Connector, lets users access their LinkedIn accounts and view contacts’ profiles alongside their e-mails. Additionally, contact and network information is all synced to users’ inboxes. Developers can build connections to third party social networking feeds using the Outlook Social Connector SDK.
Integrating social networking together with scheduling and email application has hit the headlines lately with Google’s botched rollout of Buzz. While Microsoft is aiming its Outlook social connector at businesses, it should be acutely aware that privacy will have the potential to make or break its rollout of this feature. The difference comes down to sharing content, which Buzz originally enthusiastically buttressed, but was then virtually maimed as privacy concerns were made due to how much information about the user is revealed.
This is not the first time that Microsoft has integrated social networking to the email client. Outlook Express, with Usenet support, is still one of the most popular newsgroup newsreaders to date.
In the Outlook Social Connector case, Microsoft has some incumbent advantage because millions of people use Outlook for many uses, including access USENET newsgroups. The Outlook Social Connector will let them read status updates in software they’re already accustomed to using, often continuously throughout the day. Facebook and MySpace plug-ins to Outlook Social Connector can be expected by the time Office 2010 hits the shelves. Office 2010 is currently in beta and Microsoft plans to release it to manufacturing by June.
It’s not yet clear whether or not Social Connector will work for people who are tied to a network that has social networking sites blocked. Microsoft said connectors for Facebook and MySpace will be available in the first half of 2010. Users of Office 2003, 2007, and beta versions of 2010 can download the updated software as of today.
Microsoft is transforming Outlook from an e-mail client, or messaging platform, to a social networking hub with the addition of social connectors. The product, called Outlook Social Connector, has been available in the Office 2010 beta for some time now and now expands the service to 2003 and 2007 Office versions.
In a Tuesday blog post, Microsoft said the LinkedIn partnership, which was the first add-on for Outlook Social Connector, lets users access their LinkedIn accounts and view contacts’ profiles alongside their e-mails. Additionally, contact and network information is all synced to users’ inboxes. Developers can build connections to third party social networking feeds using the Outlook Social Connector SDK.
Integrating social networking together with scheduling and email application has hit the headlines lately with Google’s botched rollout of Buzz. While Microsoft is aiming its Outlook social connector at businesses, it should be acutely aware that privacy will have the potential to make or break its rollout of this feature. The difference comes down to sharing content, which Buzz originally enthusiastically buttressed, but was then virtually maimed as privacy concerns were made due to how much information about the user is revealed.
This is not the first time that Microsoft has integrated social networking to the email client. Outlook Express, with Usenet support, is still one of the most popular newsgroup newsreaders to date.
In the Outlook Social Connector case, Microsoft has some incumbent advantage because millions of people use Outlook for many uses, including access USENET newsgroups. The Outlook Social Connector will let them read status updates in software they’re already accustomed to using, often continuously throughout the day. Facebook and MySpace plug-ins to Outlook Social Connector can be expected by the time Office 2010 hits the shelves. Office 2010 is currently in beta and Microsoft plans to release it to manufacturing by June.
It’s not yet clear whether or not Social Connector will work for people who are tied to a network that has social networking sites blocked. Microsoft said connectors for Facebook and MySpace will be available in the first half of 2010. Users of Office 2003, 2007, and beta versions of 2010 can download the updated software as of today.
In today’s Activision Blizzard’s conference call, reporting the results for the 2009 fourth quarter, it witnessed a much-awaited announcement: that the closed beta of its new game ‘StarCraft 2’ will begin sometime this month. The news came from Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime when he spoke to investors which were cross-posted to several gaming newsgroups.
“We are slated to begin closed beta testing this month,” said Morhaime, specifying that the multiplayer test will be available to participants across various countries. The beta will also help Blizzard test and optimize its new Battle.net service, which it plans to launch and implement in all future Blizzard game titles.
Morhaime stressed that the upcoming long-awaited beta test would be instrumental in allowing players not just to test and offer feedback on the highly-anticipated RTS title, but to do the same for the revamped Battle.net 2.0 – “the home of all Blizzard games going forward.”
The beta will begin before the end of the month, with the game itself set for release in the middle of 2010. The official site for upcoming real-time strategy game StarCraft II has a preview of Blizzard Entertainment’s updated Battle.net online service. Greg Canessa, project director for Battle.net, says in a video preview the overhaul will focus on three tenets: always keeping players connected, offering a competitive arena for all players and connecting them more closely to the Blizzard community. “Our vision for the new Battle.net is to build a world-class online game service for all Blizzard games,” says Canessa in the video.
The game has been in development for a number of years, but was first announced in May 2007. Since that time, Blizzard has released a plethora of content about the title, including whole competitive multiplayer matches between members of its development staff and e-sports players of the original StarCraft. The original StarCraft game, alongside Diablo, was a huge hit with many newsgroup subscribers who have waited a long time for this release. The title is still on track for a mid-2010 release.
Another interesting fact disclosed about ‘StarCraft 2’ is that the game will be made available for download on Activision’s new Battle. net site, which will essentially be a singular place for playing and experiencing all Activision games. The new updated service will also provide gamers the ability to communicate with one another – both across the World of WarCraft dominion, as well as the other games.
Don’t go getting too excited about all this StarCraft 2 talk just yet though. Blizzard is still sticking to plans to divide the full game into a trilogy of smaller titles and has spoken often about the increased casual appeal of the new StarCraft, both of which have hardcore fans on the edge of their seats. StarCraft II will be released in one game this year, Wings of Liberty and two expansion packs later on, Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. Though newsgroups are still determining the exact date of the beta launch, we do know it will take place in multiple countries. StarCraft II is due sometime in the middle of the year, though probably not before the end of June.
Many newsgroups are already defining 2010 as “the year of the tablet”, and whilst Apple’s fantastically covered iPad seemingly struggles to live up to the hype, there’s no shortage of competition in what’s sure to be a fiercely-contested form factor. After Steve Jobs announced the device, it’s hard not to associate the term ‘tablet’ with Apple’s iPad. But if anyone thinks Apple is going to own the market outright, they might have to think again. As tech newsgroups discuss, expect a deluge of tablet PCs to emerge this year and next to keep the newly flooded market competitive.
The iPad was announced yesterday which certainly challenged the veteran Kindle, the newer Barnes and Noble Nook and even the failing CrunchPad. With a 9.7″ screen and Apple’s familiar interface, the iPad admittedly seems like a big iPhone. But Apple boasts that this piece of hardware sports features such as Apple’s ARM A4 chip, the latest in wireless technology, upgradable 3G capability, a color screen, use of the full Apple app library, up to 64 GB of flash storage, and a claimed 10 hour runtime while running video or other media applications. But before you go running out to snag one; MSI has also announced that they plan to launch a new tablet PC in the second half of this year which will be based on NVIDIA’s Tegra platform. The device was first seen at CES earlier this month, sporting Google’s Android operating system. MSI have also confirmed that they will launch a number of different tablets running other platforms, including Windows 7. ‘
Also in the mix is the HP Slate. Full specifications of the slate haven’t been confirmed, but what is being shared on UseNet is that it too will run an NVIDIA Tegra chipset, presumably the second-gen model announced at CES 2010 earlier this month. That would give it 1080p HD support and extensive battery life, potentially far longer than the 10hrs runtime the iPad can muster. It can also multitask, is Flash-capable, and basically serves as a portable desktop, with the ability to run your standard desktop apps. Uncertainty increases when you factor in HP’s less-than-stellar performance with their Touch screen tablet PCs a few years back.
Expect to see this, and a wave of other tablets, coming out for at least the next 16 months. Meanwhile, the big question we wonder is whether UseNet newsgroups will be able to be accessed with these devices. If so, with what? The iPad has answered the question first so far, as it supposedly natively supports the AppStore applications – which include a couple of quite capable newsreaders. Additionally, MacMail also natively has a feature to subscribe to newsgroups which are built in to the iPad. How the Android inspired device or the Windows versions of these tablets will cover newsgroups subscriptions remain to be seen.
President Obama sent his first Twitter message this past Monday and following suit, Bill Gates, philanthropist and former chairman of Microsoft, has now joined the Usenet-esque site as well, sending out his first Twitter tweet yesterday.
The Usenet inspired service got its first “Hello World,” from Gates. “Hard at work on my foundation letter — publishing on 1/25.” Gates shared. Bill Gates has tweeted five times since then, including re-tweets from US celebrity Ryan Seacrest and Time Magazine about efforts in Haiti as well as a message to another US celebrity, Ashton Kutcher, thanking him “and all the other people who have welcomed me.”
In the one day that Gates has been on Twitter, he has amassed almost 250,000 followers and has been included on more than 7,000 Twitter Lists. At this point, though, Gates is following only 40 people, including George Stephanopolous, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, a handful of tech reporters, the White House and several humanitarian organizations like UNICEF. In his bio section on Twitter, Gates lists his hometown as Seattle, WA and says he’s interested in “Sharing cool things I’m learning through my foundation work and other interests.”
Gates’ joining coincided with the site being down for some time on Tuesday afternoon, prompting industry watchers to speculate whether this was the Bill affect. It is not known if Bill Gates has ever been or remains active with Usenet newsgroups. It is very possible that with the dozens of Microsoft newsgroups that exist – some that have actually been the first tier of support for customers since the early days – that indicate he has had some exposure to it in one fashion or another over time.
Gates had previously also joined and used Facebook to post pictures of his trips to Africa and India, as well as information about his philanthropic organization, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he was forced to give up on the social networking phenomenon after too many people wanted to be his friend. Gates, who remains Microsoft chairman, said he had trouble figuring out whether he “knew this person, did I not know this person”. “It was just way too much trouble so I gave it up,” Gates told the business forum. Twitter may cause the same frustration. Twitter time will tell.
Environmental newsgroups are topped with discussions about the United States’ existing mountaintop removal regulations and how they are inadequate, leading to “pervasive and irreversible” damage to the environment and threatening human health.
As these Usenet newsgroups have explained, mountaintop coal mining, common in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern part of the nation, is a form of mining where mountains peaks are removed to access the coal seams below. Reports have come through that a team of 12 scientists, hydrologists and engineers conducted the most comprehensive analysis to date of the damage done by mountaintop mining. Their finding have since surprised the research team and moved its members to urge the federal government to stop issuing permits for mountaintop mining.
Surprisingly little attention has been paid to this growing scientific evidence of the damages: “Regulators should no longer ignore rigorous science.” read one quote from a published article in a science journal about the matter. New permits shouldn’t be granted, they argued, “Unless new methods can be subjected to rigorous peer review and shown to remedy these problems.”
The article “Mountaintop Mining Consequences” appears in the Jan. 8, 2010, edition of “Science”. The internationally recognized group of hydrologists, ecologists, and engineers, on newsgroups, which includes several members of the National Academy of Sciences, says the United States should stop issuing mountaintop mining permits.
Coal is both a blessing and a curse for the United States and the planet. Coal is plentiful–far more plentiful than petroleum, for example–and power plants currently supply about half of the electricity used by the United States. At the same time, burning coal contributes 36.5 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions, a greenhouse gas that is partly responsible for global warming, as well as a significant percentage of other pollutants. Despite some of the drawbacks of burning coal, for the time being at least we need coal–although we also need cleaner ways to use it–but we don’t need mountaintop mining.
TigerUsenet hopes that all of you are having a safe and happy winter-holiday season. We thank you for all your support throughout the year. We look forward to 2010 and continuing to serve all of our customers with the same high quality USENET services and support we expect to consistently deliver.
In 2009, our TigerUsenet staff has been able to upgrade our customers to new features and upgraded USENET services, all at no additional charge. We expect in 2010 to offer even more benefits and features as part of our commitment to deliver reliable, uncensored, throttled newsgroup services at affordable prices.
All of us at TigerUsenet know you have a choice for a USENET newsgroup provider and we appreciate your patronage and loyalty. For this coming New Year, you can continue to expect us to deliver the very best USENET access available. Thank you and Happy Holidays from TigerUsenet.
Astronomers and space enthusiasts are on newsgroups discussing the discovery made Wednesday that they had found a planet composed mostly of water. It is one of the lightest and smallest so-called extrasolar planets found, part of a growing class of planets less than 10 times the mass of Earth. The planet, prosaically named GJ 1214b, is one of more than 400 exoplanets now known to exist in the universe but one of only a handful of “super-Earths,” having a rocky mass up to 10 times that of Earth’s.
Only 2.7 times the size of Earth and 6.6 times as massive, the planet takes 38 hours to circle a dim red star, GJ 1214, in the constellation Ophiuchus – about 40 light-years from here. It orbits so close to its parent star that its surface temperature hovers around 200 Celsius, hot like an oven. The close proximity of GJ1214b should make it possible for the Hubble Telescope to establish the composition of its atmosphere. That planet is lifeless, but finding it strongly increases the likelihood that before long another distant Earth-like planet will be found orbiting another sunlike star and bearing some unknown form of life, says a leading astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley.
Its discovery has encouraged a growing feeling among astronomers on USENET newsgroups that they are on the verge of a breakthrough and getting closer to finding a planet that something could live on. The results come courtesy of the MEarth project (a description is available via the arXiv), which is based on Mount Hopkins in Arizona. The other discoveries are reported in two articles to be published in the Astrophysical Journal by an American-Australian team led by Steven Vogt of UC Santa Cruz, and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. The group, which includes astronomers Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor, who discovered the very first extra-solar planet in 1995, found the new exoplanet after scanning 2,000 very small sun-like stars with an automated bank of eight small telescopes.
Star Wars and Lucas Arts related newsgroups announced today that they’re preparing to launch the sequel “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2” sometime in the next coming year.
The sequel to the original has been expected for quite some time now, as the first LucasArts game was a massive hit in 2008, selling over 5.7 million copies till Feb. 2009. The new Star Wars volume is largely set in an unexplored era of the “Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith” and “Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope”. Once again, players will assume the role of Starkiller, and the plot promising to pick up where the original concluded. You’ll be playing as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice during the time between Episodes III and IV.
Nevertheless, we hope LucasArts can follow the examples set by a few in recent months by making a sequel that actually addresses the faults of the original. Or by remaking the first level of The Force Unleashed and extending it into a full game, thus making a game where the entire point is to ping wookies off of treetops using your mind.
The trailer for the game was released during the Electronics Arts week on the 12th of December in Los Angeles, which also doubled as the game’s world premiere. The game is expected to launch on all consoles.
Archeology and Paleontology newsgroups are discussing a new dinosaur species that’s bringing new discoveries to local scientists. USENET newsgroups report that the University of Utah researchers are part of a team that’s discovered a new species of meat-eating dinosaur, along with new evidence linking the beast to birds.
The new species was named Tawa after the Hopi word for the Puebloan sun god. Tawa is part of a group of dinosaurs called Theropods, which includes the meat-eating species T. Rex and Velociraptor. The most complete skeleton belongs to a juvenile that stood around 70cm tall at the hips and measured two metres from snout to tail.
The paleontology newsgroups report that the animals’ remains are in such good condition palaeontologists suspect they were buried very soon after dying. Examination of the fossils revealed air-filled sacs in the bones, a feature that links the dinosaurs with the evolution of birds much later.
Randall Irmis, with the Utah Museum of Natural History said, “When we first saw the bones we were really excited because we could tell it was a new species. And we could also see the bones were really well preserved for being 213 million years old so we knew we could get a lot of information about it.
Paleontologists have long speculated about the connection between dinosaurs and modern birds, but Tawa Hallae is one of the earliest dinosaurs to share bone structure characteristics with birds. In one newsgroup message, the Utah Paleontologist shares
“It turns out that all birds today have these air sacs in their neck; and those air sacs leave evidence on bones by way of little holes in the vertebrae, the neck bones,” he explains. “Tawa, the new species, is the earliest evidence for these air sacs in the neck in dinosaurs, and it just adds to the evidence that dinosaurs are related to birds.”
This new dinosaur Tawa hallae changes our understanding of the relationships of early dinosaurs and provides fantastic insight into the evolution of the skeleton of the first carnivorous dinosaurs.
TigerUsenet hopes that all of you are having a safe and happy winter-holiday season. We thank you for all your support throughout the year. We look forward to 2010 and continuing to serve all of our customers with the same high quality USENET services and support we expect to consistently deliver.
