He looks like a cartoon character

The genome of a squirrel-sized, saucer-eyed lemur from Madagascar may help scientists understand how HIV-like viruses coevolved with primates, according to new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine. The discovery, to be published online on Dec. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could provide insight into why non-human primates don’t get AIDS and lead to treatments for humans.

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pThis holiday season all kinds of products are coming equipped with GPS receivers to tell consumers exactly where on earth they are. The choices include dashboard navigators for cars, pocket navigators for humans, ldquo;golf buddiesrdquo; that reveal the distance between a golfer and greens and sand traps, and, most prominently, cell phones. GPS transponders also now track paroled criminals, errant pets, migrating elephants and retreating glaciers./ppPositioning satellites have been beaming signals for decades, but three converging factors are broadening the marketplace, according to Per K. Enge, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University. The size of the circuitry needed inside a receiver has shrunk. Circuit makers are selling that hardware to consumer electronics manufacturers for less than $5 a unit. ldquo;And Apple provided visibility,rdquo; Enge says, ldquo;by putting GPS into the iPhone.rdquo; Buyers loved it, proving there was a desire./p a href=http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-gps-units-work[More]/a

Motivation: Microarray designs have become increasingly probe-rich, enabling targeting of specific features, such as individual exons or single nucleotide polymorphisms. These arrays have the potential to achieve quantitative high-throughput estimates of transcript abundances, but currently these estimates are affected by biases due to cross-hybridization, in which probes hybridize to off-target transcripts.

Results: To study cross-hybridization, we map Affymetrix exon array probes to a set of annotated mRNA transcripts, allowing a small number of mismatches or insertion/deletions between the two sequences. Based on a systematic study of the degree to which probes with a given match type to a transcript are affected by cross-hybridization, we developed a strategy to correct for cross-hybridization biases of gene-level expression estimates. Comparison with Solexa ultra high-throughput sequencing data demonstrates that correction for cross-hybridization leads to a significant improve-ment of gene expression estimates.

Availability: We provide mappings between human and mouse exon array probes and off-target transcripts and provide software extending the GeneBASE program for generating gene-level expression estimates including the cross-hybridization correction http://biogibbs.stanford.edu/~kkapur/GeneBase/.

Contact: whwong@stanford.edu

Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Smivs writes "Logitech has hailed as a major landmark the production of their one billionth computer mouse. The news comes at a time when analysts claim the days of the mouse are numbered. "It's rare in human history that a billionth of anything has been shipped by one company," said Logitech's general manager Rory Dooley. "Look at any other industry and it has never happened. This is a significant milestone." The computer mouse will achieve a milestone of its own next week when it turns 40. It was 9 December 1968 when Douglas C. Engelbart and his group of researchers at Stanford University put the first mouse through its paces."pa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/03/1311210amp;from=rss"img src="http://hardware.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/12/03/1311210"/a/ppa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/03/1311210amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/FPZ5aNQkCFWPzc55vIUeMTiaK8s/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/FPZ5aNQkCFWPzc55vIUeMTiaK8s/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdotHardware/~4/8a0bSiA75aU" height="1" width="1"/

Smivs writes "Logitech has hailed as a major landmark the production of their one billionth computer mouse. The news comes at a time when analysts claim the days of the mouse are numbered. "It's rare in human history that a billionth of anything has been shipped by one company," said Logitech's general manager Rory Dooley. "Look at any other industry and it has never happened. This is a significant milestone." The computer mouse will achieve a milestone of its own next week when it turns 40. It was 9 December 1968 when Douglas C. Engelbart and his group of researchers at Stanford University put the first mouse through its paces."pa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/03/1311210amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/12/03/1311210"/a/ppa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/03/1311210amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/PjrTsPJCHrP6dMbEvDzxAGxhxz4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/PjrTsPJCHrP6dMbEvDzxAGxhxz4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/8a0bSiA75aU" height="1" width="1"/

img class=face src=http://planet.ubuntu.com/heads/uupc.png alt= pLaura Cowen, Alan Pope and Tony Whitmore present the nineteenth Ubuntu Podcast from the UK Local Community Support Team.br / br / In this episode:-/p ul li Yet more upgrade woes from Tony/li li Alan comes up with ideas for improving upgrades/li li The news/li ul li Adobe release Flash for 64-bit platform/li li Handbrake now available with a Linux GUI/li li a href=http://pinaxproject.com/Pinax/a hold a a href=http://contests.pinaxproject.com/competition/a to promote their platform/li li Ubuntu Jaunty Alpha a href=https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-November/000513.htmlavailable/a/li li SCO emstill/em suck/li li a href=http://crunchbanglinux.org/Crunchbang/a relaunches with a new website/li li Human powered protien folding app a href=http://fold.it/Fold It/a/li li a href=http://fedora.org/Fedora/a 10 released/li li Mozilla a href=http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-250172.htmlannounces/a end-of-life of Firefox 2.x/li/ul/ul li Jono Bacon a href=http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=1427announces/a the new a href=https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFreeCultureShowcaseUbuntu Free Culture Showcase/a/li li We talk about the upcoming events a href=http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDSJauntyUDS/a and a href=http://fosdem.org/FOSDEM/a/li li We discuss the a href=https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDSJauntyUbuntu Developer Summit/a and some a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/sprints/uds-jauntyblueprints/a which will hopefully be discussed at the summit/li ul li Encryption by default: a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/encrypted-home-directoryencrypted-home-directory/a, a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/encrypted-swap-by-defaultencrypted-swap-by-default/a/li li Power: a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/power-cappingpower-capping/a /li li Boot Speed: a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/jaunty-boot-performancejaunty-boot-performance/a, a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/jaunty-boot-performance-kerneljaunty-boot-performance-kernel/a, a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/boot-profilingboot-profiling/a, a href=https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/boot-io-efficiencyboot-io-efficiency/a/li /ul li Finally we have emlots/em of your feedback/li ul li Plenty about what people do post-install. Alan mentions a href=http://popey.com/Ubuntu_Post_Installhis blog post/a where he outlines what he does/li li Friend of the show Andy Stanford-Clark sends us photos of his low power setup including a Viglen MPC-L and what it replaces./li pa href=http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/img_9072.jpgimg class=alignnone size-medium wp-image-180 title=img_9072-small src=http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/img_9072-small.jpg alt=A big mess of cables //aa href=http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/img_9074.jpgimg class=alignnone size-medium wp-image-182 title=img_9074-small src=http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/img_9074-small.jpg alt=Slightly fewer cables //a /p/ul li Following the recording of this episode we were interviewed by Leo Laporte and Amber Macarthur for a href=http://twit.tv/natn76Net@Night/a/li pComments and suggestions are welcomed to: podcast@ubuntu-uk.orgbr / Up to 30 seconds of voicemail can be left at +44 (0) 845 508 1986br / Follow our twitter feed a href=http://twitter.com/uupchttp://twitter.com/uupc/abr / Follow us on Identi.ca a href=http://identi.ca/uupchttp://identi.ca/uupc/abr / Discuss this episode in the a href=http://uk.ubuntuforums.org/Forums/a/pLaura Cowen, Alan Pope and Tony Whitmore present the nineteenth Ubuntu Podcast from the UK Local Community Support Team. In this episode:- Yet more upgrade woes from Tony Alan comes up with ideas for improving upgrades The news Adobe release Flash for 64-bit platform Handbrake now available with a Linux GUI Pinax hold a competition to promote their platform Ubuntu Jaunty Alpha available SCO still suck Crunchbang relaunches with a new website Human powered protien folding app Fold It Fedora 10 released Mozilla announces end-of-life of Firefox 2.x Jono Bacon announces the new Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase We talk about the upcoming events UDS and FOSDEM We discuss the Ubuntu Developer Summit and some blueprints which will hopefully be discussed at the summit Encryption by default: encrypted-home-directory, encrypted-swap-by-default Power: power-capping Boot Speed: jaunty-boot-performance, jaunty-boot-performance-kernel, boot-profiling, boot-io-efficiency Finally we have lots of your feedback Plenty about what people do post-install. Alan mentions his blog post where he outlines what he does Friend of the show Andy Stanford-Clark sends us photos of his low power setup including a Viglen MPC-L and what it replaces. Following the recording of this episode we were interviewed by Leo Laporte and Amber Macarthur for Net@Night Comments and suggestions are welcomed to: podcast@ubuntu-uk.org Up to 30 seconds of voicemail can be left at +44 (0) 845 508 1986 Follow our twitter feed http://twitter.com/uupc Follow us on Identi.ca http://identi.ca/uupc Discuss this episode in the Forums

You might have heard of Doug Engelbart, and you might know him as the inventor of the computer mouse. But you probably don't know that he is one of the most influential computer visionaries of all time.

In the 1960s he and his colleagues were playing with concepts and designing systems that today we take for granted: visual interfaces, spreadsheets, email, and much, much more.

I had the great privilege of interviewing Mr Engelbart more than 3 years ago. I was at an event at Xerox PARC, a promotion for a book by New York Times journalist John Markoff "What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry."

The event featured a lot of early computer pioneers and many of them spoke about how they got inspired to work on computer design and systems development. Each one spoke about seeing a seminal demo by Doug Engelbart and how it changed their lives!

Some hadn't been at the demo but heard about it from others, and it still changed their lives! I was amazed at these stories, amazed that a demo could change people's lives, and amazed at the man behind the stories.

I didn't realize at the time that Doug Engelbart is still alive and was sitting just behind me.

After the event I was invited to a local restaurant where there were a few dozen people celebrating the publication of Mr Markoff's book. I was a little late in arriving and most people were crowded around Mr Markoff's table. Amazingly, the table with Mr Engelbart was half empty. I couldn't believe my luck and soon was sitting right next to him, and had an amazing conversation.

You can read the rest here...

A tribute to one of Silicon Valley's most influential and forgotten researchers

On Monday and Tuesday there is a celebration of Mr Engelbart's ground breaking "mother of all demos" at the Program for the Future Conference

It will feature:

• Professor Thomas Malone, Founding Director, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence
  
• Professor Hiroshi Ishii, Associate Director, MIT Media Laboratory
• Peter Norvig, Director of Research, Google
• Andries van Dam, Professor, Brown University
• Alan Kay, President, Viewpoints Research Institute
• Steve Wozniak, co-founder, Apple Computer, Inc.
  

December 8
- Speakers and Workshops on collective intelligence at The Tech Museum of Innovation,
201 South Market Street, San José (map). In keeping with Engelbart's vision of mass collaboration, this event brings together many communities -- education, business, nonprofit, social, political and technology. The day will end with a special tour, led by Peter Friess, President of The Tech Museum, through Leonardo: 500 Years into the Future, the largest exhibition of da Vinci's engineering, anatomical studies and art ever to visit the United States.

December 9- The morning program at Stanford University's Wallenberg Hall (map) is a Call to Action to organize ourselves to move forward to harness the collective intelligence of our community.

In the afternoon, SRI is celebrating the 40th anniversary of Engelbart's legendary "mother of all demos" at Stanford's Memorial Auditorium (map). We hope you will join us for that event as well.

Here is the demo!

Doug Engelbart: The Demo

- David Nordfors will be moderating a panel at the Stanford University event: The Innovation Journalism Blog: Come Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Engelbart's "Mother of All Demos"

We will be focusing on the big issue of 'collective intelligence'. This is a core issue for Doug Engelbart. He believes that humanity needs to develop its collective intelligence in order to solve the increasingly complex threats against it, such as environmental catastrophes, nuclear wars and pandemics. The combination of information technology and human society can bootstrap the collective IQ we need to encounter these threats.

- - -
Please see:
SVW: Exclusive interview with seminal 1960s computer visionary Doug Engelbart -- he's still here and looking for funding...how the Sixties counterculture smashed the work of leading computer researchers

What if Buckminster Fuller were still alive and looking for funding? I'm still in shock at Silicon Valley's blindness regarding Doug Engelbart


Silicon Valley's Most Innovative Thinker Warns of Big Problems

Believe it or not, in the old days here, and before at the EDD and a printshop, I overlooked resumes and gave out advice. This was in the days of the typewriter and the one page resume rule. Now resumes are slightly larger and often emailed so over one page is not an automatic dismissal.

I was thinking of getting a PT job while I was building my business and going to school. I put my regular experience down, the accredited education, objective, etc.

But I was thinking of putting in trade school, unaccredited info into my resumes. Good Idea? I went to the Microsoft technician's school to get my Microsoft Certification training (places like that would be New Horizons, Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus, and Full Sail).

All Microsoft schools are required, then by Bill Gates, to only go for the lowest possible standard, sound familar?, and are only accredited by the US Department of Education. But that's the lowest form of accredidation and used for business license purposes mostly.

The real and only accredidation for the education section of a resume are the regional accrediting bodies, like the Western Association of Schools and Colleges which covers K-12, junior colleges, and senior colleges like Stanford, Cal, and San Jose State, for instance.

Do any of you put in trade schools into your education section or is that a strict no-no?

Thanks in advance.