drewmoney notes a BBC article on a major UK study of whether cell towers (or “mobile phone masts” as they are called in the UK) cause illness. The study concluded strongly that symptoms of illness caused by mobile phone masts are all in the mind. People claiming sensitivity to radio emissions showed more symptoms in trials, according to the article, whether signals were being emitted or not. Quoting: “Dozens of people who believed the masts triggered symptoms such as anxiety, nausea and tiredness could not detect if signals were on or off in trials. However, the Environmental Health Perspectives study stressed people were nonetheless suffering ‘real symptoms.’ Campaign group Mast Sanity said the results were skewed as 12 people in the trials dropped out because of illness.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
More: continued here
coondoggie writes “Ocean City, New Jersey is a nice, family-oriented beach that will apparently soon be the high-tech model for seashore lovers and now perhaps geeks everywhere. The city has on its plate a $3 million plan for myriad public services and Internet access using radio-frequency identification chips (RFID) and Wi-Fi wireless technology. A wireless network will let Ocean City expand economic development and control the cost of local services. Wireless allows the City to save on cell phone usage, T-1 lines, and it adds efficiency. The city is looking to replace its ubiquitous but mostly annoying beach tags — which indicate you paid to get on the beach $5 per day, $10 for a week, or $20 for the whole summer — with wristbands that contain an RFID chip. Yet another cool feature of the high-tech beach will be the ability to track beachgoers — an application that is being touted by parents.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
More: continued here
AP – Microsoft Corp. on Thursday said it would trim the price of an HD DVD player add-on for its Xbox 360 video game console and give away movies with the player, in a bid to support the format.
More: continued here
Reuters – Sprint Nextel Corp. said on Thursday it would develop with Google Inc. a new mobile Internet portal using WiMax wireless technology to offer Web search and social networking.
More: continued here
OpenBDSfan writes “KernelTrap is reporting on the creation of the OpenBSD Foundation, a Canadian not-for-profit corporation intended to support OpenBSD and related projects, including OpenSSH, OpenBGPD, OpenNTPD, and OpenCVS. The announcement explains, “the OpenBSD Foundation will initially concentrate on facilitating larger donations of equipment, funds, documentation and resources. Small scale donations should continue to be submitted through the existing mechanisms.”"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
More: continued here
Reuters – A battle of the bands is shaping up in the red-hot genre of musical video games, with a highly anticipated debut title set to take on a hit franchise for the collective rock 'n' roll soul of gamers.
More: continued here
Roland Piquepaille writes “When oncologists meet a new patient affected by a cancer, they have to take decisions about the best possible treatment. Now, U.S. researchers have devised an algorithm which matches tumor profiles to best treatments. They’ve used a panel of 60 diverse human cancer cell lines from the National Cancer Institute — called NCI-60 — to develop their “coexpression extrapolation (COXEN) system.” As said one researcher, “we believe we have found an effective way to personalize cancer therapy.” Preliminary results have been encouraging and clinical trials are now planned.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
More: continued here
Reuters – Sony Corp. said its first-quarter profit more than trippled, beating expectations, after strong digital camera sales and a softer yen far outweighed losses on the struggling PlayStation 3 game console.
More: continued here
AFP – Japan's Sony Corp. said Thursday its quarterly net profit more than doubled as surging sales of cameras and televisions offset swelling losses from its beleaguered PlayStation 3.
More: continued here
