hadron

Microsoft is apparently willing to pay Rupert Murdoch to block Google from indexing any of his company's Web sites. Are we headed toward a world where the search engine you use determines what news you get? Probably not. We explain why Murdoch may be thinking in an old fashioned limited way rather than in the current infinite Internet way. We also declare the patent office baroque, and ask it to lose weight.

Microsoft offers to pay News Corp. to “de-list” … Read more

Why the long Face...book? A woman battling depression put some pictures of herself having fun privately on Facebook. Somehow the insurance company found them and cut off her benefits saying she looked happy enough and must be cured. Really? We also get further impressions on Google's Chrome OSD now that we've had more time with it, and YouTube pulls a Hulu, but not in the good way.

Try out Chrome OS for yourself http://gdgt.com/google/chrome-os/download/ … Read more

I am all for discovering the Meaning of Life. And though I was once concerned that you could never trust scientists enough to find it, many wise people persuaded me that we should still try.

However, I am concerned with the news reported by the Guardian that a hungry bird has halted testing on the Large Hadron Collider.

The Collider, positioned on the increasingly sensitive border between France and Switzerland, has been quiet for more than a year after electrical faults and helium leaks.

It is now being tested to prepare it for action and reaction. However, a de-beaked piece … Read more

First, apologies for the song that will be stuck in your head for at least a week. Blame the chat room. In the news today, the T-Mobile Sidekick outage, the ongoing Facebook outage, the IBM outage that briefly crippled Air New Zealand, and the unbelievable failure that is the PSP Go launch. It's a fun show.

T-Mobile: We probably lost all your Sidekick data http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/10/t-mobile-we-probably-lost-all-your-sidekick-data/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10372521-1.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10372525-56.htm … Read more

A 32-year-old nuclear physicist, part of the Large Hadron Collider project on the Swiss-French border, has been arrested by French police on suspicion of involvement with al-Qaeda.

According to The Independent, the arrest was made after anti-terrorist police had followed his movements for more than a year. Le Figaro newspaper suggested that the man's name had originally come to light in connection with the "Afghan network" of terrorist groups based in Europe.

Of Algerian origin, he was arrested together with his brother, who was not working on the Collider.

Sources told The Independent that the scientist was … Read more

The world's largest particle accelerator is on course for a November restart. Six out of eight superconducting sectors are down to working cryogenic temperatures, according to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

James Gillies, head of communications for CERN, told ZDNet UK on Monday that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) would probably be ready to collide beams of particles by mid-November.

"Things are going well," said Gillies. "We hesitate to say 'hurray' just yet, but things are going smoothly."

Gillies said CERN plans to restart the giant experiment in incremental stages.

Read more of … Read more

I don't know. It must be the low blood sugar but I called us the podcast of indeterminate lake. But we still were able to talk sensibly about the Twitter DoS targeted at one specific person. We also cheer on the FCC as they hold ISPs feet to the fire. And Adobe is the new Microsoft. We'll tell you why.

Twitter, Facebook attack targeted one user http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10305200-245.html

FCC wants real answers from ISPs on broadband … Read more

After a year of setbacks, CERN plans to restart its Large Hadron Collider in November at a tempo that won't overtax the machinery behind the giant particle physics experiment.

The collider, located deep underground on the border between France and Switzerland, will start out running at an energy level of 3.5 trillion electron volts (TeV) per beam, about half the energy that CERN expects eventually. The physicists will inject and capture high-energy beams running in each direction on the circular collider's 17-mile circumference, log data over a number of weeks, and simply get themselves up to speed … Read more

The latest delays to the restart of the Large Hadron Collider are likely to have been caused by a faulty hose, according to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Liquid helium leaks in the world's largest particle accelerator were probably caused by a problem with a flexible hose in the liquid helium transport circuits, the organization said an article in its official bulletin, published on Friday.

The hose vented helium into the vacuum insulation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), CERN officials suspect.

CERN has revised the restart date of the LHC several times since the experiment was … Read more