In Conversation

Google: Info Gobbling is a Two-Way Street

Google will no longer let other services automatically import its users’ email contact data for their own purposes, unless the information flows both ways. It accused Facebook in particular of siphoning up Google contact data, without allowing for the automatic import and export of Facebook users’ information.

Life on Earth on Mars

“We think that if there is life on Mars, it could be related to us,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineer and scientist Christopher Carr told Discovery News.

With NASA funding, Carr and colleagues at MIT are developing a prototype device to decode alien DNA, a project known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Genomes (SETG). They hope to fly an instrument as part of a joint NASA-European Space Agency mission to Mars slated to launch in 2018.

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The idea of looking for transplanted life stemmed from studies of meteorites from Mars that landed on Earth. Mars and Earth have swapped about a billion tons of rock over the years, Carr says, and experiments show that some hitch-hiking microbes can survive the journey.

Non-Violence in Video Games

You can safely add Fallout: New Vegas to the list of open-world titles which completely endorse the doctrine of complete and total pacifism. NeoGAF user Water_Wendi recently posted a screenshot featuring some braggable statistics after completing the game’s campaign and nearly all of its quests: zero people or creatures were killed during the proceedings.

Ebert & Gruber on "Superman"

Ebert: Superman pointed the way for a B picture genre of earlier decades to transform itself into the ruling genre of today.

Gruber: Not a word, though, for John Williams’s score, which I’d argue did as much to make this movie work as anything visible on screen. Effects and scenes that looked like B-movie cheesiness instead felt like they were real, because of that music.

75-MPG Plug-In BMW

The car features an all-alloy 1.5-liter three-cylinder turbodiesel-and-electric motor up front and another electric motor at the rear. All told, the system’s good for 328 horsepower. BMW says the car will do zero to 100 kilometers an hour [62 mph] in 4.8 seconds, while returning 75.1 mpg and emitting 99 grams of CO2 per kilometer. Those are mighty impressive numbers for a car of this caliber — assuming it actually gets built, of course. A lithium-polymer battery of undisclosed size would allow you to tool around on electricity for up to 31 miles. Auto Express says we can expect production versions to use a gasoline engine and one electric motor to simplify things.

ex-Xserve

Apple: “Xserve will no longer be available after January 31, but we’ll continue to fully support it.”

Mesopotamiam Genuine Draft

Scientists report evidence in the journal Nature of ancient beer in a 5,000-year-old jug at Godin Tepe in the central Zagros Mountains of Iran. It’s the earliest trace of beer ever discovered.

Researchers just the previous year had confirmed evidence of wine from around the same time at the same site, which became a fortress on the Silk Road. But later texts from the area suggest beer was the more popular beverage in lower Mesopotamia and was drunk by common folk as well as the upper class.

The discovery of residue from beer-brewing in the interior grooves of a jug from the site supported the idea that beer was the preferred fermented beverage among the Sumerians.

Ferrell Most Overpaid Actor in Hollywood

1. Will Ferrell (for every $1 Ferrell was paid, his films earned an average $3.35)
2. Eddie Murphy (for every $1 Murphy gets paid, his films earn an average $4.45)
3. Denzel Washington (for every $1 Washington earned, his films returned an average $5.10)
4. Seth Rogen (for every $1 Rogen was paid, his movies earned $6.75)
5. Tom Cruise (for every $1 Cruise was paid, his films earned an average $7.20)
6. Drew Barrymore (for every $1 Barrymore was paid, her films earned an average $7.45)
7. Matt Damon (for every $1 Damon gets paid, his films earn an average $8.30)
8. Vince Vaughn (for every $1 Vaughn was paid, his films earned $8.35)
9. Adam Sandler (for every $1 Sandler was paid, his films earned around $8.45)
10. Jim Carrey (for every $1 paid, his films earned $8.60)

Trek-Style Skin Scanners Being Tested

The new ‘Star Trek-Style’ probe beams infra-red light through the skin to see 2mm below the surface and allows doctors to map how far a cancer has spread with far greater accuracy. The VivoSight Multi-Beam probe is being tested at Guy’s Hospital in London.

Marc Andreessen to Launch New Browser

RockMelt is built on the premise that most online activity today revolves around socializing on Facebook, searching on Google, tweeting on Twitter and monitoring a handful of favorite websites.