genes

A Verizon iPhone in 2011 will certainly shake up the smartphone market, but it may not add much to Apple's overall numbers as most of the early adopters will be people simply switching from AT&T to Verizon, said Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster in a research note released today.

Now factoring in the likely launch of a Verizon iPhone during the first half of 2011, Munster expects Verizon will add around 2.5 million iPhones on its own next year but cannibalize around 6.5 million from AT&T.

Under this scenario, the number of iPhone … Read more

The FBI has launched an investigation into an online protest that allegedly took down numerous Web sites belonging to antipiracy and entertainment groups, as well as the U.S. Copyright Office, a source with knowledge of the probe told CNET today.

Over the past two months, a group calling itself "Anonymous," with links to the 4chan Web forum and image board, has launched distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) against Web sites operated by the Motion Picture Association of America, The Recording Industry Association (RIAA), Hustler magazine, rocker Gene Simmons, The British Phonographic Industry, and other similar groups in France, … Read more

If you've ever allowed yourself to be subjected to Kiss songs, you'll know that they are jolly, somewhat empty-headed, and entirely innocent.

If you've ever allowed yourself to be subjected to a reality show called "Gene Simmons' Family Jewels," you'll know that the Kiss frontman is a man with a lovely family, experience of plastic surgery, and opinions that suggest a slight smattering of oldy-worldy self-righteousness.

How entirely stunning, then, that this wealthy aging, platform-booted man seems to have encountered a little difficulty with those who are able to put the digital boot in … Read more

A new database and software, called ChIP Enrichment Analysis, or ChEA, is set to revolutionize how researchers identify drug targets and biomarkers, developers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York reported in today's issue of Bioinformatics.

The team says that until ChEA was developed, no centralized database integrated results from, for instance, ChIP-seq and ChIP-chip experiments (these are used to identify how "transcription factor" proteins might regulate all genes in humans and mice). Now this new computational method should help streamline how scientists analyze these gene expression experiments.

"Our program allows researchers to … Read more

IBM is once again king of the patents.

For the 17th year in a row, Big Blue earned the most U.S. patents of any company in the world, grabbing 4,914 patents in 2009. Second place Samsung took home 3,611 patents, while Microsoft batted third with 2,906 patents.

Just one of the patents IBM earned for the year was given to Big Blue inventor John Gunnels for an invention to ensure that the internal communications network for the company's Blue Gene supercomputer is running properly.

With almost 5,000 under its belt for the year, IBM … Read more

It took 13 years for researchers to catalog all the information in a human genome the first time. Now IBM believes it can do better--somewhat perversely by equipping a newer genetic sequencing method with brakes.

Big Blue is among those who believe electronics technology can be applied to the task of sequencing a person's genes, thereby bringing genetic testing into the computing era and lowering its cost to something like $100 to $1,000.

IBM is working on prototype DNA-processing electronics that slurps strands of DNA through an extremely small hole called a nanopore, measuring the electrical properties of … Read more

Updated 2.14pm PST with a correction from Profiles in History

There could be some high-pitched squealing and ethereally egregious excitement afoot when serial number F4200NUM0001 goes up for auction on October 8 and 9.

For this serial number represents the bidding war that is sure to ensue when a certain Apple Macintosh Plus is offered to the public's paddles.

This is no ordinary Macintosh. This was thought to be the first Macintosh Plus ever made. (See correction below) And its owner was Gene Roddenberry. Yes, he whose fingers went where no man had ever gone before.

According to Reuters, … Read more

While Taito has already released an iPhone port of the original Space Invaders, we'd recommend you slide past that and buy, instead, a spectacular revamp that launched this week on the App Store by the name of Space Invaders Infinity Gene.

As you'll quickly see from the trailer above and gallery below, this shooter is Space Invaders in spirit and design, but in execution it's a full-fledged arcade onslaught of power-ups, boss battles, and a thumping techno soundtrack that pulses along perfectly. This isn't Taito's first reinvention of Space Invaders: its Space Invaders Extreme was … Read more

Personally, I'm more of a karaoke buff, but for those of you who aren't as secure about your voice as I am about mine, I got something you might want to check out.

It's a fully equipped, axe-shaped guitar controller for PlayStation Guitar Hero and Rock Band games. The controller is a three-quarter replica of Kiss bassist and vocalist Gene Simmons' signature bass guitar and is slightly larger than standard video game guitar controllers.

The Gene Simmons Axe controller is compatible with both PlayStation 2 and 3. It's customized with a replicated paint finish of the … Read more