Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle
An online game has helped determine the structure of an enzyme that could pave the way for anti-Aids drugs, reports the BBC.
The game, called Foldit, allows players to create new shapes of proteins by randomly folding digital molecules on their computer screens.
In the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, scientists write that they have been puzzled by the protein's structure for over a decade. But it took the online community just a few days to produce the enzyme's model.
Google answers anti-trust charges
Just ahead of its grilling in front of the Senate in Washington, Google has set up a blog page answering some of the anti-competition allegations against it, reveals The Register.
Set up as a point-by-point statement and rebuttal, the Web page answers some of the accusations levelled at the search engine behemoth by business group Fairsearch, which includes e-commerce sites like Expedia and Tripadvisor, as well as other sites including review and business-listing site Yelp.
The critics say Google ranks search engine results to favour its own services: for example, ranking Google Places results above Yelp results for local business listings.
MS fires employee over tweets
A Microsoft employee who tweeted about an unreleased Nokia Windows phone earlier this month has left the company after being told that he violated Microsoft's social media policy, according to an All Things Digital report, writes Cnet.
It started on 7 September when Joe Marini, who worked as a Seattle-based principal program manager on the Windows Phone team, tweeted: “I just got a chance to try out one of the slickest looking #Nokia phones I have ever seen. Soon, you will too!” The tweet contained a Windows Phone 7 hashtag, #WP7.
Marini sent subsequent tweets about the device, including one that rated it an “8” and another that said “the camera was good, but I didn't have optimal lighting”.
Users cosy up to phones
People are having an increasingly intimate relationship with their smartphones, according to a new study by Ipsos/OTX on mobile consumers presented at TheWrap's media leadership conference, TheGrill, notes Reuters.
If computers are our sages and televisions are our jesters, Ipsos OTX president Bruce Friend says iPhones and Androids are our lovers.
“It's almost always turned on. It never leaves you. You have an intimate relationship with it,” Friend said.
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