Tussle in Brussels: The EC’s Oracle-Sun Hearing, Day 1

Oracle is defending its planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems before the European Commission this week, and according to the company’s legal team, the first day of arguments went quite well. “I am extremely happy,” Oracle attorney Thomas Vinje said of the first half of the two-day hearing in Brussels.

And evidently for good reason. Oracle (ORCL) has managed to muster a substantial list of customers willing to argue that its purchase of Sun (JAVA), and more specifically, ofSource: Digital Daily RSS Feed

Climategate reaches the British House of Lords

The House of Lords meets in a lavishly decorated chamber, in the Gothic style, in the Palace of Westminster (see below). Image from Wikipedia

There is the issue of the science, which I had previously taken as given; but many people’s faith is being tested. We are often told that the science is settled. I suppose that is what the Inquisition said to Galileo. If so, why are we spending millions of pounds on research? The science is far from settled. – Lord Turnbull DecSource: Watts Up With That? RSS Feed

The Huglight, or, Sappy Name, Sweet Product

If you’ve ever been in bed at night longing for a good read, but sick of all the various book lights out there–they sit on the nightstand, they hook the book, maybe you’ve tried head lamps or resting the light on your shoulder.  Well, Amazon has heard your pleas for a better alternative, and over there, you can buy yourself the Huglight.

Just $15.00 on Amazon gets you what may well be one of the most versatile booklights of all time, with the ability to wrap it around your neck Source: Gadget Review RSS Feed

Philips' Cineos HTS9800W HTIB with wireless rears

Home theaters in a box are not for everyone -- most people we know prefer to assemble their entertainment systems piecemeal -- but if you're in the market for such a product, then Philips is offering a fairly stylish new HDMI-equipped system with convenient wireless rear speakers that may be right up your alley. The Cineos HTS9800W is a 6.1-channel package (three 125-watt fronts, three rears, and a 150-watt subwoofer) with a slimline, upscaling DVD player that supports DVD+/-R discs, Source: Engadget RSS Feed

Web Worker Gift Guide: 6 Ultimate Gifts [WebWorkerDaily]

Earlier, I published a list of reasonably inexpensive stocking filler gift ideas for web workers. But what if money were no object? Here’s a list of six great web working gift suggestions that I would love to receive this year:

• OfficePOD. This is a self-contained 45-square-foot office space that can be set up in your garden or backyard, freeing up valuable space indoors. (Here’s Imran’s post about it from earlier this year.) At £5,000 ($7,000) per year, it would make anSource: GigaOM Network RSS Feed

Generating high-quality sine waves with Arduino

Need to generate a high-quality sine wave using an Arduino? The folks over at Lab3 explain how it's done with their Arduino DDS Sinewave Generator. Using direct digital synthesis and a Chebyshev filter, they claim that the system can produce sine waves from 0 to 16 KHz, with distortion less than 1% for frequencies lower than 3KHz.

So that is all well and good, but what is it good for? It turns out that they are using it to participate in WSPRnet, an amateur radio study of how wellSource: MAKE: Blog RSS Feed

Hong Kong Crunch: What’s up in China?

Hey, guys. I, John Biggs, will be in Hong Kong and Guangdong next week (November 30-December 5) to visit some folks and would love to meet up with Web 2.0 and gadget purveyors in mother China. If you would like to chat, drop me a line at john @ crunchgear.com and let me know what’s up. I’m thinking about doing an informal meet-up on Thursday so advice on places to meet in Hong Kong are welcome.
Look forward to hearing from you all and “Ni Hao!”

Source: CrunchGear RSS Feed