The Seattle Times: Business & Technology

Acquisition takes Wells Fargo east
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:28:56 -0700
With its iconic stagecoach, Wells Fargo has evoked images of the wild West throughout its 156-year history. Now it's finally expanding east...
Source: Chrysler, GM discuss merger, acquisition
Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:31:52 -0700
General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC and Cerberus Capital Management LP have held preliminary talks about a merger or an acquisition of Chrysler by GM, according to a person familiar with the talks.
Adobe's big, new Creative Suite helpful in many ways
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:28:55 -0700
Every software release is big, but in the Macintosh world, Adobe's Creative Suite is bigger than most. Entire industries rely heavily on...

Wired Top Stories

Power Ascender: Ballsy Tool Yanks People, Equipment up Walls
Bob Parks Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:00:00 -0000
What it is: Atlas Power Ascender What it's used for: Rapidly pulling people and their gear up the side of a building or canyon The prototype of the Power Ascender was not easy to use. The battery-powered, waist-mounted climbing assistant yanked people up a dangling rope at a blistering 10 feet per second — almost 7 mph — fast enough to snap their limbs back. So Atlas, a company run by four mechanical engineers outside Boston, set the maximum speed to a more reasonable 5 feet per second and added a variable- speed trigger like on a power drill. Now customers — such as US military personnel — simply clip the 25-pound device onto a climbing harness, push any nonbraided rope through the top, and let it fly. Inside the gizmo, a network of grippers scurries up the line and ensures that it threads cleanly out the side. The Ascender's 10-kilowatt output can lift up to 350 pounds, which is no easy task. "Having that much power that close to your crotch is a huge engineering challenge," says Atlas' Bryan Schmid, "and frankly a bit risky." Sounds pretty ballsy. Wired.com
Video: 192 Lasers, Nuclear Weapons, and Fusion Power
Alexis Madrigal Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:24:00 -0000
Wired Science visits the high-security National Ignition Facility, which Department of Energy scientists hope will help manage the American nuclear weapons stockpile and provide the key to harnessing fusion power. Wired.com
Inside Operation Highlander: NSA's Wiretapping of Americans Overseas
Kim Zetter Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:15:00 -0000
A top secret NSA wiretapping facility accused of wiretapping innocent Americans abroad was hastily staffed with inexperienced reservists in the months following September 11, where they worked under conflicting orders and with little supervision, according to three former workers at spy complex. Wired.com

News items | ZDNet

Microsoft: How we'll take on VMware
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:05:28 -0700
The software maker believes it has the tools and the right price point to beat VMware in the battle for the virtualisation market. Microsoft has a three-pronged strategy to beat VMware in the virtualization market, according to the company's senior director for virtualization product management, Zane Adam. ...
Netbook returns blamed on Linux 'teething problems'
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 05:59:39 -0700
Higher return rates for Linux-based netbooks don't necessarily reflect badly on the open-source operating system, according to Ubuntu backer Canonical. The return rate on Linux-powered netbooks may be higher than that for Windows netbooks, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing for Linux, according to Canonical. ...
The five products Apple must make
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:35:24 -0700
What ought to be Apple's next leap of faith? Here are a few ideas for where Apple should go next. What are your ideas? Apple made its latest big move into new territories last year with the launch of the now ubiquitous iPhone, expanding beyond the desktop and...

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