BEIJING, July 3 (UPI) -- An indication Chinese real estate prices have resumed their stratospheric trend came this week when a piece of land in Beijing went for a record $585 million.

The real estate market is quickly turning hot. On Monday, for instance, a land parcel along Beijing's Guangqu Road was auctioned off for more than 4 billion yuan ($585 million) after fierce bidding among major developers from the mainland and Hong Kong.

The real estate market is quickly turning hot. On Monday, for instance, a land parcel along Beijing's Guangqu Road was auctioned off for more than 4 billion yuan ($585 million) after fierce bidding among major developers from the mainland and Hong Kong. The price set a record for a single land parcel in Beijing. More dramatically, just 15 months ago, this land parcel was withdrawn from a public ...

China's real estate market is quickly turning hot and worries grow along on bubbles in the industry. On Monday, for instance, a land parcel along Beijing's Guangqu Road was auctioned off for more than 4 billion yuan (585 million U.S. dollars) after fierce bidding among major developers from the mainland and Hong Kong, according to Friday's China Daily. The price set a record for a single land ...

Seoul - South Korea's central bank said Tuesday it would guard against too much liquidity flowing into the real estate market, as the economy shows signs of recovery. The business outlook is improving among South Korean companies and inventories are ...

U.S. President Barack Obama's envoy will hold a second meeting in a week with Israel's defense minister, an Israeli official said on Friday, announcing talks on Monday likely to focus again on a dispute over settlements.

The United States and its Western allies are sounding out Arab governments to see if they might ease sanctions on Israel if it stopped building Jewish settlements on Palestinian territory, diplomats said on Friday.

An official Bahrain delegation travelled to Israel on an unprecedented trip to recover a group of nationals held by the Jewish state, the state news agency reported on Friday.

Israel's Defense Ministry has recommended a partial lifting of the embargo on the Gaza Strip as a goodwill gesture toward the Palestinians to spur talks to free a long-held captive soldier, an Israeli news site reported Friday.

Israel has offered compensation for damage to United Nations facilities hit by its offensive in the Gaza Strip, the head of the UN's Palestinian refugee agency said Friday.

PC World - While Mozilla lights a fire under competing browsers with support of emerging Web standards with Firefox 3.5, it can still improve its performance, reliability, and usability.

NewsFactor - Mozilla is scrambling to fix bugs in its just-released Firefox 3.5 browser. Users are posting complaints about problems across the Web.

PC World - Moblin is an Intel-created open-source operating system for netbooks and, specifically, the kind of people who use them.

PC World - Red Hat has launched a new partner program to make sure its enterprise Linux and JBoss software are core components of a cloud-computing infrastructure, and to guarantee that Red Hat-based applications will run reliably and safely in the cloud.

PC World - Mozilla's Firefox 3.5 is off to a running start. The new browser, boasting significant speed increases and a host of added features, was officially released Tuesday morning. By mid-afternoon, the program had surpassed 1.6 million downloads worldwide and was steadily climbing, according to Mozilla's real-time tracking utility.

cheezitmike writes "Researchers at Oregon State University are testing a new type of wave-energy converter to generate electricity from ocean waves: 'Even when the ocean seems calm, swells are moving water up and down sufficiently to generate electricity. ... For decades the challenge has been to build a device that can withstand monster waves and gale-force winds, not to mention corrosive saltwater, seaweed, floating debris and curious marine mammals. ... In the most recent prototypes, a thick coil of copper wire is inside the first component, which is anchored to the seafloor. The second component is a magnet attached to a float that moves up and down freely with the waves. As the magnet is heaved by the waves, its magnetic field moves along the stationary coil of copper wire. This motion induces a current in the wire mdash; electricity.'" Meanwhile, researchers at Stanford are working to design "turbine kites" that operate at 30,000 feet, where air currents flow much faster than they do close to the ground. Ken Caldeira, a Standford associate professor, said, "If you tapped into 1% of the power in high-altitude winds, that would be enough to continuously power all civilization."pa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/07/04/0235205/Generating-Power-From-Ocean-Buoys-and-Kites?from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/07/04/0235205"/a/ppa href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/07/04/0235205/Generating-Power-From-Ocean-Buoys-and-Kites?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/rOigqAcNYn_RxE3vpdG6_xCwKIM/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/rOigqAcNYn_RxE3vpdG6_xCwKIM/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/rOigqAcNYn_RxE3vpdG6_xCwKIM/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/rOigqAcNYn_RxE3vpdG6_xCwKIM/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/cMWTOikbMCY" height="1" width="1"/

Half-pint HAL tips news of UK prosecution lawyers who are instructing police to study information on Wikipedia when preparing to give expert testimony in court. "Mike Finn, a weaponry specialist and expert witness in more than 100 cases, told industry magazine Police Review: 'There was one case in a Midlands force where police officers asked me to write a report about a martial art weapon. The material they gave me had been printed out from Wikipedia. The officer in charge told me he was advised by the CPS to use the website to find out about the weapon and he was about to present it in court. I looked at the information and some of it had substance and some of it was completely made up.' Mr. Finn, a former Metropolitan Police and City of London officer and Home Office adviser, added that he has heard of at least three other cases where officers from around the country have been advised by the CPS to look up evidence on Wikipedia."pa href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/07/04/0038243/UK-Police-Told-To-Use-Wikipedia-When-Preparing-For-Court?from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/07/04/0038243"/a/ppa href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/07/04/0038243/UK-Police-Told-To-Use-Wikipedia-When-Preparing-For-Court?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/8kwDvbrFmLDRsAGOM9LGFdwQmjc/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/8kwDvbrFmLDRsAGOM9LGFdwQmjc/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/8kwDvbrFmLDRsAGOM9LGFdwQmjc/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/8kwDvbrFmLDRsAGOM9LGFdwQmjc/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/PyTUM8Rhiis" height="1" width="1"/

movesguy sends us to The Daily Galaxy for comments by Stephen Hawking about how humans are evolving in a different way than any species before us. Quoting: "'At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information. I think it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human race,' Hawking said. In the last ten thousand years the human species has been in what Hawking calls, 'an external transmission phase,' where the internal record of information, handed down to succeeding generations in DNA, has not changed significantly. 'But the external record, in books, and other long lasting forms of storage,' Hawking says, 'has grown enormously. Some people would use the term evolution only for the internally transmitted genetic material, and would object to it being applied to information handed down externally. But I think that is too narrow a view. We are more than just our genes.'"pa href="http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/07/03/2241207/Hawking-Says-Humans-Have-Entered-a-New-Stage-of-Evolution?from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/07/03/2241207"/a/ppa href="http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/07/03/2241207/Hawking-Says-Humans-Have-Entered-a-New-Stage-of-Evolution?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/-4RbtxzM4avvaUXTRIlejTCbWRc/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/-4RbtxzM4avvaUXTRIlejTCbWRc/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/-4RbtxzM4avvaUXTRIlejTCbWRc/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/-4RbtxzM4avvaUXTRIlejTCbWRc/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/s6UHRsXAU8A" height="1" width="1"/

theodp writes "Three Amazon inventors set out to correct what they felt was a real problem: that 'out-of-print or rare books ... typically do not include advertisements ... the content is fixed and, therefore, has not been adapted to modern marketing.' Their solution is spelled out in newly-disclosed Amazon patent applications for On-Demand Generating E-Book Content with Advertising and Incorporating Advertising in On-Demand Generated Content. From the patent apps, here's what the future of reading may look like: 'For instance, if a restaurant is described on page 12, [then the advertising page], either on page 11 or page 13, may include advertisements about restaurants, wine, food, etc., which are related to restaurants and dining.' So, what would a delightfully-tacky-yet-unrefined Hooters ad do for your Hemingway experience?"pa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/07/03/2232256/Amazon-Wants-Patent-For-Inserting-Ads-Into-Books?from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/07/03/2232256"/a/ppa href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/07/03/2232256/Amazon-Wants-Patent-For-Inserting-Ads-Into-Books?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/6zx3d45LxsFMSsFRchP_qHOfp4E/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/6zx3d45LxsFMSsFRchP_qHOfp4E/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/6zx3d45LxsFMSsFRchP_qHOfp4E/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/6zx3d45LxsFMSsFRchP_qHOfp4E/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/HPALrNlPYwg" height="1" width="1"/

cin62 writes "The number of Internet scammers offering fake versions of the anti-swine flu drug Tamiflu has surpassed those selling counterfeit Viagra, reports CNN. Since the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, was declared a global pandemic last month, there has been an increase in the number of Web sites and junk emails offering Tamiflu for sale. 'Every Web site that used to sell Viagra is now selling Tamiflu. We are pretty sure that the same people are making the Tamiflu as are making the Viagra,' said Director of Policy for the UK's Royal Pharmaceutical Society." This news fits in nicely with a report Wired ran a couple weeks ago about the hysteria behind H1N1.pa href="http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/07/03/2225258/Fake-Tamiflu-Out-Spams-Viagra-On-Web?from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=09/07/03/2225258"/a/ppa href="http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/07/03/2225258/Fake-Tamiflu-Out-Spams-Viagra-On-Web?from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Kopt6rDJMxVpWuiKeNav_0jpRO4/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Kopt6rDJMxVpWuiKeNav_0jpRO4/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Kopt6rDJMxVpWuiKeNav_0jpRO4/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~at/Kopt6rDJMxVpWuiKeNav_0jpRO4/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/34TMRRHCop0" height="1" width="1"/