One can only hope so! Many studies have shown that animal testing has only marginal effectiveness, and is not a reliable indicator of the behavior or effects of a drug or treatment when applied to humans. Articles posted in journals like Nature and in circulations like Scientific American have lent credibility to the notion that there may be a day when computer models will be far more accurate than animal testing, and can do more varied studies, simulations, and run multiple tests using hardware that can be purchased for a fraction of the cost of breeding, maintaining, and experimenting on animals, using significantly less space, and return better results that can lead to more aggressive and faster breakthroughs in areas like cancer research, vaccine research, immune studies, and new treatments and drugs for all of those conditions, other debilitating diseases, and more.

But before we say goodbye to our faithful lab rats that have given so many lives in the study of how to save human ones, computing technology has a ways to go before it can be proven to be both more cost effective and resource effective than animal study, and additionally, scientists will have to be retrained from the classical mentality of studying animal behavior and then dissecting them and retrained in essentially computer science. Between advances in computer modeling and tissue culturing however, we could very well soon see the end of scientific testing as we know it, speed up the saving of millions of human lives while saving millions of animal lives, and further press the progress of technology and technology in scientific research. The idea has wide support among the scientific community, but it has a ways to go. Today’s New Scientist has the scoop. No link to the full article without paying, but you get the idea from the abstract.

[ New Scientist :: Can Computer Models Replace Animal Testing? ]

image courtesy of Gearlog

Gearlog [ http://gearlog.com/ ] has a great hands-on look at one of the best Wacom tablets to come out yet; the Cintiq 21UX- a Wacom tablet that doubles as an LCD display that is touch and pressure sensitive, so you can take the stylus that comes with it and draw right on the screen! The review is thorough and complete, and Terry Sullivan, who writes the review for Gearlog, points out the Cintiq’s good and bad points. Wacom has been making pen tablets for years, with touch and pressure sensitive pads that respond to the included stylus that has a variety of buttons and functions on it, and their products have long been the favorites of many a graphic designer and professtional (and unprofessional!) artist.

Aside from the Cintiq being every graphic designer’s dream by combining a touch and pressure sensitive pad and stylus with the actual screen that one would be drawing on (a beautiful 21.3 inch LCD, at that!), the product provides new features like being able to tilt the pen in diferent directions for new effects, and intutitive preferences and menus that let you spend less time fiddling with the prefs to make sure its working right and more time immersing yourself in the function and feel of what I think will quickly become standard in design studios and graphic houses in the coming years.

Put down your credit card though, the Cintiq is about $2400 USD, and while it’s available now, it’s definitely not for the casual designer who can get away with spending a fraction for one of Wacom’s more standard tablet/pen packages. This tool is aimed at the serious designer or design professional, but for those folks who can afford it and use it, it’s definitely a must-have. Check out Sullivan’s review (along with more pretty pictures) linked below.

[ Gearlog :: Hands On: A Portrait of the Wacom Cintiq 21UX ]

Okay, so the article isn’t really called the “Zen” of dual monitors, but rather the “virtues” of a second screen. And having been someone who thought they were happy with a 15-inch CRT back in the day, only to move up to a 22-inch CRT, then a 20-inch LCD, and now finally a shiny pair of dual 20-inch LCDs on his desk (at home anyway) I can attest to how wonderful it is to be able to be writing about something in one screen while I have the thing I’m writing about open in the other. Or, as another example, to be chatting or teleconferencing with other people on one screen, while doing research or reading information (or typing information!) in the other. Or, perhaps my favorite example, to be playing World of Warcraft in one window, while looking up item sell prices and stats on the web in the other. Seriously, once you’ve done it, you won’t go back. I, for one, since recieving my new MacBook Pro, have rigged up even my office desk to support the MacBook on the left and my LCD on the right as a second monitor. It really does help to have the extra real estate.

That being said, people usually either absolutely love dual monitor setups, or they hate them-they love being able to do all of those things I mentioned, or they hate the extra lateral desk space it’ll take up and having to move their eyes from screen to screen-those people might prefer one of Dell’s shiny 24-inch or 30-inch LCD displays: [ Dell Monitors ] But for the rest of us who can definitely get down with more than one display will be pleased at this article in the New York Times this morning about how dual display setups can definitely impact your productivity, 20 to 30 percent, for that matter!

One reviewer leaves alt-tab land and enters dual display heaven, and recounts his story for the rest of us to see. Read on, and join us!

[ New York Times :: The Virtues of a Second Screen ]

Well now, what is the world coming to?

Okay, before I get to that conclusion; I should at least share the story. Jacob Citrin, a former employee of International Airport Centers, was given a laptop by his employers to do company work with, managing the IAC’s real estate business. The trouble started when Cirtin decided to go into buisiness for himself and do a little work on the side that may or may not have had anything to do with his work at the IAC, and the notion that he even went into business on the side for personal gain is also alleged and not proven in any court. Even so, Citrin eventually quit the IAC and went off to do his own thing, but essentially in the same business. The IAC complained, saying that his personal venture violated his employment contract. Okay, a contract dispute; whatever.

But here’s the problem-when Cirtin returned his work laptop, IAC’s tried to inspect it for files and data that would incriminate Citrin and link him to the wrongdoing they were accusing him of. The problem is, he outsmarted them and used a secure-delete program to not only erase his data, but also to reformat, over-write, and in as many ways as he could, completely eradicate the data on the laptop so no one would be able to retrieve it. Sure enough, IAC couldn’t get the data they wanted. So what did they do? They hauled him into court, complaining to the judge that they’d been outsmarted-I mean that claiming that Citrin’s alleged secure deletion violated a federal computer crime law called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Apparently, a judge, who likely has absolutely no knowledge of technology (but I’m sure understands the law, which leaves a problem when people who know the law but not technology are making judgements…or worse politicians who don’t understand technology make laws about technology) agreed with IAC, and claimed that his secure deletion of the files did indeed breach the Act.

What does this mean? Well, anyone who uses a secure deletion utility on their computers to protect their data, or eliminate data, that is, could face charges under federal law from a previous employer who was snooping around the system looking for something to incriminate them with. What’s far more frightening is that nothing even needed to be there in the first place; the trick is that the employer only has to claim that damage was done to the company and to it’s property (supposedly the computer) by erasing the data in a manner where it cannot be retrieved. The implications of this are enormous, and the old stand-by of keeping your personal data off of a work computer don’t even apply. Trying to keep your own data from the prying eyes of competiing colleagues, covering your tracks, or even cleaning up your system in the manner that your IT staff would probably have done for you anyway might land you in prison. It’s definitely a frightening prospect.

Read the whole story over at the ZD Net Police Blotter:

[ ZD Net : Police Blotter: Ex-employee Faces Suit Over File Deletion ]

For the hefty price of about $612.5 million dollars, Research In Motion(RIM), the company responsible for the BlackBerry’s claim to fame, has finally settled with rival NTP, who holds the patents that make the Blackberry possible. All of the outstanding patent issues have finally been settled, and Blackberry users around the country are happily sighing in relief that they won’t have to bear through a possible interruption of service if the patent battle had not gone RIM’s way. And well, it looked like it wasn’t going RIM’s way.

The judge in the patent case was clearly unhappy that the two parties hadn’t managed to settle the dispute without the court, and made it clear that he expected the issue to be resolved as a negotiating table and not by the gavel. Well, it looks like everyone got their wish and the issue should be resolved once and for all. NTP gives up the rights to sue in the future for use of its patents, and RIM gets to keep the Blackberry service running as is without inturruption, although writing a pretty hefty check in the meantime.

At the same time, it’s worth mentioning that users of Blackberry systems around the country should finally come to term with the fact that sometimes it’s not good to be locked into a proprietary service and solution for the type of service you want without a viable alternative. Some people seem to have been learning this lesson by looking for other techniques and methods to send and recieve email on the go. Here’s the whole story:

[ PC World :: Shutdown Avoided as BlackBerry Suit Is Settled ]