Mr. Gates becomes KBE
If founding the most profitable company in the world and developing the most widely-used operating system wasn’t enough, perhaps Bill Gates will find true happiness as a knight. Last month, the Microsoft Corp. chairman and chief software architect was awarded an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to enterprise, employment, education and the voluntary sector in the U.K., as well as for his contributions to poverty reduction around the world. Gates has been given the title of KBE Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Since Gates is not a U.K. citizen, he will be unable to use the title ‘Sir’ before his name, but will be able to add KBE after his name.
Where there’s smoke, there’s Dell
Dell Inc. has issued a cautionary alert to customers of its PowerEdge 1650 servers. According to Dell, a defect in the servers can cause the systems to overheat, emit smoke and shut down. The motherboards of all PowerEdge 1650 servers sold worldwide between January and early May last year could be the cause of the problem and the company strongly recommends they be replaced. Dell did not specify how many PowerEdge 1650 servers have the problem or who is to blame. The company said it plans to arrange motherboard replacements with its customers.
Aussie farmers milk RFID
Dairy farmers in Australia have turned to Radio Frequency Identification tags in addition to handheld devices and robots to aide in daily activities, including artificial insemination and milk testing. Last month, 15 farmers completed an RFID pilot program in order to streamline the process of gathering and testing milk samples. RFID tags were placed behind the cows’ ears and contained information including cow identity, herd information, genetic background and productivity history. The information on the tags was matched to a barcode on the lid of sample flasks of milk, which were sorted by a robot. According to the Northern Herd Development Co-operative Ltd., the automation virtually eliminated human error and allowed farmers to accurately know their herds’ productivity and milk quality.
Self-proclaimed techie names first born v.2.0
Adding Jr. or II onto his first-born son’s name apparently wasn’t good enough for Michigan-based Jon Blake Cusack. Cusack, a self-proclaimed engineering “geek” opted take a more technical approach to naming the newborn. After convincing his wife Jamie, the couple has named the boy Jon Blake Cusack 2.0. In the electronic birth announcement, the proud father wrote of version 2.0: “There’s a lot of features from version 1.0 with additional features from Jamie.”