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Enlarge / Just one of ... 110 planets in the Solar System? (credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)

It's no secret that Alan Stern and other scientists who led the New Horizons mission were extremely displeased by Pluto's demotion from planet status in 2006 during a general assembly of the International Astronomical Union. They felt the IAU decision undermined the scientific and public value of their dramatic flyby mission to the former ninth planet of the Solar System.

But now the positively peeved Pluto people have a plan. Stern and several colleagues have proposed a new definition for planethood, which they intend to submit for consideration at the next general assembly of the IAU. The final arbiters of astronomical definitions will next gather in Vienna in August 2018.

In technical terms, the proposal redefines planethood by saying, "A planet is a sub-stellar mass body that has never undergone nuclear fusion and that has sufficient self-gravitation to assume a spheroidal shape adequately described by a triaxial ellipsoid regardless of its orbital parameters." More simply, the definition can be stated as, “round objects in space that are smaller than stars."

Enlarge (credit: Jeff Christensen / ContributorChristensen/WireImage)

If you took all the remaining Windows XP and Vista users in the world—a surprisingly robust 10 percent—and placed them in a Venn diagram with those that play Blizzard games, the intersection would likely be very, very small.

And yet, despite Microsoft ending mainstream support for XP and Vista in 2009 and 2012 (Windows XP limped on with security updates until 2014), Blizzard has continued to support World of Warcraft, StarCraft 2, Diablo 3, Hearthstone, and even Heroes of the Storm under the decrepit operating systems.

Or, at least it did. Beginning "later this year," Blizzard will sunset support for those games under XP and Vista. The change will be rolled out on a "staggered schedule," with Blizzard promising to post individual notices for each game. The games will refuse to run on an unsupported operating system once support ends.

Enlarge (credit: William Murphy)

Apple has attempted to school the European Commission on how it interprets Irish law, by lodging no less than 14 pleas in its challenge against competition officials in Brussels who have ordered the iPhone maker to pay Ireland €13 billion (£11.1 billion) in back taxes.

The company claimed that the commission was wrong in its conclusion that Apple's tax arrangements with Dublin had amounted to a sweetheart deal for more than a decade, thereby breaking state aid rules.

Apple, in a bold dismissal of the case, is seeking a full or partial annulment and wants the commission—which is the executive arm of the European Union—to pay its legal costs.

Enlarge / Dr. Abraham Schwarzberg, MD, chief of oncology at Jupiter Medical Center in Palm Beach County, Florida, reviews recommendations generated by IBM Watson for Oncology. (credit: Jupiter Medical Center)

IBM’s Watson is on the move. With the new ability to quickly develop clever personalized treatment strategies for cancer patients, Watson is making its debut in hospitals around the world—from the US to India, Korea, and China. Earlier this month, a medical center in Jupiter, Florida, announced it too was welcoming the famed, Jeopardy-winning computing system into its hospital rooms.

But, there’s one place where Watson isn’t moving: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In fact, Watson is frozen there. And it’s more than just a computer glitch.

According to a blistering audit by the University of Texas System, the cancer center grossly mismanaged its splashy program with IBM, which started back in 2012. The program aimed to teach Watson how to treat cancer patients and match them to clinical trials. Watson initially met goals and impressed center doctors, but the project hit the rocks as MD Anderson officials snubbed their own IT experts, mishandled about $62 million in funding, and failed to follow basic procedures for overseeing contracts and invoices, the audit concludes.