Bill Pringle

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HIV/AIDS Vaccine To Begin Phase I Human Trials (Click for story)	An HIV/AIDS vaccine developed in Ontario has applied for Phase 1 human trials. Safety and immunogenicity studies of the vaccine, dubbed SAV001-H, have already been completed on animals. Phase 1 human trials will check the safety of the vaccine on HIV positive volunteers. Phase 2 will then test immunogenicity.
Ant Mega-Colony Covers the World (Click for story)	A mega colony of one family of ants has spread all over the world. Previous mega colonies in California, Europe and Japan have been shown to be in fact one global colony. Ants from the smaller super-colonies were always aggressive to one another. So ants from the west coast of Japan fought their rivals from Kobe, while ants from the European super-colony didn't get on with those from the Iberian colony. But whenever ants from the main European and Californian super-colonies and those from the largest colony in Japan came into contact, they acted as if they were old friends.
Scammers Target Neopets Users (Click for story)	If you have children that play on the popular virtual world game Neopets, you might want to warn them of a social engineering scam gleefully targeting 12-year-old kids. Neopets users looking for rare items are sent private messages from the scammers, who direct them to sites hosting keyloggers & trojans. They then use the infected PC as a means to get to data the parents might have stored there, be it credit card details, Paypal accounts or online banking. Seeing the screenshots of some of these people talking about putting these children into botnets is just unbelievable — if ever you wanted proof that people up to no good online will go to any lengths to get their hands on some money (or even just feel good about outsmarting a 12-year-old), here it is.
New Click-Fraud Attack Is Stealthiest Yet (Click for story)	news from The Washington Post's Security Fix blog of a new Trojan horse program that takes click fraud to the next level. The Trojan, dubbed FFsearcher by SecureWorks, was among the pieces of malware installed by sites hacked with the Nine-Ball mass compromise, which attacked some 40,000 Web sites this month. The Trojan takes advantage of Google's "AdSense for Search" API, which allows Web sites to embed Google search results alongside the usual Google AdSense ads. (SecureWorks' writeup indicates that Yahoo search is targeted too, but the researchers saw no evidence if the malware redirecting Yahoo searches.) While most search hijackers give themselves away on the victim's machine by redirecting the browser through some no-name search engine, FFsearcher "...converts every search a victim makes through Google.com, so that each query is invisibly redirected through the attackers' own Web sites, via Google's Custom Search API. Meanwhile, the Trojan manipulates the victim's PC and browser so that the victim never actually sees the attacker-controlled Web site that is hijacking the search, but instead sees the search results as though they were returned directly from Google.com (and with Google.com in the victim browser's address bar, not the address of the attacker controlled site). Adding to the stealth is the fact that search results themselves aren't altered by the attackers, who are merely going after the referral payments should victims click on any of the displayed ads. What's more, the attackers aren't diverting clicks or ad revenue away from advertisers or publishers, as in traditional click fraud: They are simply forcing Google to pay commissions that it wouldn't otherwise have to pay."
Alternative Energy Policies a Boon For Inflatable Electric Car (Click for story)	the Mini Utility Vehicle prototype from XP Vehicles, an electric car that is partly inflatable. The recent struggles of the auto industry and a political climate that supports the development of alternative energy vehicles have given the car a better chance at actually hitting the market. Quoting: "Building a car takes many years and tens to hundreds of millions of dollars traditionally. XP is able to cut a lot of the costs and timeframe because its car has 70 percent less parts than a regular car, and the company is using novel materials that require simpler factory devices, and production and manufacturing processes that lower the cost to deploy. ... The seat is inflatable, the dashboard is inflatable, and the internal structure and carrying racks are inflatable, or a mesh suspension. Instead of requiring six-axis robots, XP uses radio frequency welders that look like giant waffle irons. The factory equipment is much less expensive and the car simply has less parts that could fail. The motors are built into the rear wheels in most XP prototypes. The first cars to reach the market will have two rear hub motors and a motor controller, that's it."
The Simpsons Worth More Per Viewer On Hulu Than On Fox (Click for story)	A tectonic shift has taken place for the digital age: ad rates for popular shows like The Simpsons and CSI are higher online than they are on prime-time TV. If a company wants to run ads alongside an episode of The Simpsons on Hulu or TV.com, it will cost the advertiser about $60 per thousand viewers, according to Bloomberg. On prime-time TV that same ad will cost somewhere between $20 and $40 per thousand viewers. Online viewers have to actively seek out the program they want to watch, so advertisers end up with a guaranteed audience for their commercial every time someone clicks play on Hulu or TV.com. Online programs also have an average of 37 seconds of commercials during an episode, while prime-time TV averages nine minutes of ads.
Fake News Scam Sites Advertising On Real News Sites (Click for story)	Wired is running a story about a new twist in the never-ending quest to prove P. T. Barnum's adage. Old: Scammers are creating fake news sites that look almost like the real thing. New: They are advertising on real news sites, making it difficult for unwary readers to catch on they are being duped with fake coverage of get-rich-quick scams. Among those running the scam "news" ads are the Huffington Post and Salon. From the article: 'The story has art, it has a sidebar, there's weather, supposed reader comments — even ads. Steadman is described as "a mother from San Francisco" — at least, when I read the article. Thanks to cutting-edge reporting techniques perfected by News 5, she will automatically move to the geolocation of your internet IP address when you read it. Look, she lives right in your neighborhood!'
FBI Files a "Secret Justification" for Gag Order (Click for story)	a story up at Ars on the FBI's continuing penchant for secrecy. "Clearly, the FBI isn't ready to give up its Bush-era secrecy addition just yet. ...in the case of Doe v. Holder, the FBI is carrying out a secret investigation using secret guidelines on what is and is not constitutional, and as part of that investigation they've compelled the secrecy of a service provider and are using a secret justification to argue that nobody's First Amendment rights are being violated."
Doctors Baffled, Intrigued By Girl Who Doesn't Age (Click for story)	Brooke Greenberg is the size of an infant, with the mental capacity of a toddler. She turned 16 in January. Brooke hasn't aged in the conventional sense. Dr. Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, in Tampa, says Brooke's body is not developing as a coordinated unit, but as independent parts that are out of sync. She has never been diagnosed with any known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why. Brooke's hair and her nails are the only two things that grow, Howard said. 'She has pajamas and outfits that are 10 or 12 years old,' he said.
Microsoft-Backed Firm Says IBM Is Anticompetitive (Click for story)	Sometimes technology is like men's fashion - wait long enough and anything will be back in fashion. ;^) Microsoft has long claimed that the mainframe is dead, slain by the company's Windows monopoly. Yet, apparently without any mirror nearby, Microsoft is now complaining through the Microsoft-funded Computer & Communications Industry Association that not only are mainframes not dead, but IBM is so anticompetitive that governments should intervene in the hyper-competitive server market. The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft is worried that the trend toward cloud computing is introducing competition to the Windows franchise, favoring better-positioned companies including IBM and Cisco. HP now talks about almost nothing but the IBM mainframe, with no Tukwila CPUs to sell until 2010. The global recession is encouraging more mainframe adoption as businesses slash IT costs, dominated by labor costs, and improve business execution. In 2008, IBM mainframe revenues rose 12.5% even whilst mainframe prices fell. (IBM shipped 25% more mainframe capacity than in 2007. Other server sales reports are not so good.) IBM mainframes can run multiple operating systems concurrently, including Linux and, more recently, OpenSolaris.
15-Year-Old Invents Algae-Powered Energy System (Click for story)	Signaling a bright future for sustainable energy, 15-year-old Javier Fernandez-Han has created a remarkable algae-powered energy system that is capable of producing food and fuel, treating waste, containing greenhouse gases, and releasing oxygen. Dubbed the VERSATILE system, the project recently netted him a $20,000 scholarship for winning this year's Invent Your World Challenge.
OLPC Fork Sugar On a Stick Goes 1.0 (Click for story)	It was more than a year ago that Walter Bender left OLPC and started SugarLabs.org. Now, the first version of the new project has been released. Sugar on a Stick is a USB-drive that runs on Mac and PC-style hardware. 'The open-source education software developed for the "$100 laptop" can now be loaded onto a $5 USB stick to give aging PCs and Macs a new interface and custom educational software.' Bender said, 'What we are doing is taking a bunch of old machines that barely run Windows 2000, and turning them into something interesting and useful for essentially zero cost. It becomes a whole new computer running off the USB key; we can breathe new life into millions of decrepit old machines.'
DoE Considers Artificial Trees To Remove CO2 (Click for story)	CNN is running an article on a new angle of attack to reducing greenhouse gases. After meeting with the US Department of Energy on the concept, the researchers revealed the details that each 'tree' (really a small building structure in the concept design) would cost about as much as a Toyota and remove 1 ton of CO2 from the air per day. Don't worry, they're accounting for the energy the 'tree' uses to operate: 'By the time we make liquid C02 we have spent approximately 50 kilojoules [of electricity] per mole of C02. Compare that to the average power plant in the US, which produces one mole of C02 with every 230 kilojoules of electricity. In other words, if we simply plugged our device in to the power grid to satisfy its energy needs, for every roughly 1,000 kilograms [of carbon dioxide] we collected we would re-emit 200, so 800 we can chalk up as having been successful.' Each unit would remove 20 automobiles' worth of CO2 from the air and cost about as much as a Toyota... so the plan might be a five percent surcharge on automobiles to fund these synthetic tree farms.
Tracking Thieves with 'Find my iPhone' (Click for story)	A friend of mine who just got an Iphone 3GS and has Mobile Me just used the "Find my Iphone" feature to track down his lost and subsequently stolen iphone. This story involves 3 nerds wandering sketchy streets with a Macbook, and ends with a confrontation at a bus stop.
Indian CEO Says Most US Tech Grads "Unemployable" (Click for story)	When questioned about his firm's US hiring, Information Week reports that Vineet Nayar, the CEO of the Indian outsourcing giant HCL Technologies, showed he can stereotype with the best of them, telling an audience in NYC that most American tech grads are 'unemployable'. Explaining that Americans are far less willing than students from developing economies like India, China, and Brazil to master the 'boring' details of tech process and methodology, the HCL chief added that most Americans are just too expensive to train. HCL, which was reportedly awarded a secretive $170 million outsourcing contract by Microsoft last April, gets a personal thumbs-up from Steve Ballmer for 'walking the extra mile.' Ballmer was busy last week pitching more H-1B visas as the cure for America's job ills at The National Summit.
Obama Taps IBM Open Source Advocate For USPTO (Click for story)	President Obama has announced his intent to nominate David Kappos, a VP and general counsel at IBM, to head the US Patent and Trademark Office. This move is particularly notable not only because of IBM's much friendlier attitudes towards open source compared with some of their rivals, but also because Kappos himself is open source-friendly: 'We are now the biggest supporters of the open source development project,' explains David. 'Admittedly this policy is not easily reconcilable with our traditional IP strategy, but we are convinced that it is the way to go for the future.' Not just a lawyer, Kappos earned an engineering degree before working in the legal field. Kappos has been described as 'critical of the American approach to patent policy.' Given his background, could this mean a new era for US patent policy?
"Definitive Evidence" For Ancient Lake On Mars (Click for story)	Eurekalert reports on 'definitive evidence' for an ancient water lake on Mars. A UC Boulder research team has discovered evidence of a shoreline on Mars of a 3 billion year-old lake 80 square miles in area and 1,500 feet deep (roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain). Images came from the HiRISE instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Water carved a 30-mile-long canyon that opened up into a valley and forming a large delta during a time when Mars is generally believed to have been cold and dry. The lack of additional, lower shorelines, shows that the lake dried up very quickly. Of particular interest are the deltas adjacent to the lake. On Earth, deltas rapidly bury organic carbon and other biomarkers of life, making the Martian lake bed and delta a prime target for future searches for past life on the planet.
The Next Ad You Click May Be a Virus (Click for story)	a Wall Street Journal report about ad networks unintentionally selling empty space to malware loaders (the link is to a syndicating site that doesn't require a subscription to view). The submitter comments: "The labeling of the fake ad sellers as hackers is pretty bogus; there's no hacking involved. Simply sign up for one of these networks, create your fake site, put up another company's creative, and you're good to go." The incidents being reported go back a few months, but the pattern of this criminal activity seems to be coming clear only recently. "EWeek.com, a technology news site owned by Ziff Davis Enterprise, in February displayed an ad on its homepage masquerading as a promotion for LaCoste, the shirt maker. The retailer hadn't placed the ad — a hacker had, to direct users to a Web site where harmful programs would be downloaded to their computers, says Stephen Wellman, director of community and content for Ziff Davis."
Fifteen Classic PC Design Mistakes (Click for story)	Once upon a time, it wasn't a given that PC owners should be able to format their own floppy disks. Or that ports should be standard, not proprietary. Or that it was a lousy idea to hardwire a PC's AC adapter, or to put the power supply in the printer so that a printer failure rendered the PC unusable, too. Over at Technologizer, Benj Edwards has taken a look at some of the worst design decisions from personal computing's early years — including ones involving famous flops such as the PCJr, obscure failures such as Mattel's Aquarius, and machines that succeeded despite flaws, like the first Mac. In most instances — but not all — their bad decisions taught the rest of the industry not to make the same errors again.
Sniffing Browser History Without Javascript (Click for story)	a somewhat alarming technology demonstration, in which a Web site you visit generates a pretty good list of sites you have visited — without requiring JavaScript. NoScript will not protect you here. The only obvious drawbacks to this method are that it puts a load on your browser, and that it requires a list of Web sites to check against. "It actually works pretty simply — it is simpler than the JavaScript implementation. All it does is load a page (in a hidden iframe) which contains lots of links. If a link is visited, a background (which isn't really a background) is loaded as defined in the CSS. The 'background' image will log the information, and then store it (and, in this case, it is displayed to you)."
Twitter "Twitpocalypse" Snags Mac, iPhone Apps (Click for story)	coverage in Macworld of what is being called "the Twitpocalypse" — Twitter applications breaking as the number of tweets exceeds 32 bits. "The first apparent victim of the Twitpocalypse was The Iconfactory's Twitterrific for iPhone, which stopped working immediately following the event. ... Atebits Software's Tweetie has also been affected by the Twitpocalypse. The program continues to function for browsing and posting tweets, but searches no longer work in the Mac version and results appear one at a time in the iPhone version."
14 Year Old Boy Smote By Meteorite (Click for story)	Winning the lottery requires incredible luck and one in a million odds. So does getting hit by a falling space rock. A 14 year old German boy was granted a three inch scar by the gods. A pea sized meteorite smote young Gerrit Blank's hand before leaving a foot sized crater on the road. The boy's account: 'At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder. The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road." Curiously, the rock was magnetic and tests were done to verify it is extraterrestrial. The Telegraph notes the only other recorded event of a meteorite striking a person was 'in November 1954 when a grapefruit-sized fragment crashed through the roof of a house, bounced off furniture and landed on a sleeping woman.' Space.com lists a few more anomalies and we discussed the probability of these things downing aircraft recently.
NSA Ill-Suited For Domestic Cybersecurity Role (Click for story)	Former CIA counterterrorism analyst Stephen Lee has an interesting article in the Examiner asserting that the National Security Agency is 'a secretive, hidebound culture incapable of keeping up with innovation,' with a history of disregard for privacy and civil liberties. Lee says that for most of its sixty-year history, the NSA has been geared to cracking telecom and crypto gear produced by Soviet and Chinese design bureaus, but at the end of the cold war became 'stymied by new-generation Western-engineered telephone networks and mobile technologies that were then spreading like wildfire in the developing world and former Soviet satellite countries.' When the NSA finally recognized that it needed to get better at innovation, it launched several mega-projects, tagged like 'Trailblazer' and 'Groundbreaker,' that have been spectacular failures, costing US taxpayers billions. More recently, the NY Times reported that the NSA has been breaking rules set by the Obama administration to peer even more aggressively into American citizens' phone traffic and email inboxes. Whistleblower reports portray NSA domestic eavesdropping programs as unprofessional and poorly supervised, with intercept technicians ridiculing and mishandling recordings of citizens' private 'pillow talk' conversations. Lee concludes that 'if the Federal government must play a role, then Congress and President Obama should turn to another agency without a record of creating mistrust — perhaps even a new entity. Meanwhile, NSA should focus on listening in on America's enemies, instead of being an enemy of Americans and their enterprises.'
Oracle Beware — Google Tests Cloud-Based Database (Click for story)	On Tuesday, the same day Google held a press event to launch its Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, the company quietly announced in its research team blog a new online database called Fusion Tables. Under the hood of Fusion Tables is data-spaces technology, which would 'allow Google to add to the conventional two-dimensional database tables a third coordinate with elements like product reviews, blog posts, Twitter messages and the like, as well as a fourth dimension of real-time updates,' according to Stephen E. Arnold, a technology and financial analyst. 'So now we have an n-cube, a four-dimensional space, and in that space we can now do new kinds of queries which create new kinds of products and new market opportunities,' said Arnold, whose research about this topic includes a study done for IDC last August. 'If you're IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, your worst nightmare is now visible.'
Wii Boosts Parkinson's Treatments (Click for story)	Scientists are investigating the use of Wii Sports as a form of treatment for Parkinson's sufferers. After a four-week study, researchers found that rounds of tennis, bowling, and boxing improved rigidity, movement, fine motor skills, and energy levels as well as decreasing the occurrence of depression. It is thought that combining exercise with video games helps to increase levels of dopamine, a chemical that is deficient in Parkinson's. The therapy is gaining notoriety under the name Wii-hab.
Could Betelgeuse Go Boom? (Click for story)	The answer is No. In space, nobody can hear you scream. However, it might go supernova in the near future, if it hasn't already.
Amazon & TuneCore To Cut Out the RIAA Middleman (Click for story)	So you're an aspiring band and you haven't signed with a record label. Maybe you've got a fan base interested in purchasing your stuff but you're not really into accounting? Enter Amazon's partnership with TuneCore, a CD printing and music distribution service. You want to sell a full album on Amazon of you brushing your teeth? $31. And you get about 40% back on sales, so selling nine digital copies of your CD will put you back in the black. There you have it, public availability on one of the largest online commerce sites for $31 — no RIAA involved!" TuneCore's CEO put it this way: "As an artist, you have unlimited physical inventory, made on demand, with no [sic] upfront costs and worldwide distribution to anyone who orders it at Amazon.com."
New Exploit Uses JavaScript To Compromise Intranets, VPNs (Click for story)	Another good reason to run Firefox with NoScript. Security researcher Robert Hansen, known as Rsnake, has developed a new class of attack that abuses a weakness in many corporate intranets and most browsers to compromise remote machines with persistent JavaScript backdoors. Threatpost reports: "The attacks rely on the long-term caching policies of some browsers and take advantage of the collisions that can occur when two different networks use the same non-routable IP address space, which happens fairly often because the amount of address space is quite small. The bottom line is that even a moderately skilled attacker has the ability to compromise remote machines without the use of any vulnerability or weakness in the client software.'
Junior-Sized Supernova Discovered By New York Teen (Click for story)	In November 2008, Caroline Moore, a 14-year-old student from upstate New York, discovered a supernova in a nearby galaxy, making her the youngest person ever to do so. Additional observations determined that the object, called SN 2008ha, is a new type of stellar explosion, 1000 times more powerful than a nova but 1000 times less powerful than a supernova. Astronomers say that it may be the weakest supernova ever seen.
First Acoustic Black Hole Created (Click for story)	Not sure I understand this, but it sounds cool. One of the many curious properties of Bose Einstein Condensates (BECs) is that the flow of sound through them is governed by the same equations that describe how light is bent by a gravitational field. Now, a group of Israeli physicists have exploited this idea to create an acoustic black hole in a BEC. The team created a supersonic flow of atoms within the BEC, a flow that prevents any phonon caught in it from making headway. The region where the flow changes from subsonic to supersonic is an event horizon, because any phonon unlucky enough to stray into the supersonic region can never escape. The real prize is not the acoustic black hole itself but what it makes possible: the first observation of Hawking radiation. Quantum mechanics predicts that pairs of phonons with opposite momentum ought to be constantly springing in and out of existence in a BEC. Were one of the pair to stray across the event horizon into the supersonic region, it could never escape. However, the other would be free to go on its way. This stream of phononic radiation away from an acoustic black hole would be the first observation of Hawking radiation. The team hasn't gotten that far yet, but it can't be long now before either they or their numerous competitors make this leap.
US Manned Space Flight Taking a Budget Hit (Click for story)	Manned space flight is low in science, but very high in public interest, and therefore public support. Congress has quietly begun dismantling NASA's manned space flight program. "Other recommendations contained in the bill include a $77million reduction in NASA's proposed space operations budget, which includes the space shuttle and international space station; a $6 million reduction in science; and a $332 million shift in funds from the Cross Agency Support account to a new budget line-item included in the subcommittee's mark. Dubbed Construction and Environmental Compliance, the new account would be funded at $441 million. Congressional aides said the new line item and accompanying funds are aimed at consolidating NASA's various construction efforts into a single pot of money."
Software Bug Adds 5k Votes to Election (Click for story)	You may be able to argue that a five thousand vote error is a small price to pay for a national election but these errors are certainly inadmissible on a much smaller scale. According to the Rapid City Journal a software glitch added 4,875 phantom ballots in a South Dakota election for a seat on the city council. It's not a hardware security problem this time, it's a software glitch. Althought not unheard of in electronic voting, this bug was about to cause a runoff vote since the incumbent did not hold a high enough percentage of the vote. That is no longer the case after the numbers were corrected. Wired notes it's probably a complex bug as it is not just multiplying the vote count by two. Here's to hoping that AutoMark follows suit and releases the source code for others to scrutinize
Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies (Click for story)	Bankruptcies due to medical bills increased by nearly 50 percent in a six-year period, from 46 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2007, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners, according to a report that will be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine.
Google Outlines the Role of Its Human Evaluators (Click for story)	For many years, Google, on its Explanation of Our Search Results page, claimed that 'a site's ranking in Google's search results is automatically determined by computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query.' Then in May of 2007, that statement changed: 'A site's ranking in Google's search results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query.' What happened? Google's core search team explain.
New Languages vs. Old For Parallel Programming (Click for story)	Getting the most from multicore processors is becoming an increasingly difficult task for programmers. DARPA has commissioned a number of new programming languages, notably X10 and Chapel, written especially for developing programs that can be run across multiple processors, though others see them as too much of a departure to ever gain widespread usage among coders.
Sequoia Disclosing Voting System Source To DC (Click for story)	After Sequoia voting machines registered more votes than there were voters in DC's primaries last September, and the city threatened a lawsuit as a result, the company agreed to disclose technical details of the system (including source code) to the city. Although this isn't the first time the company has disclosed the source code of its machines, it is the first time the machines' blueprints will be handed over as well.
Is Arizona's Internet Voting System Safe Enough? (Click for story)	Kevin Poulsen, senior editor at Wired News, asks readers 'Is internet voting safe?' and has a poll at the end of the article. So far, 32% responding actually think that internet voting is worth it, risks and all. It is scary how easily people can be persuaded to trust a system that is so vulnerable. The system described, used in Arizona in last year's election process, isn't just checking a box and clicking a button, but Poulsen lays out some scenarios by which it could be subverted.
Stem Cells Restore Sight For Corneal Disease Patients (Click for story)	Australian scientists have restored the sight of three human test subjects using stem cells cultured in contact lenses. All the patients were blind in only one eye. Two were legally blind, but can now read the big letters on an eye chart. The third could read the first few lines, but is now able to pass a driver's test. The University of New South Wales reports that these patients all had damaged corneas, and the stem cells came from each person's good eye. The best part: the procedure is inexpensive, raising hopes for being able to push this to the third world sooner than other, more expensive medications.
Anti-Piracy Dog Uncovers Huge Cache of Discs (Click for story)	According to this Yahoo! news article, dogs can be trained to tell the difference between a legit copy of a DVD and one from those pesky pirates. From the article, 'A DVD-sniffing anti-piracy dog named Paddy has uncovered a huge cache of 35,000 discs in Malaysian warehouses, many destined for export to Singapore, industry officials said on Wednesday. Paddy was given to Malaysia by the MPA to help close down piracy syndicates, which churn out vast quantities of illegal DVDs. The dog is specially trained to detect chemicals in the discs.'
Should Auditors Be Liable For Certifications? (Click for story)	If auditors are not responsible for certification, then what does certification mean? Enterprises and mid-size business rely on auditors and service providers to certify their systems as compliant with such security regs and standards as PCI-DSS or SOX. But, as Larry Walsh speculates, a lawsuit filed by a bank against an auditor/managed service provider could change that. The bank wants to hold the auditor liable for a breach at its credit card processor because the auditor certified the processor as PCI compliant. If the bank wins, it could change the standards and liabilities of auditors and service providers in the delivery of security services.
Music Streaming to Overtake Downloads (Click for story)	Apparently these folks don't understand why people purchased records, tapes, and CDs when there was radio. More likely, they are trying to make the downloaders believe this. ;^) Streaming will overtake download services to become the dominant force in the online music industry, according to industry insiders. The claim comes in the wake of the PRS cutting the amount of royalties streaming services have to pay songwriters to about a third. Sites will now pay the PRS 0.085p per track, compared to the 0.22p they paid previously. On-demand streaming services still have to pay the record labels about 1p for every track streamed, however. Steve Purdham, CEO of music service We7, says the move will accelerate the growing trend towards online streaming which has seen newcomers such as his site and Spotify attract millions of users in less than a year. 'Over the next 12-24 months you'll see a move towards listening [online],' Purdham told PC Pro. 'Why do you actually need to have something downloaded on your PC? The streaming idea is really the future.'
Device Reads Messages From Surface of the Brain (Click for story)	Technology Review has a story about a start-up company that has developed a more-accurate and less-invasive way to read a patients thoughts. Neurolutions, based in St Louis has developed a small implanted device that translates signals recorded from the surface of the brain into computer commands. The device, which is less invasive than implants and more accurate that scalp electrodes, uses a grid of electrodes placed directly on the surface of the brain to monitor electrical activity. This technology is currently used to find the origin of seizures in patients with uncontrolled epilepsy before surgery. But the company says it could also help paralyzed patients control a computer and perhaps prosthetic limbs using their thoughts. Tests involving more than 20 patients have shown that people can quickly learn to move a cursor on a computer screen using their brain activity.
Performing Songwriter Magazine Shutting Down (Click for story)	The independent magazine, Performing Songwriter, is closing up shop. The June 2009 was their last issue. The magazine has been a great resource, and has featured my two favorite singer-songwriters: Bruce Cockburn and Cheryl Wheeler.
Hydraulic Analog Computer From 1949 (Click for story)	BTW - I remember an analog computer at CMU in the 70's as well. In the New York Times, there is an interesting story about a hydraulic analog computer from 1949 used to model the feedback loops in the economy. According to the article, 'copies of the 'Moniac,' as it became known in the United States, were built and sold to Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Ford Motor Company and the Central Bank of Guatemala, among others.' There is a cool video of the computer in operation at Cambridge University. I remember that the Instrumentation Lab at MIT still had an analog computer in its computer center in the mid-1970s. Even then, it seemed archaic, and now this form of computation is largely forgotten. With 14 machines built, it must have been one of the more successful analog computers — a supercomputer of its day. Of course, you have to wonder if it could have been used to predict our current economic difficulties.
Google's Android To Challenge Windows? (Click for story)	Another Microsoft-killer prediction. ;^) Search giant Google is set to offer its free Android mobile-phone operating system for computers, opening a new front in its rivalry with Microsoft by challenging the dominance of the company's Windows software. Acer Inc., the world's second-largest laptop maker, will release a low-cost notebook powered by Android next quarter, said Jim Wong, head of information-technology products at the Taipei-based company. Calvin Huang, an analyst at Daiwa Securities Group Inc, says that adoption of Android-based netbooks will likely eat into Windows' share of PC operating systems.
Sony Unveils PS3 Motion Controller (Click for story)	Sony confirmed rumors at E3 yesterday by debuting their take on a motion-based input device, set to be released for use with the PS3 in the spring of 2010. The BBC has some entertaining video of the demonstration. "A sensor sits on top of the TV and detects the position, distance and movement of two controllers held in a user's hand. The device can not only measure where the controllers are in relation to each other, but also how close they are to the sensor, meaning you can create true 3D movement within a game. ... During the demonstration, the developers showed what the Sony PlayStation Controller was capable of, enabling users to wield weapons, fire a bow and arrow, write on screen and manipulate objects in a virtual environment. 'One thing that is really difficult to do in a virtual world is drawing,' said Mr Marks. 'And in particular, writing requires extreme precision. [The controller can be measured] to sub-millimetre accuracy.
An Inside Look At the SpaceX Rocket Factory (Click for story)	The folks at SpaceX are working hard in their Hawthorne labs, cubicles and factory, building rockets that will hopefully bring future astronauts to the International Space Station. At the behest of Wired, the author toured the former 747 factory which is now a rocket assembly line. 'Eschewing the traditional startup trappings of two college grads eating ramen, watching Adult Swim and coding until the wee hours of the night, SpaceX instead employs hundreds of brainiacs and builds its rockets in a massive hangar that once housed a 747 assembly line. Started in 2002 by PayPal founder Elon Musk, SpaceX (short for Space Exploration Technologies Corporation) brings a startup mentality to launching rockets into orbit, which until recently was almost exclusively government turf. The hope is that minimal bureaucracy, innovation and in-house manufacturing and testing can be used to put payloads into space at roughly one-tenth the cost of traditional methods.'
The Myth of the Mathematics Gender Gap (Click for story)	The widely held belief that there is disparity in the innate mathematical abilities of men and women has been steadily whittled down in recent years. The gender gap in basic mathematics skills closed some time ago, and recently the gap in high school mathematics has closed up as well, with as many girls as boys now taking high school calculus. Newsweek reports on a new study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that begins to lay to rest the remaining argument that it is at the highest levels of mathematics that the innate differences show. Certainly men dominate current academia, with 70% of mathematics Ph.D.s going to men; however that figure is down from 95% in the 1950s. Indeed, while there remain gaps in achievement between the genders, the study shows that not only are these gaps closing, but the size of the gap varies over differing cultures and correlates with the general degree of gender inequality in the culture (as defined by World Economic Forum measures). In all, this amounts to strong evidence that the differences in outcomes in mathematics between the genders is driven by sociocultural factors rather than innate differences in ability.
Ten Applications That Changed Computing (Click for story)	Yet another top 10 list, which is never right unless we made it up. ;^) The term 'killer app' gets tossed around quite liberally these days. Nearly every piece of software released seems to be pitched as having the potential to send shockwaves throughout the IT world. In reality, there have been precious few applications which have truly changed the computing industry over the years. This article lists some of the top ten true killer apps that changed computing, from Phil Zimmermann's gold standard in encryption, PGP, to Dr Solomon's groundbreaking anti-virus toolkit, to Mitch Kapor who took the idea of VisiCalc for Apple and created Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS.
How American Homeless Stay Wired (Click for story)	San Franciscan Charles Pitts has accounts on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. He runs a Yahoo forum, reads news online and keeps in touch with friends via email. Nothing unusual, right? Except Pitts has been homeless for two years and manages this digital lifestyle from his residence under a highway bridge. Thanks to cheap computers, free Internet access and sheer determination, the WSJ reports that being homeless isn't stopping some from staying wired. 'You don't need a TV. You don't need a radio. You don't even need a newspaper,' says Pitts. 'But you need the Internet.''
Google Adds Scripting Capabilities To Google Doc (Click for story)	Google will add scripting capabilities to Google Docs, allowing organizations to customize their online applications and automate tasks. Google plans to sign up about 1,000 customers over the next few weeks to test the feature, called Google Apps Script. It will be tested initially in Google Spreadsheets and extended to other Google Docs applications over time. The company isn't saying yet when Apps Script — which is based on JavaScript with object-based extensions added by Google — will be widely available. Google Docs users can already apply to try it out.
What a Hacked PC Can Be Used For (Click for story)	Security Fix blog is running a feature looking at the different ways hacked/cracked computers can be abused by cyber scammers. "Computer users often dismiss Internet security best practices because they find them inconvenient, or because they think the rules don't apply to them. Many cling to the misguided belief that because they don't bank or shop online, that bad guys won't target them. The next time you hear this claim, please refer the misguided person to this blog post, which attempts to examine some of the more common — yet often overlooked — ways that cyber crooks can put your PC to criminal use."
Empirical Study Shows DRM Encourages Infringement (Click for story)	Ars Technica has a story about a study by Cambridge law professor Patricia Akester that suggests (declares?) that DRM and its ilk does persuade citizens to infringe copyright and circumvent authors' protections. The name of the study is 'Technological accommodation of conflicts between freedom of expression and DRM: the first empirical assessment.'"
Burglar Nabbed By Backup Program (Click for story)	A Berkeley, California, burglar engineered his own arrest, and that of his girlfriend, when he stole a laptop and used it as his personal computer. He didn't realize that the laptop had an automatic backup program, and that the photos he took were being copied to his victim's backup repository. Berkeley police recognized him, and his location, from the photos.
Homeland Security To Scan Citizens Exiting US (Click for story)	The US Department of Homeland Security is set to kickstart a controversial new pilot to scan the fingerprints of travellers departing the United States. From June, US Customs and Border Patrol will take a fingerprint scan of travellers exiting the United States from Detroit, while the US Transport Security Administration will take fingerprint scans of international travellers exiting the United States from Atlanta. The controversial plan to scan outgoing passengers — including US citizens — was allegedly hatched under the Bush Administration. An official has said it will be used in part to crack down on the US population of illegal immigrants.
Hackers Breached US Army Servers (Click for story)	A Turkish hacking ring has broken into 2 sensitive U.S. Army servers, according to a new investigation uncovered by InformationWeek. The hackers, who go by the name 'm0sted' and are based in Turkey, penetrated servers at the Army's McAlester Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma in January. Users attempting to access the site were redirected to a page featuring a climate-change protest. In Sept, 2007, the hackers breached Army Corps of Engineers servers. That hack sent users to a page containing anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric. The hackers used simple SQL Server injection techniques to gain access. That's troubling because it shows a major Army security lapse, and also the ability to bypass supposedly sophisticated Defense Department tools and procedures designed to prevent such breaches.
Understanding Addiction-Based Game Design (Click for story)	The common theory is that games like World of Warcraft are addictive. But what are the exact qualities that make it so? Are there specific elements of the design that can be pulled out, distilled, and used at will to give a game drug-like properties? Is it wrong to do so? A new article at IGN RPG Vault attempts to isolates the exact qualities that go into making an addiction-based design. From the article: 'If a game uses rewards of any sort to entice you to experience highly repetitive content, you should see what it's trying to do and which of your buttons it's trying to press. If you don't mind, that's cool, but you should understand it.'
The Great Ethanol Scam (Click for story)	Over at BusinessWeek, Ed Wallace is creating quite a stir, reporting that not only is ethanol proving to be a dud as a fuel substitute, but there is increasing evidence that it is destroying engines in large numbers. Before lobbyists convince the government to increase the allowable amount of ethanol in fuel to 15%, Wallace suggests it's time to look at ethanol's effect on smog, fuel efficiency, global warming emissions, and food prices. Wallace concedes there will be some winners if the government moves the ethanol mandate to 15% — auto mechanics, for whom he says it will be the dawn of a new golden age.
Mars Robot May Destroy Life It Was Sent To Find (Click for story)	New Scientist reports that instead of identifying chemicals that could point to life, NASA's robot explorers may have been toasting them by mistake. Even if Mars never had life, comets and asteroids that have struck the planet should have scattered at least some organic molecules over its surface but landers have failed to detect even minute quantities of organic compounds. Now scientists say they may have stumbled on something in the Martian soil that may have, in effect, been hiding the organics: a class of chemicals called perchlorates. At low temperatures, perchlorates are relatively harmless but when heated to hundreds of degrees Celsius perchlorates release a lot of oxygen, which tends to cause any nearby combustible material to burn. The Phoenix and Viking landers looked for organic molecules by heating soil samples to similarly high temperatures to evaporate them and analyse them in gas form. When Douglas Ming of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and colleagues tried heating organics and perchlorates like this on Earth, the resulting combustion left no trace of organics behind. "We haven't looked the right way," says Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center. Jeffrey Bada of the University of California, San Diego, agrees that a new approach is needed. He is leading work on a new instrument called Urey which will be able to detect organic material at concentrations as low as a few parts per trillion. The good news is that, although Urey heats its samples, it does so in water, so the organics cannot burn up.
Don't let ID thieves hijack your job hunt (Click for story)	Scammers increasingly are targeting job seekers; here are 6 ways to protect yourself.
Soccerbots Learn How To Fall Gracefully (Click for story)	Up until now, most work with humanoid robotics has focused on keeping them upright and balanced, but in the real world, falling down is inevitable. So now researcher in Chile are looking at teaching their Soccerbots how to fall down gracefully to minimize damage and allow for a quick recovery. According to a New Scientist article, 'They found that one of the main ways to minimise damage is for the robot to fold its legs underneath it. Among other things, that means the robot is much less likely to hit its head on the ground. Another good strategy is to use a fall sequence consisting of several movements, so the falling body has several points of contact with the ground, spreading the energy of the impact over a large number of joints, rather than taking it all in one disastrous crunch.'
Cory Doctorow Draws the Line On Net Neutrality (Click for story)	Cory Doctorow has a compelling piece in The Guardian today, arguing that network neutrality is not only crucial for the future of the Internet, but is what the ISPs owe to the public. He asks, "Does anybody else feel like waving a flag after reading this?" "If the phone companies had to negotiate for every pole, every sewer, every punch-down, every junction box, every road they get to tear up, they'd go broke. All the money in the world couldn't pay for the access they get for free every day... If they don't like it, let them get into another line of work — give them 60 days to get their wires out of our dirt and then sell the franchise to provide network services to a competitor who will promise to give us a solid digital future in exchange for our generosity."
Were Neanderthals Devoured By Humans? (Click for story)	The Guardian reports that a Neanderthal jawbone covered in cut marks similar to those left behind when flesh is stripped from deer provides crucial evidence that humans attacked Neanderthals, and sometimes killed them, bringing back their bodies to caves to eat or to use their skulls or teeth as trophies. 'For years, people have tried to hide away from the evidence of cannibalism, but I think we have to accept it took place,' says Fernando Rozzi, of Paris's Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique. According to Rozzi, a discovery at Les Rois in south-west France provides compelling support for that argument. Previous excavations revealed bones that were thought to be exclusively human. But Rozzi's team re-examined them and found one they concluded was Neanderthal.
Radiation-Resistant Plants Could Be Used In Space (Click for story)	New Scientist reports that two decades after the world's largest nuclear disaster, life around Chernobyl continues to adapt, with Chernobyl soya containing significantly different amounts of several dozen proteins, including one protein involved in defending cells from heavy metal and radiation damage. 'One protein is known to actually protect human blood from radiation,' says Martin Hajduch of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. In a study to determine how plants might have adapted to the meltdown, Hajduch's team compared soya grown in radioactive plots near Chernobyl with plants grown about 100 km away in uncontaminated soil. Results from the study suggest that adaptation toward heavy metal stress, protection against radiation damage, and mobilization of seed storage proteins are involved in the plant adaptation mechanism to radioactivity in the Chernobyl region (abstract). Determining how plants coped with life after Chernobyl could help scientists engineer radiation-resistant plants. While few farmers are eager to cultivate radioactive plots on Earth, future interplanetary travelers may one day need to grow crops to withstand space radiation.
This Bird Can Shake His Tail Feathers (Click for story)	When Irena Schulz discovered her sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita eleonora), Snowball, dancing to the Backstreet Boys, she posted a video of it on YouTube. Among the millions of viewers were neuroscientists Aniruddh Patel, John Iversen and Micah Bregman. They saw the video and proposed an experiment to see if the bird was really dancing to the beat. The findings were published this week in the journal Current Biology.
Daydreaming Is Really Complex Problem-Solving (Click for story)	ScienceDaily reports that "A new University of British Columbia study finds that our brains are much more active when we daydream than previously thought. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (abstract), finds that activity in numerous brain regions increases when our minds wander. It also finds that brain areas associated with complex problem-solving — previously thought to go dormant when we daydream — are in fact highly active during these episodes. "Mind wandering is typically associated with negative things like laziness or inattentiveness," says lead author, Prof. Kalina Christoff, UBC Dept. of Psychology. "But this study shows our brains are very active when we daydream — much more active than when we focus on routine tasks."
The Hidden Secrets of Online Quizzes (Click for story)	Ultimately, deciding whether you should take an online quiz comes down to a question of trust: Are you comfortable putting your information — personal or financial — into the owner's hands? Remember, even if you don't directly input data, it can be passed along. Such is the case with Facebook, where just opening an application automatically grants its developer access to your entire profile. And don't assume that the developer isn't going to use the information within. [...] The ads can follow you long after you click away, too. Just look at RealAge, a detailed quiz that assigns you a "biological age" based on your family history and health habits. The site, a recent investigation revealed, takes your most sensitive answers — those about sexual difficulties, say, or signs of depression — and sells them to drug companies looking to market medications.
Illusion Cloak Makes One Object Look Like Another (Click for story)	Metamaterials are synthetic substances that can steer light in any way imaginable. Their most famous incarnation is in invisibility cloaks which work by steering light around a region of space making any object inside that region invisible. But invisibility is just the start. A team of physicists in Hong Kong (the same guys who recently worked out how to cloak objects at a distance) have worked out how create a cloak that makes one object look like another. Instead of steering light to make a region of space look empty, the illusion cloak manipulates light in a way that makes a region of space look as if it contains a specific object, such as an elephant. So any object within that region of space, a mouse say, takes on the appearance of an elephant.
Have Sockets Run Their Course? (Click for story)	This article examines the limitations of the sockets API. The Internet and the networking world in general have changed in very significant ways since the sockets API was first developed in 1982, but the API has had the effect of narrowing the ways in which developers think about and write networked applications. This article discusses the history as well as the future of the sockets API, focusing on how 'high bandwidth, low latency, and multihoming are driving the development of new alternatives.'
Girl Who Named Pluto, At 11, Dies At 90 (Click for story)	Frozen and lonely, Planet X circled the far reaches of the solar system awaiting discovery and a name. It got one thanks to an 11-year-old British girl named Venetia Burney, an enthusiast of the planets and classical myth. On March 14, 1930, the day newspapers reported that the long-suspected 'trans-Neptunian body' had been photographed for the first time, she proposed to her well-connected grandfather that it be named Pluto, after the Roman god of the underworld. Venetia Phair, as she became by marriage, died April 30 in her home in Banstead, in the county of Surrey, England. She was 90. ... More vexing to Mrs. Phair was the persistent notion that she had taken the name from the Disney character. 'It has now been satisfactorily proven that the dog was named after the planet, rather than the other way around,' she told the BBC. 'So, one is vindicated.' " Venetia's great-uncle Henry, who was a housemaster at Eton, had successfully proposed that the two dwarf moons of Mars be named Phobos and Deimos.
3,800 Vulnerabilities Detected In FAA's Web Apps (Click for story)	auditors have identified thousands of vulnerabilities in the FAA's Web-based air traffic control applications — 763 of them high-risk. Here is the report on the Department of Transportation site (PDF). "And the FAA's Air Traffic Organization, which heads up ATC operations, received more than 800 security incident alerts in fiscal 2008, but still had not fixed 17 percent of the flaws that caused them, 'including critical incidents in which hackers may have taken over control of ATO computers,' the report says. ... While the number of serious flaws in the FAA's apps appears to be staggering, Jeremiah Grossman, CTO of WhiteHat Security, says the rate is actually in line with the average number of bugs his security firm finds in most Web applications. ... Auditors were able to hack their way through the Web apps to get to data on the Web application and ATC servers, including the FAA's Traffic Flow Management Infrastructure system, Juneau Aviation Weather System, and the Albuquerque Air Traffic Control Tower. They also were able to gain entry into an ATC system that monitors power, according to the report. Another vulnerability in the FAA's Traffic Flow Management Infrastructure leaves related applications open to malware injection."
Mobile Wi-Fi Hot Spot (Click for story)	What if you had a personal Wi-Fi bubble, a private hot spot, that followed you everywhere you go? Incredibly, there is such a thing. It's the Novatel MiFi 2200, available from Verizon starting in mid-May ($100 with two-year contract, after rebate). It's a little wisp of a thing, like a triple-thick credit card. It has one power button, one status light and a swappable battery that looks like the one in a cellphone. When you turn on your MiFi and wait 30 seconds, it provides a personal, portable, powerful, password-protected wireless hot spot. ... If you just want to do e-mail and the Web, you pay $40 a month for the service (250 megabytes of data transfer, 10 cents a megabyte above that). If you watch videos and shuttle a lot of big files, opt for the $60 plan (5 gigabytes). And if you don't travel incessantly, the best deal may be the one-day pass: $15 for 24 hours, only when you need it. In that case, the MiFi itself costs $270.
Elsevier Creating Phony Peer-Review Journals (Click for story about Elsevier) (Click for story about Merc)	Don't believe everything you read on the internet is a good rule to follow, but it turns out that you can't even believe a 'peer reviewed scientific journal' either. Publisher Elsevier appears to be producing phony peer-reviewed scientific journals. They created a phony, but real sounding, peer-review journal titled the 'Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine' to publish data favorable to its products. 'What's sad is that I'm sure many a primary care physician was given literature from Merck that said, "As published in Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, Fosamax outperforms all other medications...."' writes Summer Johnson in a post on the website of the American Journal of Bioethics. One Australian rheumatologist named Peter Brooks who served as an 'honorary advisory board' to the journal didn't receive a single paper for peer-review in his entire time on the board, but it didn't bother him because he apparently knew the journal did not receive original submissions of research. All this is probably not too surprising in light of Merck's difficulties with Vioxx, the once $2.5 billion a year drug that was pulled from the market in September 2004, after a study showed it doubled the risk of heart attack and stroke in long-term users resulting in payments by Merck of $4.85 billion to settle personal injury claims from former users, but it bears repeating that 'if physicians would not lend their names or pens to these efforts, and publishers would not offer their presses, these publications could not exist. Now, several librarians say that they have uncovered an entire imprint of 'advertorial' publications. Excerpta Medica, a 'strategic medical communications agency,' is an Elsevier division. Along with the now infamous Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, it published a number of other 'journals.' Elsevier CEO Michael Hansen now admits that at least six fake journals were published for pharmaceutical companies.
Digitizing Literary Treasures Leads To New Finds (Click for story)	The WSJ has a cool article on how the race to digitize literary treasures has led to a trove of new discoveries. Quoting: 'Improved technology is allowing researchers to scan ancient texts that were once unreadable — blackened in fires or by chemical erosion, painted over or simply too fragile to unroll. Now, scholars are studying these works with X-ray fluorescence, multispectral imaging used by NASA to photograph Mars and CAT scans used by medical technicians ... By taking high-resolution digital images in 14 different light wavelengths, ranging from infrared to ultraviolet, Oxford scholars are reading bits of papyrus that were discovered in 1898 in an ancient garbage dump in central Egypt. So far, researchers have digitized about 80% of the collection of 500,000 fragments, dating from the 2nd century B.C. to the 8th century A.D. The texts include fragments of unknown works by famous authors of antiquity, lost gospels and early Islamic manuscripts.'
Hackers Broke Into FAA Air Traffic Control Systems (Click for story)	Hackers have repeatedly broken into the air traffic control mission-support systems of the US Federal Aviation Administration, according to an Inspector General report sent to the FAA this week, and the FAA's increasing use of commercial software and Internet Protocol-based technologies as part of an effort to modernize the air traffic control systems poses a higher security risk to the systems than when they relied primarily on proprietary software, the report said. Intrusion detection systems (IDS) are deployed at only 11 of hundreds of air traffic control facilities. In 2008, more than 870 cyber incident alerts were issued to the organization responsible for air traffic control operations and by the end of the year 17 percent (more than 150 incidents) had not been remediated, 'including critical incidents in which hackers may have taken over control' of operations computers, the report said.
Phony Wikipedia Entry Used By Worldwide Press (Click for story)	A quote attributed to French composer Maurice Jarre was posted on wikipedia shortly after his death in March and later appeared in obituaries in mainstream media. 'One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear,' Jarre was quoted as saying. However, these words were not uttered by the Oscar-winning composer but written by Shane Fitzgerald, a final-year undergraduate student, who said he wanted to show how journalists use the internet as a primary source for their stories. Fitzgerald posted the quote on Wikipedia late at night after news of Jarre's death broke. 'I saw it on breaking news and thought if I was going to do something I should do it quickly. I knew journalists wouldn't be looking at it until the morning,' The quote had no referenced sources and was therefore taken down by moderators of Wikipedia within minutes. However, Fitzgerald put it back up a few more times until it was finally left up on the site for more than 24 hours. While he was wary about the ethical implications of using someone's death as a social experiment, he had carefully generated the quote so as not to distort or taint Jarre's life, he said. 'I didn't expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs and sites, but on mainstream quality papers? I was very surprised.'
A History of Rogue (Click for story)	Gamasutra has published "The History of Rogue: Have @ You, You Deadly Zs." Despite only the most 'primitive' audiovisuals, Rogue has continued to excite gamers and programmers worldwide, and has been ported, enhanced, and forked now for over two decades. What is it about Wichman and Toy's old UNIX RPG that has sent so many gamers to their deaths in the Dungeons of Doom, desperately seeking the fabled Amulet of Yendor? This article covers the history of the game, including the Epyx failure to make a ton of cash selling it in 1983. It also goes into rogue-like culture and development.
First Graphics Game Written On/For a 16-Bit Home PC (Click for story)	a story about Scott's Space Wars, a piece of gaming history: "This game was written by the famous game author Scott Adams, who founded Adventure International, the first multimillion dollar PC game company. It was founded over 30 years ago and developed for early 8-bit home PCs, i.e. TRS-80, Apple II, Atari. Scott's Space Wars is the first graphics game that was ever written at home, for a 16-bit home computer. The original source code is available as photos of the original 1975 hand-written manuscript. The last purchaser of the manuscript paid $197,500 in 2005. A brief video shows how the game was played."
The Biggest Cults In Tech (Click for story)	Infoworld has published its list of the biggest cults in tech — including Palmists, Newtonians, Commodorians, the Brotherhood of the Ruby, IBM power systems fanboys, Ubuntu-ists, and Lispers. A pretty fun read (unless you really are a cult member).
Microchips That Shook the World (Click for story)	IEEE Spectrum has an interesting article on '25 Microchips That Shook the World,' including such classics as the Signetics NE555 Timer, MOS Technology 6502 Microprocessor (Apple II, Commodore PET and the brain of Bender) and the Intel 8088 Microprocessor. Quoting: 'Among the many great chips that have emerged from fabs during the half-century reign of the integrated circuit, a small group stands out. Their designs proved so cutting-edge, so out of the box, so ahead of their time, that we are left groping for more technology clichés to describe them. Suffice it to say that they gave us the technology that made our brief, otherwise tedious existence in this universe worth living.'
Atari Emulation of CRT Effects On LCDs (Click for story)	A group at Georgia Institute of Technology has developed a fun little open source program to emulate the CRT effects to make old Atari games look like they originally did when played on modern LCD's and digital displays. Things like color bleed, ghosting, noise, etc. are reproduced to give a more realistic appearance
Hospital Equipment Infected With Conficker (Click for story)	Recently, the Conficker/Downadup worm infected several hundred machines and critical medical equipment in an undisclosed number of US hospitals. The attacks were not widespread; however, Marcus Sachs, director of the SANS Internet Storm Center, told CNET News that it raises the awareness of what we would do if there were millions of computers infected in hospitals or in critical infrastructure locations. It's not clear how the devices (including heart monitors, MRI machines and PCs) got infected. Infected computers were running Windows NT and Windows 2000 in a local area network (LAN) that wasn't supposed to be Internet accessible, but the LAN was connected to one with direct Internet access. A patch was released by Microsoft last October that fixes the problem, but the computers infected were reportedly too old to be patched.
Social Networking Sites Getting Risky For Recruiting (Click for story)	While many recruiters and HR managers are taking advantage of the Web and online social networks to screen candidates for positions inside their organizations, a bank in Texas has decided that using social networking websites in its recruiting process is too risky legally. Amegy Bank of Texas now prohibits internal HR staff and external recruiters from using social networking sites in its hiring process. Amegy's decision to ban the use of social networking sites in its hiring process demonstrates its respect for prospective employees' privacy. It also sends a message to the employers and recruiters using social networks to snoop into job seekers' personal lives that their actions border on discrimination and could get them in a lot of legal trouble.
A No-Touching 3D Computer Interface (Click for story)	I wonder if they have thought about kids and cats. ;^) a video demonstration of a 3D input system which senses the user's hand position, but without requiring the user to touch a controller or wear a trackable position indicator. From the provided description: "Utilizing the theory of electrostatics, we have designed a low-cost human-computer interface device that has the ability to track the position of a user's hand in three dimensions. Physical contact is not required and the user does not need to hold a controller or attach markers to their body. To control the device, the user simply waves their hand above it in the air."
Taking Gaming To the Next Billion Players (Click for story)	June marks the launch across Brazil of Zeebo, a console that aims to tap an enormous new market for videogaming for the billion-strong, emerging middle classes of such countries as Brazil, India, Mexico, Russia and China. Zeebo uses the same Qualcomm chipsets contained in high-end smartphones, together with 1GB of flash memory, three USB slots and a proprietary dual analogue gamepad. It plugs into a TV and outputs at a 640 x 480 pixel resolution. 'The key thing is we're using off-the-shelf components,' says Mike Yuen, director of the gaming group at Qualcomm. This approach means that, while Zeebo can be priced appropriately for its markets — it will launch at US $199 in Brazil compared to around US $250 (plus another US $50 for a mod chip to play pirated games) for a PlayStation 2 in the region — and next year the company plans to drop the price of the console to $149. But the most important part of the Zeebo ecosystem is its wireless digital distribution that gets around the low penetration of wired broadband in many of these countries, negates the cost of dealing with packaged retail goods, and removes the risk of piracy, with the games priced at about $10 locked to the consoles they're downloaded to. Zeebo is not meant to directly compete with powerful devices like Sony's PlayStation 3, Microsoft's Xbox 360, or the Wii. 'In Latin America, where there's a strong gaming culture, that's what we'll be, but in India and China we can be more educational or lifestyle-oriented,' says Yuen. One Indian gaming blog predicts Zeebo will struggle, in part due to the cultural reluctance toward digital distribution and also the lack of piratable games.
The Making of the PlayStation (Click for story)	Edge Online has an in-depth look at the beginnings of the first PlayStation console. It starts at Sony's partnership with Nintendo, the purpose of which was to integrate a CD-ROM drive into the SNES. A falling out between the companies led Sony to stubbornly pursue a market dominated by Nintendo and Sega. The console's technology and Sony's unusual position in the industry quickly attracted the interest of many developers and publishers, eventually leading to sales that emphatically won that round of the console wars. "'There was a huge resistance inside the company to actually being in the videogames business at all,' explains Harrison. 'The main reason why the Sony brand wasn't really used in the early marketing of PlayStation was not necessarily out of choice, but it was because Sony's old guard was scared that it was going to destroy this wonderful, venerable, 50-year old brand. They saw Nintendo and Sega as toys, so why on Earth would they join the toy business? That changed a bit after we delivered 90 per cent of the company's profit for a few years.'"
The Economist On Television Over Broadband (Click for story)	a pair of articles in The Economist discussing television over broadband, and the effects of DVR use. "Cable-television companies make money by selling packages of channels. The average American household pays $700 a year for over 100 channels of cable television but watches no more than 15. Most would welcome the chance to buy only those channels they want to watch, rather than pay for expensive packages of programming they are largely not interested in. They would prefer greater variety, too — something the internet offers in abundance. A surprising amount of video is available free from websites like Hulu and YouTube, or for a modest fee from iTunes, Netflix Watch Instantly and Amazon Video on Demand. ... Consumers' new-found freedom to choose has struck fear into the hearts of the cable companies. They have been trying to slow internet televisions steady march into the living room by rolling out DOCSIS 3 at a snails pace and then stinging customers for its services. Another favorite trick has been to cap the amount of data that can be downloaded, or to charge extortionately by the megabyte. Yet the measures to suffocate internet television being taken by the cable companies may already be too late. A torrent of innovative start-ups, not seen since the dot-com mania of a decade ago, is flooding the market with technology for supplying internet television to the living room." And from the second article on DVR usage patterns: "Families with DVRs seem to spend 15-20% of their viewing time watching pre-recorded shows, and skip only about half of all advertisements. This means only about 5% of television is time-shifted and less than 3% of all advertisements are skipped. Mitigating that loss, people with DVRs watch more television. ... Early adopters of DVRs used them a lot — not surprisingly, since they paid so much for them. Later adopters use them much less (about two-thirds less, according to a recent study)."
Old Sierra Games Playable In Browser Through Open Source Game Engine (Click for story)	Like Quake III and Zork, Sarien.net has converted and made available many of the earlier Sierra adventure games. Currently, Space Quest, Police Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry are playable, and more are on the way. They are Javascript-based, and require no Flash. The site's creator, Martin Kool, said, 'To actually allow gameplay, I reverse engineered the original AGI interpreter in javascript. The reverse engineering process has been done before by others, and the best known existing interpreter (Sarien) has recently merged into ScummVM. Due to that, the interpreter mechanics were fairly well documented online.'
A Cyber-Attack On an American City (Click for story)	Bruce Perens writes "Just after midnight on Thursday, April 9, unidentified attackers climbed down four manholes in the Northern California city of Morgan Hill and cut eight fiber cables in what appears to have been an organized attack on the electronic infrastructure of an American city. Its implications, though startling, have gone almost un-reported. So I decided to change that."
BYU Prof. Says University Classroooms Will Be "Irrelevant" By 2020 (Click for story)	According to this Deseret News article, University classrooms will be obsolete by 2020. BYU professor David Wiley envisions a world where students listen to lectures on iPods, and those lectures are also available online to everyone anywhere for free. Course materials are shared between universities, science labs are virtual, and digital textbooks are free. He says, 'Higher education doesn't reflect the life that students are living ... today's colleges are typically tethered, isolated, generic, and closed.' In the world according to Wiley, universities would still make money, because they have a marketable commodity: to get college credits and a diploma, you'd have to be a paying customer. Wiley helped start Flat World Knowledge, which creates peer-reviewed textbooks that can be downloaded for free, or bought as paperbacks for $30.
Sending Messages With Your Brain Via EEG (Click for story)	From a University of Wisconsin-Madison announcement: 'In early April, Adam Wilson posted a status update on the social networking Web site Twitter — just by thinking about it. Just 23 characters long, his message, 'using EEG to send tweet,' demonstrates a natural, manageable way in which "locked-in" patients can couple brain-computer interface technologies with modern communication tools. A University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student, Wilson is among a growing group of researchers worldwide who aim to perfect a communication system for users whose bodies do not work, but whose brains function normally.' A brief rundown of the system: Users focus on a monitor displaying a keyboard; the interface measures electrical impulses in the brain to print the chosen letters one by one. Wilson compares the learning curve to texting, calling it 'kind of a slow process at first.' But even practice doesn't bring it quite up to texting speed: 'I've seen people do up to eight characters per minute,' says Wilson. See video of the system in action.
Vatican To Build 100 Megawatt Solar Power Plant (Click for story)	The Vatican is going solar in a big way. The tiny state recently announced that it intends to spend 660 million dollars to create what will effectively be Europe's largest solar power plant. This massive 100 megawatt photovoltaic installation will provide enough energy to make the Vatican the first solar powered nation state in the world! 'The 100 megawatts unleashed by the station will supply about 40,000 households. That will far outstrip demand by Pope Benedict XVI and the 900 inhabitants of the 0.2 square-mile country nestled across Rome's Tiber River. The plant will cover nine times the needs of Vatican Radio, whose transmission tower is strong enough to reach 35 countries including Asia.'
US Military Issuing iPod Touches To Soldiers (Click for story)	Newsweek has an article about the latest weapons in the US military's arsenal. The iPod Touch and the iPhone are being adapted as general purpose handhelds for soldiers in the field. 'Apple gadgets are proving to be surprisingly versatile. Software developers and the US Department of Defense are developing military software for iPods that enables soldiers to display aerial video from drones and have teleconferences with intelligence agents halfway across the globe. Snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan now use a "ballistics calculator" called BulletFlight, made by the Florida firm Knight's Armament for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Army researchers are developing applications to turn an iPod into a remote control for a bomb-disposal robot (tilting the iPod steers the robot). In Sudan, American military observers are using iPods to learn the appropriate etiquette for interacting with tribal leaders.'
Looking to Spammers to Solve Hard AI Problems (Click for story)	Malware isn't all bad ... ;^) With bots getting closer to beating text-based CAPTCHAs for good, New Scientist points out that when they do, OCR technology will at least have advanced. The article goes on to suggest that whatever kind of reverse Turing Test that comes next should be chosen to motivate spammers to solve other pressing AI problems, such as image recognition. Are there any other problems that criminal crowdsourcing could help with?
A Look At the Final Fantasy XIII Demo, Early Analysis (Click for story)	A demo for the PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIII was released in Japan this week, and people have had a chance to try it out and report back. In fact, video footage of the demo in its entirety was streamed and then posted on YouTube shortly after finding its way into customers' hands. Eurogamer got a chance to give the demo a test-drive, and they had this to say: "The characters are likeable — Lightning for her mysteriousness, the members of NORA for their banter and camaraderie — the setting is compelling, and the whole thing is as sumptuous visually as you'd expect of a next-generation Square-Enix title. The plot's the only thing that I couldn't get a definite feel for from the demo, beyond the basic set-up of an oppressive regime, a resistance fighting against it and a character with mysterious powers brought to aid them in a twist of fate. But forty minutes with Final Fantasy XIII have left me with nothing but anticipation for what else it has in store.
Subverting PIN Encryption For Bank Cards (Click for story)	According to the payment-card industry ... standards for credit card transaction security, [PINs] are supposed to be encrypted in transit, which should theoretically protect them if someone intercepts the data. The problem, however, is that a PIN must pass through multiple HSMs across multiple bank networks en route to the customer's bank. These HSMs are configured and managed differently, some by contractors not directly related to the bank. At every switching point, the PIN must be decrypted, then re-encrypted with the proper key for the next leg in its journey, which is itself encrypted under a master key that is generally stored in the module or in the module's application programming interface, or API. 'Essentially, the thief tricks the HSM into providing the encryption key,' says Sartin. 'This is possible due to poor configuration of the HSM or vulnerabilities created from having bloated functions on the device.'
Are Human Beings Organisms Or Living Ecosystems? (Click for story)	Notice this doesn't question whether we are individuals, but rather the best way to diagnose medical conditions. Every human body harbors about 100 trillion bacterial cells, outnumbering human cells 10 to one. There's been a growing consensus among scientists that bacteria are not simply random squatters, but organized communities that evolve with us and are passed down from generation to generation. 'Human beings are not really individuals; they're communities of organisms,' says microbiologist Margaret McFall-Ngai. 'This could be the basis of a whole new way of looking at disease.' Recently, for example, evidence has surfaced that obesity may well include a microbial component. Jeffrey Gordon's lab at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published findings that lean and obese twins — whether identical or fraternal — harbor strikingly different bacterial communities that are not just helping to process food directly; they actually influence whether that energy is ultimately stored as fat in the body. Last year, the National Institutes of Health launched the Human Microbiome Project to characterize the role of microbes in the human body, a formal recognition of bacteria's far-reaching influence, including their contributions to human health and certain illnesses. William Karasov, a physiologist and ecologist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes that the consequences of this new approach will be profound. 'We've all been trained to think of ourselves as human,' says Karasov, adding that bacteria have usually been considered only as the source of infections, or as something benign living in the body. Now, Karasov says, it appears 'we are so interconnected with our microbes that anything studied before could have a microbial component that we hadn't thought about.'
Robot Body Suit To Be Marketed In Japan (Click for story)	A Japanese company is preparing limited mass production of a cybernetic bodysuit which dramatically increases user strength up to ten times. The "Hybrid Assistive Limb" suit synchronizes movements of a mechanical exoskeleton to biological nerve signals detected by biopads on the body. (Originally envisioned for people with disabilities, the suit also has industrial applications, and the company is planning annual production of 400 units at $4,200 apiece.) Its battery life is five hours, according to the company's web site, which promises they're also opening a EU branch to begin sales outside of Japan
Conficker Downloads Payload (Click for story)	Conficker seems to finally be doing something, a week after hype around the worm peaked on April Fool's Day. It has now downloaded components from the Waledac botnet, which could contain rootkit capabilities. Trend Micro security expert Rik Ferguson said: "These components have so far been missing, but could this finally be the 'other boot dropping' that we have all been been waiting for?" Ferguson also suggested that people behind Conficker could be the very same who are running Waledac and created the Storm botnet. "It tallies with some of the assumptions people have made about Conficker — that the first variant was actively trying to avoid the Ukraine because Waledac was Eastern European," Ferguson added.
Cracking the Code of Bacterial Communication (Click for story)	Microbiologist Bonnie Bassler explains her discovery of 'quorum sensing' — the amazing ability of bacteria to communicate with each other and coordinate attack strategies (video). By cracking the communication code, she has opened up potential for a new class of drugs tackling microbial diseases. The talk got a massive standing ovation at this year's TED and has just been posted. To quote one commenter: 'This is by far the most inspiring, amazing, and far-reaching talk I've seen in a very long time.'
Star Trek Premiere Gets Standing Ovation, Surprise Showing In Austin (Click for story)	Proving that science fiction can still be great entertainment, J.J. Abrams appears to have impressed Star Trek fans at the official world premiere of Star Trek, who gave the film a five-minute standing ovation at the Sydney Opera House in Australia today. Meanwhile, mere hours beforehand, flummoxed fans at the Alamo Drafthouse theater in Austin, TX, deceived into thinking they were seeing a special, extended version of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, were pleasantly surprised when a disguised Leonard Nimoy greeted them and announced they would be seeing the new film in its entirety. ILM's influence on the film is reported as visually stunning, and lucky Australian fans are scheduled to see the movie first, as it opens a day before the American release.
New Fundamental Law of Network Economics (Click for story)	A new fundamental law of economics has been formulated by Rod Beckstrom, former Director of the National Cyber Security Center. In Words: The value of a network equals the net value added to each user's transactions (PDF) conducted through that network, valued from the perspective of each user, and summed for all. It answers the decades-old question of 'how valuable is a network.' It is granular and transactions-based, and can be used to value any network: social, electronic, support groups, and even the Internet as a whole. This new model or law values the network by looking from the edge of the network at all of the transactions conducted and the value added to each. One way to contemplate the value the network adds to each transaction is to imagine the network being shut off and what the additional transactions' costs or loss would be. Beckstrom's Law replaces Metcalfe's law, Reed's law, and other concepts which proposed that the value of a network was based purely on the size of the network (and in the case of Metcalfe's law, one other variable).
Could the Internet Be Taken Down In 30 Minutes? (Click for story)	Notice that they don't say how much risk. Is this possible but not probable? Tom's Hardware recently interviewed Dino A. Dai Zovi, a former member of Sandia National Labs' IDART (the guys who test the security of national agencies). Although most of the interview is focused on personal computer security, they asked him about L0pht's claim in 1998 if the Internet could still be taken down in 30 minutes given the advances on both the security and threat sides. He said that the risk was still true.
Believing In Medical Treatments That Don't Work (Click for story)	David H. Newman, M.D. has an interesting article in the NY Times where he discusses common medical treatments that aren't supported by the best available evidence. For example, doctors have administered 'beta-blockers' for decades to heart attack victims, although studies show that the early administration of beta-blockers does not save lives; patients with ear infections are more likely to be harmed by antibiotics than helped — the infections typically recede within days regardless of treatment and the same is true for bronchitis, sinusitis, and sore throats; no cough remedies have ever been proven better than a placebo. Back surgeries to relieve pain are, in the majority of cases, no better than nonsurgical treatment, and knee surgery is no better than sham knee surgery where surgeons 'pretend' to do surgery while the patient is under light anesthesia. Newman says that treatment based on ideology is alluring, 'but the uncomfortable truth is that many expensive, invasive interventions are of little or no benefit and cause potentially uncomfortable, costly, and dangerous side effects and complications.' The Obama administration's plan for reform includes identifying health care measures that work and those that don't, and there are signs of hope for evidence-based medicine: earlier this year hospital administrators were informed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that beta-blocker treatment will be retired as a government indicator of quality care, beginning April 1, 2009. 'After years of advocacy that cemented immediate beta-blockers in the treatment protocols of virtually every hospital in the country,' writes Newman, 'the agency has demonstrated that minds can be changed.'
Yeast-Powered Fuel Cell Feeds On Human Blood (Click for story)	Canadian researchers have taken a sensible, if slightly creepy, step towards solving the problem of medical implant batteries running down. They've built a fuel cell powered by yeast that feed on the glucose in human blood. If this makes it into people, keeping your implants going will be as simple as eating a donut.
First Proven Diagnostic Test For Alzheimer's (Click for story)	A test that can confirm or rule out Alzheimer's disease at an early stage has been shown effective by US pathologists. 'With this test, we can reliably detect and track the progression of Alzheimer's disease,' said lead researcher Leslie Shaw with the University of Pennsylvania's Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative in Philadelphia. ... The new test is detailed in the journal Annals of Neurology. It measures the cerebral-spinal fluid concentration of two biochemicals associated with the disease — amyloid beta42 peptide and tau protein.
Game Companies Face Hard Economic Choices (Click for story)	The NY Times reports that the proliferation of free or low-cost games on the Web and for phones limits how high the major game publishers can set prices, so makers are sometimes unable to charge enough to cover the cost of producing titles. The cost of making a game for the previous generation of machines was about $10 million, not including marketing. The cost of a game for the latest consoles is over twice that — $25 million is typical, and it can be much more. Reggie Fils-Aime, chief marketing officer for Nintendo of America, says publishers of games for its Wii console need to sell one million units of a game to turn a profit, but the majority of games, analysts said, sell no more than 150,000 copies. Developers would like to raise prices to cover development costs, but Mike McGarvey, former chief executive of Eidos and now an executive with OnLive, says that consumers have been looking at console games and saying, 'This is too expensive and there are too many choices.' Since makers cannot charge enough or sell enough games to cover the cost of producing most titles, video game makers have to hope for a blockbuster. 'The model as it exists is dying,' says McGarvey.
Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told (Click for story)	New cognitive research shows that 3-year-olds neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present, but instead call up the past as they need it. 'There is a lot of work in the field of cognitive development that focuses on how kids are basically little versions of adults trying to do the same things adults do, but they're just not as good at it yet. What we show here is they are doing something completely different,' says professor Yuko Munakata at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Munakata's team used a computer game and a setup that measures the diameter of the pupil of the eye to determine mental effort to study the cognitive abilities of 3-and-a-half-year-olds and 8-year-olds. The research concluded that while everything you tell toddlers seems to go in one ear and out the other, the study found that toddlers listen, but then store the information for later use. 'For example, let's say it's cold outside and you tell your 3-year-old to go get his jacket out of his bedroom and get ready to go outside,' says doctoral student Christopher Chatham. 'You might expect the child to plan for the future, think "OK it's cold outside so the jacket will keep me warm." But what we suggest is that this isn't what goes on in a 3-year-old's brain. Rather, they run outside, discover that it is cold, and then retrieve the memory of where their jacket is, and then they go get it.
New Security Concerns Raised For Google Docs (Click for story)	TechCrunch is running a story about three possible security issues with Google Docs recently uncovered by researcher Ade Barkah. It turns out that an image embedded into a protected document is given a URL which is not protected, allowing anyone who knows or guesses it to see the image regardless of permissions or even the existence of the document. Barkah also pointed out that once you've shared a document with another person, that person can see diagram revisions from any point before they gained access, forcing you to create a new document if you need to redact something. The last issue, the mechanics of which he disclosed only to Google, affects the document-sharing invitation forwarding system, which can allow somebody access to your documents after you've removed their permissions. Google made a blog post to respond to these concerns, saying that they "do not pose a significant security risk," but are being investigated. We previously discussed a sharing bug in Google Docs that was fixed earlier this month.
Vast Electronic Spying Operation Discovered (Click for story)	Researchers in Toronto have discovered a huge international electronic spying operation that they are calling 'GhostNet.' So far it has infiltrated government and corporate offices in 103 countries, including the office of the Dalai Lama (who originally went to the researchers for help analyzing a suspected infiltration). The operation appears to be based in China, and the information gained has been used to interfere with the actions of the Dalai Lama and to thwart individuals seeking to help Tibetan exiles. The researchers found no evidence of infiltration of US government computers, although machines at the Indian embassy were compromised.
Cotton Swabs Prime Suspect In 8 Year Phantom Chase (Click for story)	A new angle to DNA testing: For eight years, several hundred police officers across several European countries have been chasing a phantom woman whose DNA had been found in almost 20 crimes (including two murders) across central Europe. It now turns out that contaminated cotton swabs might be responsible for this highly unusual investigation. After being puzzled by the apparent randomness of the crimes, investigator noticed that all cotton swabs had been sourced from the same company. They also noted that the DNA was never found in crimes in Bavaria, a German state located at the center of the crimes' locations. It turns out that Bavaria buys its swabs from a different supplier.
Amateur Astronomer Grabs Amazing ISS Picture (Click for story)	Ralf Vandebergh is an amateur astronomer, and using a simple telescope with a video camera attached to it, he took an incredibly detailed picture of the International Space Station. You can easily see the recently-installed truss and solar panels, as well as the Space Shuttle Discovery docked to the station.
Nanotube Muscles Are Strong As Steel, Light As Air (Click for story)	Scientists from the University of Texas at Dallas have created nanotube-based artificial muscles that are light as air and work even under extreme temperatures. The 'muscles' expand width-wise by about 200 percent when a voltage is applied, but are stronger than steel lengthwise. The nanotubes within the fiber naturally stick together. Applying a voltage makes them obtain a charge and repel one another. The researchers created them by stretching bundles of entangled carbon nanotubes into long threads. Several cool videos show the strange stuff in action. Some experts, including one from NASA, believe that the nanotube muscles' ability to withstand extreme heat and cold could make them suitable shape-shifting materials for future space missions.
Several Clay County Officials Arrested On Federal Charges (Click for story)	This is why all voting software should be open and verified: According to the indictment, these alleged criminal actions affected the outcome of federal, local, and state primary and general elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006.
Diebold Admits Flaw In Voting Software (Click for story)	At a public hearing in California, Diebold's western region manager has admitted that the audit log system on current versions of Premier Election Solutions' (formerly Diebold's) electronic voting and tabulating systems — used in some 34 states across the nation — fails to record the wholesale deletion of ballots, even when ballots are deleted on the same day as an election. An election system's audit logs are meant to record all activity during the system's actual counting of ballots, so that later examiners may determine, with certainty, whether any fraudulent or mistaken activity had occurred during the count. Diebold's software fails to do that, as has recently been discovered by Election Integrity advocates in Humboldt County, CA, and then confirmed by the CA Secretary of State. The flaws, built into the system for more than a decade, are in serious violation of federal voting system certification standards.
Google's Information On DMCA Takedown Abuse (Click for story)	According to a PC World article, Google has submitted a brief to New Zealand about its proposed copyright law (section 92A). "In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, were sent by business targeting competitors and over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims."
UK Gov't May Track All Facebook Traffic (Click for story)	The UK government, which is becoming increasingly Orwellian, has said that it is considering snooping on all social networking traffic including Facebook, MySpace, and bebo. This supposedly anti-terrorist measure may be proposed as part of the Intercept Modernisation Programme according to minister Vernon Coaker, and is exactly the sort of deep packet inspection web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee warned about last week. The measure would get around the inconvenience for the government of not being able to snoop on all UK web traffic.
Computer Science Major Is Cool Again (Click for story)	Network World reporting that the number of computer science majors enrolled at US universities increased for the first time in six years, according to new survey data out this morning. The Taulbee Study found that the number of undergraduates signed up as computer science majors rose 8% last year. The survey was conducted last fall, just as the economic downturn started to bite. The article notes the daunting competition for positions at top universities: Carnegie Mellon University received 2,600 applications for 130 undergrad spots, and 1,400 for 26 PhD slots. "...the popularity of computer science majors among college freshmen and sophomores is because IT has better job prospects than other specialties, especially in light of the global economic downturn. ... The latest unemployment numbers for 2008 for computer software engineers is 1.6%... That's beyond full employment. ... The demand for tech jobs may rise further thanks to the Obama Administration's stimulus package, which could create nearly 1 million new tech jobs."
Harlan Ellison Sues For "Star Trek" Episode (Click for story)	The ever-quotable speculative fiction writer Harlan Ellison has launched a lawsuit against Paramount and the Writer's Guild West for rights to residuals surrounding his famous and award winning 'City on the Edge of Forever' episode for the original Star Trek series. Ellison, recently featured in the documentary 'Dreams with Sharp Teeth,' said that 'The Trek fans who know my City screenplay understand just exactly why I'm bare-fangs-of-Adamantium about this.' Regarding his lawsuit, he had this to say: 'The arrogance, the pompous dismissive imperial manner of those who "have more important things to worry about," who'll have their assistant get back to you, who don't actually read or create, who merely "take" meetings, and shuffle papers — much of which is paper money denied to those who actually did the manual labor of creating those dreams — they refuse even to notice... until you jam a Federal lawsuit in their eye. To hell with all that obfuscation and phony flag-waving: they got my money. Pay me and pay off all the other writers from whom you've made hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars... from OUR labors.
Card-Sniffing Malware On Diebold ATMs (Click for story)	They can't count votes, and now they can't count money, either: Diebold has released a security fix for its Opteva automated teller machines after cyber-criminals apparently broke into the systems at one or more businesses in Russia and installed malicious software. Diebold learned of the incident in January and sent out a global security update to its ATM customers using the Windows operating system. It is not releasing full details of what happened, including which businesses were affected, but said criminals had gained physical access to the machines to install their malicious program. Arrests have reportedly been made.
Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own (Click for story)	Economists say that when the economy takes a dive, it is common for people to turn to their inner entrepreneur to try to make their own work. But they say that it takes months for that mentality to sink in, and that this is about the time in the economic cycle when it really starts to happen — when the formerly employed realize that traditional job searches are not working, and that they are running out of time and money.
Researchers Sniff Keystrokes From Thin Air, Wires (Click for story)	Two separate research teams have found that the electromagnetic radiation that is generated when a computer keyboard is tapped is actually pretty easy to capture and decode. Using an oscilloscope and an inexpensive wireless antenna, the Ecole Polytechnique team was able to pick up keystrokes from virtually any keyboard, including laptops — with 95 percent accuracy over a distance of up to 20 meters. Using similar techniques, Inverse Path researchers Andrea Barisani and Daniele Bianco picked out keyboard signals from keyboard ground cables. On PS/2 keyboards, 'the data cable is so close to the ground cable, the emanations from the data cable leak onto the ground cable, which acts as an antenna,' Barisani said. That ground wire passes through the PC and into the building's power wires, where the researchers can pick up the signals using a computer, an oscilloscope and about $500 worth of other equipment. Barisani and Bianco will present their findings at the CanSecWest hacking conference next week in Vancouver. The Ecole Polytechnique team has submitted their research for peer review and hopes to publish it very soon.
Satellite Debris Forces ISS Crew Into Rescue Craft (Click for story)	CNN is reporting that the crew of the International Space Station was forced to take refuge from a possible collision of the ISS with a piece of space debris Thursday. From the article: 'Floating debris from a satellite forced the crew of the international space station to retreat to a safety capsule Thursday, according to a NASA news release. .. The debris was too close for the space station to move out of the way, so the station's three crew members were temporarily evacuated to a the station's Soyuz TMA-13 capsule, NASA said.'" Update: 03/12 18:42 GMT by T : The original story incorrectly said the ISS had 18 crew members. Luckily for the three in the Soyuz, that was a mistake.
Using Lasers and Water Guns To Clean Space Debris (Click for story)	The collision between two satellites last month has renewed interest in some ideas for cleaning up the cloud of debris circling the earth. Some of the plans being considered: Using aging rockets loaded with water to dislodge the debris from orbit so it will burn up in the atmosphere; junk-zapping lasers; and garbage-collecting rockets.
Could Fuller Take Trek Back to TV? (Click for story)	Bryan Fuller, creator of the TV show Pushing Daisies and a former Star Trek writer and producer, is geared up to make it happen. The new Star Trek TV show would be based on "old style" Star Trek, rather than the more recent incarnations and variations: Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise and Star Trek: The Next Generation. There hasn't been a Star Trek TV series since Enterprise was canceled after four seasons in 2005. Fuller wrote twenty one Star Trek episodes over four years, two in Deep Space Nine's final season, and the rest for Voyager. He also produced Voyager's last season. If J.J. Abrams' reboot is successful (and the latest trailer suggests it will be!) perhaps we'll see him involved with a new Star Trek TV show with the style and impact of Fringe or Lost. The new Star Trek movie featuring a young Kirk and Spock is in cinemas May 2009." Besides his work on many episodes of Trek, Fuller's work includes Dead Like Me and some of the best of Heroes. (He's one of the names I actively seek in the writing slot.) Between him and JJ Abrams, the era of Rick Berman looks to finally be at an end. Cross your fingers.
Asthma Risk Linked To Early TV Viewing (Click for story)	It is important to remember the difference between correlation and causation. For example, only people who breathe have asthma, but that doesn't mean breathing causes asthma. There are many possible causes. For example, what is the correlation of kids lying on carpets while watching TV? The number of children with asthma has been rising for many years. About 1 in 10 children in the UK develop asthma, compared with about 1 in 25 in the 1960s. The reason for this isn't clear, although several theories have been put forward such as keeping our homes cleaner, and having central heating and more soft furnishings where house dust mites can multiply. Now based on more than 3,000 children whose respiratory health was tracked from birth to 11.5 years of age, researchers have found a new correlation with young children who spend more than two hours glued to the TV every day doubling their subsequent risk of developing asthma. 'This study has shown for the first time a positive association between increased duration of reported TV viewing in early childhood and the development of asthma by 11.5 years of age in children with no symptoms of asthma in early childhood,' said the researchers, led by A. Sherriff, from the University of Glasgow. It's not clear exactly how sedentary behaviors like television watching are tied to asthma, but there is some evidence to suggest exercise and deep breaths that come with it stretch the smooth muscles in the airways, while lack of exercise may make the lungs overly sensitive. The results add asthma to a catalog of undesirable outcomes, including obesity, diabetes, smoking, and promiscuity, tied to TV viewing.
How Vista Mistakes Changed Windows 7 Development (Click for story)	For the past several months, Microsoft has engaged in an extended public mea culpa about Vista, holding a series of press interviews to explain how the company's Vista mistakes changed the development process of Windows 7. Chief among these changes was the determination to 'define a feature set early on' and only share that feature set with partners and customers when the company is confident they will be incorporated into the final OS. And to solve PC-compatibility issues, Microsoft has said all versions of Windows 7 will run even on low-cost netbooks. Moreover, Microsoft reiterated that the beta of Windows 7 that is now available is already feature-complete, although its final release to business customers isn't expected until November.
Copyright and Patent Laws Hurt the Economy (Click for story)	Two economists at Washington University in St. Louis are claiming that copyright and patent laws are 'killing innovation' and 'hurting [the] economy.' Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine state they would like to see copyright law abolished completely as there are other protections available to the creators of 'intellectual property' (a term they describe as 'propaganda,' and of recent origin). They are calling on Congress to grant patents only where an invention has social value, where the patent would not stifle innovation, and where the absence of a patent would damage cost-effectiveness.
Wolfram Promises Computing That Answers Questions (Click for story)	Computer scientist Stephen Wolfram feels that he has put together at least the initial version of a computer that actually answers factual questions, a la Star Trek's ship computers. His version will be found on their Web-based application, Wolfram Alpha. What does this mean? Well, instead of returning links to pages that may (or may not) contain the answer to your questions, Wolfram will respond with the actual answer. Just imagine typing in 'How many bones are in the human body?' and getting the answer. Right now, though the search entry field is in place, Alpha is not yet generally available -- only "to a few select individuals.
Verizon Wants To Share Your Personal Information (Click for story)	Gizmodo reports that Verizon is sending out notification letters infested with virtually-indecipherable legalese. In their sneaky, underhanded way, they're informing you that you have 45 days to opt out of their plan to share your personal data with 'affiliates, agents and parent companies.' That data can include, but isn't limited to, 'services purchased (including specific calls you make and receive), billing info, technical info and location info.' If you view your statement on-line, you won't even get the letter. You'll have to access your account and view your messages. However, Read Write Web says the link provided there, called the 'Customer Proprietary Network Information Notice,' was listed as 'not available.' No doubt Verizon would like to reassure you that everyone they're going to hand your personal data over to will have your best interests at heart.
Cisco, NASA Plan 'Planetary Skin' For Monitoring Earth Climate (Click for story)	Cisco has inked a deal with NASA to build a new global system for tracking climate change. Dubbed 'Planetary Skin,' the network platform will connect a number of sensor and recording units throughout the planet in an effort to gather data for monitoring and tracking changes to the global climate. The company plans to begin building the system next year with a program called 'Rainforest Skin' which will track both climate change and deforestation in rainforest environments. Eventually, the company plans to take the system throughout the planet and create a global network of data-collecting systems for the project. A podcast and a video explain the project in further detail.
Dreamweaver Is Dying; Long Live Drupal! (Click for story)	Here's an interesting blog post by a designer who reckons Dreamweaver is dying. It's not Dreamweaver's fault, though. Nor is the problem Adobe and its development team — the last Dreamweaver CS4 version was the most impressive release in years. Moreover, although Microsoft Expression Web poses a far more credible threat than FrontPage could muster, Dreamweaver remains the best HTML/CSS page-based editor available. The real problem for Dreamweaver and for its users is that the nature of the web is changing dramatically.
Guitar Hero, On a Real Guitar, To Hit Shelves In 2009 (Click for story)	The Minneapolis Star Tribune features an article (with photos) about a prototype electric guitar that doubles as a Guitar Hero controller. It is not just another guitar-shaped controller with buttons: it is an actual, playable guitar, shown in-action. The startup company, Zivix, LLC, intends to bring the product to store shelves in 2009. Web searches indicate that the company may have raised around $800K for the venture. The company is also working on technology that enables finger sensing on a real guitar that would allow your computer to teach you how to play chords or evolve into a future guitar synthesizer.
Congress Mulls API For Congressional Data (Click for story)	Wired blog post on the desire in Congress to make data on lawmaking more easily available to the public. The senator who introduced the language into an omnibus appropriations bill wants feedback on the best way to make (e.g.) the Library of Congress's Thomas data more available — an API or bulk downloads, or both. Some comments on the blog posting call for an authenticated versioning system so we can know unequivocally how any particular language made its way into a bill. "Congress has apparently listened to the public's complaints about lack of convenient access to government data. The new Omnibus Appropriations Bill includes a section, introduced by Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), that would mark the first tangible move toward making federal legislative data available to the public in bulk, so third parties can mash it up and redistribute it in innovative and accessible ways. This would include all the data currently distributed through the Library of Congress's Thomas web site — bill status and summary information, lists of sponsors, tracking timelines, voting records, etc."
America's New CIO Loves Google (Click for story)	On Thursday, Barack Obama tapped Vivek Kundra for the post of Federal CIO, giving him responsibility for establishing and overseeing enterprise architecture across the federal government. So what might that look like? Well, little more than a month ago Kundra was slated to sing the praises of Google Apps to government officials in a webcast. A Kundra quote from the presentation slides: 'Why should I spend millions on enterprise apps when I can do it [with Google] at one-tenth cost and ten times the speed? It's a win-win for me.' You can follow Kundra's love affair with Google on YouTube, from his announcement of the Google-Washington DC partnership he brokered through a co-starring role with a Google attorney on a video pitching Google-enabled technology for the Obama Administration. Not surprisingly, some say Obama's choice of a Google-party-goer who worships Google could cause big headaches for Microsoft.
A History of Storage, From Punch Cards To Blu-ray (Click for story)	Maximum PC just posted a comprehensive visual retrospective about data storage, starting with the once state of the art punch card and moving through the popular formats of yesteryear, including everything from magtape to Blu-ray discs. It's amazing how much data you could pack on a few hundred feet of half-inch magnetic tape!
Steve Bourne Talks About the History of Sh (Click for story)	Steve Bourne, the creator of the Bourne shell, or sh, talks about its history as the default Unix shell of Unix Version 7. Bourne worked on the shell in 1975 and said the process took no more than 6 months. Sh aimed to improve on the Thompson shell. 'I did change the shell so that command scripts could be used as filters. In the original shell this was not really feasible because the standard input for the executing script was the script itself. This change caused quite a disruption to the way people were used to working. I added variables, control flow and command substitution. The case statement allowed strings to be easily matched so that commands could decode their arguments and make decisions based on that. The for loop allowed iteration over a set of strings that were either explicit or by default the arguments that the command was given. I also added an additional quoting mechanism so that you could do variable substitutions within quotes. It was a significant redesign with some of the original flavor of the Thompson shell still there. Also I eliminated goto in favour of flow control primitives like if and for. This was also considered rather radical departure from the existing practice. Command substitution was something else I added because that gives you very general mechanism to do string processing; it allows you to get strings back from commands and use them as the text of the script as if you had typed it directly. I think this was a new idea that I, at least, had not seen in scripting languages, except perhaps LISP,' he says.
Star Trek Fragrances (Click for story)	From the Trek Movie Article: 'Genki Wear, known for its licensed science fiction jewelry and perfumes, has produced what might be the most unusual Star Trek product ever: Star Trek colognes and perfume based on the original 1960s television show. ... There are three fragrances planned for 2009 with the monikers 'Tiberius," "Red Shirt" and "Ponn Farr."'
Tigger.A Trojan Quietly Steals Stock Traders' Data (Click for story)	Washington Post Security Fix blog post dissecting the Tigger.A trojan, which has been keeping a low profile while exploiting the MS08-66 vulnerability to steal data quietly from online stock brokerages and their customers. An estimated quarter million victims have been infected. The trojan uses a key code to extract its rootkit on host systems that is almost identical to the key used by the Srizbi botnet. The rootkit loads even in Safe Mode. "Among the unusually short list of institutions specifically targeted by Tigger are E-Trade, ING Direct ShareBuilder, Vanguard, Options XPress, TD Ameritrade, and Scottrade. ... Tigger removes a long list of other malicious software titles, including the malware most commonly associated with Antivirus 2009 and other rogue security software titles... this is most likely done because the in-your-face 'hey, your-computer-is-infected-go-buy-our-software!' type alerts generated by such programs just might... lead to all invaders getting booted from the host PC."
The Formula That Killed Wall Street (Click for story)	the harrowing of Wall Street was caused by over-reliance on computer models that produced a single number to characterize risk. Wired has a piece profiling David X. Li, the quant behind the formula that enabled the creation of such simple risk models. "For five years, Li's formula, known as a Gaussian copula function, looked like an unambiguously positive breakthrough, a piece of financial technology that allowed hugely complex risks to be modeled with more ease and accuracy than ever before. With his brilliant spark of mathematical legerdemain, Li made it possible for traders to sell vast quantities of new securities, expanding financial markets to unimaginable levels. His method was adopted by everybody from bond investors and Wall Street banks to ratings agencies and regulators. ... [T]he real danger was created not because any given trader adopted it but because every trader did. In financial markets, everybody doing the same thing is the classic recipe for a bubble and inevitable bust."
Advance In Making Stem Cells From Skin (Click for story)	an advance on the news from a year back that stem cells can be produced from human skin — discussed here. Now Canadian researchers have found a safe way to generate stem cells without using viruses to modify the genome, a process that can have its own dangers. "The ethical debate over embryonic stem cell use may soon be moot, thanks to a Canadian team of researchers who, together with a team out of Scotland, has found a safe way to grow stem cells from a patient's own skin. The revolutionary finding, described in a paper published yesterday by the international science journal Nature, means doctors may be one step closer to treating a multitude of diseases, including Alzheimer's, diabetes and Parkinson's."
New Startup Hopes to Push Open Source Pharmaceuticals (Click for story)	Nothing like the open source computing movement has ever caught fire in biology or pharmaceuticals, where intellectual property is king. But drawing inspiration from the people who make Linux software, and the social networking success of Facebook, Merck's cancer research leader has nailed down $5 million to launch a nonprofit biology platform called Sage, which aims to make it easier for researchers around the world to pool their data to make better drugs. 'We see this becoming like the Google of biological science. It will be such an informative platform, you won't be able to make decisions without it,' says Merck's Eric Schadt, a co-founder of Sage. He adds: 'We want this to be like the Internet. Nobody owns it.
Obama Stimulus Pours Millions Into Cyber Security (Click for story)	As his administration continues to work on an stimulus plan that can save America's economy, Obama's latest course of action will see millions of dollars being allocated to heighten cyber security. The move will assist government officials in preventing future attacks on the United States. The President recently addressed his 2010 budget, outlining funding plans that will grant the Department of Homeland Security $355 million to secure the nation's most essential computer systems. Funds to be Shared Between Government and Private Groups. The money will be spent on both government and private groups, with much of the funding going to the National Cyber Security Division and the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative programs.
Why Doctors Hate Science (Click for story)	A 2004 study found some 10 million women lacking a cervix were still getting Pap tests. Only problem is, a Pap test screens for cervical cancer — no cervix, no cancer. With this tale, Newsweek's Sharon Begley makes her case for comparative-effectiveness research (CER), which is receiving $1 billion under the stimulus bill for studies to determine which treatments, including drugs, are more medically sound and cost-effective than others for a given ailment. Physicians, Begley says, must stop treatments that are rooted more in local medical culture than in medical science, embrace practices that have been shown scientifically to be superior to others, and ignore critics who paint CER as government control of doctors' decision-making.
A Cover Letter Is Not Expendable (Click for story)	You are getting ready to apply for a job electronically, and your résumé is ready to go. Do you need to prepare a cover letter? Are they necessary in this day and age?
Ballmer Pleads For Openness To Compete With Apple (Click for story)	At the Mobile World Congress, Steve Ballmer took aim at Apple's closed iPhone ecosystem with an ironic plea for openness: 'Openness is central because it's the foundation of choice.' Ballmer has apparently forgotten his company's own efforts to vertically integrate hardware and software (Zune, XBox), its history of vertically integrating software (tying SharePoint into Office, IE, SQL Server, Active Directory, etc.), as well as years of illegally tying Windows to Internet Explorer that only the US Justice Department could undo. Indeed, Microsoft's effect on the browser market has pushed Mozilla to get involved in a recent European Commission action against the software giant, with Mozilla's Mitchell Baker recently declaring that 'A number of illegal activities were also involved in creating IE's market dominance,' now requiring government intervention to open up the browser market to fair competition. Putting aside Microsoft's own tainted reputation in the field of openness, is Ballmer right? Should Apple open up its iPhone platform to outside competition, both in terms of hardware and software?
Answering Interview Questions (Click for story)	This site looks pretty good, but I haven't seen all of it. Don't miss "How to answer the 64 toughest questions."
Found In Space (On Flickr) (Click for story)	The "blind astrometry server" is a program which monitors the Astrometry group on Flickr, looking for new photos of the night sky. It then analyzes each photo, and from the unique star positions shown it figures out what part of the sky was photographed and what interesting planets, galaxies or nebulae are contained within. Not only does the photographer get a high-quality description of what's in their photo, but the main Astrometry.net project gets a new image to add to its storehouse of knowledge.
Mars Winds Clean Spirit's Solar Panels Again (Click for story)	In a blast from the past, NASA reports that Spirit's solar panels have received a much-needed cleaning courtesy of the Red Planet. The report states, 'The cleaning boosts Spirit's daily energy supply by about 30 watt-hours, to about 240 watt-hours from 210 watt-hours. The rover uses about 180 watt-hours per day for basic survival and communications, so this increase roughly doubles the amount of discretionary power for activities such as driving and using instruments.'
Beamlines To Reveal Secrets of the Mummies (Click for story)	A British X-ray with a light ten billion times brighter than the sun is to be used to reveal the secrets of statues, mummies, sarcophagi and other ancient artifacts to analyze their composition and how they were made. Three Egyptian bronze figurines from the British Museum will be among the first treasures to be investigated by the Joint Engineering, Environmental and Processing beamline, or Jeep, using intense radiation known as synchrotron light which allows scientists to see through solid objects and to show structural details that cannot be seen by standard X-rays. 'It might give us the chance to look at the contents. The Egyptians used to stash things inside their statues. We also get very fragile inner sarcophagi or mummy wrappings,' says Jen Hiller, a scientist working on the beamline. In Grenoble a team has used synchrotron radiation to discover the first known fossilized brain, of a fish-like creature; details are to be published this month. In California it is being used to decipher the Archimedes palimpsest — a text by the Greek mathematician that was overwritten in medieval times.
Facebook's New Terms of Service (Click for story)	Facebook's new terms of service. 'Facebook's terms of service (TOS) used to say that when you closed an account on their network, any rights they claimed to the original content you uploaded would expire. Not anymore. Now, anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later. Want to close your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do whatever it wants with your old content. They can even sublicense it if they want.' Update: The reaction was so strong that Facebook reverted back to their previous TOS.
"Liquid Wood" a Contender To Replace Plastic (Click for story)	Christian Science Monitor piece on the 40-year quest to find a replacement for non-biodegradable plastic. One candidate, written off 20 years back but now developed to the point of practicality, is a formulation based on the lignin found in wood. And it turns out there is another strong environmental reason to put lignin to use in this way: burning it, which is its common fate today, releases the carbon dioxide that trees had sequestered. "Almost 40 years ago, American scientists took their first steps in a quest to break the world's dependence on plastics. But in those four decades, plastic products have become so cheap and durable that not even the forces of nature seem able to stop them. A soupy expanse of plastic waste — too tough for bacteria to break down — now covers an estimated 1 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean. ...[R]esearchers started hunting for a substitute for plastic's main ingredient, petroleum. They wanted something renewable, biodegradable, and abundant enough to be inexpensive."
Darwinism Must Die So Evolution Can Live (Click for story)	This article doesn't try to "prove" evolution, but rather points out the flaws in the creationist conjecture that scientists are somehow afraid to disagree with Darwin. It shows that evolution didn't start with Darwin, and it certainly didn't end with him, either. And it also points out that there are many who believe in God and evolution. Unfortunately, creationists often try to portray scientists as "anti-God", when in fact there are many devout scientists. MacArthur fellow Carl Safina, an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, has an interesting essay in the NYTimes that says that equating evolution with Charles Darwin opened the door for creationism by ignoring 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution — Gregor Mendel's patterns of heredity, the discovery of DNA, developmental biology, studies documenting evolution in nature, and evolution's role in medicine and disease. Darwinism implies an ideology adhering to one man's dictates, like Marxism, says Safina. He adds that nobody talks about Newtonism or Einsteinism, and that by making Darwin 'into a sacred fetish misses the essence of his teaching.' By turning Darwin into an 'ism,' scientists created the opening for creationism, with the 'isms' implying equivalence. 'By propounding "Darwinism," even scientists and science writers perpetuate an impression that evolution is about one man, one book, one theory,' writes Safina. '"Darwinism" implies that biological scientists "believe in" Darwin's "theory." It's as if, since 1860, scientists have just ditto-headed Darwin rather than challenging and testing his ideas, or adding vast new knowledge.'
A Quantitative Study of How Memes Spread (Click for story)	A survey of about 3,000 people who were tagged in a '25 Random Things About Me' note on Facebook found that memes spread through social networks in a remarkably similar way as diseases do. A biologist who looked at the data says that '"25 Things" authors can be seen as "contagious" under what's known as a "susceptible-infected-recovered" model for the spread of disease,' with a propagation factor of 0.27 in this case. But like an infection, the whole thing died out as quickly as it exploded once the number of 'victims' — people who were willing to write 25 things about themselves — was depleted.
Walter Bender — Taking Sugar Beyond the XO Laptop (Click for story)	While the One Laptop Per Child Foundation tries to reboot after drastic staff cuts, Sugar, the original open-source graphical interface for OLPC's XO Laptop, is rapidly evolving into a stand-alone learning platform that can run on any PC. Walter Bender, who left OLPC last year to start the non-profit Sugar Labs, has given a detailed interview about 'Sugar on a Stick' — the USB drive that allows any machine to boot into the Sugar environment. Bender also describes the Sugar upgrades coming in March — including better tools for file management, portfolio presentations, and Python code hacking — and talks about his hopes for expanding Sugar Labs and getting Sugar into more classrooms than OLPC can reach through its hardware.
New Ads That Watch You (Click for story)	Small cameras can now be embedded in the screen or hidden around it, tracking who looks at the screen and for how long. The makers of the tracking systems say the software can determine the viewer's gender, approximate age range and, in some cases, ethnicity -- and can change the ads accordingly. That could mean razor ads for men, cosmetics ads for women and video-game ads for teens.
Fusion-Fission System Burns Hot Radioactive Waste (Click for story)	A hybrid fission-fusion process has been developed that can be used in some traditional fission reactors to process radioactive waste and reduce the amount of waste produced by 99%. This process uses magnetic bottle techniques developed from fusion research. This seems like the first viable solution to the radioactive waste problem of traditional nuclear reactors. This could be a big breakthrough in the search for environmentally friendly energy sources. Lots of work remains to take the concept to an engineering prototype and then to a production reactor.
Miscalculation Invalidates LHC Safety Assurances (Click for story)	In a truly frightening study, physicists at the University of Oxford have identified a massive miscalculation that makes the LHC safety assurances more or less invalid (abstract). The focus of their work is not the safety of particle accelerators per se but the chances of any particular scientific argument being wrong. 'If the probability estimate given by an argument is dwarfed by the chance that the argument itself is flawed, then the estimate is suspect,' say the team. That has serious implications for the LHC, which some people worry could generate black holes that will swallow the planet. Nobody at CERN has put a figure on the chances of the LHC destroying the planet. One study simply said: "there is no risk of any significance whatsoever from such black holes". The danger is that this thinking could be entirely flawed, but what are the chances of this? The Oxford team say that roughly one in a thousand scientific papers have to be withdrawn because of errors but generously suppose that in particle physics, the rate is one in 10,000.
Less is Moore (Click for story)	For years, the computer industry has made steady progress by following Moore's law, derived from an observation made in 1965 by Gordon Moore that the amount of computing power available at a particular price doubles every 18 months. The Economist reports however that in the midst of a recession, many companies would now prefer that computers get cheaper rather than more powerful or by applying the flip side of Moore's law do the same for less. A good example of this is virtualisation: using software to divide up a single server computer so that it can do the work of several, and is cheaper to run. Another example of 'good enough' computing is supplying 'software as a service,' via the web, as done by Salesforce.com, NetSuite and Google, sacrificing the bells and whistles that are offered by conventional software that hardly anyone uses anyway. Even Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon: the next version of Windows is intended to do the same as the last version, Vista, but to run faster and use fewer resources. If so, it will be the first version of Windows that makes computers run faster than the previous version. That could be bad news for computer-makers, since users will be less inclined to upgrade only proving that Moore's law has not been repealed, but that more people are taking the dividend it provides in cash, rather than processor cycles.
Microsoft To Exit the Zune Business? (Click for story)	http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/25/0230255
Monster.com Data Stolen, Won't Email Users (Click for story)	There's been another break-in at Monster.com. It's surprising that there are still unencrypted passwords stored in database despite the previous hack, as is the decision to not email users — presumably so that no one will make a fuss. From PC World: 'Monster.com user IDs and passwords were stolen, along with names, e-mail addresses, birth dates, gender, ethnicity, and in some cases, users' states of residence. The information does not include Social Security numbers, which Monster.com said it doesn't collect, or resumes. Monster.com posted the warning about the breach on Friday morning and does not plan to send e-mails to users about the issue, said Nikki Richardson, a Monster.com spokeswoman. The SANS Internet Storm Center also posted a note about the break-in on Friday.'
NASA Releases Video Tour of the ISS (Click for story)	Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke has recently filmed a high-definition 35-minute video tour aboard the International Space Station. For those who missed the HD broadcast on NASA TV, the video is available on YouTube. Due to YouTube length limits, the tour is split into four separate videos.
Scientists Teleport Information Between Ions a Meter Apart (Click for story)	scientists from the University of Maryland have successfully transferred information from one charged atom to another without having it cross the intervening space of about one meter. The academic paper is available in the journal Science, though it requires a subscription to see more than the abstract. Scientists have previously teleported unmolested qubits between photons of light, and between photons and clouds of atoms. But researchers have long sought to teleport qubits between distant atoms. Light's high speed of travel makes photons good transporters of information, but for storing quantum information, atoms are a much better choice because they're easier to hold on to. 'This is a big deal,' comments Myungshik Kim, a quantum physicist at Queen's University Belfast in the United Kingdom. 'To store information as it is in quantum form, you have to have a teleportation scheme available between two stationary qubits. Then you can store them and manipulate them later on.'"
Researcher Finds No Link Between Violent Games and School Shootings (Click for story)	A researcher at Texas A&M International University has found no link between playing violent video games and school shootings. Prof. Christopher Ferguson cites 'moral panic' and criticizes politicians, the news media and some social scientists for playing up what he believes is a false connection between video games and school shooting incidents. Quoting: 'Actual causes of violent crime, such as family environment, genetics, poverty, and inequality, are oftentimes difficult, controversial, and intractable problems. By contrast, video games present something of a "straw man" by which politicians can create an appearance of taking action against crime.'
Obama Edicts Boost FOIA and .gov Websites (Click for story)	The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the National Security Archive are praising President Obama's executive orders to make the federal government more open. Yesterday, Obama issued two memos and one executive order instructing government agencies to err on the side of making information public and not to look for reasons to legally withhold it. The moves are expected to make it easier for people to file Freedom of Information Act requests, and should also boost the amount of information that agencies place on their websites. The general counsel for the National Security Archive (an NGO that publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act) even predicts that agencies will use blogs to share information. Obama's directives reverse a 2001 memo from former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft instructing federal agencies to generally withhold information from citizens filing FOIA requests.
Boat Moves Without an Engine Or Sails (Click for story)	Researchers say technology they have developed would let boats or small aquatic robots glide through the water without the need for an engine, sails or paddles. A University of Pittsburgh research team has designed a propulsion system that uses the natural surface tension that is present on the water's surface and an electric pulse to move the boat or robot, researchers said. The Pitt system has no moving parts and the low-energy electrode that emits the pulse could be powered by batteries, radio waves, or solar power, researchers said in a statement.
Methane On Mars May Indicate Living Planet (Click for story)	NASA is announcing today that the definitive detection of methane in the Martian atmosphere means the planet is still alive, at least geologically, and perhaps even biologically. 'Methane is quickly destroyed in the Martian atmosphere in a variety of ways, so our discovery of substantial plumes of methane in the northern hemisphere of Mars indicates some ongoing process is releasing the gas,' said one agency scientist. The gas was detected with observations made over several Martian years with NASA telescopes at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Both biological and geological processes could explain the methane.
Internet Not Really Dangerous For Kids After All (Click for story)	We're all familiar with the claim that it's horribly dangerous to allow our children on to the Internet. It's long been believed that the moment a child logs on to the Internet, he will experience a flood of inappropriate sexual advances. Turns out this isn't an accurate representation of reality at all. A high-profile task force representing 49 state attorneys general was organized to find a solution to the problem of online sexual solicitation. But instead the panel has issued a report (due to be released tomorrow) claiming that 'Social networks are very much like real-world communities that are comprised mostly of good people who are there for the right reasons.' The report concluded that 'the problem of child-on-child bullying, both online and offline, poses a far more serious challenge than the sexual solicitation of minors by adults.' Turns out the danger to our children was all just media hype and parental anxiety." Those who have aggressively pushed the issue of the dangerous Internet, such as Connecticut's attorney general Richard Blumenthal, are less than happy with the report.
CWE/SANS TOP 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors (Click for story)	Experts from more than 30 US and international cyber security organizations jointly released the consensus list of the 25 most dangerous programming errors that lead to security bugs and that enable cyber espionage and cyber crime. Shockingly, most of these errors are not well understood by programmers; their avoidance is not widely taught by computer science programs; and their presence is frequently not tested by organizations developing software for sale.
Is a 'Katrina-Like' Space Storm Brewing? (Click for story)	A newly released NASA report warns that the world has forgotten the power of the sun, creating a technological society susceptible like never before to large infrastructure damage from solar storms. According the report, the world has grown so dependent on modern technologies without respect of what the sun can and has done, that it's risking major communications, finance, transportation, government and even emergency services disruptions.
New Final Fantasy XIII Details, Website Launched (Click for story)	Square Enix has launched an official website for Final Fantasy XIII. At the moment, it contains screenshots, game music, and brief character bios written in Japanese. Square also launched a site for Final Fantasy Versus XIII, though it doesn't have any content on it yet. A fan site has translated new details about the game from Weekly Famitsu, including information on the battle system. "Players select the 'Action' (the five buttons near the bottom left of the screen) they would like to use, which is then moved to the Command Stock slots (three slots above the Action buttons) to be executed in turn. Some 'Action' buttons seem to have several layers behind them, which means you'll have more than five actions to choose from. Each of the 'Actions' has a number attached to them; this is the 'Cost' or the number of slots that particular 'Action' will take in the Command Stock. For example, you can have three Fire commands in the list since its 'Cost' is only 1, but you can only use Firaga, which costs 3, if you have three empty slots in the Command Stock."
Google Researchers Warn of Automated Social Info Sharing (Click for story)	Researchers from Google have written a paper about how social networks can undermine privacy. The most interesting scenario they discuss is 'merging social graphs' — when correlating multiple social networks makes it possible to reveal connections that a person has intentionally kept secret (PDF). For example, it may be possible to work out that a certain LinkedIn user is the same person as a MySpace user, despite their attempting to keep their profiles separate. The Google solution is to develop software that screens new data added to a social network, attempting to find out if it could be fodder to such data mining.
Mobile Phones To Fill Poor Nations' Healthcare Gap? (Click for story)	The Industry Standard has reported on a couple of projects that aim to turn the humble mobile phone into a tool that can improve healthcare systems in the developing world. While poor countries lack adequate healthcare facilities, many have booming mobile phone use, even in rural areas. One company spawned by the MIT Media Lab seeks to leverage widespread mobile phone use with a Java app that lets community workers refer patients for treatment, fill out questionnaires about patient health and send real-time information back to doctors at health clinics. Another hardware-focused project started by a group of researchers at UCLA aims to create a device that can be attached to mobile phones and test blood samples for HIV, malaria, and other diseases, and send the test results to a hospital. However, it's not clear whether most mobile phones in developing countries can support these technologies, or if local healthcare infrastructures can effectively use the data generated by mobile phones.
Researchers Build Malicious Facebook App (Click for story)	In January 2008, a team of researchers uploaded a malicious program to Facebook to demonstrate the possible dangers of social networking applications. Called 'Photo of the Day,' the app serves up a new National Geographic photo daily, but every time it's clicked it sends a 600 K-byte HTTP request for images to a victim's Web site. Photo of the Day is still listed on Facebook, with its authorship attributed to Andreas Makridakis, one of the researchers. The application has 514 active users now, with several comments praising it. The study was published by the Foundation for Research and Technology in Heraklion, Greece, and the Institute for Infocomm Research in Singapore.
The Perils of Simplifying Risk To a Single Number (Click for story)	In the NYTimes magazine, Joe Nocera writes in much more depth about one aspect of the over-reliance on computer models in the ongoing unpleasantness: the use of a single number to assess risk. Reader theodp writes: "Relying on Value at Risk (VaR) and other mathematical models to manage risk was a no-brainer for the Wall Street crowd, at least until it became obvious that the risks taken by the largest banks and investment firms were so excessive and foolhardy that they threatened to bring down the financial system itself. Nocera explores the age-old debate between those who assert that the best decisions are based on quantification and numbers, and those who base their decisions on more subjective degrees of belief about the uncertain future. Reliance on models created a 'false sense of security among senior managers and watchdogs,' argues Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who likens VaR to 'an air bag that works all the time, except when you have a car accident.'"
PS2 the Most Played Console In 2008 (Click for story)	In terms of console usage, the aging PS2 still leads the competition, according to data from US research firm Nielsen. Data the company compiled between January and October 2008 shows that the PS2 commanded 31.7 percent of the total number of minutes spent playing consoles. Only 37.9 percent of play time took place on current-gen systems, with the Xbox 360 (17.2 percent) leading the Wii (13.4 percent) and the PS3 (7.3 percent). Users even spent more time playing on the original Xbox (9.7 percent) than the PS3, while Nintendo's GameCube (4.6 percent) wasn't far behind Sony's new console either." World of Warcraft once again topped the most-played PC game list by a large margin. Tetris was the top mobile game, followed by Bejeweled and Guitar Hero III.
Software Development Predictions For 2009 (Click for story)	Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister lays out his development predictions for 2009. These include further struggles from Microsoft in retooling its image, a more open source mindset for Java, twilight for Sun, the Web as platform of choice, and a dearth of innovation due to dwindling economic prospects. 'When customers aren't buying, tool vendors don't innovate — so don't expect many groundbreaking new technologies to debut this year,' McAllister writes, adding that smart companies will realize that 'process automation is one of the best ways to reduce costs in any business,' making 2009 the ideal time to 'revisit old software schemes that got shelved back when staffing budgets were flush.'
UK Police To Step Up Hacking of Home PCs (Click for story)	The Times of London reports that the United Kingdom's Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain to routinely hack into people's personal computers without a warrant. The move, which follows a decision by the European Union's council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state that drives 'a coach and horses' through privacy laws.
Microsoft Zunes Committing Mass Suicide (Click for story) Follow-up story Cause of the problem	There are multiple reports springing up all over the internet of a mass suicide of Microsoft 30GB Zune players globally. Check Zune forums, Gizmodo, or other such sites; the reports are spreading rapidly, except apparently to the Microsoft official Zune site.
UK Government To Outsource Data Snooping and Storage (Click for story)	Bad enough that government employees can access personal information, but now it will be done by the lowest bidder. :-( The Guardian is reporting that the private sector will be asked to manage and run a communications database that will keep track of everyone's calls, emails, texts and internet use under a key option contained in a consultation paper to be published next month by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary. Also covered on the BBC.
What Carriers Don't Want You To Know About Texting (Click for story)	Randall Stross has just published a sobering article in The New York Times about how the four major US wireless carriers don't want anyone to know the actual cost structure of text message services to avoid public outrage over the doubling of a-la-carte per-message fees over the last three years. The truth is that text messages are 'stowaways' inside the control channel — bandwidth that is there whether it is used for texting or not — and 160 bytes per message is a tiny amount of data to store-and-forward over tower-to-tower landlines. In essence it costs carriers practically nothing to transmit even trillions of text messages. When text usage goes up, the carriers don't even have to install new infrastructure as long as it is proportional to voice usage. This makes me dream of the day when there is real competition in the wireless industry, not this gang-of-four oligopoly.
Chandrayaan M3 Instrument Confirms Iron-Bearing Minerals On the Moon (Click for story)	The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), an instrument developed by NASA and sent aboard India's Chandrayaan-1, has confirmed the presence of iron-bearing minerals on the moon. This marks the beginning of an extensive examination of the composition of the lunar surface. "Isro officials said M3 would help in characterising and mapping lunar minerals to ultimately understand the moon's early geological evolution. 'The compositional map that will come out of M3 will have fantastic data on geological formation of the moon,' the official said. Researchers said the relative abundance of magnesium and iron in lunar rocks could help confirm whether the moon was covered by a molten, magma ocean early on in its history. Iron and magnesium will also indicate melting of the moon, if it happened and how it formed later. This metallic element has been found in lunar meteorites, but scientists know little about its distribution in the lunar crust."
Top Tech Breakthroughs of 2008 (Click for story)	As we approach the end of the year it's time once again for the never-ending stream of retrospectives and year-in-review discussions. Wired has their version of the best technology breakthroughs of 2008. From phones to shrinking laptops to flexible displays, there is no shortage of interesting advancements when looking back at this year. What other groundbreaking advancements were made this year, and what do we have to look forward to for 2009?
If Programming Languages Were Religions (Click for story)	A fellow named Rodrigo Braz Monteiro (amz) posted this list comparing each programming language to a religion. Guaranteed to make you chuckle for programmers familiar with various languages.
Meteorite Destroys Warehouse In Auckland, NZ (Click for story)	According to local media, multiple eye witnesses are reporting that a meteorite crashed into a warehouse in Auckland, New Zealand last night, setting it on fire. The warehouse roof was destroyed but no nearby buildings were damaged and there was only one minor casualty — a man who happened to be inside the building at the time. The fire service have not yet made an official announcement.
Podcast on the Effects of Having Friends (Click for story)	This was an interesting segment on NPR's Science Friday that talked about how happiness spreads from friend to friend. It also mentioned Facebook, and I think shows why many people really like the social networking web sites.
Bjarne Stroustrup On Educating Software Developers (Click for story)	Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of C++ and a professor at Texas A&M, weighs in on the problems in today's CS programs. In particular, Java (there's too much of it), the quality of graduates (companies aren't happy), and the need to balance the theoretical and the practical (long overdue). Not pulling punches, Stroustrup even talks about high schools — 'High schools could teach students to work hard at something (just about anything), to search out information as needed, and learn to express their ideas in writing and orally.' He finishes by giving advice to working developers: 'Serious programming is a team sport, brush up on your social skills. The sloppy fat geek computer genius semi-buried in a pile of pizza boxes and cola cans is a mythical creature, best buried deep, never to be seen again.'
Higher-Order Perl Available For Free Download (Click for story)	As noted on Perlbuzz, Mark Jason Dominus's amazing book, Higher-Order Perl, is now available for free download. This is a great book that goes way beyond your normal programming reference. This will change the way you look at programs, and make you a better programmer in any language. It sits on that special shelf reserved for books like Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, The C Programming Language, and The Practice of Programming.
Black Hole At Center of Milky Way Confirmed (Click for story)	The BBC are reporting that a German team has confirmed the existence of a Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way. Astronomers tracked the movement of 28 stars circling the center of the Milky Way, using the 3.5m New Technology Telescope and the 8.2m Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. Both are operated by the European Southern Observatory (Eso). The black hole is four million times heavier than our Sun, according to the paper in The Astrophysical Journal. According to Dr Robert Massey, of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), the results suggest that galaxies form around giant black holes in the way that a pearl forms around grit.
Avoiding Mistakes Can Be a Huge Mistake (Click for story)	I have often maintained that most software standards aren't needed if you have good programmers: No doubt many will nod knowingly as they read Paul Graham's The Other Half of Artists Ship, which delves into the downside of procedures developed by Big Companies to protect themselves against mistakes. Because every check you put on your programmers has a cost, Graham warns: 'And just as the greatest danger of being hard to sell to is not that you overpay but that the best suppliers won't even sell to you, the greatest danger of applying too many checks to your programmers is not that you'll make them unproductive, but that good programmers won't even want to work for you.' Sound familiar, anyone?
Study Recommends Online Gaming, Social Networking For Kids (Click for story)	a report about a study sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation which found that online gaming and social networking are beneficial to children, teaching them basic technical skills and how to communicate in the Information Age. The study was conducted over a period of three years, with researchers interviewing hundreds of children and monitoring thousands of hours of online time. The full white paper (PDF) is also available. "For a minority of children, the casual use of social media served as a springboard to them gaining technological expertise — labeled in the study as 'geeking out,' the researchers said. By asking friends or getting help from people met through online groups, some children learned to adjust the software code underpinning some of the video games they played, edit videos and fix computer hardware. Given that the use of social media serves as inspiration to learning, schools should abandon their hostility and support children when they want to learn some skills more sophisticated than simply designing their Facebook page, the study said."
When Agile Projects Go Bad (Click for story)	CIO Magazine has an article up looking at some of the ways that Agile projects can fail, or Agile can be misapplied in organizations. Some of the issues raised may not be new, but folks might want to pay special attention to these, since the people throwing the stones are two of the original Agile Manifesto signatories, Alistair Cockburn and Kent Brock. From the article: 'Once individuals become familiar with Agile, either through training or practice, they can become inflexible and intolerant of people new to the process. Cockburn has seen this in action. "I'm one of the authors of the manifesto, so if I say something 'weird,' they can't tell me I don't understand Agile. But if someone else — and it doesn't matter how many years of experience they have — says something funny, they get told they don't understand Agile."'
Book Reviews: Applied Security Visualization (Click for story)	When security professionals are dealing with huge amounts of information (and who isn't nowadays?), correlation and filtering is not the easiest path (and sometimes enough) to discern what is going on. The in-depth analysis of security data and logs is a time-consuming exercise, and security visualization (SecViz) extensively helps to focus on the relevant data and reduces the amount of work required to reach to the same conclusions. It is mandatory to add the tools and techniques associated to SecViz to your arsenal, as they are basically taking advantage of the capabilities we have as humans to visualize (and at the same time analyze) data. A clear example is the insider threat and related incidents, where tons of data sources are available. The best sentence (unfortunately it is not an image ;) that describes SecViz comes from the author: 'A picture is worth a thousand log entries.'
Private Firm Plots Robotic Lunar Exploration (Click for story)	Astrobotic Technology has unveiled plans for a series of robotic expeditions to the Moon. The lunar rovers will explore high-interest areas of the Moon's surface and beam the data back to the Earth. The plan is to accumulate an extensive library of lunar data and sell it to governments and private corporations (PDF), much as Navteq's data forms the backbone of most terrestrial GPS services. Astrobotic's first goal is to win Google's $30 million Lunar X Prize, with a May, 2010 trip to the Apollo 11 landing site at Mare Tranquillitatis.
DRM-Free Classic Games Store Opens To Public (Click for story)	With all the controversy surrounding DRM in games at the moment, one games store has decided to buck the trend, proudly proclaiming that all its games are DRM-free. First announced back in July, Good Old Games is now in the public beta stage, which means that anyone can now access the site's archive of classic PC games, and you can do what you want with your game when you've bought it, too. 'You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do,' says the site. 'Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.
Study Debunks Gamer Stereotypes (Click for story)	Ars Technica reports on a recent study by Ipsos MediaCT which evaluated gamers with respect to a large variety of social parameters. Among their findings: "55 percent of gamers polled were married, 48 percent have kids, and new gamers — those who have started playing videogames in the past two years — are 32 years old on average." Also, "In terms of hard dollars, the average gaming household income ($79,000) is notably higher than that of nongaming households ($54,000), but the value of the gamer as a marketing target can be seen in a variety of ways. 39 percent of gamers said that friends and family rely upon them to stay up-to-date about the latest technology." The press release for the study is available at IGN.
Cobol Job Market Heating Up (Click for story)	Developers seeking job security in the years ahead could find an unlikely edge in Cobol. According to an InfoWorld report, demand for Cobol skills is surging, with salaries on the rise. More importantly, the short supply of offshore Cobol programmers and the fact that mainframes aren't going away anytime soon are spurring longevity for big-iron skills, with many companies looking to hire in-house Cobol pros to bridge mainframe Cobol apps to the rest of the enterprise. The report provides further evidence that Cobol may indeed be primed for a comeback, with new kinds of Cobol integration jobs emerging to prove old-guard skills are critical to some of the hottest areas of software development today.
Balancing Economy, Equity, and Ecology Through Design (Click for story)	An excellent podcast about an interesting approach to being green. Here is the speaker's biography:
Internet Use Can Be Good For the Brain (Click for story)	This Washington Post article examines a test conducted at UCLA. The test had two groups, young people who used the Internet, and older people who had never been online. Both groups were asked to do Internet searches and book reading tasks while their brain activity was monitored. "We found that in reading the book task, the visual cortex — the part of the brain that controls reading and language — was activated," Small said. "In doing the Internet search task, there was much greater activity, but only in the Internet-savvy group." He said it appears that people who are familiar with the Internet can engage in a much deeper level of brain activity. "There is something about Internet searching where we can gauge it to a level that we find challenging," Small said. In the aging brain, atrophy and reduced cell activity can take a toll on cognitive function. Activities that keep the brain engaged can preserve brain health and thinking ability. Small thinks learning to do Internet searches may be one of those activities.
Verizon Exposes the Wrong 1,200 Email Addresses (Click for story)	If you're going to market your expertise by inviting 1,200 IT professionals to a seminar about securing data and protecting personal information, it's probably a good idea to protect the personal information of those you invite. On Tuesday, Verizon forgot that advice and blasted each of the 1,200 email addresses to everyone on the list ... and they did it 17 times.
World Bank Under Cybersiege In "Unprecedented Crisis" (Click for story)	Fox News report on large-scale and possibly ongoing security breaches at the World Bank. "The World Bank Group's computer network — one of the largest repositories of sensitive data about the economies of every nation — has been raided repeatedly by outsiders for more than a year, FOX News has learned. It is still not known how much information was stolen. But sources inside the bank confirm that servers in the institution's highly-restricted treasury unit were deeply penetrated with spy software last April. Invaders also had full access to the rest of the bank's network for nearly a month in June and July. In total, at least six major intrusions — two of them using the same group of IP addresses originating from China — have been detected at the World Bank since the summer of 2007, with the most recent breach occurring just last month. In a frantic midnight e-mail to colleagues, the bank's senior technology manager referred to the situation as an 'unprecedented crisis.' In fact, it may be the worst security breach ever at a global financial institution. And it has left bank officials scrambling to try to understand the nature of the year-long cyber-assault, while also trying to keep the news from leaking to the public."
Anti-Terrorist Data Mining Doesn't Work Very Well (Click for story)	CNet report on a just-released NRC report coming to the conclusion, which will surprise no one here, that data mining doesn't work very well. It's all those darn false positives. The submitter adds, "Any chance we could go back to probable cause?" "A report scheduled to be released on Tuesday by the National Research Council, which has been years in the making, concludes that automated identification of terrorists through data mining or any other mechanism 'is neither feasible as an objective nor desirable as a goal of technology development efforts.' Inevitable false positives will result in 'ordinary, law-abiding citizens and businesses' being incorrectly flagged as suspects. The whopping 352-page report, called 'Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists,' amounts to [be] at least a partial repudiation of the Defense Department's controversial data-mining program called Total Information Awareness, which was limited by Congress in 2003."
How Mobile Phones Work Behind the Scenes (Click for story)	We seldom think about how our mobile phones actually work, but in this TidBITS article, Rich Mogull pulls back the covers and peels away the jargon to explain why text messages work when voice calls are dropped, why your battery lasts longer in some places than in others, why you're not allowed to use phones on airplanes, why you can be notified of a voicemail message when your phone never rang, and more.
Cheaper Car Insurance For Gamers (Click for story)	I know your first reaction is that this story is gonna be an ad, but SpuriousLogic's story is actually about insurers considering giving a discount to elderly gamers. The question is: does gaming improve mental agility and make you a safer driver?
Towards a Wiki For Formally Verified Mathematics (Click for story)	Cameron Freer, an instructor in pure mathematics at MIT, is working on an intriguing project called vdash.org (video from O'Reilly Ignite Boston 4): a math wiki which only allows true theorems to be added! Based on Isabelle, a free-software theorem prover, the wiki will state all of known mathematics in a machine-readable language and verify all theorems for correctness, thus providing a knowledge base for interactive proof assistants. In addition to its benefits for education and research, such a project could reveal undiscovered connections between fields of mathematics, thus advancing some fields with no further work being necessary.
The 23 Toughest Math Questions (Click for story)	It sounds like a math phobic's worst nightmare or perhaps Good Will Hunting for the ages. Those wacky folks at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have put out a research request it calls Mathematical Challenges, that has the mighty goal of 'dramatically revolutionizing mathematics and thereby strengthening DoD's scientific and technological capabilities.' The challenges are in fact 23 questions that, if answered, would offer a high potential for major mathematical breakthroughs, DARPA said.
C# In-Depth (Click for story)	Microsoft's leader of C# development, writer of the Turbo Pascal system, and lead architect on the Delphi language, Anders Hejlsberg, reveals all there is to know on the history, inspiration, uses and future direction of one of computer programming's most widely used languages — C#. Hejlsberg also offers some insight into the upcoming version of C# (C#4) and the new language F#, as well as what lies ahead in the world of functional programming.
Remembering 50 Years of (and Leading Up To) the Internet (Click for story)	Covering the infamous MafiaBoy bank hack, the launch of the first ever online newspaper — MIT's 'The Tech' — and Brewster Kahle developing the Internet Archive back in 1996, five decades of the most significant Internet developments, hacks, legal battles and innovations have been documented in a massive historical article on Cnet UK.
US Responsible For the Majority of Cyber Attacks (Click for story)	SecureWorks published the locations of the computers from which the greatest number of cyber attacks were attempted against its clients in 2008. The United States topped the list with 20.6 million attempted attacks originating from computers within the country, and China ran second with 7.7 million attempted attacks emanating from computers within its borders. This was followed by Brazil with over 166,987 attempted attacks, South Korea with 162,289, Poland with 153,205, Japan with 142,346, Russia with 130,572, Taiwan with 124,997, Germany with 110,493, and Canada with 107,483.
PDF Exploits On the Rise (Click for story)	According to the TrustedSource Blog, malware authors increasingly target PDF files as an infection vector. Keep your browser plugins updated. From the article: 'The Portable Document Format (PDF) is one of the file formats of choice commonly used in today's enterprises, since it's widely deployed across different operating systems. But on a down-side this format has also known vulnerabilites which are exploited in the wild. Secure Computing's Anti-Malware Research Labs spotted a new and yet unknown exploit toolkit which exclusively targets Adobe's PDF format.'
Microsoft Innovates Tent Data Centers (Click for story)	The outside-the-box thinking in data center design continues. Microsoft has tested running a rack of servers in a tent outside one of its data centers. In seven months of testing, a small group of servers ran for seven months without failures, even when water dripped on the rack. The experiment builds on Intel's recent research on air-side economizers in suggesting that servers may be sturdier than believed, leaving more room to save energy by optimizing cooling set points and other key environmental settings in the server room.
Political Viewpoints Linked To Fear (Click for story)	Researchers writing in Science report that the political orientation of test subjects who have strong views is linked to how easy they are to startle. They found that subjects who were more fearful were more likely to have right wing views, such as being in favor of capital punishment and higher defense budgets. The researchers suggest that this psychological difference is why it is so difficult to change people's minds in political arguments.
Why Lazy Functional Programming Languages Rule (Click for story)	Techworld has an in-depth chat with Simon Peyton-Jones about the development of Haskell and his philosophy of do one thing, and do it well. Peyton-Jones describes his interest in lazy functional programming languages, and chats about their increasing relevance in a world with rapidly increasing multi-core CPUs and clusters. 'I think Haskell is increasingly well placed for this multi-core stuff, as I think people are increasingly going to look to languages like Haskell and say 'oh, that's where we can get some good ideas at least', whether or not it's the actual language or concrete syntax that they adopt.'"
Report is Critcal of US For Dumping E-Waste Overseas (Click for story)	In what may be the least astonishing news of the day, some major US companies who say they are environmentally recycling electronic waste — aren't. Rather more startling — they are dumping everything from cell phones and old computers to televisions in countries such as China and India where disposal practices are unsafe to people and dangerous to the environment. Controlling the exportation of all of the e-waste plops on the doorstep of the US Environmental Protection Agency which is doing a woeful job, according to a scathing 67-page report issued by the Government Accountability Office today.
Intel Shows Data Centers Can Get By (Mostly) With Little AC (Click for story)	InfoWorld reports on an experiment in air economization, aka 'free cooling,' conducted by Intel. For 10 months, the chipmaker had 500 production servers, working at 90 percent utilization, cooled almost exclusively by outside air at a facility in New Mexico. Only when the temperature exceeded 90 degrees Fahrenheit did they crank on some artificial air conditioning. Intel did very little to address air-born contaminants and dust, and nothing at all to deal with fluctuating humidity. The result: a slightly higher failure rate — around around 0.6 percent more — among the air-cooled servers compared to those in the company's main datacenter — and a potential savings of $2.87 million per year in a 10MW datacenter using free cooling over traditional cooling.
7th-Grader Designs Three Dimensional Solar Cell (Click for story)	12-year-old William Yuan's invention of a highly-efficient, three-dimensional nanotube solar cell for visible and ultraviolet light has won him an award and a $25,000 scholarship from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. 'Current solar cells are flat and can only absorb visible light'" Yuan said. 'I came up with an innovative solar cell that absorbs both visible and UV light. My project focused on finding the optimum solar cell to further increase the light absorption and efficiency and design a nanotube for light-electricity conversion efficiency.' Solar panels with his 3D cells would provide 500 times more light absorption than commercially-available solar cells and nine times more than cutting-edge 3D solar cells. 'My next step is to talk to manufacturers to see if they will build a working prototype,' Yuan said. "If the design works in a real test stage, I want to find a company to manufacture and market it."
Study Finds Video Games Are Not Bad for Kids (Click for story)	news that a study done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found game playing is all but universal among teens, and it provides a "significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement." 97% of teens responding to the survey said they played games (75% played weekly or more often), and roughly two-thirds of teens use games as a social experience. The full report (PDF) and the questionnaire with answer data (PDF) are both available for viewing. From the report: "Youth who take part in social interaction related to the game, such as commenting on websites or contributing to discussion boards, are more engaged civically and politically. Youth who play games where they are part of guilds are not more civically engaged than youth who play games alone.
Berners-Lee Launches New W3 Foundation (Click for story)	the initiation of the World Wide Web Foundation with $5M of seed funding from the Knight Foundation. From the announcement: "Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, unveils the World Wide Web Foundation. It aims to advance One Web that is free and open, to expand its capability and robustness, and to extend its benefits to all people on the planet." The new foundation's site should have video up soon of Berners-Lee's speech at the kickoff event. The foundation hopes to raise $50M–$100M and will issue grants in Web science, technology and practice, and Web for society. Initial plans will be disclosed early next year.
CERN, the Big Bang and Impact On the IT Industry (Click for story)	ComputerWeekly have put together a nice short guide (with lots of links) of what is going on at CERN. They've got a nice slant though on what this big bang experiment is going to mean for the IT Industry. Interesting slant on the worlds largest grid and the database clustering technology that they are using. They have also picked up on the amusing rap video by CERN's scientists that hase been wandering around Youtube.
Video Shows Easy Hacking of E-Voting Machines (Click for story)	The Security Group at the University of California in Santa Barbara has released the video that shows the attacks carried out against the Sequoia voting system. The video shows an attack where a virus-like software spreads across the voting system. The coolest part of the video is the one that shows how the 'brainwashed' voting terminals can use different techniques to change the votes even when a paper audit trail is used. Pretty scary stuff. The video is absolute proof that these types of attacks are indeed feasible and not just a conspiracy theory. Also, the part that shows how the 'tamperproof' seals can be completely bypassed in seconds is very funny (and quite disturbing at the same time).
Apple Admits IPod Is From 1970s UK (Click for story)	Apple has all but admitted that a British man invented the iPod over three decades ago in the 1970's. Unfortunately, he let the patent run out. When another company tried to grab a portion of its iPod profits, though, Apple went running to him to defend them in court. In return, it looks like he's in for a share of the cash generated from the sale of 163 million iPods.
The Complete History of Nintendo (Click for story)	Not really "complete" (no Game Cube), but interesting. Gameplayer are running a comprehensive feature on the history of Nintendo that runs through all 119 years of their existence, from humble card maker to gaming powerhouse. It is documented in chronological order and includes a stack of trivia about the company that will be thoroughly enjoyed by all Nintendo fans. As an interesting side note, it links to a sister article that explores how Mario can improve your sex life.
DIY Hybrid Car Kit (Click for story)	Building hybrids uses machinery that pollutes the environment. The solution? Ship the parts of a hybrid individually and get your customers to put the car together themselves. That's exactly what Robert Q Riley Enterprises is doing, according to a story on CNet today, with its XR-3 hybrid. It'll cost you $25,000 for the bits, plus zero dollars in manufacture, I hope. Better yet, cough up $200 for the blueprints and schematics and even build the parts yourself. It's no secret that many hybrid drivers are smug enough as it is. Allow them to brag about having built the damn cars themselves and we might be entering obscenely smug territory.
Comet-Chasing Spacecraft Encounters Rare Asteroid (Click for story)	Yesterday the robotic spacecraft Rosetta, on its way to a distant encounter with Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, flew by the asteroid 'Steins,' which is roughly 4.6 kilometers wide. Steins is one of the relatively rare E-typeasteroids. The mission team live-blogged throughout the day, and a press conference with the first pictures will be available soon. "Rosetta's flyby took it to within 800 kilometers of Steins while both objects were roughly 360 million kilometers from Earth. According to Rosetta's fact sheet (PDF), the craft will next swing by Earth in 2009 and take a look at another asteroid in 2010 on its way to the rendezvous with the comet in 2014.
Every Satellite Tracked In Realtime Via Google Earth (Click for story)	With the recent discussion of the ISS having to dodge some space junk, many people's attention has once again focused on the amount of stuff in orbit around our planet. What many people don't know is that USSTRATCOM tracks and publishes a list of over 13,000 objects that they currently monitor, including active/retired satellites and debris. This data is meaningless to most people, but thanks to Analytical Graphics, it has now been made accessible free of charge to anyone with a copy of Google Earth. By grabbing the KMZ, you can not only view all objects tracked in real-time, but you can also click on them to get more information on the specific satellite, including viewing it's orbit trajectory. It's an excellent educational tool for the space-curious.
The Internet's Biggest Security Hole Revealed (Click for story)	At DEFCON, Tony Kapela and Alex Pilosov demonstrated a drastic weakness in the Internet's infrastructure that had long been rumored, but wasn't believed practical. They showed how to hijack BGP (the border gateway protocol) in order to eavesdrop on Net traffic in a way that wouldn't be simple to detect. Quoting: "'It's at least as big an issue as the DNS issue, if not bigger,' said Peiter 'Mudge' Zatko, noted computer security expert and former member of the L0pht hacking group, who testified to Congress in 1998 that he could bring down the internet in 30 minutes using a similar BGP attack, and disclosed privately to government agents how BGP could also be exploited to eavesdrop. 'I went around screaming my head about this about ten or twelve years ago... We described this to intelligence agencies and to the National Security Council, in detail.' The man-in-the-middle attack exploits BGP to fool routers into re-directing data to an eavesdropper's network."
Anatomy of a malware scam (Click for story)	Anyone who has a blog has probably seen blog spam; comments to the blog that simply try to entice people to go to some other site. Most of the time the site being advertised is simply trying to boost its search engine rankings to generate more ad revenue. The more links there are to a site, the more popular the search engines figure it is, and the higher up in the search results it ends up. Blog spam, therefore, is frequently thought to be a good way to boost the search engine rankings. In some cases this turns malicious. Some sites engage in wholesale intellectual property theft to boost their rankings.
A History of Atari — the Golden Years (Click for story)	Over at Gamasutra, Steve Fulton has published a massive 23,000-word history of Atari from 1978 to 1981, encompassing '... some of the most exciting developments the company ever saw in its history: the rise of the 2600, the development of some of the company's most enduringly popular games (Centipede, Asteroids) and the development and release of its first home computing platforms.' Best quote in there for Slashdot readers, perhaps: 'Atari had contracted with a young programmer named Bill Gates to modify a BASIC compiler that he had for another system to be used on the 800. After that project stalled for over a year Al was called upon to replace him with another developer. So ... Al is the only person I know ever to have fired Bill Gates.'
Leaping the Uncanny Valley (Click for story)	glance at "the newest level of computer animation," intended to get past the paradoxical "uncanny valley" — that is, the way animated humans actually can appear jarring as the animation gets hyper-realistic. "This short video gives us a glimpse of what we can hope to see in the future of computer games and movies. Emily is not a real actress, but she looks like a real person, something we haven't truly seen before in computer animation."
Was Standardizing On JavaScript a Mistake? (Click for story)	Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions the wisdom of standardizing on a single language in the wake of the ECMA Committee's decision to abandon ECMAScript 4 in favor of the much less ambitious ECMAScript 3.1, stunting the future of JavaScript. Had the work continued, McAllister argues, it could have ushered in an era of large-scale application development that would ensure the browser's ability to meet our evolving needs in the years ahead. 'The more I hear about the ongoing efforts to revise the leading Web standards, the less convinced I am that we're approaching Web-based applications the right way,' McAllister writes. 'If anything, the more we talk about building large-scale Web applications, the more we should recognize that a single style of programming will never suit every job.' McAllister's simple truth: JavaScript will never be good for everything — especially as the Web continues to evolve beyond its original vision. His solution? 'Rather than shoehorning more and more functionality into the browser itself, maybe it's time we separated the UI from the underlying client-side logic. Let the browser handle the View. Let the Controller exist somewhere else, independent of the presentation layer.'
Solar Cells - Made In a Pizza Oven (Click for story)	The winner of several Eureka Science Awards in Australia is a crafty chick who devised a way to create solar cells cheaply using a pizza oven, nail polish and an inkjet printer. This was developed to address the high cost of cells and in particular for the worlds poorest regions. She wanted to give the @2 billion people around the world who dont have electricity the gift of light and cheap energy. This could have profound (and a good profound) implications for education and health in those in the poorest regions in the world. And it all started with her parents giving her a solar energy kit when she was 10...
Why the Olympics Didn't Melt the Internet (Click for story)	blog entry over at ZDNet on why the Internet didn't melt when millions of users streamed 480i video for a week. The short answer is Limelight Networks of Tempe, Arizona. "[W]hy the Internet didn't 'melt' is quite simple — [Limelight is] completely 'off the cloud.' In other words, unlike Akamai and similar content caching providers, their system isn't deployed over the public Internet... Limelight has partnered with over 800 broadband Internet providers worldwide... so that the content is either co-located in the same facility as your ISP's main communications infrastructure, or it leases a dedicated Optical Carrier line so that it actually appears as part of your ISP's internal network. In most cases, you're never even leaving your Tier 1 provider to get the video."
Password Resets Worse Than Reusing Old password (Click for story)	We all know well the perils of password reuse. But what about the information used to reset passwords? Many sites use a standard set of questions — your mother's maiden name, the name of your best friend, what city you grew up in, or what brand your first car was. And you probably have a standard set of responses, making them easy to remember but not very secure. 'The city you grew up in and your mother's maiden name can be derived from public records. Facebook might unwittingly tell the name of your best friend. And, until quite recently, Ford with its 25% market share had a pretty good chance of being the brand of your first car,' says security researcher Markus Jakobsson. But 'password reset does not have to be a weak link,' says Jakobsson. 'Psychologists know that people's preferences are stable — often more so than long term memory. And very few preferences are recorded in public databases.'
IT Repair Installs Webcam Spying Software (Click for story)	A lady noticed her computer was running slower after she had brought her computer in to be repaired. She took the computer to a second repair shop where they found that one of the problems was that her webcam would turn on whenever it detected her around and was taking photos and uploading it to a website. The repair technician that installed the software has done this to at least 10 women and has photos of at least one undressing.
Mozilla Unveils Aurora Concept Browser (Click for story)	Mozilla has unveiled a spectacular new concept browser, dubbed Aurora. The bleeding-edge browser is part of a new Mozilla Labs initiative, in which the open-source foundation is encouraging people to contribute ideas and designs for the browser of the future. The Aurora browser demonstration shows a highly advanced way of collaborating data gathered on the web, and represents a spectacular introduction to the new Mozilla Labs, which much like Google Labs looks to become a home for offbeat projects which would otherwise probably never see the light of day. More details, and a video demonstration, are on the Mozilla Labs site.
The Death of Nearly All Software Patents? (Click for story)	The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc. In a series of cases including In re Nuijten, In re Comiskey and In re Bilski, the Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in article 101 of the Patent Act. In the most recent of these three — the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal — the Office takes the position that process inventions generally are unpatentable unless they 'result in a physical transformation of an article' or are 'tied to a particular machine.'
Slimmed Down MySQL Offshoot Drizzle is Built For the Web (Click for story)	Builder AU reports that Brian Aker, MySQL's director of architecture, has unveiled Drizzle, a database project aimed at powering websites with massive concurrency as well as trimming superfluous functionality from MySQL. Drizzle will have a micro-kernel architecture with code being removed from the Drizzle core and moved through interfaces into modules. Akers has already selected particular functionality for removal: modes, views, triggers, prepared statements, stored procedures, query cache, data conversion inserts, access control lists and some data types.
World's Oldest Bible Going Online (Click for story)	The British Museum is putting online the remaining fragments of the world's oldest Bible. The Codex Sinaiticus dates to the fourth century BCE and was discovered in the 19th century. Very few people have seen it due to its fragile state — that and the fact that parts of it are in collections scattered across the globe. It'll give scholars and those interested their first chance to take a look. However, I've got a feeling that some people won't be happy to see it online, since it makes no mention of the resurrection, which is a central part of Christian belief.
Encrypting Google Calendar With Firefox Extensions (Click for story)	IBM's Nathan Harrington has an interesting essay on using open-source tools to ensure privacy on Google Calendar: 'Today's Web applications provide many benefits for online storage, access, and collaboration. Although some applications offer encryption of user data, most do not. This article provides tools and code needed to add basic encryption support for user data in one of the most popular online calendar applications. Building on the incredible flexibility of Firefox extensions and the Gnu Privacy Guard, this article shows you how to store only encrypted event descriptions in Google's Calendar application, while displaying a plain text version to anyone with the appropriate decryption keys.'
12,000 Laptops Lost Weekly At Airports (Click for story)	Apparently companies are even worse about losing our data than we suspected. From the article:'According to a study of 106 major U.S. airports and 800 business travelers published by the Ponemon Institute and Dell Computer, about 12,000 laptops are lost in airports each week. Only 30 percent of travelers ever recover the lost devices. Nearly half of the travelers say their laptops contain customer data or confidential business information.' Kinda scary ...
BMW Introduces GINA Concept Car, Covered In Fabric (Click for story)	Ever wondered what the metal skin on your car is actually good for? Engineers at BMW have decided that fabric might work just as well. The doors literally peel away from the side of the car, the engine bay opens up down the middle, and pretty much everything (such as headlamps) is hidden until the fabric reveals it. It is a stunning concept that has already been influencing BMW's designs. The video is well worth watching.
Ionospheric Interference With GPS Signals (Click for story)	In recent years, we have become increasingly dependent on applications using the Global Positioning System, such as railway control, highway traffic management, emergency response, and commercial aviation. But the American Geophysical Union warns us that we can't always trust our GPS gadgets because 'electrical activity in the... ionosphere can tamper with signals from GPS satellites.' However, new research studies are under way and 'may lead to regional predictions of reduced GPS reliability and accuracy.' Roland's blog has useful links and a summary of a free introduction, up at the AGU site, to a special edition of the journal Space Weather with seven articles (not free) regarding ionospheric effects on GPS.
Examining Presidential Candidates Via Google Trends (Click for story)	Google Trends is a free application produced by Google that shows how often a given keyword is searched for, over time. After seeing how candidates in the 2008 primaries have done in Google Trends in different states, it's clear that this tool can be very useful for campaigns. (You have to scroll down a bit to find the election case study)
Weak US Dollar Means Nintendo Favors Europe For Now (Click for story)	The LA Times is reporting that the new Nintendo Wii Fit is hard to find on US shelves, due not only to strong demand but also the United States' declining status in the world economy: '"[Nintendo] is also is shrewdly maximizing its profit by sending four times as many units to Europe, reaping the benefits of the strong euro," says Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities. "The shortage demonstrates one consequence of the weak dollar. We're seeing companies ignore their largest market simply because they can make a greater profit elsewhere."
The Greatest Defunct Websites and Dotcom Disasters (Click for story)	CNet has an interesting retrospective write-up documenting the most notable dotcom distasters and now-defunct Websites that were massive in their day, detailing what happened to them and what they led to. Nupedia didn't escape a slating (remember Larry Sanger's memoir?), or indeed Beenz, whose founder and CEO once said 'would become the universal currency, supplanting all others,' according to The Register seven years ago.
How Laptops in Education Can Help Dictators, Hurt Learning (Click for story)	"New Scientist reports on worries that the OLPC's BitFrost security protocols could hand a ready-made surveillance system to controlling 3rd world governments. The laptops identify themselves regularly to a server that can disable individual machines reported stolen — a system that hands a government a kill switch for every unit. BitFrost also has the potential to have machines attach a unique ID to every internet transaction, helping out anyone wanting to track net internet use. A freely available paper from a recent USENIX conference spells out the concerns." Relatedly, an anonymous reader points out a story at Slate about a study which examined the impact that free PC's had on poor students in Romania, writing that "giving the kids machines without a corresponding level of parental supervision just resulted in distractions which ultimately damaged academic performance. By contrast, allowing children access to machines in a supervised setting, say an after school program via school labs, might mitigate some of the negative effects."
Google to host Ajax Libraries (Click for story)	So, hosting and managing a ton of Ajax calls, even when working with mootools, dojo or scriptaculous, can be quite cumbersome, especially as they get updated, along with your code. In addition, several sites now use these libraries, and the end-user has to download the library each time. Google now will provide hosted versions of these libraries, so users can simply reference Google's hosted version. From the article, "The thing is, what if multiple sites are using Prototype 1.6? Because browsers cache files according to their URL, there is no way for your browser to realize that it is downloading the same file multiple times. And thus, if you visit 30 sites that use Prototype, then your browser will download prototype.js 30 times. Today, Google announced a partial solution to this problem that seems obvious in retrospect: Google is now offering the "Google Ajax Libraries API," which allows sites to download five well-known Ajax libraries (Dojo, Prototype, Scriptaculous, Mootools, and jQuery) from Google. This will only work if many sites decide to use Google's copies of the JavaScript libraries; if only one site does so, then there will be no real speed improvement. There is, of course, something of a privacy violation here, in that Google will now be able to keep track of which users are entering various non-Google Web pages." Will users adopt this, or is it easy enough to simply host an additional file?
Manager Disables Web Server by Sneaking Away Xbox (Click for story)	While the administrator is away the managers will play. A custom Web server went missing at an unnamed public university, but who was the culprit? The department manager. Thinking that the Linux Web server (which used a Microsoft Xbox for its hardware) was a normal game console, he snuck the device out of the server room and home for his son to play over the holiday weekend. The philosophy students who used the server for their class were not amused.
Ajax Performance Analysis (Click for story)	IBM Developerworks' latest was submitted to us by an anonymous reader who writes "Using Firebug and YSlow, you can thoroughly analyze your Web applications to make educated changes to improve performance. This article reviews the latest tools and techniques for managing the performance of Ajax applications along the life cycle of your application, from inception through production."
Cool Virtual Reality application for Wii remote (Click for story)	A very interesting demonstration of a virtual reality on a PC using a Wii remote (actually, two remotes.) This person has a web site where you can download the software and see some of his other projects using Wii remote.
Experts Hack Power Grid in Less Than a Day (Click for story)	Cracking a power company network and gaining access that could shut down the grid is simple, a security expert told an RSA audience, and he has done so in less than a day. Ira Winkler, a penetration-testing consultant, says he and a team of other experts took a day to set up attack tools they needed then launched their attack, which paired social engineering with corrupting browsers on a power company's desktops. By the end of a full day of the attack, they had taken over several machines at the unnamed power company, giving the team the ability to hack into the control network overseeing power production and distribution.
Antivirus Inventor Says Security Pros Are Wasting Time (Click for story)	Earlier this week Peter Tippett, chief scientist at the ICSA and the inventor of the progam that became Norton Antivirus, had some interesting things to say about the state of the security industry. In a nutshell, Tippett warned that about a third of the work that security departments do today is a waste of time. Tippett goes on to systematically blow holes in a lot of security's current best practices, including vulnerability research/patching, strong passwords, and the product evaluation process. 'If a hacker breaks into the password files of a corporation with 10,000 machines, he only needs to guess one password to penetrate the network, Tippett notes. "In that case, the long passwords might mean that he can only crack 2,000 of the passwords instead of 5,000," he said. "But what did you really gain by implementing them? He only needed one."' Some of his arguments are definitely debatable, but there is a lot of truth to what he's saying as well.
Researchers Say Wi-Fi Virus Outbreak Possible (Click for story)	NetworkWorld article about a troubling security scenario. Indiana University IT researchers are now saying that a WiFi attack intended to piggyback across unsecured access points could do serious damage in a city like Chicago or New York. By essentially brute-forcing the passwords on insecure routers, a worm-like firmware agent could be introduced to an estimated 20,000 networks in New York City alone. "Although the researchers did not develop any attack code that would be used to carry out this infection, they believe it would be possible to write code that guessed default passwords by first entering the default administrative passwords that shipped with the router, and then by trying a list of one million commonly used passwords, one after the other. They believe that 36% of passwords can be guessed using this technique."
CNet Promotes Essential Open-Source Software to Joe Public (Click for story)	A feature is currently running on CNet explicitly promoting open-source software alternatives for typical home users, with programs rated and compared to commercial offerings. Although there's no mention of the Linux advantages to home users, the list is extensive and certainly written with the intention of snagging wider open-source adoption and understanding in the mainstream. 'Why should you care about open source? You should care because the vast majority of common applications, even complex commercial stuff like Adobe Photoshop, Windows Media Player and Microsoft Office, have free, open-source alternatives. And this point is worth reiterating: open-source software is free. No cost. Zero. Zilch.'
DNS Server Survey Reveals Mixed Security Picture (Click for story)	the latest annual survey of the state of DNS on the Net. The survey, commissioned by infrastructure appliance vendor Infoblox, found that the use of Windows DNS Server in Internet-facing applications has fallen off dramatically as more users act on concerns about security. BIND 9, the latest version, gained against earlier, less secure versions. But in other dimensions, DNS practices showed little improvement from a security point of view. Hardly anyone is using DNSSEC; and 31% of nameservers allow promiscuous zone transfers, a number little changed from last year. Here's a video of an interview with Infoblox's chief architect Cricket Liu on the state of DNS.
Must Nintendo Make a Mobile Phone? (Click for story)	Earlier this year Engadget uncovered a patent filed in 2001 for a Nintendo cell phone but as we all know, nothing came of it. Now CNET is highlighting the Nintenphone once more, stating that it must be built if cell phone gaming is ever going to get better. Interestingly, CNET Photoshopped a DS Lite with Android and a virtual keypad, and while this probably wouldn't be what a Nintenphone would look like, I can't help feeling like the DS would make an awesome phone.
C# Memory Leak Torpedoed Princeton's DARPA Chances (Click for story)	In a case of 20/20 hindsight, Princeton DARPA Grand Challenge team member Bryan Cattle reflects on how their code failed to forget obstacles it had passed. It was written in Microsoft's C#, which isn't supposed to let you have memory leaks. 'We kept noticing that the computer would begin to bog down after extended periods of driving. This problem was pernicious because it only showed up after 40 minutes to an hour of driving around and collecting obstacles. The computer performance would just gradually slow down until the car just simply stopped responding, usually with the gas pedal down, and would just drive off into the bush until we pulled the plug. We looked through the code on paper, literally line by line, and just couldn't for the life of us imagine what the problem was.'
Robot Run Warehouse Speeds Deliveries (Click for story)	The robot invasion may soon be coming to a warehouse near you. In a conventional warehouse, workers walk from shelf to shelf to fill orders, while in conveyor-based systems, boxes move past workers who pack them. A new warehouse design arranges rows and columns of freestanding shelves in a memory-chip-like grid serviced by robots. When a consumer submits an order, robots deliver the relevant shelving units to workers who pack the requested items in a box and ship them off allowing workers to fill orders two to three times faster than they could with conventional methods because the robots can work in parallel, allowing dozens of workers to fill dozens of orders simultaneously. The robotic system is also faster because the entire warehouse can adapt, in real time, to changes in demand by having the robots move shelves with popular items closer to the workers (pdf), where the shelves can be quickly retrieved while items that aren't selling are gradually moved farther away. Two giant warehouses have already been built for Staples and a third is being built for Walgreens where the software will also keep track of expiration dates to ensure that items that can go bad are sent out in the order that they're stocked.
Grid Computing Saves Cancer Researchers Decades (Click for story)	Canadian researchers have promised to squeeze "decades" of cancer research into just two years by harnessing the power of a global PC grid. The scientists are the first from Canada to use IBM's World Community Grid network of PCs and laptops with the power equivalent to one of the globe's top five fastest supercomputers. The team will use the grid to analyze the results of experiments on proteins using data collected by scientists at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, New York. The researchers estimate that this analysis would take conventional computer systems 162 years to complete.
Google's Open Source Mobile Platform (Click for story)	As expected, Google took the wraps off of the gPhone (as the media have for months been referring to the rumored project). Google is "leading a broad industry alliance to transform mobile phones into powerful mobile computers," and will be licensing its software to all comers on an open source basis under the Apache license. (The Wall Street Journal's Ben Worthen demonstrates a miserable grasp of what "open source" means.) Google's US partners include Nextel and Sprint, but not AT&T nor Verizon. Phones will be available in the second half of 2008 — not the spring as earlier reports had speculated. News.com's analysis warns that Google won't take over the mobile market overnight, though they quote Forrester in the opinion that Google may be one of the three biggest mobile players after several years of shakeout.
New GPS Navigator Relies On 'Wisdom of the Crowds' (Click for story)	The New York Times is running an article on Dash Express, a new navigation system for automobiles that not only receives GPS location data, but broadcasts information about its travels. Information is passed back to Dash over a cellular data network, where it is shared with other users to let them know if there are slowdowns or traffic jams on the road ahead. The real benefit of the system isn't apparent until enough units are collecting data in a given area - so Dash distributed over 2,000 prototype units to test drivers in 25 large cities.
Why Myths Persist (Click for story)	an article in the Washington Post about recent research into the persistence of myths. In short: once a myth has been put out there (e.g., "Saddam Hussein plotted the 9/11 attacks"), denying it can paradoxically reinforce its staying power. Ignoring it doesn't work either — a claim that is unchallenged gains the ring of truth. Over time, "negation tags" fall out of memory: "Saddam didn't plan 9/11" becomes "Saddam planned 9/11." From the article: "The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths... The research is painting a broad new understanding of how the mind works. Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious 'rules of thumb' that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency."
Attacking Multicore CPUs (Click for story)	The Register reports that the world of current multi-core central processing units (CPUs) just entered is facing a serious threat. A security researcher at Cambridge disclosed a new class of vulnerabilities that takes advantage of concurrency to bypass security protections such as anti-virus software The attack is based on the assumption that the software that interacts with the kernel can be used without interference. The researcher, Robert Watson, showed that a careful written exploit can attack in the little timeframe when this happens, and literally change the "words" that they are exchanging. Even if some of these dark aspects of concurrency were already known, Watson proved that real attacks can be developed, and showed that developers have to fix their code. Fast...
Time Running Out for Public Key Encryption (Click for story)	Two research teams have independently made quantum computers that run the prime-number-factorising Shor's algorithm — a significant step towards breaking public key cryptography. Most of the article is sadly behind a pay-wall, but a blog post at the New Scientist site nicely explains how the algorithm works. From the blurb: 'The advent of quantum computers that can run a routine called Shor's algorithm could have profound consequences. It means the most dangerous threat posed by quantum computing - the ability to break the codes that protect our banking, business and e-commerce data - is now a step nearer reality. Adding to the worry is the fact that this feat has been performed by not one but two research groups, independently of each other. One team is led by Andrew White at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and the other by Chao-Yang Lu of the University of Science and Technology of China, in Hefei.'
Seven Wonders of the IT World (Click for story)	The computer closest to the North Pole. The most intriguing data center. The biggest scientific computing grid. The little kernel that rocked the world. CIO.com has compiled a list of Seven Wonders of the IT World, some of the most impressive and unusual systems on the planet (and beyond).
Brain Differences In Liberals and Conservatives (Click for story)	Scientists from NYU and UCLA report in Nature Neuroscience that the brains of Democrats and Republicans process information differently. This new study finds that the differences are apparent even when the brain processes common information, not just political topics. From the study, liberals were more likely to be accurate and showed more brain activity in the region associated with analyzing conflicts. A researcher not affiliated with the study stated, liberals 'could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.' Moreover, 'the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry... as a flip-flopper.'
Best Programming Practices For Web Developers (Click for story)	Web pages have become a major functional component of the daily lives of millions of people. Web developers are in a position to make that part of everyone's lives better. Why not try using traditional computer programming and best practices of software engineering?
Ophcrack Says Your Password is Insecure (Click for story)	An insightful article at Jeff Atwood's Coding Horror reveals the power inside Ophcrack, an Open Source program that is capable of discover virtually any password in Windows operating systems. The article explains how passwords get stored on Windows using hash functions, and how Ophcrack is capable of generate immense tables of words and letter combinations that are compared to the password we want to obtain. The program is available in Windows, Mac OS and Linux, but be careful: the generated tables that Ophcrack uses are really big, and you should need up to 15 Gbytes to store these tables.
Are Relational Databases Obsolete? (Click for story)	Michael Stonebraker's opinion that RDBMSs " should be considered legacy technology." Computerworld adds some background and analysis to Stonebraker's comments, which appear in a new blog, The Database Column. Stonebraker co-created the Ingres and Postgres technology while a researcher at UC Berkeley in the early 1970s. He predicts that "column stores will take over the [data] warehouse market over time, completely displacing row stores."
Why Myths Persist (Click for story)	an article in the Washington Post about recent research into the persistence of myths. In short: once a myth has been put out there (e.g., "Saddam Hussein plotted the 9/11 attacks"), denying it can paradoxically reinforce its staying power. Ignoring it doesn't work either — a claim that is unchallenged gains the ring of truth. Over time, "negation tags" fall out of memory: "Saddam didn't plan 9/11" becomes "Saddam planned 9/11." From the article: "The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths... The research is painting a broad new understanding of how the mind works. Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious 'rules of thumb' that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency."
IBM Develops Technology That Could Store Data In Atoms (Click for story)	a way to perform computer functions on the atomic level. IBM has pioneered the process at their Almaden Research lab in California. Essentially, researchers detect 'magnetic anisotropy, a property of the magnetic field that gives it the ability to maintain a particular direction'. Since the process allows the detection of the 'direction' individual atoms are facing, this is the first step towards the ones and zeroes used in binary. "In a second report, researchers at IBM's lab in Zurich, Switzerland, said they had used an individual molecule as an electric switch that could potentially replace the transistors used in modern chips. The company published both research reports in Friday's edition of the journal Science.The new technologies are at least 10 years from being used for components in commercial products, but the discoveries will allow scientists to take a large step forward in their quest to replace silicon, said IBM spokesman Matthew McMahon."
The Downsides of Software as Service (Click for story)	Dvorak's article, entitled Don't Trust the Servers, argues that the danger of software as a service was highlighted when 'the WGA [Windows Genuine Advantage] server outage hit on Friday evening and was finally repaired on Saturday. It was down for 19 long hours.' The whole fiasco raises an interesting perspective on the software as a service 'fetish'. Dvorak highlights it hypothetically: What if the timeline were reversed, and we were moving from online apps to the desktop. Hear his prophecy of the marketing: 'You can image the advertising push. "Now control your own data!" "Faster processing power now." "Cheaper!" "Everything at your fingertips." "No need to worry about network outages." "Faster, cheaper, more reliable." On and on. I can almost hear the marketing types brag about how much better "shrink wrap" software is than the flaky online apps. The best line for the emergence of the desktop computer in a reverse timeline would be "It's about time!"'
Police Data-Mining Done Right (Click for story)	it's nice to hear something good about data mining for a change: predicting and stopping crime. For example, police in Redmond, VA, 'started overlaying crime reports with other data, such as weather, traffic, sports events and paydays for large employers. The data was analyzed three times a day and something interesting emerged: Robberies spiked on paydays near cheque cashing storefronts in specific neighbourhoods. Other clusters also became apparent, and pretty soon police were deploying resources in advance and predicting where crime was most likely to occur.'
Algorithm Seamlessly Patches Holes In Images (Click for story)	Carnegie Mellon demonstrating a new way to replace arbitrarily shaped blank areas in an image with portions of images from a huge catalog in a totally seamless manner. From the abstract: "In this paper we present a new image completion algorithm powered by a huge database of photographs gathered from the Web. The algorithm patches up holes in images by finding similar image regions in the database that are not only seamless but also semantically valid. Our chief insight is that while the space of images is effectively infinite, the space of semantically differentiable scenes is actually not that large. For many image completion tasks we are able to find similar scenes which contain image fragments that will convincingly complete the image. Our algorithm is entirely data-driven, requiring no annotations or labelling by the user."
Hiring Programmers and The High Cost of Low Quality (Click for story)	Why is it so hard to find good programmers? And why should companies favor hiring fewer more senior developers rather than many junior ones? Frank Wiles discusses his thoughts in his article A Guide to Hiring Programmers: The High Cost of Low Quality
Office Printers May Pose Health Risks (Click for story)	The BBC reports on new findings which may have implications for the way offices are laid out. According to an Australian study, around a third of modern printer models release 'potentially dangerous levels of toner into the air' as they are completing a job. 'Almost one-third were found to emit ultra-tiny particles of toner-like material, so small that they can infiltrate the lungs and cause a range of health problems from respiratory irritation to more chronic illnesses. Conducted in an open-plan office, the test revealed that particle levels increased five-fold during working hours, a rise blamed on printer use. '
Checkers Solved, Unbeatable Database Created (Click for story)	the Nature site announced that a team of computer scientists at the University of Alberta has solved checkers. From the game's 500 billion billion positions (5 * 10^20), 'Chinook' has determined which 100,000 billion (10^14) are needed for their proof, and run through all relevant decision trees. They've set up a site where you can see the proof, traverse the logic, and play their unbeatable automaton. '[Jonathan] Schaeffer notes that his research has implications beyond the checkers board. The same algorithms his team writes to solve games could be helpful in searching other databases, such as vast lists of biological information because, as he says, "At the core, they both reduce to the same fundamental problem: large, compressed data sets that have to be accessed quickly."'
Identifying (and Fixing) Failing IT Projects (Click for story)	Often, the difference between the success and failure of any IT project is spotting critical early warning signs that the project is in trouble. CIO.com offers a few ways to identify the symptoms, as well as suggestions about what you can do to fix a project gone wrong. ' The original study (which is still sometimes quoted as if it were current) was shocking. In 1994, the researchers found that 31 percent of the IT projects were flat failures. That is, they were abandoned before completion and produced nothing useful. Only about 16 percent of all projects were completely successful: delivering applications on time, within budget and with all the originally specified features. "As of 2006, the absolute failure rate is down to 19 percent," Johnson says. "The success rate is up to 35 percent." The remaining 46 percent are what the Standish Group calls "challenged": projects that didn't meet the criteria for total success but delivered a useful product.'
Gadgets Have Taken Over For Our Brains (Click for story)	According to a Trinity College survey released Friday, the boom in mobiles and portable devices that store reams of personal information has created a generation incapable of memorizing simple things. In effect, the study argues, these devices have replaced our long-term memory capabilities. 'As many as a third of those surveyed under the age of 30 were unable to recall their home telephone number without resorting to their mobile phones or to notes. When it came to remembering important dates such as the birthdays of close family relatives, 87 per cent of those over the age of 50 could remember the details, compared with 40 per cent of those under the age of 30.'
Jeremy Allison On Why DRM Will Never Work (Click for story)	At the ZDNet site, Jeremy Allison (a well-known employee of the Google corporation) goes on a hilarious rant against Digital Rights Management. He compares the access restriction technology with underwear gnomes & Star Trek while ending with: 'Believing in a DRM business model is like joining Star Fleet security, putting on your red shirt, and volunteering to beam down to the new unexplored planet with Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Someone will be coming back from that mission, it's just not likely to be the security guard. Always a true engineer, Scotty had the good sense to stay safely on board the ship.'
How to Keep Your Code From Destroying You (Click for story)	IBM DeveloperWorks has a few quick tips on how to write maintainable code that won't leech your most valuable resource — time. These six tips on how to write maintainable code are guaranteed to save you time and frustration: one minute spent writing comments can save you an hour of anguish. Bad code gets written all the time. But it doesn't have to be that way. Its time to ask yourself if its time for you to convert to the clean code religion.
Click Here To Infect Your PC! (Click for story)	Just how many people would click an ad saying " Is your PC virus-free? Get it infected here!"? According to the security researcher who ran that very ad on Google for 6 months, 0.16% (409 of 259,723) would click on it. 98% of those people were running Windows. The Google Adwords campaign cost $23 in total, which works out to $0.06 per infection had the site actually been malicious.
MIT Media Lab Making Programming Fun For Kids (Click for story)	an article on the Boston Globe's website, talking up efforts by MIT to make programming a non-threatening part of grade-school education. MIT has developed a new programming language designed to encourage experimentation and play. Called Scratch, the project eschews manuals and high-level concepts in favour of approachability. "Efforts to make computer programming accessible to young people began in the late 1970s with the advent of the personal PC, when another programming language with roots at MIT — Logo — allowed young people to draw shapes by steering a turtle around a screen by typing out commands. But the path to mastering most programming languages has been strewn with obstacles, since students needed to figure out not only the underlying logic but also master a brand new syntax, observe strict rules about semicolons and bracket use, and figure out what was causing error messages even as they learned the program."
Google to be Our Web-Based Anti-Virus Protector ? (Click for story)	For some time now, searches have displayed 'this site may harm your computer' when Google has tagged a site as containing malware. Now the search engine giant is is further publicizing the level of infection in a paper titled: The Ghost In The Browser. For good reason, too: the company found that nearly 1 in ten sites (or about 450,000) are loaded with malicious software. Google is now promising to identify all web pages on the internet that could be malicious - with its powerful crawling abilities & data centers, the company is in an excellent position to do this. 'As well as characterizing the scale of the problem on the net, the Google study analyzed the main methods by which criminals inject malicious code on to innocent web pages. It found that the code was often contained in those parts of the website not designed or controlled by the website owner, such as banner adverts and widgets. Widgets are small programs that may, for example, display a calendar on a webpage or a web traffic counter. These are often downloaded form third party sites. The rise of web 2.0 and user-generated content gave criminals other channels, or vectors, of attack, it found.'
Sun Debuts JavaFX As Alternative To AJAX (Click for story)	Internetnews is reporting on Sun's introduction of JavaFX at JavaOne today. Looks like a combination Applet, Flash, Javascript, and AJAX with a friendly programming interface. Does this really spell the end of AJAX? I sincerely hope so. Nothing built on Javascript will ever achieve the security, cross-platform reliability, and programmatic friendliness that Web 2.0 needs. Proprietary solutions and vendor lock-in are also dead ends. JavaFX has the potential to satisfy this opportunity even better than did Java over a decade ago. Along with AJAX, let's hope JavaFX also puts paid to Microsoft's viral Active-X and JScript, and, more importantly, that it really is a web scripting language that developers can grok.
Bad Security Driving Out the Good (Click for story)	Bruce Schneier has up at Wired a typically thoughtful piece on how, in the security market as in others, the lemons are winning out over the good products. Schneier harks back to "The Market For Lemons," the 1970s work of economist George Akerlof, to explain why the market's invisible hand pushes most of the best products into the abyss: "With so many mediocre security products on the market, and the difficulty of coming up with a strong quality signal, vendors don't have strong incentives to invest in developing good products. And the vendors that do tend to die a quiet and lonely death."
Building Brainlike Computers (Click for story)	an article in IEEE Spectrum by Jeff Hawkins (founder of Palm Computing), titled Why can't a computer be more like a brain? Hawkins brings us up to date with his latest endeavor, Numenta. He covers progress since his book On Intelligence and gives details on Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM), which is a platform for simulating neocortical activity. Programming HTMs is different — you essentially feed them sensory data. Numenta has created a framework and tools, free in a "research release," that allow anyone to build and program HTMs.
Mars Global Surveyor Died from Single Bad Command (Click for story)	The importance of debugging: The LA Times reports that a single wrong command sent to the wrong computer address caused a cascade of events that led to the loss of the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft last November. The command was an orientation instruction for the spacecraft's main communications antenna. The mistake caused a problem with the positioning of the solar power panels, which in turned caused one of the batteries to overheat, shutting down the solar power system and draining the batteries some 12 hours later. 'The review panel found the management team followed existing procedures in dealing with the problem, but those procedures were inadequate to catch the errors that occurred. The review also said the spacecraft's onboard fault-protection system failed to respond correctly to the errors. Instead of protecting the spacecraft, the programmed response made it worse.'
Canadian University Students Taught To Protect IP (Click for story)	Graduate students at Carleton University (Ottawa) are taking steps to protect their intellectual property, at the same time are insuring that they are being properly recognized for their work. This is in response to the increased commercialization of research done at universities, and high-profile cases of copyright infringement by professors at the University of Toronto and Indiana University. 'The initiative will include workshops and a handbook outlining what would constitute an infraction of students' intellectual property rights, Howlett said. Examples include a student not receiving authorship on written work, or having a professor take credit for their work. "This isn't an indictment of profs at all," said Howlett. "It's just to ensure that students' rights are protected in the case that it does happen."'
Dealing With Venom on the Web (Click for story)	In a world where nastiness online can erupt and go global overnight, BusinessWeek finds Corporate America woefully unprepared and offers suggestions for how to cope, including shelling out $10,000 to companies like ReputationDefender.com to promote the info you want and suppress the news you don't. And in what must be a sign of the Apocalypse, BW holds Slashdot's moderation system up as a model for maintaining civility in message boards.
PC World's 50 Best Tech Products of All Time (Click for story)	PC World picks the 50 best tech products of all time. Apple holds down seven places in the list, Microsoft two, and open source software (Red Hat Linux) one. The top five, according to PC World, are: Netscape Navigator (1994), Apple II (1977), TiVo HDR110 (1999), Napster (1999), and Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS (1983).
Secure Programming Exams Launched (Click for story)	The SANS Software Security Institute , in conjunction with organizations such as Siemens, Symantec, Juniper, OWASP, and Virginia Tech, has announced a program for testing whether programmers know how to write secure code . The Secure Programming Skills Assessment is split into separate language families (C/C++, Java/J2EE, Perl/PHP, and ASP/.NET). Director of research Alan Paller says 'This assessment and certification program will help programmers learn what they don't know, and help organizations identify programmers who have solid security skills.' The pilot exam will be held in Washington DC in August, followed by a global rollout.
Scientists Powering Batteries with Soda, Tree Sap (Click for story)	St. Louis University researchers have concocted batteries fueled by almost any kind of sugar, from tree sap to flat soda, and that could be used to power everything from computers to cell phones. Their thinking: If sugar can jack up the human body, why not electronics?
The Business Case for Open Source Software (Click for story)	An InfoWorld blog entry makes a business case for open source software, and attempts to explain the business benefits of OSS to management and business owners. The primary benefits the piece uses to argue in favor of OSS include no licensing fees, and no license keys. The article also argues that OSS results in freedom from 'ownership' by software vendors. 'Never again will you fear the BSA (Business Software Alliance) knocking on your door wanting to perform a software audit. The BSA even takes out advertisements on Google search pages for and up to $200,000 reward a disgruntled ex-employee can receive for reporting your company to the BSA! That's quite a powerful motivator...'
"Market Share" "Installed Base" and Consumer Electronics (Click for story)	Analysts and reporters like to talk about market share statistics, but the conclusions they draw are often misleading, RDM reports. Market Share Myth 2007: iPod vs Zune and Mac vs PC takes a look at how numbers are used to paint grossly inaccurate portrayals of the market share of the Zune among iPods, and alternatively the Mac among PCs. A follow up article, Market Share vs Installed Base: iPod vs Zune, Mac vs PC demonstrates how the conventional wisdom of market share reporting can be turned upside down by simply comparing what vendors actually sell. An eye opening, in depth look at the real numbers behind PCs, music players, and console games.
Scientists Demonstrate Thought-Controlled Computer (Click for story)	ComputerWorld coverage of a unique gadget shown at this past week's CeBit show. The company g.tec was showing off a brain/computer interface (BCI) in one corner of the trade hall. The rig, once placed on your head, detects the brain's voltage fluctuations and can respond appropriately. This requires training, where "the subject responds to commands on a computer screen, thinking 'left' and 'right' when they are instructed to do so ... Another test involves looking at a series of blinking letters, and thinking of a letter when it appears." Once the system is trained, you can think letters at the machine and 'type' via your thoughts. Likewise, by thinking directions you can move objects around onscreen. The article provides some background on the history of g.tec's BCI, and suggests possible uses for the technology in the near future.
How to Stop the Dilbertization of IT? (Click for story)	In the simplest terms: too many IT workplaces have become Dilbertized -- micromanaged, bureaucratic and stifled creatively. It's become an environment where busy work is praised and morale is low. How is it possible to bring IT's appeal back? 'IT professionals that have worked in the field for a long time often speak about a shift in their work where they have gone from tossing ideas back and forth to make for better technology solutions to fighting fires all day. "There's less emphasis on creativity, and more on maintenance. Tweak this, work on this ... In being reactive not proactive, everything is a crisis. Something has to be done right now, putting out fire after fire, going a long way to making IT a less pleasant environment," said Skaistis. Beyond making for a unpleasant work environment for the techies already in-house, this firefighting serves as a warning to potential recruits: you will not like this job.'
Tracking the Password Thieves (Click for story)	From The Washington Post, yet another story about phishers, keyloggers, and viruses. The story is nothing new, but the author has a blog where he describes how he gathered the information that went into the story. Information including the locations of the victims, and the ISPs likeliest to be hit . Some of the victims included "an engineer for the Architect of the Capitol" and a man who "works in computer security for IBM." One victim "was fresh out of college, where he'd just earned a degree in information security. (He was actively looking for a job in the field; I suggested he may want to go back to the classroom.)" A compromised machine was also found in "the new accounts department at Bank of America" (Score!)
Homeland Security Tests Snoop Computer System (Click for story)	The Washington Times reports that Homeland Security has developed and is testing a new computer system called ADVISE (Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement) that collects and analyzes personal information on US citizens. Relevant data 'can include credit-card purchases, telephone or Internet details, medical records, travel and banking information.' The program apparently uses the same process as the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project, which was aborted in 2003 due to privacy concerns.
Management 'Scared' by Open Source (Click for story)	A discussion panel at EclipseCon exposed how managers are freaking out over open source. Apparently a disconnect exists between managers who set corporate open source policies and developers supposed to follow them, but who end up covering their tracks to make it seem like they are not using open source. Developers, though, end up using open source because of its ubiquity and not using it 'puts them at a competitive disadvantage because their competitors are.' And the Lawyers are in a panic.
Auto-Parallelizing Compiler From Codeplay (Click for story)	Parallelization of code can be a very tricky thing. We've all heard of the challenges with Cell, and with dual and quad core processors this is becoming an ever more important issue to deal with. The Inquirer writes about a new auto-parallelizing compiler called Sieve from Codeplay: 'What Sieve is is a C++ compiler that will take a section of code and parallelize it for you with a minimum hassle. All you really need to do is take the code you want to run across multiple CPUs and put beginning and end tags on the parts you want to run in parallel.' There is more info on Sieve available on Codeplay's site. This still requires the developer to segment the program, so I'm not sure it will take off, but it looks like less of a pain than some others. I still think that functional programming might be the easiest approach.
Hacker Defeats Hardware-based Rootkit Detection (Click for story)	Joanna Rutkowska's latest bit of rootkit-related research shatters the myth that hardware-based (PCI cards or FireWire bus) RAM acquisition is the most reliable and secure way to do forensics. At this year's Black Hat Federal conference, she demonstrated three different attacks against AMD64 based systems, showing how the image of volatile memory (RAM) can be made different from the real contents of the physical memory as seen by the CPU. The overall problem, Rutkowska explained, is the design of the system that makes it impossible to reliably read memory from computers. "Maybe we should rethink the design of our computer systems so they they are somehow verifiable," she said.
Dow Jones Plunge Fueled by Overwhelmed Computers (Click for story)	The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 400 points today. While there were various valid financial reasons for such a decline, some of the blame is being placed on computer systems that couldn't keep up with the abnormally high volume at the New York Stock Exchange and the resulting tremor as they switched over to a backup system.
Honeynet Delineates Web Application Threats (Click for story)	An anonymous reader sends us to a technical white paper written by the Honeynet Project & Research Alliance: Know Your Enemy: Web Application Threats. Based on analysis of malware collected by the project, the paper outlines a number of HTTP-based attacks against web applications and some ways of protecting Web servers. Included are code injection, remote code-inclusion, SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and exploitation of the PHPShell application.
Meetings Make You Dumber (Click for story)	I think "long meetings" is probably more accurate. IMHO short brainstorming meetings can be quite productive. Robert Heinlein once said that the committee was the only life form in the universe with three or more bellies and no brain. MSNBC reports that his statement may have some statistical truth to it. Researchers are finding that meetings are actually bad places to be creative. You're not actually 'dumber' when you're in the meeting, just more likely to lose your creative edge. Studies have now shown that, as collaborative primates, the more often a possibility is mentioned the more likely the group is to go along with it. Individuals placed by themselves were more likely to come up with imaginative alternatives to products, for example.
Inside the Windows Vista Kernel (Part 1) (Part 2)	an article on Technet (which, be warned, is rather chaotically formatted). Mark Russinovich, whose company Winternals Software was recently bought by Microsoft, has published the first of a series of articles on what's new in the Vista kernel. Russinovich writes: "In this issue, I'll look at changes in the areas of processes and threads, and in I/O. Future installments will cover memory management, startup and shutdown, reliability and recovery, and security. The scope of this article comprises changes to the Windows Vista kernel only, specifically Ntoskrnl.exe and its closely associated components. Please remember that there are many other significant changes in Windows Vista that fall outside the kernel proper and therefore won't be covered."
Google Apps Premier Edition Launches (Click for story)	Google Apps is adding a premium offering : a custom 10-GB Gmail box, Google Calendar, GTalk instant messenger, Writely, Google Pages, Google Custom home page iGoogle and Google SpreadSheets for $50 a year per employee. The NYTimes provides some details on competitive pricing : 'By comparison, businesses pay on average about $225 a person annually for Office and Exchange,... in addition to the costs of in-house management, customer support and hardware, according to the market research firm Gartner.' Boston.com quotes an analyst for Nucleus Research on Google's ease-of-use: '"What we see in the Google Apps is a real focus on making them easy to use and intuitive," she said. "And that's something that Microsoft has been unable to do in all of its years with Office."' But the same analyst is bearish on Google Apps' shortcomings relative to the mature Microsoft desktop products: 'Right now Google's going to give companies a better ability to negotiate with Microsoft.'
Prototype Quantum Computer (Click for story)	D-Wave Systems of British Columbia is all set to demonstrate a 16-qubit quantum computer. Simple devices have been built in the lab before, and this is still a prototype, but it is a commercial project that aims to get quantum devices into computer rooms, solving tricky problems such as financial optimization. Most quantum computers have to be isolated from the outside world (look at them and they stop working). This one is an 'adiabatic' quantum computer — which means (in theory, says D-Wave) that it can live with thermal noise and give results without having to be isolated. There's a description of it here — and pretty pictures too.
Google Apps to Become Paid Service (Click for story)	Business Week reports Google Apps is becoming a paid service soon for companies who wish to use it for their domain. Disney and Pixar are reportedly thinking about switching to Google Apps innstead of using Microsoft Office. Could this be the end of a monopoly? Or the start of a new one?
Schneier Mulls Psychology of Security (Click for story)	Cryptography expert Bruce Schneier says security decisions often are much less rational than one would prefer. He spoke at the RSA conference about the battle that goes on in the brain when responding to security issues. Schneier explains 'The primitive portion of the brain, called the amygdala, feels fear and incites a fear-or-flight response, he pointed out. "It's very fast, faster than consciousness. But it can be overridden by higher parts of the brain." The neocortex, which in a mammalian brain is associated with consciousness, is slower but "adaptive and flexible,"'
Security — Open Vs. Closed (Click for story)	an article in ACM Queue, " Open vs. Closed," in which Richard Ford prods at all the unknowns and grey areas in the question: is the open source or the closed source model more secure? While Ford notes that "there is no better way to start an argument among a group of developers than proclaiming Operating System A to be 'more secure' than Operating System B," he goes on to provide a nuanced and intelligent discussion on the subject, which includes guidelines as to where the use of "security through obscurity" may be appropriate.
Bruce Schneier Talks Brain Heuristics and Security (Click for story)	Bruce Schneier is at it again: the security icon shares his latest research and insight on the interplay between psychology and security in this article in Dark Reading. The focus of Schneier's latest research is on brain heuristics and perceptions of security, which may be the basis for the best-selling author's next book. His goal for the topic, which he'll be presenting at the RSA Conference next week, is to focus on how people think, and feel, about security, and how neuroscience can help explain how our perception of risk doesn't always match reality.
7 Ways to Be Mistaken for a Spammer (Click for story)	The "This is Spam" button popping up on many service providers' email services can be empowering for a user, but it can also be the kiss of death for a legitimate business that gets canned with a click of that button. Dark Reading has a story on seven common missteps that can lead to a case of mistaken spammmer identity for a legit business trying to send its marketing email, newsletters or other correspondence.
Bosworth On Why AJAX Failed, Then Succeeded (Click for story)	eWeek has a story describing a talk by former Microsoft developer Adam Bosworth, now a VP at Google, entitled 'Physics, Speed and Psychology: What Works and What Doesn't in Software, and Why.' Bosworth depicts issues with processing, broadband, natural language, and human behavior; and he dishes on Microsoft." Quoting: "'Back in '96-'97, me and a group of people... helped build stuff that these days is called AJAX,' Bosworth said. 'We sat down and took a hard look at what was going to happen with the Internet and we concluded, in the face of unyielding opposition and animosity from virtually every senior person at Microsoft, that the thick client was on its way out and it was going to be replaced by browser-based apps. Saying this at Microsoft back in '96 was roughly equivalent to wandering around in a fire wearing matches,' he said. 'But we concluded we should go and build this thing. And we put all this stuff together so people could build thin-client applications... Now you hear about AJAX all the time, but this was built in '97,' Bosworth said. Yet, AJAX failed for a variety of reasons, including some 'big mistakes.'"
IBM's Chief Architect Says Software is at Dead End (Click for story)	In an InformationWeek article entitled 'Where's the Software to Catch Up to Multicore Computing?' the Chief Architect at IBM gives some fairly compelling reasons why your favorite software will soon be rendered deadly slow because of new hardware architectures. Software, she says, just doesn't understand how to do work in parallel to take advantage of 16, 64, 128 cores on new processors. Intel just stated in an SD Times article that 100% of its server processors will be multicore by end of 2007. We will never, ever return to single processor computers. Architect Catherine Crawford goes on to discuss some of the ways developers can harness the 'tiny supercomputers' we'll all have soon, and some of the applications we can apply this brute force to.
'Dumb Terminals' Can Be a Smart Move for Companies (Click for story)	More companies are forgoing desktop and laptop computers for dumb terminals — reversing a trend toward powerful individual machines that has been in motion for two decades, the Wall Street Journal reports. 'Because the terminals have no moving parts such as fans or hard drives that can break, the machines typically require less maintenance and last longer than PCs. Mark Margevicius, an analyst at research firm Gartner Inc., estimates companies can save 10% to 40% in computer-management costs when switching to terminals from desktops. In addition, the basic terminals appear to offer improved security. Because the systems are designed to keep data on a server, sensitive information isn't lost if a terminal gets lost, stolen or damaged. And if security programs or other applications need to be updated, the new software is installed on only the central servers, rather than on all the individual PCs scattered throughout a network.'
Microsoft Copies Idea, Admits It, Then Patents It (Click for story)	BlueJ is a popular academic IDE which lets students have a visual programming interface. Microsoft copied the design in their 'Object Test Bench' feature in Visual Studio 2005 and even admitted it. Now, a patent application has come to light which patents the very same feature, blatantly ignoring prior art.
Lack of Innovation in IT Holding Companies Back? (Click for story)	Google's Dave Girouard, manager of enterprise business, is blaming a "crisis" in IT and the "insane complexity" of technology, among other things, for the lack of innovation that could allow businesses to grow. "A lot of things that people think of as core IT functions need to disappear into the ether so that the IT organization can properly focus on the value-added [activities]," he said. "Information security, as critical as it is, needs to be taken care of by organizations who live and die by it, who invest the money, time, resources and staff. Why should every company in the world have to build up their own expertise and have to maintain servers and provide security?"
Is the One-Size-Fits-All Database Dead? (Click for story)	In a new benchmarking paper, MIT professor Mike Stonebraker and colleagues demonstrate that specialized databases can have dramatic performance advantages over traditional databases (PDF) in four areas: text processing, data warehousing, stream processing, and scientific and intelligence applications. The advantage can be a factor of 10 or higher. The paper includes some interesting 'apples to apples' performance comparisons between commercial implementations of specialized architectures and relational databases in two areas: data warehousing and stream processing. From the paper: "A single code line will succeed whenever the intended customer base is reasonably uniform in their feature and query requirements. One can easily argue this uniformity for business data processing. However, in the last quarter century, a collection of new markets with new requirements has arisen. In addition, the relentless advance of technology has a tendency to change the optimization tactics from time to time."
MIT's OpenCourseWare Program (Click for story)	MIT has initiated OpenCourseWare, an initiative to share all of their educational resources with the public. This generous act is intended (in classical MIT style) to make knowledge free, open, and available. It's a great resource for people looking to improve their knowledge of our world. OpenCourseWare should prove exceptionally beneficial to those who may not be able to afford the quality of education offered at a school like MIT. Here's a link to all currently available courses. It is expected that by the end of the year every course offered at MIT will be available on the OpenCourseWare site, including lecture notes, homework assignments, and exams. OpenCourseWare is not offered to replace collegiate education, but rather to spread knowledge freely.
What Makes Software Development So Hard? (Click for story)	CIO Insight is running a short piece that takes a look at why the rocky culture of software development continues to exist despite all of the missed deadlines, blown budgets, and broken promises. From the article: "I was not really looking or thinking about big software projects. I was just coming out of my experiences at Salon, where we built a content management system in 2000, which was painful. I was one of the people in charge of it, and when the dust cleared, I thought, I don't really know that much about software development. Other people must have figured it out better than I have; I must go and learn. So I started reading, and talking to people, and realized it's a big subject and an unsolved problem. And the bigger the project, the harder the problem."
Modernizing the Common Language - COBOL (Click for story)	Over at the Register Developers section, they are quoting the head of research for Ovum Consulting on the continuing dominance of COBOL in certain business applications. The antique language accounted for 75% of all business transactions last year, and some 90% of financial transactions. For all the time spent arguing the merits of Ruby vs. C#, should the community spend more time building tools to make COBOL livable? The article goes into what it terms 'legacy modernization', and lays out some details on how to go about it. From the article: 'The first stage in the legacy modernization process is to understand the business value embodied within legacy systems. This means that developers must give business domain experts (business analysts) access to the legacy, using tools that help them find their way around it at the business level. Some awareness of, say, COBOL and of the legacy architectures will be helpful but we aren't talking about programmers rooting around in code - modern tools can automate much of this analysis for staff working at a higher level.'
Vista Designed to Make Malware Easy (Click for story)	Trojan horses masquerading as 'cracks for Vista' are starting to appear on pirate boards. More worrying though, Microsoft has confirmed that Vista's image-based install process is designed to allow third-party software to be slipstreamed into the installation DVD. Great for corporate deployment of Vista with software pre-installed, but also a huge benefit for malware writers, who can distribute Vista images with deeply-rooted malware.
Community Comments To Security Absurdity Article (Click for story)	Earlier this year Noam Eppel's Security Absurdity article generated much debate in the Information Security community (covered on Slashdot at the time). He claimed that we are currently witnessing a 'profound failure' in security. Now the author has posted a follow-up highlighting some of the community comments prompted by the article, titled 'Feedback to Security Absurdity Article — the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.'
Interview with Spreadsheet Creator (Click for story)	Dan Bricklin helped create one of the most successful computer metaphors of all time, and he never got rich. He, and another engineer, created Personal Software to create the computer spreadsheet VisiCalc, which established the Apple II as the standard microcomputer for small businesses and attracted the attention of IBM to the market. Josh Coventry recently interviewed Bricklin about VisiCalc and his newer projects, including a Wiki-style spreadsheet ."
Man Used MP3 Player To Hack Cash Machines (Click for story)	A man in Manchester, England has been convicted of using an MP3 player to hack cash machines. The MP3 player was plugged into the back of free standing cash machines in bars. Tones being recorded from the phone line were decoded with special software to a readable format. Later this information was used to clone credit cards.
You Call This Agile? (Click for story)	JoelonSoftware's most recent piece is about some of the fallacies in "Agile" software and some of the issues within it. We use Agile in some parts of the company, and have had success with that -- that said, there's always the peril that happens when development and other parts of the company have...miscommunication, which sounds like the problem described in Joel's piece.
Vista's EULA Product Activation Worries (Click for story)	SecurityFocus is running an article regarding some concerns about Vista's activation terms. Do you have the right to use properly purchased but not validated software? What happens if Microsoft deactivates your OS that was legally purchased? The article goes into some detail about Vista's validation and concerns. From the article: "The terms of the Vista EULA, like the current EULA related to the 'Windows Genuine Advantage,' allows Microsoft to unilaterally decide that you have breached the terms of the agreement, and they can essentially disable the software, and possibly deny you access to critical files on your computer without benefit of proof, hearing, testimony or judicial intervention. In fact, if Microsoft is wrong, and your software is, in fact, properly licensed, you probably will be forced to buy a license to another copy of the operating system from Microsoft just to be able to get access to your files, and then you can sue Microsoft for the original license fee."
Malicious Injection — It's Not Just For SQL Anymore (Click for story)	When most people think of malicious injection, they think of SQL injection. The fact is, if you are using XML documents or an LDAP directory, you are just as vulnerable to a malicious injection as you would be using SQL. Bryan Sullivan looks at the different types of malicious code injections and examines the very basics of preventing these injections.
Why Upper Management Doesn't "Get" IT Security (Click for story)	Schneier is reporting that the Department of Homeland Security has decided to delve into why upper management doesn't "get" IT security threats . The results aren't terribly surprising to those in the trenches, stating that most executives view security as something akin to facilities management. "Thankfully", the $495 report (if you aren't a "Conference Board associate") helps tell you how to handle the situation.
"Interface-Free" Touch Screen at TED (Click for story)	Jeff Han, an NYU researcher, has recently shown off his 'interface free' touch screen technology at the TEDTalks in Monterey. Some sweet inovation that I hope makes it to the mainstream soon." The photo manipulation interface is reminiscent of "Minority Report.
Techies Must Educate Governments (Click for story)	Those in the know about technology must spend more time reaching out to governments and helping them understand the Internet's role in society, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Tuesday. "The average person in government is not of the age of people who are using all this stuff," Schmidt said at a public symposium here hosted by the National Academies' Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. "There is a generational gap, and it's very, very real."
Dvorak on Windows Genuine Advantage (Click for story)	Vista includes the much maligned 'Genuine Advantage' layer inside, which ensures that your copy of the OS is legit. If you're running a non-validated copy you get no upgrades, no security protection, nothing. That's all well and good, but what happens if a cracker tweaks that Genuine Advantage layer for its own good? Dvorak sees a huge problem, just waiting to happen. What's the vulnerability? From the article: "I suspect the policeman [WGA] will actually be hacked before the OS. It might actually be easier for the pirates to create a fake cop that constantly authenticates fake versions of Vista than it will be to create a Vista imitation that can pretend to be a legitimate version. There is some irony to that idea. But that's none of my concern. I'm more worried about some joker creating a virus or exploit that turns the good cop into a bad cop, and I can only imagine the destruction and hassle that will ensue."
Is the Botnet Battle Already Lost? (Click for story)	Researchers are finding it practically futile to keep up with evolving botnet attacks. 'We've known about [the threat from] botnets for a few years, but we're only now figuring out how they really work, and I'm afraid we might be two to three years behind in terms of response mechanisms,' said Marcus Sachs, a deputy director in the Computer Science Laboratory of SRI International, in Arlington, Va. There is a general feeling of hopelessness as botnet hunters discover that, after years of mitigating command and controls, the effort has largely gone to waste. 'We've managed to hold back the tide, but, for the most part, it's been useless,' said Gadi Evron, a security evangelist at Beyond Security, in Netanya, Israel, and a leader in the botnet-hunting community. 'When we disable a command-and-control server, the botnet is immediately re-created on another host. We're not hurting them anymore.' There is an interesting image gallery of a botnet in action as discovered by security researcher Sunbelt Software.
(Mis)Tracking Web Traffic (Click for story)	Online advertising is considered by many to be the most dependably trackable ad medium of all time, with revenues expected to grow to $16 billion in this year alone. However, companies are finding that competing methods of measuring web traffic are giving contradictory results. Since advertising revenues are based directly on the traffic developed, this news could mean serious trouble. For example, valuations for startups such as Facebook and YouTube appear to be doubling every few months, but those numbers are based on traffic figures that could be misleading.
Researchers Debut DNA-Powered Computer (Click for story)	Researchers at Columbia University and the University of New Mexico have built a DNA -powered computer that is unbeatable at Tic-Tac-Toe. Although it's much slower than a normal computer, the researchers say their proof-of-concept system could help them develop new techniques for sorting and analyzing viruses and DNA mutations.
Stopping "PattyMail" Email Bugs (Click for story)	In the U.S. Congressional Inquiry into the HP spy scandal, it was revealed that HP used Web bugs to track the source of leaks. HP's Fred Adler considers them a useful investigative tool which HP will keep using. Since dubbed PattyMail after HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, Web bugs have been around for a while. But it turns out the vulnerability they represent is far worse than first thought. Microsoft Outlook won't have a patch until 2007. The company at the center of the scandal claims they've done nothing wrong. But could repressive governments use them to track down critics? Can anything be done to stop Web bugs?
Deprecating the Datacenter? (Click for story)	The blogging CEO asserts that that datacenters are doomed. Computers are showing up in everything from drill bits, to cargo ships to tracking devices in stuffed animals at Disneyland. With computers becoming so small and easy to distribute over a wireless network, do we really need data centers to house computers or are the computers going to be placed where they are really needed?
Great Programmers Answer Questions From Aspiring Student (Click for story)	Many of the questions that make it to the Ask Slashdot pages come from young and aspiring programmers wanting to know the role math and education play in the profession, or what makes certain programmers so much more productive than others, or what the future of the craft will look like. One young programmer by the name of Jarosaw "sztywny" Rzeszótko decided to ask these types of questions (and more) to the programmers he admired the most who also, it turns out, happen to be some of the most influential computer scientists and programmers of the last several decades. The result? Most of them happily responded. The results include the following: Linus Torvalds (Linux), Bjarne Stroustrup (C++), James Gosling (Java), Tim Bray (XML, Atom), Guido Van Rossum (Python), Dave Thomas (Pragmatic Programmer), David Heinemeier Hansson (Rails Framework), and Googlers Steve Yegge and Peter Norvig.
HP's Memory Spot Chip (Click for story)	HP Labs recently revealed a prototype of the Memory Spot Chip, a tiny wireless chip capable of storing and transmitting data. When it hits the market in about 2-3 years, the new chip will enable a variety of applications ranging from digital wristbands that store patient medical information to sound bytes on paper or printed pictures that can be accessed using a reader-equipped device. The article has an interview with Howard Taub of HP Labs and some photos of the prototype chip. The chip can only be read at a distance of 1 mm, so it avoids many of the privacy concerns of RFID. It has about 1000 times the storage capacity and 100-1000 times the data transfer rate of RFID.
The BBC's Honeypot PC (Click for story)	This article from the BBC shows how vulnerable XP Home really is. Using a highly protected XP Pro machine running VMWare, the BBC hosted an unprotected XP Home system to simulate what an 'average' home PC faces when connected to the internet. From the article: "Seven hours of attacks: 36 warnings that pop-up via Windows Messenger. 11 separate visits by Blaster worm. 3 separate attacks by Slammer worm. 1 attack aimed at Microsoft IIS Server. 2-3 "port scans" seeking weak spots in Windows software." The machine was attacked within seconds of being connected to the Internet, and at no time did more than 15 minutes elapse between attacks.
How Prevalent Are SQL Injection Vulnerabilities? (Click for story)	an investigation, by Michael Sutton, attempting to get an estimate of how widespread SQL-injection vulnerabilities are among Web sites. Sutton made clever use of the Google API to turn up candidate vulnerable sites. You might quibble with his methodology (some posters on the blog site do), but he found that around 11% of sites are potentially vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. He believes the causes for this somewhat alarming situation include development texts that teach programmers insecure SQL syntax, and point-and-click tools that allow the untrained to put up database-backed sites. If you aren't familiar with SQL Insertion, check out the Wikipedia article at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sql_injection
Making Computer Memory From a Virus (Click for story)	By coating 30-nanometre-long chunks of tobacco mosaic virus with platinum nanoparticles, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have created a transistor with very fast switching speed. They say it could eventually be used to make memory chips for MP3 players and digital cameras. A device fitted with such a virus-chip would access data much more quickly than one using flash memory.
Globalization Decimating US I.T. Jobs (Click for story)	According to Ronald Reagan's former deputy secretary of the treasury in this article in Counterpunch, globalization is destroying US I.T. jobs. From the article: 'During the past five years (January 01 – January 06), the information sector of the US economy lost 644,000 jobs, or 17.4 per cent of its work force. Computer systems design and related work lost 105,000 jobs, or 8.5 per cent of its work force. Clearly, jobs offshoring is not creating jobs in computers and information technology.' Paul Craig Roberts quotes a number of formerly pro-globalization economists who are now seeing the light of the harrowing of the US middle class. It's not limited to I.T. Roberts quotes one recanting economist, Alan Blinder, as saying that 42–56 million American service-sector jobs are susceptible to offshoring.
Your 'Clickprint' Gives Away Your Identity Online (Click for story)	An article at the Guardian site about an increasing interest in the possibility of identifying users by their 'clickprint', or online access habits. The article discusses a new paper on online identification written by two American professors. The piece posits that not only is nailing down individual users by their habits useful for advertisers looking to sell products, it may be possible to use this information to flag stolen identities From the article: "'Our main finding is that even trivial features in an internet session can distinguish users,' Padmanabhan told the Wharton Review. 'People do seem to have individual browsing behaviors.' The duo found that anywhere from three to 16 sessions are needed to identify an individual's clickprint ... In one example, they found that from just seven aggregated sessions they could distinguish between two different surfers with a confidence of 86.7%. Given 51 sessions, the confidence level rose to 99.4%."
What Gartner Is Telling Your Boss (Click for story)	Esther Schindler's latest analysis reveals what Gartner is telling your boss at their annual conference. Excerpts: '"The future of application development is not about programmer productivity," said [Gartner analyst] Hoyle during the keynote presentation, "but in assembling functionality from components." [Gartner analyst] Veccio stated "Why would you ever code an app from scratch again? Why would you need to?"' According to Schindler (who does not 'drink the Kool-Aid'), Gartner urges managers to consider better process control and governance, managing 'application portfolios' much as they do stock portfolios. Part of this discipline is 'killing development projects early and often.
Good Agile — Development Without Deadlines (Click for story)	In a recent blog entry Steve Yegge, a developer at Google, writes a fascinating account of life at possibly the coolest development organization in the world. Steve lays out some of the software development practices that make Google work. Go on, say you are not even a little bit jealous. ;-) From the article: Developers can switch teams and/or projects any time they want, no questions asked; just say the word and the movers will show up the next day to put you in your new office with your new team. There aren't very many meetings. I'd say an average developer attends perhaps 3 meetings a week. Google has a philosophy of not ever telling developers what to work on, and they take it pretty seriously. Google tends not to pre-announce. They really do understand that you can't rush good cooking, you can't rush babies out, and you can't rush software development. Yegge also does a fine job of skewering what the author calls "Bad Agile."
How to Cheat at Managing Information Security (Click for story)	Mark Osborne doesn't like auditors. In fact, after reading this book, one gets the feeling he despises them. Perhaps he should have titled this book 'How I learned to stop worrying and hate auditors'. Of course, that is not the main theme of How to Cheat at Managing Information Security, but Osborne never hides his feeling about auditors, which is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, the auditor jokes start in the preface, and continue throughout the book.
Cross-Site Scripting Hits Major Sites (Click for story)	Dark Reading and SC Magazine covered a story about hackers posting cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilies en mass on dozens of high profile websites including Dell, MSN, HP, Apple, Myspace, YouTube, MSN, Cingular, etc. The media coverage drew the hacker's attention to the publication's websites where they got a taste first-hand. On message board wall-of-shame is PC World, MacWorld, Fox News, the Independent, and ZDNet UK. "...not only did we get the "scoop" on the XSS site problems, but we also got the message loud and clear: Don't assume you're immune to XSS vulnerabilities. They're everywhere." The news comes shortly after Mitre (CVE) released statistics showing XSS has become the most popular exploit. Unfortunately new XSS attacks are growing increasingly severe and scanners are unable to find many of the issues on modern websites.
Beck and Andres on Extreme Programming (Click for story)	In recent years, Extreme Programming (XP) has come of age. Its principles of transparency, trust and accountability represent a change of context that is good not only for software development but for everyone involved in the process. In this interview, Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres, co-authors of 'Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change' discuss how XP makes improvement possible.
Top Five Causes of Data Compromise (Click for story)	In a key step to help businesses better understand and protect themselves against the risks of fraud, Visa USA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced the five leading causes of data breaches and offered specific prevention strategies. The report states that the most common cause of data compromise is a merchant's or a service provider's encoding of sensitive information on the card's magnetic stripe in violation of the PCI Data Security Standard. The other four are related to IT security, which can be improved simply by following common-sense guidelines." Here is the report on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce site (PDF).
Windows Monoculture Myopia Revisited (Click for story)	eWeek magazine has an interesting look at the effects of the Windows monoculture on IT budgets, even as everyone agrees on the severity of the inherent security risks. The article contains interviews with Dan Geer and others who warned about the risks of the Windows monopoly three years ago. The article coincides with a piece in the Observer that suggests Vista is the end of the Microsoft monolith because of how complex the operating system has become.
Next Gen Phishing Improves on Simple Spam (Click for story)	ZDNet has a writeup about the next generation of phishing. According to the article, as anti-spam engines improve and user education levels increase, phishers will find it easier to hack into web servers and deliver password stealing trojans using browser vulnerabilities or Web 2.0 technologies than spam. Tom Chan from Messagelabs is quoted: 'They are trying to compromise poorly protected Web sites — they basically go in and enter their own code into that Web server,' said Chan, who explained that victims of this new phishing era would not have to do anything wrong in order to get hooked. 'You have gone to a legitimate Web site, you have not made a mistake and done everything right, but then your information gets compromised... because [the phishers] have taken over servers that belong to other people.'
What Silicon Valley Can Do For Homeland Security (Click for story)	Small, agile development firms are just what security in the United States needs, argues an article on Ars Technica. The piece compares the processes used in small Silicon Valley firms to those used in security contractors retained by the U.S. Government. Mr. Stokes' conclusion? The U.S. has a lot to learn from small companies. From the article: "Whether it's nuke detection technology at ports, computer automated wiretapping and data traffic snooping, or massive government data mining operations, our present approach to homeland security is embodied for me in those 14-foot pillars: ponderous, expensive technologies designed by government-funded teams of scientists who're working in vain to outmaneuver not just the terrorists, but the surging global market for technological innovation in which those terrorists thrive. By way of contrast, the Sandia group's DIY nuke detector represents an attempt to fight fire with fire by harnessing the same market forces and entrepreneurial spirit that terrorists have learned to use so effectively."
The Future of Rich Internet Applications (Click for story)	While Ajax continues to get most of the attention these days in the space of rich Internet apps, the future 'face' of Web applications may consist of a combination of Ajax and plug-in technologies based on the new Flash development platforms or other plug-in models. Why? The challenges of building and maintaining sophisticated software in Javascript and the lack of support for audio and video are just two reasons that any RIA strategy will involve a mixture of Ajax and one or more technologies like Flex, Laszlo, or others. But while there are significant advantages to the new RIA technologies, there are also important trade-offs including breaking the model of the Web, lack of HTML support, and more. ZDNet's Dion Hinchcliffe has a round-up of the latest generation of RIA technologies, pros and cons of each, and why there is likely a 'war' brewing among them.
Reverse Off-Shoring (Click for story)	India is becoming more attractive to information technology workers from Western countries. Some local IT companies, such as Infosys Technologies in Bangalore, are now able to offer salaries and other perks that are comparable to what Western IT talent would find in their home countries. Infosys, which is currently training 126 Americans at its cutting-edge complex in Mysore, expects to employ 300 Americans by the end of 2006 and add a large contingent from Great Britain next year.
Judge Rules Sites Can Be Sued Over Design (Click for story)	According to the Associated Press, a California judge has ruled that a lawsuit brought against the Target Corporation may proceed under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The catch here is that the suit, leveled by the National Federation of the Blind, concerns the design of Target's website . Could this set a precedent and subsequent flood of lawsuits against websites? What if another design is not tractable? From the article: "'What this means is that any place of business that provides services, such as the opportunity to buy products on a website, is now, a place of accommodation and therefore falls under the ADA,' said Kathy Wahlbin, Mindshare's Director of User Experience and expert on accessibility. 'The good news is that being compliant is not difficult nor is it expensive. And it provides the additional benefit of making accessible web sites easier for search engines to find and prioritize.'"
A New Kind of OS (Click for story)	OSWeekly.com discusses a possibility of futuristic OSes with both negatives and positives. From the article: 'Imagine if you will, a world where your ideas and perhaps, even your own creative works became part of the OS of tomorrow. Consider the obvious advantages to an operating system that actually morphed and adapted to the needs of the users instead of the other way around. Not only is there no such OS like this, the very idea goes against much of what we are currently seeing in the current OS options in the market.'
A Move to Secure Data by Scattering the Pieces (Click for story)	The NY Times has an article about an interesting new open source storage project. Unlike data storage mechanisms today that work 'by making multiple copies of data,' the Cleversafe software takes an 'approach based on dispersing data in encrypted slices .' It's an elegant solution and one that's been a long time coming: the software uses algorithmic techniques known by mathematicians since the 70's. Adi Shamir (of RSA) first wrote of information dispersal is his 1979 paper 'How to Share a Secret (pdf).'
The Trouble With Rounding Floats (Click for story)	We all know of floating point numbers, so much so that we reach for them each time we write code that does math. But do we ever stop to think what goes on inside that floating point unit and whether we can really trust it?
So How Do You Code an AJAX Web Page? (Click for story)	Computerworld has a long excerpt from a book by Edmond Woychowsky about how to code Web pages in AJAX. It gives a good explanation of how the technology works, and also has some visuals and code snippets that you can play with. From the article: 'Beyond the XMLHTTP Request object, which has been around for several years as a solution looking for a problem, there is nothing weird needed. Basically, it is how the individual pieces are put together. When they're put together in one way, it is nothing more than a pile of parts; however, when put together in another way, the monster essentially rises from its slab.'
Replacing Humans with Software Inspectors (Click for story)	What if you were able to perform a portion of your code reviews automatically? In this first article of the new series 'Automation for the People', development automation expert Paul Duvall begins with a look at automated inspectors like CheckStyle, JavaNCSS, and CPD. The piece examines how these tools enhance the development process and when you should use them. From the article: "Every time a team member commits modifications to a version control repository, the code has changed. But how did it change? Was the modified code the victim of a copy-and-paste job? Did the complexity increase? The only way to know is to run a software inspector at every check-in. Moreover, receiving feedback on each of the risks discussed thus far on a continuous basis is one sure-fire way to keep a code base's health in check automatically!"
Hackers Clone E-Passport (Click for story)	I guess the skeptical Slashdot community always knew that e-passports are a big waste of time and money; now German security consultants have been able to successfully clone e-passports, even onto building access cards. FTA: 'The whole passport design is totally brain damaged,' Grunwald says. 'From my point of view all of these RFID passports are a huge waste of money. They're not increasing security at all.'
Text Mining the New York Times (Click for story)	Text mining is a computer technique to extract useful information from unstructured text. And it's a difficult task. But now, using a relatively new method named topic modeling, computer scientists from University of California, Irvine (UCI), have analyzed 330,000 stories published by the New York Times between 2000 and 2002 in just a few hours. They were able to automatically isolate topics such as the Tour de France, prices of apartments in Brooklyn or dinosaur bones. This technique could soon be used not only by homeland security experts or librarians, but also by physicians, lawyers, real estate people, and even by yourself. Read more for additional details and a graph showing how the researchers discovered links between topics and people.
The Whiz of Silver Bullets (Click for story)	In an entertaining yet well thought-out article, software architect Alex E. Bell of The Boeing Company lashes out at the so-called 'Silver Bullets' and those who rely on them to solve all their software development difficulties. From the article: 'the desperate, the pressured, and the ignorant are among those who continue to worship the silver-bullet gods and plead for continuance of silver-fueled delusions that are keeping many of their projects alive.'
AT&T Labs vs. Google Labs - R&D History (Click for story)	Ars Technica has a piece looking at the history of corporate R&D, in response to an article on the BusinessWeek site essentially calling the telecommunication giants aging fossils of communication . The Ars piece looks as several innovations to come out of the AT&T Labs over the years, as well as the era of innovation brought on by the Cold War. From the article: "The Cold War, with its 'Pentagon socialism', combined with large corporate monopolies that were expected to provide lifetime employment and pensions, made for something of a golden age for American technological innovation. This is the era that brought us the transistor and the predecessor to the Internet, an era where all the seeds of today's 'information economy' were sown and carefully cultivated at great private and public expense. The great labs of this era--Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, and IBM's labs--were places with massive budgets, where the world's top scientists were invited to pursue "blue sky" research into areas with no immediately apparent commercial applications. The facilities were state-of-the-art, and there was no pressure from management or shareholders to do anything but science for science's sake."
3-D Flexible Computer Chips (Click for story)	Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have isolated a single-crystal film of semiconductor from the substrate on which it is built. Then they transferred this very thin film -- 200 nanometers thick -- on plastic. Both sides of the film can host active components and several layers can be stacked, opening the way to very powerful 3-D flexible computer chips. Besides computer chips, this technique could be used for solar cells, smart cards, RFID tags or active-matrix flat panel displays.
Engineers Working Harder for Their Paycheck (Click for story)	Design News has posted their annual engineering salary survey. While it does offer encouraging results with salaries up a bit from last year it also shows that engineers are, on the average, doing a lot more to earn that paycheck including supervisory and budgetary functions. From the article: "Kody Baker, a 28-year-old mechanical engineer agrees, "Yes, we are doing far more than just designing products," he says. He's a project manager, manufacturing engineer, product designer, R&D engineer, test engineer, CAD systems specialist, CAD instructor/mentor, and more, juggling many roles in his job as a mechanical application engineer at Honeywell."
The Future of Computing (Click for story)	Penn State computer science professor Max Fomitchev explains that computing has evolved in a spiral pattern from a centralized model to a distributed model that retains some aspects of centralized computing. Single-task PC operating systems (OSes) evolved into multitasking OSes to make the most of increasing CPU power, and the introduction of the graphical user interface at the same time reduced CPU performance and fueled demands for even more efficiencies. "The role of CPU performance is definitely waning, and if a radical new technology fails to materialize quickly we will be compelled to write more efficient code for power consumption costs and reasons," Fomitchev writes. Slow, bloated software entails higher costs in terms of both direct and indirect power consumption, and the author reasons that code optimization will likely involve the replacement of blade server racks with microblade server racks where every microblade executes a dedicated task and thus eats up less power. The collective number of microblades should also far outnumber initial "macro" blades. Fully isolating software components should enhance the system's robustness thanks to the potential of real-time component hot-swap or upgrade and the total removal of software installation, implementation, and patch conflicts. The likelihood of this happening is reliant on the factor of energy costs, which directly feeds into the factor of code optimization efficiency.
The Future of Crime - Biometric Spoofing? (Click for story)	What we often watch in films and television - circumventing biometric security access - is turning from science-fiction to reality. Bori Toth, biometric research and advisory lead at Deloitte & Touche, warned that biometric spoofing is a growing concern. From the article: 'We are leaving our prints everywhere so the chance of someone lifting them and copying them is real. Currently it's only researchers that are doing spoofing and copying. It's not a mainstream activity--but it will be. Many people are trying to regard biometrics as secret but they aren't. Our faces and irises are visible and our voices are being recorded. Fingerprints and DNA are left everywhere we go and it's been proved that these are real threats.'
Card Locks Thwarted by Shopping Club Card (Click for story)	A recent column (' Social Engineering, the Shoppers' Way') on darkreading.com shows how easy it is for a pen test team to walk into a supposedly secure facility using a shoppers club card because the man trap feature was enabled. Man-traps allow people to enter an outer door but not an inner door similar to ATM kiosks. Once inside, of course, they had the run of the place." Lessons: after writing down your password, eat your sticky notes rather than leave them on the monitor.
High-level Languages and Speed (Click for story)	Informit's David Chisnall takes a look at the 'myth' of high-level languages versus speed and why it might not be entirely accurate. From the article: "When C was created, it was very fast because it was almost trivial to turn C code into equivalent machine code. But this was only a short-term benefit; in the 30 years since C was created, processors have changed a lot. The task of mapping C code to a modern microprocessor has gradually become increasingly difficult. Since a lot of legacy C code is still around, however, a huge amount of research effort (and money) has been applied to the problem, so we still can get good performance from the language."
Virus Jumps to RFID (Click for story)	According to a BBC article, researchers have been able to make the jump between RFID tags and viruses. They found that the mere act of scanning a mere 127 bytes could cause an attack vector that would corrupt databases. From the article;'"This is intended as a wake-up call," said Andrew Tanenbaum, one of the researchers in the computer science department at Amsterdam's Free University that did the work revealing the weaknesses on smart tags. "We ask the RFID industry to design systems that are secure," he said.'
DARPA's Cortically-Coupled Computer Vision System (Click for story)	Wired News has an article on a 'cortically coupled computer vision' system being developed at Columbia University and funded by the ever-curious folks at DARPA. Essentially, it uses the extremely powerful visual recognition ability of the human brain and couples it with a computer's raw processing power to allow a user wearing an EEG cap to filter through scores of digital images at high-speed and pick out something of interest. This has applications in military intelligence, face-recognition, anti-terrorism, and hunting down replicants.
Computer Control, by Bug and by Brain (Click for story)	NewScientistTech has a fascinating story about a paralysed man who can control control computer and robot arm using electrodes implanted in his brain. The electrodes measure neural signals generated when he concentrates on trying to move one of his paralysed limbs and software translates these imagined gestures into the movement of an on-screen cursor or a robotic arm. Other researchers have also revealed a way to dramatically boost the efficiency of simimlar brain implants in monkeys. If you don't have a handy human brain to play with, 9x320 writes points to a report on LiveScience of Wim van Eck's graduation project: a computer game similar to Pac-Man controlled, not by conventional computer code, but by the brain of an insect. From the article:"Instead of computer code, I wanted to have animals controlling the ghosts. To enable this, I built a real maze for the animals to walk around in, with its proportions and layout matching the maze of the computer game. The position of the animals in the maze is detected using colour-tracking via a camera, and linked to the ghosts in the game. This way, the real animals are directly controlling the virtual ghosts."
Genetic Reason for Your Gadget Habit (Click for story)	You can't help it if you need to get the latest gadgets. Well... perhaps it's not quite such a serious medical affliction, but scientists have found a genetic basis for some folks' burning desire to have the latest and greatest. There's even a name for it - neophilia. Apparently, some of us have elevated levels of a cellular enzyme, monoamine oxidase A, and are more in need of stimulation from new things.
Researchers Use Machines To Analyze Malware (Click for story)	Register article about a mechanical process for analyzing malware. Using an automated system, researchers are able to more accurately classify the often randomly-named bots and viruses that plague us. From the article: "The researchers modeled a piece of malicious software as the series of actions that the software takes at the operating system level. Referred to as 'events' in a paper written by Lee and anti-malware program team manager Jigar Mody, the actions can include data copying, changing registry keys and opening network connections. The researchers then trained a recognition engine using an adaptive clustering algorithm - similar to self-organising maps - and classified a previously unseen subset of malware using the trained system. Using more clusters typically resulted in better classification. When the software samples were classified based on 100 events, accuracy fell below 80 per cent, while classification based on 500 and 1,000 events typically has accuracy rates above 90 per cent."
Social Engineering Using USB Drives (Click for story)	What's the easiest way to hack into the computer systems of a credit union? It turns out that all you need to do is copy a virus/trojan onto USB drives and scatter them around the front door of the credit union. This was how a recent security audit was performed at a credit union where the employees had actually been tipped off to the audit. Security experts collected 20 old USB thumb drives and filled them with images and other data along with a trojan that would collect sensitive information and e-mail it back to them. Early one morning they planted the thumb drives around the entrances to the credit union as well as other public places where the employees were known to congregate. In very little time 15 of the 20 USB drives were plugged into company computer systems and started e-mailing usernames, passwords, etc. back to the auditors.
System Integration Leads to MegaFunction Gadgets (Click for story)	"The IEEE Spectrum is running a piece entitled 'Moore's Law Meets Its Match', about the system-on-package (SOP) approach to technology. The (SOP) approach combines Integrated Circuits (ICs) with micrometer-scale thin-film versions of discrete components, and it embeds everything in a new type of package so small that eventually handhelds will become anything from multi-to megafunction devices. This integration is actually developing at a rate faster than Moore's law." From the article: "SOP technology represents a radically different approach to systems. It shrinks bulky circuit boards with their many components and makes them nearly disappear. In effect, SOP sets up a new law for system integration. It holds that as the components shrink and the boards all but disappear, the component density will double every year or so, and the number of system functions in an SOP package will increase in the same proportion."
U. Washington Crypto Course Now Online for Free (Click for story)	Who wants to pay for Stanford's Crypto Course, when University of Washington has made the whole Cryptography Course available online for free. Yes, all the presentations, videos (mp3, WMV), homework, quizzes etc. are available online. The material seems pretty decent, and is intended for an advanced audience.
Tools To Automate Checking of Software Design (Click for story)	Scientific American describes some of the work to develop tools for examining the design of software for logical inconsistencies. The article is by one of the developers of Alloy, but the article does reference other tools (open and closed source) in development. The author admits that widespread usage of the tools are years away, but it is interesting reading the approach they are taking regarding validation of design.
Why Web 2.0 Will End Your Privacy (Click for story)	This is a pretty good insight into some of the dangers of social networking and website customisation -- marketing and loss of privacy. When marketeers know who your friends are and what you are all into, it makes their advertising a lot more effective. From the article: "Why are the companies worth so much money? Why is MySpace worth over half a billion dollars without a proper revenue model? Why is Digg allegedly pitched at over $20m (at the last count) without any idea of where money is going to be pulled from? The answer is - data. Information. Marketing. Every detail about you and me. That is where the money is.
Errors in Spreadsheets are Pandemic (Click for story)	Studies show that most spreadsheets have critical errors in one percent of their cells, well beyond a permissible level. Here are some news stories about spreadsheet errors. Spreadsheets won't protect a firm from liability when they are audited and spreadsheet errors found: spreadsheets are not secure, provide no audit trail and won't pass HIPAA or Sarbanes-Oxley auditing. How are Slashdotters coping with the proliferation of spreadsheets in the face of greater legal accountability and auditing?
The Cost of a Tiered Internet (Click for story)	A CNN article about the money issues involved in a tiered internet . From the article: "With a tiered Internet, such routing technology could be used preferentially to deliver either the telecoms' own services or those of companies who had paid the requisite fees. What does this mean for the rest of us? A stealth Web tax, for one thing. 'Google and Amazon and Yahoo are not going to slice those payments out of their profit margins and eat them,' says Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, a nonprofit group that monitors media-related legislation. 'They're going to pass them on to the consumer. So I'll end up paying twice. I'm going to pay my $29.99 a month for access, and then I'm going to pay higher prices for consumer goods all across the economy because these Internet companies will charge more for online advertising.'
European Commission Reverses its Views on Patents (Click for story)	ZDNet UK News reports "The European Commission said last week that computer programs will be excluded from patentability in the upcoming Community Patent legislation, and that the European Patent Office (EPO) will be bound by this law". Politician Adam Gierek posted a question to European Commission asking the institution to clarify its standings on software patents.
Real RFID Hacking Scenarios (Click for story)	Wired is running an article on RFID hacking that has potentially scary implications. Many RFID tags have no encryption and will happily transmit their information in the clear if they are active or within range of a reader. Worse yet is that they can be overwritten. Some interesting scenarios and experiments: snagging the code off of a security badge and replaying it to gain access to a secure building; vandalizing library contents by wiping or changing tags on books; changing the prices of items in a grocery or other store; and getting free gas by tweaking the ExxonMobil SpeedPass tags.
Making Money Selling Music Without DRM (Click for story)	Ars Technica's Nate Anderson has an excellent writeup on the rise of eMusic and how they're suceeding despite their unwillingness to hop on the DRM bandwagon. From the article: 'The Holy Grail of online music sales is the ability to offer iPod-compatible tracks. Like the quest for the mythical cup itself, the search for iPod compatibility has been largely fruitless for Apple's competitors, whose DRM schemes are incompatible with the iconic music player. For a music store that wants to succeed, reaching the iPod audience is all but a necessity in the the US market, where Apple products account for 78 percent of the total players sold. Perhaps that's why eMusic CEO David Pakman sounds downright gleeful when he points out that there's only two companies in the world that can sell to them--Apple and eMusic.'
Sony to Settle Spyware Suit with Downloads? Perhaps the final results of this soap opera story? (Click for story)	a ZDNet story about Monday's final approval of the rootkit settlement in the case brought against Sony BMG Music. From the article: "The agreement covers anyone who bought, received or used CDs containing what was revealed to be flawed digital rights management (DRM) software after Aug. 1, 2003. Those customers can file a claim and receive certain benefits, such as a nonprotected replacement CD, free downloads of music from that CD and additional cash payments ... At least 15 different lawsuits were filed by class action lawyers against the record label, and the New York cases were eventually consolidated into one proceeding. The parties reached a preliminary settlement with Sony BMG in December, leaving it up to a judge in a U.S. District Court in New York to make it official. "
U.S. Supreme Court Deals a Blow to Patent Trolls (Click for story)	Forbes is reporting that the Supreme Court has just limited the power of patent trolls to obtain permanent injunctions against infringers as a matter of course. The court has ruled that the principles of equity apply, meaning that a court considering slapping an injunction on the infringer must consider how much damage is really being done ... which in the case of EBay's Buy It Now feature, isn't much, since the company that owns this so-called patent only has it for the purposes of suing other people." From the article: "The high court's decision deals a blow to patent trolls, which are notorious for using the threat of permanent injunction to extort hefty fees in licensing negotiations as well as huge settlements from companies they have accused of infringing. Often, those settlements can be far greater than the value of the infringing technology: Recall the $612.5 million that Canada's Research in Motion forked over to patent-holding company NTP to avoid the shutting down of its popular BlackBerry service.
Microkernel: The Comeback? (Click for story) Linus Torvalds' comments on this article More on the story	In a paper co-authored by the Microkernel Maestro Andrew Tanenbaum, the fragility of modern kernels are addressed: "Current operating systems have two characteristics that make them unreliable and insecure: They are huge and they have very poor fault isolation. The Linux kernel has more than 2.5 million lines of code; the Windows XP kernel is more than twice as large." Consider this analogy: "Modern ships have multiple compartments within the hull; if one compartment springs a leak, only that one is flooded, not the entire hull. Current operating systems are like ships before compartmentalization was invented: Every leak can sink the ship." Clearly one argument here is security and reliability has surpassed performance in terms of priorities. There is also a response from Linus Torvalds on this article. (For those who don't know, Torvalds is called the Father of Linux, and Tanenbaum is his former teacher.)
What's the Secret Sauce in Ruby on Rails? (Click for story)	Ruby on Rails seems to be a lightning rod for controversy. At the heart of most of the controversy lies amazing productivity claims. Rails isn't a better hammer; it's a different kind of tool . This article explores the compromises and design decisions that went into making Rails so productive within its niche.
The Economy of Online Crime (Click for story)	You might call the thugs or thieves, but on their own closed forums and referral-only Web sites, they value honesty and reputation. Fortune magazine looks into the black market for stolen credit card numbers and identities. What's interesting is that so few of the criminals retrieve their information via breaking into online stores." From the article: "Gaffan says these credit card numbers and data are almost never obtained by criminals as a result of legitimate online card use. More often the fraudsters get them through offline credit card number thefts in places like restaurants, when computer tapes are stolen or lost, or using 'pharming' sites, which mimic a genuine bank site and dupe cardholders into entering precious private information. Another source of credit card data are the very common 'phishing' scams, in which an e-mail that looks like it's from a bank prompts someone to hand over personal data.
Microsoft Customers Balk at Hard Sell (Click for story)	ComputerWorld is running an article about Microsoft's latest type of sales force scare tactic. Apparently Microsoft is using the new title of 'engagement manager' to attempt sales via intimidation. From the article: 'Indeed, according to Microsoft's Web site, the responsibility of someone with Lawless' title of "engagement manager" is to "perform as an integrated member of the account team, drive business development and closing of new services engagements in targeted accounts."'
The Failure of Information Security (Click for story)	A recent editorial regarding the current state of information security . From the article: "It is time to admit what many security professional already know: We as security professional are drastically failing ourselves, our community and the people we are meant to protect. Too many of our security layers of defense are broken. Security professionals are enjoying a surge in business and growing salaries and that is why we tolerate the dismal situation we are facing. Yet it is our mandate, first and foremost, to protect."
Americans Are Scarce in Top Programming Contest (Click for story)	Only four of the 48 best computer programmers in the world are Americans, at least according to a computer-programming competition run by TopCoder. Poland had 11 of the final 48, and Russia had 8. Wall Street Journal columnist Lee Gomes asks whether this is more evidence of a sad decline in American education and competitiveness: 'Surprisingly, the Eastern Europeans don't seem to think so. Poland's Krzysztof Duleba, 22, explained that in countries like his own, there are so few economic opportunities for students that competitions like these are their one chance to participate in the global economy. Some of the Eastern Europeans even seemed slightly embarrassed by their over-representation, saying it isn't evidence of any superior schooling or talent so much as an indicator of how much they have to prove.'
Computer Security, The Next 50 Years (Click for story)	Alan Cox, fellow at Red Hat Linux, gives a short-and-sweet talk at the European OSCON on the The Next 50 Years of Computer Security. Implementations of modularity, Trusted Computing hardware, 'separation of secrets,' and overcoming the challenge of users not reading dialog boxes, will be crucial milestones as we head on to the future. He states: "As security improves, we need to keep building things which are usable, which are turned on by default, which means understanding users is the target for the next 50 years. You don't buy a car with optional bumpers. You can have a steering wheel fitted if you like, but it comes with a spike by default." All of this has to be shipped in a way that doesn't stop the user from doing things.
Programmers Learn to Check Code Earlier for Holes (Click for story)	Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Many companies are teaching programmers to write safer code and test their security as software is built, not afterward, the Wall Street Journal reports. This stands in contrast to an earlier ethos to rush to beat rivals with new software, and, of course, brings tradeoffs: 'Revamping the software-development process creates a Catch 22: being more careful can mean missing deadlines.' The WSJ focuses on RIM and Herb Little, its security director, who 'uses Coverity every night to scan the code turned in by engineers. The tool sends Mr. Little an email listing potential red flags. He figures out which problems are real and tracks down each offending programmer, who has to fix the flaw before moving on. Mr. Little has also ramped up security training and requires programmers to double-check each others' code more regularly.'"
Software Lets Programmers Code Hands-free (Click for story)	New Scientist is reporting about a new speech recognition tool that promises to let programmers write clean code without ever having to lay a finger on their keyboard. 'The tool, called VoiceCode, has been developed to help programmers with repetitive strain injury (RSI). This is a common affliction for people who spend a lot of time using a keyboard or mouse and causes pain in muscles, tendons and nerves in a sufferer's arms and back. Some estimates suggest 22% of all US computer programmers, or 100,000 people, suffer from the condition.'
IE The Great Microsoft Blunder? (Click for story)	Hot on the heels of the beta rollouts of IE 7, comes an editorial from John Dvorak declaring IE the biggest mistake Microsoft has ever made. From the article: 'All the work that has to go into keeping the browser afloat is time that could have been better spent on making Vista work as first advertised [...] If you were to put together a comprehensive profit-and-loss statement for IE, there would be a zero in the profits column and billions in the losses column--billions.'
WebOS Market Review (Click for story)	A number of small startups are trying their luck building a WebOS, which is a software platform that interacts with the user through a web browser and does not depend on any particular local operating system. Current WebOS contenders include XIN, YouOS, EyeOS, Orca, Goowy and Fold. There's also a bit of crossover with Ajax homepages like Netvibes, Pageflakes, Microsoft's Live.com and Google's start page. The key difference from Ajax homepages is that a WebOS is a full-on development platform. Indeed for developers, a big benefit is that a WebOS theoretically makes it easier to develop apps that work cross-platform. DHTML and Javascript are the main tools to do that, but not all developers think they are suitable.
OSS Provides Opportunity, Challenge for Developing World (Click for story)	NewsForge has an interesting article looking at open source in the developing world. From the article: " Open source software and development can push governments of developing nations ahead in the world, but only if they participate as producers of the technology themselves, United Nations University (UNU) researchers say. While they say developing regions such as China, East Asia, India, and South America are among the biggest markets for open source software, UNU officials worry that there may be too few open source developers in those regions."
Ajax and the Ken Burns Effect (Click for story)	IBM DeveloperWorks has an interesting project posted that shows how to design a client-side slide show using the ' Ken Burns Effect.' From the article: 'If the Web 2.0 revolution has one buzzword, it's Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax). [...] Here, you discover how to build XML data sources for Ajax, request XML data from the client, and then dynamically create and animate HTML elements with that XML.'
Spafford On Security Myths and Passwords (Click for story)	In a recent blog post, Eugene Spafford examines password security along with related issues and myths. In particular, he discusses how policies that may not necessarily make much sense anymore end up being labeled 'best practices,' and then propagated based on their reputation as such.
The Continuing American Decline in CS (Click for story)	America's recent dismal showing in the ACM Programming finals may be more than just a bad year; a BusinessWeek article suggests that the loss is indicative of the US's continuing decline in producing computer scientists . Despite the Labor Dept's forecast of a 40% increase in 'computer/math scientist' jobs, planned CS enrollments have plummeted from 3.7% in 2000 to just 1.1% last year. Other countries, particularly China, India and Eastern Europe, are working hard to pick up the slack, with potentially serious long-term effects for the US economy. From the article: 'If our talent base weakens, our lead in technology, business, and economics will fade faster than any of us can imagine.'
How Virtualization Led Microsoft to Support Linux (Click for story)	Why did Microsoft make the surprise announcement that it would support business customers who also use Linux? Because of the increasing importance of virtualization, Lee Gomes writes in the Wall Street Journal. 'Once businesses start using virtualization to cut back on the number of machines they need to buy, "a light bulb goes on over their head," says Tony Iams, who follows the field for Ideas International, an analyst group,' Gomes writes. 'Other uses become apparent, such as backing up data or easily adding processor power to a particular application as the need arises.' VMware pioneered the market, but now Microsoft is 'expected to offer sophisticated virtualization products in the next year or two,' Gomes writes. 'The company currently has a fairly rudimentary product, which was involved in its big Linux announcement earlier this month.'
Working at Microsoft, the Inside Scoop (Click for story)	Responding to the public interest, a long-time Apple and UNIX user/programmer, and a JPL/Caltech veteran, writes an insightful, articulate essay on the good, the bad, and the in-between experiences of working at Microsoft; concentrating on focus, unreality, company leadership, managers, source code, benefits and compensation, free soft drinks, work/life balance, Microsoft's not evil, and influence.
Philips Patents Technology to Force Ad Viewing (Click for story)	According to New Scientist, Philips has filed a patent for technology to force viewers to watch the ads in a program. Basically they plan to add extra flags to the Multimedia Home Platform that would stop controls from working until the ads are finished." From the article: " Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be 'greatly resented by viewers' who could initially think their equipment has gone wrong. So it suggests the new system could throw up a warning on screen when it is enforcing advert viewing. The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts."
Lessons from the Browser Wars (Click for story)	A piece on the Harvard Business School site talking about Lessons from the Browser Wars; specifically, what can be learned about first-mover advantages and the upsurge in Firefox use? From the article: "As a tool for exploring how standards are set when new technologies hit the market, the browser wars exhibit many features we like to study: competition between two viable alternatives, rapidly improving technologies, the ability of firms to use strategic levers such as market power and channels of distribution, growth in demand leading to diffusion of the new technology through the population, and uncertainty. Thus, this is one example from which we can generalize lessons regarding the outcome of diffusion of innovation into a market."
8 Myths of Software-as-a-Service (Click for story)	BusinessWeek looks at the current state of software-as-a-service, arguing that the model is well established and is distinct from failed ASP/Hosting models of the dot-com era. Far from a passing fad, the model is starting to see large-scale adoption, and traditional vendors are having trouble revamping their applications and financials to get in on the action. From the article, 'As SaaS gains mainstream acceptance, it is becoming an important disruptive force in the software industry. And as long as the quality and reliability of SaaS solutions continues to improve, the appeal of SaaS isn't going to go away.'
Software Engineers Ranked Best Job in America (Click for story)	CNNMoney and Salary.com have ranked the title of Software Engineer the best job in America. Computer IT Analyst also ranks 7th on the list, placing both technology positions in the top 10. From the article: "Designing, developing and testing computer programs requires some pretty advanced math skills and creative problem-solving ability. If you've got them, though, you can work and live where you want: Telecommuting is quickly becoming widespread."
Pentium Computers Vulnerable to Attack? (Click for story)	One of the latest security scares is coming from security experts at CanSecWest/core '06 in the form of a possible hardware-specific attack. The attack is based on the built-in procedure that Pentium based chips use when they overheat. From the article: 'When the processor begins to overheat or encounters other conditions that could threaten the motherboard, the computer interrupts its normal operation, momentarily freezes and stores its activity, said Loïc Duflot, a computer security specialist for the French government's Secretary General for National Defense information technology laboratory. Cyberattackers can take over a computer by appropriating that safeguard to make the machine interrupt operations and enter System Management Mode, Duflot said. Attackers then enter the System Management RAM and replace the default emergency-response software with custom software that, when run, will give them full administrative privileges.'
Microsoft Helps Write Oklahoma's Anti-Spyware Law (Click for story)	The Inquirer reports that Microsoft has developed Oklahoma's ' Computer Spyware protection Act'. The law will supposedly protect people from unwarranted hackers or virus attacks and can fine individuals up to $1M who are found guilty of breaking into a computer without the owners knowledge. At the same time, it also allows some of the better known capable companies to 'look' into your computer for possible virus/spyware and fix the problem without informing you. And, while these friends are doing their job, they can also take the moment to do other things.
Paul Graham on Patents (Click for story)	The always interesting Paul Graham has a new essay, 'Are Software Patents Evil?'. "A few weeks ago I found to my surprise that I'd been granted four patents. This was all the more surprising because I'd only applied for three..."
This Boring Headline is Written for Google (Click for story)	The New York Times is running an article on how newspapers around the country find their Web sites more dependent on search engines than before. The unexpected effect? Witty double entendres, allusions and sarcastic remarks are rewritten into boring straight-to-the-point headlines that rank higher on search engines and news-specific search engines. From the article: 'About a year ago, The Sacramento Bee changed online section titles. "Real Estate" became "Homes," "Scene" turned into "Lifestyle," and dining information found in newsprint under "Taste," is online under "Taste/Food."'
Computer Science as a Major and as a Career (Click for story)	IBM DeveloperWorks is running an interesting Q&A with Director of IBM's Academic Initiative, Gina Poole. In the article she talks specifically about taking computer science as a major and ultimately as a career. From the article: 'There are a couple of reasons [for the decline in science and engineering degrees]: one is a myth, believed by parents, students, and high school guidance counselors, that computer science and engineering jobs are all being outsourced to China and India. This is not true. The percentage of the total number of jobs in this space is quite small -- less than 5%. According to a government study, the voluntary attrition in the U.S. has outpaced the number of outsourced jobs to emerging nations. Further, for every job outsourced from the U.S., nine new jobs are actually created in the U.S.'
Junk Super Computer Assimilates All (Click for story)	The ACCRC is the relatively famous computer recycling non-profit in Berkeley that builds clusters out of old hardware. Make Blog has an article about the Center's plans to build a cluster out of the equipment people bring to recycle at Make Faire later this month. The ACCRC geeks are now able to integrate PII's or better into the cluster, which will be powered by Vegetable Oil and run Parallel Knoppix.
Why Open Standards Matter (Click for story)	Government Day addressed some interesting issues including some of the more tangible reasons behind supporting open standards. From the article: "Speaking to the audience of government workers, Villa said, 'Maybe 2006 is not the year that Linux ends up on your desktops.' But, he encouraged them, if they begin using software that supports open standards now, such as Firefox and OpenOffice.org, then when Linux is ready it will be that much easier to make a switch. 'And maybe you'll decide not to make that switch,' Villa said. 'But at least the choice will be yours.'
IRS Leaves Taxpayer Data Largely Unprotected (Click for story)	Department of Treasury received a D-minus grade in the Federal Computer Security Report Card for 2005, down from a D-plus grade in 2004. The majority of Treasury systems are those belonging to IRS. The government-wide computer-security grade for 2005 was D-plus, while Homeland Security and Defense both received an F. Grades are based on reports submitted to Congress by the agencies; the reports are required under the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002.8 The scores are meant to reflect whether departments meet federally mandated security standards.
Sony More Trustworthy Than Microsoft (Click for story)	Forrester Research examined the trust that American households place in PC and consumer electronics. Sony, Dell and Bose all recieved a ranking of A+ while Microsoft recieved a C. "Microsoft faces big consumer defection risk. One measure of consumers' dissatisfaction with Microsoft is seen in the 5.4 million households that give it a brand trust score of 1 [distrust a lot] or 2 [distrust a bit]. Compared with all Microsoft users, these at-risk users have higher income, are much more likely to be male, and are bigger online spenders.(see endnote 7) These households know they run Microsoft software but would be just as happy to leave it behind -- if they could." Does Microsoft face that big of a risk?
20 Network Changing Products (Click for story)	A Network World piece about products that have changed networking over the last twenty years. From the article: "SendMail 1998 - Sendmail was key to the e-mail revolution because it was how everyone got up and running with e-mail communications over the Internet. Eric Allman wrote the original version of this open source mail-transfer agent while he was at the University of California at Berkeley in 1979. He stopped development on it in 1982, however, and didn't revisit it until 1990. In 1998 he founded SendMail to sell the software's first commercial version, the SendMail switch."
Analysis of .NET Use in Longhorn and Vista (Click for story)	In a classic example of "Do as I say, not as I do", Richard Grimes analyses the ratio of native to managed code in Microsoft's upcoming Vista Operating System. According to the analysis at Microsoft Vista and .NET, "Microsoft appears to have concentrated their development effort in Vista on native code development. Vista has no services implemented in .NET and Windows Explorer does not host the runtime, which means that the Vista desktop shell is not based on the .NET runtime. The only conclusion that can be made from these results is that between PDC 2003 and the release of Vista Beta 1 Microsoft has decided that it is better to use native code for the operating system, than to use the .NET framework."
RFID & Viral Vulnerability (Click for story)	Student Melanie Rieback and others, part of a Tannenbaum research group in Amsterdam, have proven that RFID-tags are vulnerable for infection with viruses. In a research paper titled "Is Your Cat Infected with a Computer Virus?" is shown how an altered RFID tag can be used to send a SQL injection attack or a buffer overflow. They describe on the rfidvirus.org website possible exploits of this types of viruses: from altering the backoffice of a supermarket to spreading RFID viruses by infected bags on airports.
Deleting Files is a Crime? (Click for story)	A former employee of International Airport Centers, who is currently embroiled in a legal dispute with them, returned his company laptop as required. Hoping to find incriminating evidence, I.A.C. attempted to retrieve deleted information from the laptop in question with no success. This employee had beaten them to the punch. He had used 'secure delete' software, in order to make sure nothing could be recovered. He is now being charged with a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Cubicles a Giant Mistake (Click for story)	Apparently even the designer of the cubicle believes now that they are a bad idea." From the article: "After years of prototyping and studying how people work, and vowing to improve on the open-bullpen office that dominated much of the 20th century, Propst designed a system he thought would increase productivity (hence the name Action Office). The young designer, who also worked on projects as varied as heart pumps and tree harvesters, theorized that productivity would rise if people could see more of their work spread out in front of them, not just stacked in an in-box.
Exploring Active Record (Click for story)	Everyone knows that no programming language is a perfect fit for every job. This article launches a 'new series by Bruce Tate that looks at ways other languages solve major problems and what those solutions mean to Java developers. He first explores Active Record, the persistence engine behind Ruby on Rails.'
The Hidden Cost of Outsourcing (Click for story)	CNNMoney is reporting that outsourcing may not be as big of a bargain as some might think. From the article: "With consumers enjoying more choice than ever before, evidence is growing that great service is essential for long-term customer retention. To cite just one example, a recent survey of pension policyholders in the United Kingdom found that 75 percent would leave their current provider if they experienced bad customer service."
What Corporate Projects Should Learn From OSS (Click for story)	This article takes a look at how the most successful open source projects do a great job of putting important software project management principles in practice, using techniques that can (and should) be adopted by corporate IT project teams.
U.S. IT Hiring Increases Despite Outsourcing (Click for story)	A CNN article reports that a new study has shown that U.S. tech hiring has increased, despite oversees outsourcing. It mentions that the job market is higher today than it was at the height of the dot-com boom." From the article: "The study suggests that there are several factors in the continued growth in demand for IT workers here. The report said part of it is due to the use of offshoring by U.S. companies, including start-up firms, to limit their costs and thus grow their businesses. That, in turn, creates more opportunities here even as an increasing amount of work is done overseas. The study also said that companies from a variety of sectors in the economy continue to discover greater efficiency and more competitive operations through investment in IT.
DRM Based on Trusted Computing Chips (Click for story)	We've always know that Trusted Computing is really about DRM, but computer makers always denied it. Now that their Trusted Computing chips are standard on most new PCs, they've decided to come clean. According to Information Week, Lenovo has demonstrated a Thinkpad with built-in Microsoft and Adobe DRM that uses a Trusted Computing chip with a fingerprint sensor. Even worse: 'The system is also aimed at tracking who reads a document and when, because the chip can report back every access attempt. If you access the file, your fingerprint is recorded.'
Interview with a Botmaster (Click for story)	You might want to put your skeptic hat on before you read this article: The Washington Post is running a fascinating feature profiling a couple of botnet operators who make thousands of dollars each month installing adware on machines they infect. This is by far the most detailed examination of this issue I've seen so far -- and includes an interview with the CEO of 180Solutions, as well as interviews with some of the botmasters' victims. From the story: 'Most days, I just sit at home and chat online while I make money,' 0x80 says. 'I get one check like every 15 days in the mail for a few hundred bucks, and a buncha others I get from banks in Canada every 30 days.' He says his work earns him an average of $6,800 per month, although he's made as much as $10,000. Not bad money for a high school dropout.'
Developing Games with Perl and SDL (Click for story)	Andy Bakun has written an excellent 20 page guide to game development with SDL_Perl for Ars Technica. The tutorial, which includes extensive code examples and plenty of screenshots, walks readers through the process of building a clone of the original Atari Kaboom! game." From the article: "One of the biggest benefits of using SDL is that it allows portable media applications to be written without having to be concerned with specific implementations of media libraries for each target platform. Bringing Perl into the picture takes the portability one step further, allowing media-rich applications to be written in a high-level language that can be targeted to a number of platforms. While programming using SDL requires knowledge of C and access to a C compiler, using SDL_perl does not. This greatly decreases the amount of time it takes to get something up on the screen and working.
Why The Net Should Stay Neutral (Click for story)	BBC opinion piece on why tiered Internet setups are a bad idea . From the article: "What is being proposed is more like building two roads into every town and up to every house, one smooth and well-maintained tarmac and the other a dirt track, and then letting Tesco and Waitrose bid for the right to use the good road. This issue just the latest round of a long-running debate about how much government - of whatever type, in whatever country - should be involved in the growth and development of the internet."
Yahoo! Releases OSS Ajax and Design Tools (Click for story)	Yahoo! released the Yahoo! User Interface Library . This library is comprised of a number of dynamic HTML utilities and controls for building rich web UIs and Ajax applications. They are made available under an open-source license. In addition, Yahoo! released the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library. This collection of design patterns for Web interaction is intended to provide Web designers prescriptive guidance to help solve common design problems on the Web. Both are free in both senses of the word.
MIT Researchers Explore How Rats Think (Click for story)	A Nature News article explains that, after running a maze, rats mentally replay their actions backwards." From the article: "As the rats ran along the track, the nerve cells fired in a very specific sequence. This is not surprising, because certain cells in this region are known to be triggered when an animal passes through a particular spot in a space. But the researchers were taken aback by what they saw when the rats were resting. Then, the same brain cells replayed the sequence of electrical firing over and over, but in reverse and speeded up. 'It's absolutely original; no one has ever seen this before at all,' says Edvard Moser, who studies memory at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.
Videogaming Keeps the Brain From Aging (Click for story)	Globe and Mail article stating that videogames keep the mind young and help in quick focusing on different tasks. "A body of research suggests that playing video games provides benefits similar to bilingualism in exercising the mind. Just as people fluent in two languages learn to suppress one language while speaking the other, so too are gamers adept at shutting out distractions to swiftly switch attention between different tasks. A new study of 100 university undergraduates in Toronto has found that video gamers consistently outperform their non-playing peers in a series of tricky mental tests. If they also happened to be bilingual, they were unbeatable."
LEGO Tech Still Going Strong (Click for story)	Andrew Carol has designed and built a working Babbage Difference Engine out of LEGO . From the article: "Before the day of computers and pocket calculators, all mathematics was done by hand. Great effort was expended to compose trigonometric and logarithmic tables for navigation, scientific investigation, and engineering purposes. In the mid-19th century, people began to design machines to automate this error prone process. Many machines of various designs were eventually built. The most famous of these machines is the Babbage Difference Engine. [...] Babbage's design could evaluate 7th order polynomials to 31 digits of accuracy. I set out to build a working Difference Engine using LEGO parts which could compute 2nd or 3rd order polynomials to 3 or 4 digits." In related, but not quite as functional, news DigitalDame2 writes to tell us that PC Magazine has an interview with LEGO "brick-artist" Nathan Sawaya, creator of their commissioned LEGO PC. There are also several pictures of the creation in addition to a contest to win the snap-together sculpture.
Does Company-Wide Language "Standardization" Work? (Click for story)	RMX asks: "In our company, we're currently going through the debate of standardizing on a computer language for our next set of products. The pro-standardization guys say that a single language (like Java) will save everyone time. The anti-standardization guys are advocating a mixed environment (of languages like Python, Ruby, and C#), and argue that the whole discussion is as silly as a manufacturing firm standardizing on screwdrivers for all their screw/nail/glue fastening needs. Have any of your companies standardized on a language? How well did it go?"
A Day In The Life At The GuildHall (Click for story)	Gamasutra has a great feature up, looking at a day in the life of Tony Basch. Tony is one of the folks currently attending The GuildHall, a directed course in game development at Southern Methodist University. Several big-name talents are associated with the place, and his writeup is an interesting look into one of these very new programs. From the article: "Kyle and I remain in the classroom to work on our individual class assignments. While programmers have their Minesweeper clone, the level designers (or LDs as everyone calls them) have 90 textures to do in seven days on top of their normal reading assignments, daily quizzes, and work from other classes. Personally, I wouldn't be able to survive such an assignment, so I give my respect."
NASA Public-Affairs Appointee Resigns in Disgrace (Click for story)	George C. Deutsch, who tried to muzzle top NASA climate scientist James Hansen and ordered NASA web designers to add the word 'theory' to every mention of the Big Bang, has resigned. The New York Times reports that NASA declines to discuss the reasons for his resignation, but that it came the same day that Texas A&M University, from which Deutsch claimed on his resume to have graduated, revealed that he had attended the university but did not complete his degree." The New York Times reports it today, but as of yesterday, it was the Times that had unquestioningly passed along the falsehood of Deutsch's graduation, and it was the blog Scientific Activist whose investigation revealed he'd left before graduating to work on the Bush reelection campaign. For more on the 24-year-old political appointee's interesting viewpoints, see World O' Crap; on Monday, we covered the anger over his attempts to squelch science -- something that, sadly, Jim Hansen has gotten used to.
Patents of Business Destruction (Click for story)	Over on Slate there's an opinion article on the Blackberry patent case. Here's a quote: 'It's easy to bash trolls as evil extortionists, to do so may be to miss an important lesson: Patent trolls aren't evil, but rational and predictable, akin to the mold that eventually grows on rotten meat. They're useful for understanding how the world of software patent got to where it is and what might be done to fix it.'
A History of Firefox (Click for story)	Firefox module owner Ben Goodger has written what I think is a very interesting post about how Firefox came into being. It goes into details unheard of to date about the inner workings at Netscape and he fills in a timeline spanning from the open sourcing of Netscape to the release just recently of Firefox 1.5. Especially interesting and poignant are comments like this: 'I was told I could not expect to use Open Source tricks against folk who were employed by the Company (all hail!). I held true to my beliefs and refused to review low quality patches. I was almost fired. Others weren't so lucky.'. Anyhow, I consider this required reading for any fan of the Firefox browser." Or even just a programmer. Worth reading.
Videogames Affect Your Brain (Click for story)	A story on GameSpot explains the concept of ' mirror neurons.' When we shoot a gun, certain neurons fire in our brain. When we see someone else shoot a gun, even a video game character, the exact same neurons fire. How do virtual reactions affect our lives and thoughts? This short but sweet article touches on all of this and more." From the article: "We can tell if someone is watching a television by the way that person is facing it--even if we can't see or hear if the television is even on. It also means that we can experience the mental states associated with actions without ever having to perform those actions. In video games, in particular, it's like we're automatically empathizing with what is happening on the screen as if we were the video game characters ourselves. If you've ever had a particularly heart-palpitating race in Burnout, surely you can relate.
Solar Energy Becoming More Pervasive (Click for story)	RenewableEnergyAccess is reporting that Solatec LLC has released a stick-on solar panel kit that charges your hybrid while parked. In related news, the world's largest photovoltaic system will be built, not on the roofs of Priuses, but on the ground of Nevada, and will provide clean energy for the US military.
EFF Sues AT&T Over NSA Wiretapping (Click for story)	Cory Doctorow over at BoingBoing is reporting that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has just filed a lawsuit against AT&T for helping the National Security Agency execute illegal warrant-less wiretaps against American citizens. From the article: 'The lawsuits alleges that AT&T Corp. has opened its key telecommunications facilities and databases to direct access by the NSA and/or other government agencies, thereby disclosing to the government the contents of its customers' communications as well as detailed communications records about millions of its customers, including the lawsuit's class members.'
Microsoft Changes Blog Censoring Policies (Click for story)	Microsoft attorney Brad Smith says that the company has a new policy to deal with a foreign government's request that alleges posted material violates its laws. The policy was apparently developed after Microsoft's own employees complained after a Chinese blogger hosted by Microsoft was censored. From the article 'Smith said Microsoft will only remove blogs when given proper legal notice, and even then, will only block access to that material within the country where it is deemed unlawful. The site will still be viewable from outside the country, he said.'
RIM - The Whole Story (Click for story)	The Globe and Mail has published an article titled Patently Absurd, detailing the whole history of the RIM vs. NTP wireless war. It is a blow by blow account of how a dispute that could have been settled for a few million dollars is now 'a billion-dollar dagger hanging over RIM.' The article reads like a fairy-tale of egos, legal blunders, and patent stupidity.
Steve Jobs: Redefining The CEO (Click for story)	BusinessWeek has a nice piece on how Steve Jobs is redefining the job of being a CEO. From the story: 'Just over a decade ago, Steve Jobs was considered washed-up, a has-been whose singular achievement was co-founding Apple Computer back in the 1970s. Now, given the astounding success of Apple and Pixar, he's setting a new bar for how to manage a Digital Age corporation.'
The Art of PS3 Programming (Click for story)	The Guardian Gamesblog has a longish piece talking with Volatile Games, developers of the title Possession for the PS3, about what it's like to make a game for Sony's next-gen console . From the article: "At the end of the day it's just a multi-processor architecture. If you can get something running on eight threads of a PC CPU, you can get it running on eight processors on a PS3 - it's not massively different. There is a small 'gotcha' in there though. The main processor can access all the machine's video memory, but each of the seven SPE chips has access only to its own 256k of onboard memory - so if you have, say, a big mesh to process, it'll be necessary to stream it through a small amount of memory - you'd have to DMA it up to your cell chip and then process a little chunk, then DMA the next chunk, so you won't be able to jump around the memory as easily, which I guess you will be able to do on the Xbox 360."
The Future is XHTML 2.0 (Click for story)	As with its past, the future of HTML will be varied, some might say messy, but I believe XHTML 2.0 will ultimately receive widespread acceptance and adoption. A big move in this direction will be in Embedded devices such as phones and digital TVs, which will have no need to support the Web's legacy of messy HTML, and are free to take unburdened advantage of XHTML 2.0. This Developer Works article examines the work of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in creating the next-generation version of their XHTML specification, and also their response to the demand for 'rich client" behavior exemplified by Ajax applications.'
Web Game Helps Predict Spread of Epidemics (Click for story)	Using data from the web game wheresgeorge.com , which traces the travels of dollar bills, scientists have unveiled statistical laws of human travel and developed a mathematical description that can be used to model the spread of infectious disease.
Making Files Available Breaking the Law? (Click for story)	The RIAA has argued in one of their cases that simply "making files available for distribution" violates copyright laws. This means that regardless of the legality of a file somebody has on their computer, just putting it in a shared files folder that can be accessed by other people is illegal. Although it's asinine, it really shouldn't come as any surprise given the RIAA's legal campaign that's more about what it believes than what the law actually says.
MS Security VP Mike Nash Replies (Click for story)	You posted a lot of great questions for Mike Nash last week, and he put a lot of time into answering them. As promised, his answers were not laundered by PR people, which is all too common with "executive" interviews with people from any company. Still, he boosts Microsoft, as you'd expect, since he's a VP there. And obviously, going along with that, he says he likes Microsoft products better than he likes competing ones. But this is still a great look into the way Microsoft views security problems with their products, and what the company is trying to do about them.
Security Researcher Says Oracle Slow to Fix Flaw (Click for story)	A report by Robert Lemos of SecurityFocus in The Register states that Oracle is being criticized by David Litchfield of Next-Generation Security Software for failing to rapidly patch a known flaw in its database software. Litchfield had made Oracle aware of the flaw last October and is now taking them to task for their slow response to the exploit. Oracle, in turn, has attacked Litchfield: 'We are always disappointed when researchers feel the need to publish details of vulnerabilities before a fix is available... What David Litchfield has done is put our customers at risk.'
IBM Strives For 'Superhuman' Speech Tech (Click for story)	IBM unveiled new speech recognition technology today that can comprehend the nuances of spoken English, translate it on the fly, and even create on-the-fly subtitles for foreign-language television programs. One of the projects perpetually monitors Arabic television stations, dynamically transcribing and translating any words spoken into English subtitles. Videos can then be viewed via a web browser, with all transcriptions indexed and searchable.
Major Telco Providers Form Open Source Alliance (Click for story)	Several major telecom companies have come together to form a new alliance. Founded January 1, 2006 by Alcatel, Ericsson, Motorola, NEC, Nokia and Siemens, "SCOPE", is helping to promote the availability of open carrier grade base platforms based on Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) hardware / software and Free Open Source Software (FOSS) building blocks, and to promote interoperability to better serve Service Providers and consumers. " It's worth noting that a number of these companies have also been OSDL members, pursuing the same agenda.
The Future of e-Commerce and e-Information? (Click for story)	The Washington Post has an interesting article on what they label ' The Coming Tug of War Over the Internet. From the article: 'Do you prefer to search for information online with Google or Yahoo? What about bargain shopping -- do you go to Amazon or eBay? Many of us make these kinds of decisions several times a day, based on who knows what -- maybe you don't like bidding, or maybe Google's clean white search page suits you better than Yahoo's colorful clutter. But the nation's largest telephone companies have a new business plan, and if it comes to pass you may one day discover that Yahoo suddenly responds much faster to your inquiries, overriding your affinity for Google. Or that Amazon's Web site seems sluggish compared with eBay's.'" Seems like the idea of the 2-tier internet is really catching on with the market-droids.
Asynchronous Requests with JavaScript and Ajax (Click for story)	You can use this object over and over again in each page and application that you write that uses Ajax. This article shows you how to create XMLHttpRequest instances in a cross-browser way, construct and send requests, and respond to the server.
College Students Lack Literacy (Click for story)	CNN has a rather disturbing confirmation of what many of us have already seen in practice. In a recent literacy study it was found that "more than half of students at four-year colleges -- and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges -- lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers." The literacy study took a look at three different type of literacy: analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents, and having basic math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips.
Sony Aims Higher Than The Gaming Market (Click for story)	Next Generation tries to take a look at what Sony is up to with the PS3, without going off on a rumour-filled tangent. Their thought? Sony is after something much bigger than the gaming market. From the article: "The big play is for the high definition DVD market, and in this context, an early launch, with small hardware numbers and threadbare games software support might just be a good move. This play potentially represents Sony's most important move in its entire history. Imagine; a royalty for Sony on every single DVD sold between 2006 and 2012 or thereabouts. No wonder Bill Gates hates Blu-ray.
How to Survive a Bad Boss (Click for story)	Computerworld has a three-page spread on how to deal with bad bosses. A common type is "the overgrown technologist who gets rewarded for brilliant technical work by being promoted to a position for which he's not qualified." Another type reported by a reader is the boss who's in over their head. The article says some bosses can be "fixed," but at other times it's better to hunker down or CYA so the bad boss can find other targets.
Diebold's Election Data Off-limits (Click for story)	The State of Alaska Division of Elections has denied a request by the Alaska Democratic Party for the raw file format used to tabulate voting results by citing that the data is in a proprietary format that is owned by Diebold. The ADP says 'The official vote results from the last general election are riddled with discrepancies and impossible for the public to make sense of'. The article contains some good quotes from Jim March of Black Box Voting: 'Copies of these kinds of files have been sitting on the Internet for over two years, with Diebold's knowledge.'
Yahoo! Yields Search Dominance to Google (Click for story)	Seattle PI story in which Yahoo! CFO Susan Decker states that they're not aiming to be the No. 1 Search engine. From the article: "Yahoo!'s comments underline the difficulties any Internet company faces in trying to challenge Google's dominance of the Web search industry. Google has at least double the market share of Yahoo! and Microsoft Corp. in Internet search, the largest and most profitable segment of online advertising. 'In some countries, it's already game over in search, with Google the clear victor,' said RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan in New York. 'Google's product development pipeline runs at such a fast rate that it's very difficult for any company, Microsoft or Yahoo! to catch up.'
DoJ search requests: Yahoo, AOL, MSN said "Yes" (Click for story)	Elaborating on a previous article (where Google said "no") on Slashdot, it appears that the search engines which complied for Department of Justice requests for logs were apparently AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. According to the article, Justice is not requesting this data in the course of a criminal investigation, but in order to defend its argument that the Child Online Protection Act is constitutionally sound.
Search Engines Leech Value from Web Sites (Click for story)	Jakob Nielsen, former Sun Distinguished Engineer and now usability guru, proposes "that search engines are sucking out too much of the Web's value, acting as leeches on companies that create the very source materials the search engines index." He says that the value provided by search engines may be tilting too much in favor of the search engines. The web sites that create content are now simply fodder for the search engines' revenue stream.
Keyboards Are Disgusting (Click for story)	A test carried out by Pegasus Lab on account for Swedish magazine PC För alla showed that a normal PC keyboard was infected by more bacteria than a normal toilet seat. More specific it contained 33000 bacteria per square centimeter, compared to 130 on a ordinary toilet seat. The tests also showed occurrence of up to 3100 fungi per square centimeter.
NCC Calls for Laws to Protect User Rights (Click for story)	We're used to reading articles about new and creative ways in which DRM and other such technologies can be used to prevent us from doing whatever we like with our media. The BBC offers us a glimmer of hope with a story about how the National Consumer Council (NCC) has made a report to a parliamentary inquiry in which it has highlighted the issues faced by many of us. From the article: 'Consumers face security risks to their equipment, limitations on their use of products, poor information when purchasing products and unfair contract terms.'
Who needs software patents? (Click for story)	C|Net has a surprising story about a seminar given by a top judge at the U.K.'s Court of Appeal who specializes in intellectual-property law. According to the article, he has "questioned whether software patents should be granted, and has criticized the U.S. for allowing "anything under the sun" to be patented." Is the tide turning?
Meetings are Bad For You (Click for story)	Though this is obvious to most of us, your PHB's might benefit from knowing that meetings are bad for you. Two psychologists have found evidence that the number of and the time spent in meetings has a detrimental effect on mood. "...a general relationship between meeting load and the employee's level of fatigue and subjective workload was found", write the authors after conducting a diary study. Perhaps we should be more understanding with our moody bosses?
Mood-sensing Cell Phone (Click for story)	Mood-sensing Cell Phone Concept Brings Seamless Mobility to Life; Earns Top Prize for Innovation in Motorola Competition
15 Important Tech Concepts In 2006 (Click for story)	Popular Mechanics story discussing 15 technology concepts that are likely to be important in the coming year. From the article: "Body Area Network (BAN) - Like everything else, implantable medical devices are going wireless. A new in-body antenna chip from Zarlink Semiconductor is in preproduction, and should appear in pacemakers and hearing implants this year. By transmitting data to and receiving instructions from nearby base stations, BAN chips can reprogram your heartbeat at your doctor's office or make a diagnosis from a bedside wireless monitor at home."
MIT Startup Tests Top Million Sites for Spyware (Click for story)	An MIT startup called SiteAdvisor has downloaded over 100,000 programs from the top million Web sites and tested them for adware and spyware using an automated system they've built. They've got a blog entry where they dissect 5 of the worst adware bundles they found. There is some amazingly invasive stuff in there.
The Choice Between DRM and Security (Click for story)	Victor Yodaiken has an article up on Groklaw in which he discusses how DRM may decrease security and reliability. He raises several questions that the developers of DRM technologies ought to answer - because not all computers are merely personal entertainment systems for 'content' consumers." From the article: "Sony BMG put DRM software onto CDs that broke the basic system security and made the entire system slower and less reliable. Imagine that your children put such a CD on your computer and opened an avenue for hackers to make copies of your business memos and personal email ... We are entering the era of ubiquitous and safety critical computing, but the developers of DRM technologies seem to believe that computers are nothing more than personal entertainment systems for consumers. This belief is convenient, because creating DRM mechanisms that respect security, safety, and reliability concerns is going to be an expensive and complex engineering task.
Mathematics Skills More in Demand Than Ever (Click for story)	Business week has a nice article (feel good, low on detail, vague numbers) on the rise of maths and mathematicians in a world that is increasingly obsessed with statistics, advertising, search engines, and algorithms. The article also deals with issues of privacy. How has mathematics, statistics and other number driven aspects of life impacted you in the last decade?
Gov't GSA Office goes MySQL (Click for story)	MySQL has won a five year contract with the US General Services Administration office putting it in yet another government office on top of NASA, the Dept. of Def., Los Alamos National Labs & the Census Bureau. This additional win allows around 70 Government customers to purchase and deploy MySQL.
"St Lawrence of Google" (Click for story)	The Economist has a story about Google's co-founder, Larry Page, who " always wanted to change the world". The article attempts to make an arguement about the company's true intentions, amid all the rumors about potential Google products. "Google is already working on a massive and global computing grid. Eventually, says Mr Saffo, 'they're trying to build the machine that will pass the Turing test' -- in other words, an artificial intelligence that can pass as a human in written conversations. Wisely or not, Google wants to be a new sort of deus ex machina."
Future Trends of Malware (Click for story)	What are the driving forces behind the rise of malware? Who's behind it, and what tactics do they use? How are vendors responding, and what should organizations, researchers, and end users keep in mind for the upcoming future? All these questions and more are answered in the well written (MHO) Future Trends of Malware
Open-source Overhauls Patent System (Click for story)	The US Patent Office has announced new plans to reform the patent system - and right up there at the front is open-source software. Techworld argues that it is in fact open-source software that has been the driving force behind the reform." From the New York Times article: "At a meeting last month with companies and organizations that support open-source software (software that can be distributed and modified freely), including I.B.M., Red Hat, Novell and some universities, officials of the patent office discussed how to give patent examiners access to better information and other ways to issue higher-quality patents. Two of the initiatives would rely on recently developed Internet technologies. An open patent review program would set up a system on the patent office Web site where visitors could submit search criteria and subscribe to electronic alerts about patent applications in specific areas.
Burned CDs Last 5 years Max -- Use Tape? (Click for story)	Computerworld has interviewed Kurt Gerecke, an IBM storage expert and physicist who claims burned CDs only have a two to five-year lifespan, depending on the quality of the CD. From the article: "The problem is material degradation. Optical discs commonly used for burning, such as CD-R and CD-RW, have a recording surface consisting of a layer of dye that can be modified by heat to store data. The degradation process can result in the data 'shifting' on the surface and thus becoming unreadable to the laser beam." Gerecke recommends magnetic tapes to store pictures, videos and songs.
The Softening of a Software Man (Click for story)	New York Magazine has an interesting editorial stating that no one is afraid of Microsoft anymore. The article argues that Microsoft has noticeably been adrift in the wake of Gates' philanthropy, which some cynics suspect is a Rockefeller-like attempt to 'fumigate his fortune' as he makes a play for the history books. From the article: "Like the robber barons, Bill Gates has moved from trying to take over the world to trying to save it."
Tapestry Making Web Development a Breeze? (Click for story)	IBM DeveloperWorks has an interesting article on how to simplify your Web-based development with Tapestry, an open-source, Java-based framework that makes developing a breeze. The article shows you around Tapestry, from installation to file structure. See for yourself how Tapestry facilitates servlet-based Web application development using HTML and template tags."
Oracle 'Worm' Exploit Modified (Click for story)	Two months after an anonymous researcher released the first public example of an Oracle database worm, the exploit code has been advanced and republished , adding new techniques to attack databases. From the article: "It's still very theoretical right now, but I don't think any DBA should be underestimating the risk," said Alexander Kornbrust, CEO of Red-Database-Security GmbH. "If you're running a large company with hundreds of valuable databases, a worm can be very destructive. It is very possible to use this code to release a worm. I can do this right now if I wanted to."
When Bugs Aren't Allowed (Click for story)	When you're writing software for an air traffic control system, military avionics software, or an authentication system for the NSA, the delivered code can't afford to have bugs. Praxis High Integrity Systems, who were the feature of a recent IEEE article, write exactly that kind of software. In " Correctness by Construction: A Manifesto for High-Integrity Software" developers from Praxis discuss their development method, explaining how they manage such a low defect rate, and how they can still maintain very high developer productivity rates using a more agile development method than the rigid processes usually associated with high-integrity software development.
Lego Mindstorms NXT Robotics Announced (Click for story)	"Just when you thought Lego Mindstorms was grinding its last gear, comes the announcement of Lego Mindstorms NXT Robotics Toolset, with sleek servo motors, an ultrasonic sensor which allows robots to 'see' by responding to movement, a sound sensor which enables robots to react to sound commands (including sound pattern and tone recognition) improved touch and light sensors, and a and a programmable brick with at least 7 or 8 RJ11 type jacks. Robot fun! Out in August 2006, and in true Lego style will cost $249." Wired has a preview of the cover story about the new kit on their site.
The Patent Epidemic (Click for story)	BusinessWeek is running an editorial titled The Patent Epidemic, which chronicles not only how abusive and absurd our patent system has become for software and business method patents, but how it hurts even traditionally innovative fields such as the automobile industry. Interesting commentary can be found in the regular places, with Right to Create suggesting action you can take to stem the spread of this epidemic, and Patent Prospector attempting to refute BusinessWeek's arguments.
Sony gives rootkits for Christmas (Click for story)	This is as bad as some soap operas. I wonder if the government will take any action against Sony? US CONSUMER groups are fuming that Sony BMG continued to flog spyware infected music in the pre-christmas rush.
E-Paper On Cereal Boxes (Click for story)	Wired Mag has an article about electronics maker Siemens, readying a paper-thin electronic-display technology. They say it is so cheap it could replace conventional labels on disposable packaging. Imagine items on grocer's shelves that flash commercials at you as you walk by. From the article: 'When kids see flashing pictures on cereal boxes we don't expect them to just ask for the product, but to say, "I want it", said Axel Gerlt, an engineer at Siemens tasked with helping packaging companies implement the technology.'
Wikipedia's Accuracy Compared to Britannica (Click for story)	Nature magazine recently conducted a head-to-head competition between Wikipedia and Britannica, having experts compare 42 science-related articles. The result was that Wikipedia had about 4 errors per article, while Britannica had about 3. However, a pair of endevouring Wikipedians dug a little deeper and discovered that the Wikipedia articles in the sample were, on average, 2.6 times longer than Britannica's - meaning Wikipedia has an error rate far less than Britannica's." Interesting, considering some past claims. Story available on the BBC as well.
Diebold CEO Resigns Under Cloud (Click for story)	After numerous ethical lapses and much controversy, Diebold CEO, Wally O'Dell resigned to the applause of the markets. Diebold's price improved more than 5% today, as the story broke. Business Week is reporting that O'Dell is leaving for "personal reasons", although the news blog Raw Story cites board action on imminent securities fraud litigation, and legal challenges by states claiming fraudulent certification of Diebold voting machines. Latest vulnerability tests show an impossibly negligent attention to vote security and privacy." Not overly surprising, considering their recent childish antics in NC.
Cyber Attacks on US Linked to Chinese Military? (Click for story)	Security expert Bruce Schneier is reporting on a continuing effort to penetrate US government and industry computer systems that most likely stems from the Chinese military." From the Terranet article: "The attacks have been traced to the Chinese province of Guangdong, and the techniques used make it appear unlikely to come from any other source than the military, said Alan Paller, the director of the SANS Institute, an education and research organization focusing on cybersecurity.
Chimpanzees Beat out Children in Reasoning Test (Click for story)	The New York Times has a story on how chimpanzees seem to exhibit a better understanding of cause and effect than human children. While training chimps to perform a routine task with redundant steps, the chimps were able to figure out and eliminate the redundant steps, while the human children routinely performed them despite their evident uselessness. It says something about the way we learn compared to chimps and should be interesting to cognitive scientists and those interested in computational learning theory, at the least.
No More Internet Anonymity (Click for story)	This Article tells of an Orwellian chip that, once installed in your computer (and not by your choice), will allow any website you visit to "read" your identity. The article goes on to describe how many benefits there are for using this to facilitate online business and even suggests some negative points. It ends with "Ultimately the TPM itself isn't inherently evil or good. It will depend entirely on how it's used, and in that sphere, market and political forces will be more important than technology." ... ugh. Well we all know what that means.
U.S. Engineers Undercounted (Click for story)	Red Herring reports that 'The United States graduates far more engineers annually than typically reported in the press, a study said Monday, while the number of engineering graduates in India and China, long considered threats to the U.S.' status as a technological superpower, may be overstated ... the data implies that per every 1 million citizens, the United States is producing more technology specialists than China and India.' Are U.S. Engineers undercounted?
China Overtakes US as Supplier of IT Goods (Click for story)	CNET News.com is reporting that 'after almost a decade of explosive growth in its electronics sector, China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest supplier of Information Technology goods, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.' From the article: "The most spectacular demonstration of China's ambition to become a consumer electronics heavyweight came in May this year when Lenovo, the Chinese computer maker, paid $1.75 billion to buy IBM's personal computer unit.
Fingerprint Scanners Fooled By Play-Doh (Click for story)	YubaNet is reporting that in recent tests by Stephanie C Schuckers, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Clarkston University, she has shown that, among other things, biometric security measures were fooled 90% of the time by simple attacks like Play-Doh molds. From the article: "Schuckers' biometric research is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Office of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. She is currently assessing spoofing vulnerability in fingerprint scanners and designing methods to correct for these as part of a $3.1 million interdisciplinary research project funded through the NSF.
The Future of HTML (Click for story)	HTML isn't a very good language for making Web pages. However, it has been a very good language for making the Web. This article examines the future of HTML and what it will mean to Web authors, browser and developers. It covers the incremental approach embodied by the WHATWG specifications and the radical cleanup of XHTML proposed by the W3C. Additionally, the author gives an overview of the W3C's new Rich Client Activity.
The Unspoken Taboo - The Never Expiring Password (Click for story)	Every security savvy professional lives with the daily fear of the " never expiring password" being exposed. It's the unspoken taboo, the wide open back door in every corporate network. But no-one ever acknowledges it or discusses it. All applications have got pre-defined passwords that never change. Which means developers, privileged users and hosting third party service providers will all have access to these passwords.
Finding a Needle in a Haystack of Data (Click for story)	Finding useful information in oceans of data is an increasingly complex problem in many scientific areas. This is why researchers from Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) have created new statistical techniques to isolate useful signals buried in large datasets coming from particle physics experiments, such as the ones run in a particle collider. But their method could also be applied to a broad range of applications, like discovering a new galaxy, monitoring transactions for fraud or identifying the carrier of a virulent disease among millions of people." Case Western has also provided a link to the original paper. [PDF Warning]
Is the Cyberterror Threat Credible? (Click for story)	Is the idea that cyber terrorists might take down US networks or utilities realistic, or over-hyped? One of the authors of the Patriot Act and several Black Hat 2005 speakers debated the issue informally at WatchGuard's "Security and Beer Roundtable." Participants include Dan Kaminsky, Johnny "Google Hacker" Long, Tim Mullen, Sensepost penetration testers, a guy from Microsoft's ISA team, and others.
Google's Ten Golden Rules (Click for story)	Newsweek is running an article entitled Google's Ten Golden Rules. The article, by Eric Schmidt and Hal Varian, going into the philosophy behind the company." From the article: "Don't be evil. Much has been written about Google's slogan, but we really try to live by it, particularly in the ranks of management. As in every organization, people are passionate about their views. But nobody throws chairs at Google, unlike management practices used at some other well-known technology companies. We foster to create an atmosphere of tolerance and respect, not a company full of yes men.
E-Tracking May Change the Way You Drive (Click for story)	ZDNet.com is running a story about a runaway idea of a tracking automobiles via GPS. Not to be confused with the Canadian project geared towards anti-speeding ideas, this one does in fact have the goal of tracking your vehicle. 'The U.S. Department of Transportation has been handing millions of dollars to state governments for GPS-tracking pilot projects designed to track vehicles wherever they go. So far, Washington state and Oregon have received fat federal checks to figure out how to levy these 'mileage-based road user fees.' However, the article goes on to talk about how there is no provision in place to prevent the uncontrolled surveillance of motorists without a court order.
A Recipe for Newspaper Survival in the Internet Age (Click for story)	(The author - SlashDot's Roblimo) has spent seven years working as a writer and editor for Slashdot's parent company. During this time I've been to at least a dozen mainstream journalists' and editors' conferences where the most-asked question was, "How do we adapt to the Internet?" You'd think, with all the smart people working for newspapers, that by now most of them would have figured out how to use the Internet effectively enough that it would produce a significant percentage of their profits. But they haven't. In this essay I will tell you why they've failed to adapt, and what they must do if they want to survive in a world where the Internet dominates the news business.
A Look at Windows Server Outselling Linux (Click for story)	CoolTechZone.com has an interesting look at Linux's position in the market now that Microsoft has sold more Windows Server software than Linux. From the article: "The most important reason that Windows based servers are doing so well could be that programmers find it extremely easy to work on .Net and other related technologies (seamless integration). Plus, you have hassle free and rapid support from Microsoft, which is a comforting feature for corporate customers. When Windows Live comes in, we will see further integration between the server and online technical support areas, thereby making the troubleshooting process easier for in-house administrators and reducing overhead costs for the company.
Breakthrough for Quantum Measurement (Click for story)	PhysicsWeb is reporting that two teams of physicists have developed a new method for measuring the state of quantum bits in a quantum computer without disturbing the state. From the article: "In the future, the Josephson capacitance could be used for operations in a large-scale quantum computer," says Mika Sillanpaa of Helsinki University. "The Josephson inductance and Josephson capacitance together would also allow us to build new types of quantum 'band engineered' electronic devices, such as low-noise parametric amplifiers."
The Guardian On Intellectual Property (Click for story)	he Guardian has an excellent article giving lay readers an overview of some of the problems being caused by the concept of 'intellectual property', including references to stories familiar to Slashdot readers, such as DVD Jon, the Sony rootkit , Amazon and Google business patents." From the article: "Even facts about the world can, in some cases, become the property of commercial companies. It was the promise of gaining patents on the human genome that lured investors into the private consortium that attempted to sequence it in competition with the public effort. Laboratory animals have already been patented, starting with the OncoMouse, an animal whose genome has been manipulated to ensure that it develops cancer.
How Text Ads Tamed Ads on the Wild, Wild Web (Click for story)	In Sunday's New York Times, Randall Stross writes about How Google Tamed Ads on the Wild, Wild Web and how it is largely responsible for the demise of the odious pop-under ad. From the article: "Without intending to do so, the company set in motion multilateral disarmament by telling its first advertisers in 2000: text only, please. No banner ads, no images, no animation.... Google introduced these ads at the very moment when X10 ads were strewn like chewed gum on every square of sidewalk. X10's pop-unders were accepted at mainstream sites run by companies including Microsoft, Yahoo and The New York Times." Remember that "in mid-2001, X10's company Web site was the fourth-most visited" on the Web. Thank you, Google." I'd actually argue that while the text ads had something to do with it, the massive growth in pop-up/under blockers made as much of a difference, if not even more.
Is Wi-Fi Ruining College? (Click for story)	I've always wondered what the students in the back row were smiling about. ;^) Over at Slate, Avi Zenilman has seen the real classroom of the future firsthand: Students use class time to read the Drudge Report, send e-mail, play Legend of Zelda, or update profiles on Facebook.com. But not to worry - replace laptops with crumpled notes, and the classroom of the future looks a lot like the classroom of the past." From the article: "... when Cornell University researchers outfitted classrooms with wireless Internet and monitored students' browsing habits, they concluded, 'Longer browsing sessions during class tend to lead to lower grades, but there's a hint that a greater number of browsing sessions during class may actually lead to higher grades.' It seems a bit of a stretch to impute a causal relationship, but it's certainly possible that the kind of brain that can handle multiple channels of information is also the kind of brain that earns A's.
Outsourcing to Rural America (Click for story)	Wired is running an article about 'Rural Sourcing, an IT company that outsources not to India or Mexico, but rural America.' The company targets IT workers in rural location due to lower costs of living, 'The company charges $35 to $50 per hour for IT expertise, which may cost around $100 in New York City. While this is no match for outsourcing rates in India, clients benefit from local accents and similar time zones -- not to mention the absence of stigma sometimes attached to farming jobs out to foreign countries.' The article also points out several other innovative attempts at outsourcing such as Lakota Express and Seacode, which was previously covered on slashdot.
Real Story of the Rogue Rootkit (Click for story)	Wired has an interesting article from Bruce Schneier about what's happening with the Sony Rootkit, and criticizing the anti-virus companies for not protecting its users. From the article: 'Much worse than not detecting it before Russinovich's discovery was the deafening silence that followed. When a new piece of malware is found, security companies fall over themselves to clean our computers and inoculate our networks. Not in this case.'
Sony Pulls Controversial Anti-Piracy Software (Click for story)	Bowing to public outrage, Sony BMG has temporarily halted the use of its controversial anti-piracy software in all of its music CDs, the company said in a statement today. The move comes just a day after a top Bush administration official chided Sony and the entertainment industry for going too far: according to this story over at Washingtonpost.com, Stewart Baker, the Department of Homeland Security's policy czar warned would-be DRM makers: 'It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer. And in the pursuit of protection of intellectual property, it's important not to defeat or undermine the security measures that people need to adopt in these days.' The Post has the full text and video of his commentary.
Microsoft Reports OSS Unix Beats Windows XP (Click for story)	In a weblog entry, Paul Murphy mentions a Microsoft report (40 page PDF) that in many instances FreeBSD 5.3 and Linux perform better than Windows XP SP2. The report is about MS' Singularity kernel (which does perform better than the OSS kernels by many of the metrics they use), and some future directions in OS design (as well as examination of the way things have been done in the past)." From the post: "What's noteworthy about it is that Microsoft compared Singularity to FreeBSD and Linux as well as Windows/XP - and almost every result shows Windows losing to the two Unix variants. For example, they show the number of CPU cycles needed to "create and start a process" as 1,032,000 for FreeBSD, 719,000 for Linux, and 5,376,000 for Windows/XP.
The Math Behind the Hybrid Hype (Click for story)	OmniNerd has posted a thorough mathematical analysis of purchasing a hybrid vehicle that dispels much of the hype associated with this modern buzz word. The author considers all of the major factors to show just how much money a hybrid vehicle will or won't save you. In the end, it seems the only real winner after a hybrid purchase is the environment.
Microsoft Lauds Scrum (Click for story)	According to eWeek.com Microsoft is adopting the agile methodology called Scrum to get software built faster. Is it working? They seem to be claiming that Scrum and Extreme Programming have helped them get recent releases such as SQLServer out the door faster with better quality. Many other large organizations are also adopting agile methods including Yahoo, and Google. Are agile methods the next big thing in software development?
Leaked Memo Gives Microsoft New Direction? (Click for story)	An e-mail memo sent from Microsoft chairman Bill Gates to top execs at Microsoft has been leaked , revealing the executive wants his company to hurriedly change its focus and start to tap online advertising and services as new revenue sources. In the e-mail, Gates cites another, earlier memo, sent from MS exec Ray Ozzie, in which Ozzie also warns MS of the importance of focusing on the online medium. 'It's clear that if we fail to do so, our business as we know it is at risk,' Ozzie wrote. 'We must respond quickly and decisively. We should've been leaders with all our web properties in harnessing the potential of Ajax, following our pioneering work in OWA (Outlook Web Access),' he continued. 'We knew search would be important, but through Google's focus they've gained a tremendously strong position.'
Winners of the 18th IOCCC (Click for story)	The winners of the 18th International Obfuscated C Code Contest have been announced. This years winners include a 'Commodore PET emulator', 'Sound generation with SDL audio', and a 'Text WWW Browser'.
How Microsoft Takes a Name (Click for story)	According to a report in the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer," the Windows Defender name was already being used by an Australian developer, Adam Lyttle. His Windows Defender product protected Windows users from malicious Web sites. Adam Lyttle told the Post-Intelligencer's Todd Bishop that Microsoft contacted him a month ago, charging him with infringing on the Windows trademark but neglecting to mention that the software giant wanted to use the "Windows Defender" name. Lyttle subsequently signed over rights to the name to Microsoft and was "shocked" when he later learned the company intended to use the name for one of its own products.
Sony DRM Installs a Rootkit? (Click for story) (How you can use this for your benefit) (Update on story) (Sony sued over root kit)	SysInternals.com guru Mark Russinovich has a detailed investigation of a rootkit from Sony Music. It's installed with a DRM-encumbered music CD, Van Zant's "Get Right with the Man". (Mmmm, delicious irony!) The rootkit introduces several security holes into the system that could be exploited by others, such as hiding any executable file that starts with '$sys$'. Russinovich also identifies several programming bugs in the method it uses to hook system calls, and chronicles the painful steps he had to take to 'exorcise the daemon' from his system.
Why Microsoft and Google are Cleaning Up With AJAX (Click for story)	Google uses it, and Microsoft is pursuing it, so there's a lot of hype and hubbub surrounding AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). AJAX brings together some hot properties, Javascript, HTML/DHTML and HTML, according to Julie Hanna Farris, founder of Scalix, a Linux-based, e-mail systems vendor. Scalix is using AJAX in Scalix Web Access (SWA), a Web-delivered, e-mail application. AJAX enables advanced features like drag 'n drop, dropdown menus and faster performance capabilities, which are now making their way into Web applications, she said. These kinds of capabilities represent a significant leap in the advancement of Web apps.
History's Worst Software Bugs (Click for story)	Wired has an article on the 10 worst sofware bugs.. From the article 'Coding errors have sparked explosions, crippled interplanetary probes -- even killed people. Here's our pick for the 10 worst bugs ever, but the judging wasn't easy.'
BBC Examines Open Source Business Model (Click for story)	The BBC's David Reid attended Euro OSCon in Amsterdam and reports what he learned about the Open Source Model. He sums up the rise of non free software in the 1980s and how people and companies like IBM can make money with free software. From the article: 'The open source movement does not object to making money. The source code may be free, but there is gold in software support, training and publishing.'
The Microsoft Singularity (Click for story)	Microsoft Research has published the first details of a wholly new operating system under development called Singularity, designed new from the ground up, built on a new language and designed with emphasis on dependability instead of performance.
IBM Slows the Speed of Light (Click for story)	According to an article on ZDNet, IBM has come up with a way to slow light to 1/300 of its normal speed . While this has been done in laboratories before, IBM has found out how to do this using standard materials, which opens the possibility of mass production. This means that the dream of having optical based CPUs may be closer than previously thought." From the article: "When the optical conversion might start to occur is a matter of speculation. Luxtera has said it will start to commercially produce products in 2007. The computer industry, however, tends to move slowly when it comes to major overhauls of computer architecture. Several components will have to be developed before photons can replace electrons inside computers. A paper providing details on the chip will run in Nature on Wednesday.
Ajax Is the Buzz of Silicon Valley (Click for story)	Ajax, or 'Asynchronous JavaScript and XML,' is allowing webpages to update as quickly as desktop software, powering applications like Google Maps and attracting money from Silicon Valley investors, including for a collaboration-software company called Zimbra. The Wall Street Journal reports: 'Zimbra's chief executive, Satish Dhamaraj, says that when he started his company in December 2003, "I really thought that Ajax was just a bathroom cleaner ." Now his San Mateo, Calif., business has amassed $16 million in funding from venture-capital firms including Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Benchmark Capital, the firm that famously funded eBay Inc. Peter Fenton, an Accel partner, says Ajax "has the chance to change the face of how we look at Web applications" and could boost technology spending by corporations, because Ajax is also being used to develop software for big companies, not just for consumers.'
Can Your Mouth Become Multilingual? (Click for story)	During a videoconference last week between Karlsruhe, Germany, and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pittsburgh, USA, the talk of Alex Waibel, from CMU, was automatically translated in German and Spanish. Both the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PPG) and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (PTR) attended the conference, took pictures and were impressed by this new 'open domain' speech-to-speech translation. This new computer technology is based on artificial intelligence (AI) and statistical methods. During the demonstration, the speaker had electrodes attached to his face and his neck, but the researchers think that these electrodes could be implanted into your mouth and your throat in a decade from now -- if you agree of course. (Not exactly the Universal Translator, but getting closer ...)
Automated TiVo to iPod formating (Click for story)	PVR Wire reports that 'TVHarmony.com has released a new version of its AutoPilot software that supports converting TiVo-recorded shows into a format that's compatible with the new video iPod. It also works with Palm devices that can view video. "The software automatically transfers, converts and stores your TV programming. You can select shows to be downloaded automatically, in the middle of the night if you like, and process the transfers into popular formats. AutoPilot keeps track of the shows you've already downloaded so you can transfer an entire TV series without duplicates.' . . . in other words, one of the biggest gripes concerning the new iPod has been addressed.
Does Visual Studio Rot the Brain? (Click for story)	As a UNIX guy dragged kicking and screaming into the Windows world, I've never really been able to enjoy Windows programming. Charles Petzold, who is a long-time developer for DOS & Windows really laid out the reasons for me at the NYC .NET Dev group. Visual Studio and Microsoft tools force you to adopt programming techniques designed around implementation speed, not understanding or quality.
The H-1B Swindle (Click for story)	A new study shows that companies hire foreign workers for cheap labor, not skill." From the article:"When you look at computer job titles by state, California has one of the biggest differentials between OES salaries and H-1B salaries. The average salary for a programmer in California is $73,960, according to the OES. The average salary paid to an H-1B visa worker for the same job is $53,387; a difference of $20,573 ... H-1B visa workers were also concentrated at the bottom end of the wage scale, with the majority of H-1B visa workers in the 10-24 percentile range. 'That means the largest concentration of H-1B workers make less than [the] highest 75 percent of the U.S. wage earners,' the report notes.
Google and Open Source, the Real Story (Click for story)	Google may not be releasing an open-source operating system or a desktop suite, but the company is promoting, supporting and using open-source software. Learn what Google's open source program manager had to say in an interview with Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.
Internet Plays A Large Role For U.S. Citizens (Click for story)	The latest U.S. Census Bureau report suggests that the Internet has become an integral part of the American lifestyle and economy." From the article: "It shows 40 percent of U.S. adults used the Web to obtain news, weather or sports information, a dramatic increase from the 7 percent who surfed in 1997, when the bureau conducted a similar study. The report also found that nearly half of adults, 47 percent, used the Internet to find information on products or services. About one-third reported purchasing a product or service online, compared with only 2 percent who did so in 1997.
USCO Reviewing DMCA Anti-Circumvention Clause (Click for story)	The United States Copyright office begins its required review of the effects of the anti-circumvention portions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act on November 2nd. This review period lasts until December 1, 2005. They will be accepting your well-thought-out opinions on the web and by mail. If you're reasonably ticked that you can't legally get around encrypted files to get at the media you've bought, start writing a coherent stance for the USCO today.
Patents vs. Secrecy (Click for story)	New Scientist is reporting that the NSA appears to be having its patent applications increasingly blocked by the Pentagon. From the article: 'the fact that the Pentagon is classifying things that the NSA believes should be public is an indication of how much secrecy has crept into government over the past few years.'
Behind the Fight to Control the Internet (Click for story)	The battle over control of the Internet and ICann (previously slashdotted here and here) gets placed in broader context in the Wall Street Journal. The article explains the role of ' other nations' discomfort with the U.S. as the world's only superpower, unafraid of taking unilateral action,' a fear intensified by the U.S.'s move to halt the introduction of .xxx domains for pornography sites. In a related column, Frederick Kempe opens the floor for a debate between the diplomat leading talks for the U.S., and the former journalist from Luxembourg leading the effort to move the Internet away from U.S. control. 'Today, in a globalized world in which the Internet has become a global resource for freedom of expression and for economic exchange, this monopolistic oversight of the Internet by one government is no longer a politically tenable solution,' Viviane Reding says. Kempe also suggests ways the two sides can split the difference.
PHP Succeeding Where Java Has Failed (Click for story)	Web browser pioneer Marc Andreessen recently announced his prediction that PHP will be more popular than Java for building web-based applications ." From the article: "Wooing programmers is nothing new in the computing industry, where players constantly jockey to establish their products as an essential foundation. Indeed, many credit Microsoft's success to its highly regarded programming tools, which make it easier for developers to write software that run on Windows. PHP has caught on widely. About 22 million Web sites employ it, and useage is steadily increasing. About 450 programmers have privileges to approve changes to the software. Major companies that employ PHP include Yahoo, Lufthansa and Deutsche Telekom's T-Online." Meanwhilie, Piersky writes "Zend has announced its rival to .NET and J2EE, with the Zend PHP Framework. In a press release, they stated that it will be 'A Web application framework which will standardize the way PHP applications are built. The Zend PHP Framework will accelerate and improve the development and deployment of mission-critical PHP Web applications'. This will for part of Zend's PHP Collaboration Project
M.I.T. Explains Why Bad Habits Are Hard to Break (Click for story)	CNET News.com says habitual activity (e.g., smoking, eating fatty foods, gambling, etc.) changes neural activity patterns in a specific region of the brain when habits are formed. These neural patterns created by habit can be changed or altered. But when a stimulus from the old days returns, the dormant pattern can reassert itself, according to a new study from the M.I.T., putting an individual in a neural state akin to being on autopilot... The neural patterns get established in the basal ganglia, a brain region critical to habits, addiction and procedural learning.
Cell Phones Learn to Recognize Their Owners' Faces (Click for story)	Oki Electric this week began marketing a technology that inexpensively adds face recognition to camera-equipped cell phones . Oki's 'Face Sensing Engine' middleware decodes facial images within 280 milliseconds on a 100 MHz ARM9 processor, and can restrict access to mobile devices by recognizing their owners. Its purpose is to safeguard sensitive personal data -- such as email addresses and phone numbers -- in the event of loss or theft of their devices. The technology works by locating and mapping key facial features -- such as eyes, eyebrows, and mouth -- and adapts to changing facial conditions such as winking and smiling, according to Oki.
Florida DUI Law and Open Source (Click for story)	A Florida court this Friday will hear arguments in a case where the accuracy of a breathalyzer is being scrutinized because the manufacturer refuses to release the source code. A state court ruling last year said that accused drunk drivers are entitled to receive details about the inner workings of the "mystical machine" that determined their guilt, and defense attorneys are now using that ruling to open up the device's source code.Is this part of a larger trend? With software bugs being a fact of life, consumers and organizations could claim that they need to be able to verify an application's source code before they accept that their calculations are accurate. Think credit card transactions, speed detecting radar guns, electronic voting machines..."
Broadband from Airships (Click for story)	The BBC reports that researchers looking to the skies to provide super-fast internet access via airships have proved it can successfully operate a data rate link of 11Mbps. Trials were conducted using a 12,000 cubic metre balloon, flying at an altitude of around 24 kilometres for nine hours. 'Proving the ability to operate a high data rate link from a moving stratospheric balloon is a critical step in moving towards the longer term aim of providing data rates of 120Mbps,' said Dr David Grace, the project's principal scientific officer. 'Balloons hovering in the stratosphere could become an attractive alternative as consumers demand ever higher bandwidth", said Alan Gobbi, the acting manager of the York Electronic Centre. With each airship being able to support an area of 60 kilometres, there would only need to be "a handful" to offer complete coverage in the UK, he added. Trials of the technology will continue in Japan next year.'
Rural Oregon Leads the Way for Large-Scale WiFi (Click for story)	While cities and incumbent telecommunications operators are fighting it out over municipal WiFi, it looks like rural Oregan is leading the way for large-scale deployments of WiFi and WiMax." The privately funded $5 million dollar wireless network services a modest 700 square miles and seems to be the only show in town.
Royal Society Issues IP Charter (Click for story)	The Economist and the Guardian both have stories about the release of the Adelphi Charter – an international blueprint for how intellectual property should be made – by Britain's Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce. The Economist says "The Adelphi group are a varied crew ranging from Gilberto Gil, the Brazilian culture minister (and pop star) to Sir John Sulston, a Nobel-winning scientist who helped decode the human genome, and James Boyle, a law professor at Duke University. They believe that the intellectual-property system is starting to lean so far in favor of private enrichment that it no longer serves the public interest." The charter calls for evidence-based policy, and a balance between rights protection and the public domain. It also condemns business method and software patents.
Meet The Life Hackers (Click for story)	The New York Times Magazine has a fascinating article dissecting all of the myriad ways that people are distracted from their computers in the workplace, and 'how hi-tech devices affect our behavior.' From the article: 'Information is no longer a scarce resource - attention is. David Rose, a Cambridge, Mass.-based expert on computer interfaces, likes to point out that 20 years ago, an office worker had only two types of communication technology: a phone, which required an instant answer, and postal mail, which took days. "Now we have dozens of possibilities between those poles," Rose says. How fast are you supposed to reply to an e-mail message? Or an instant message? Computer-based interruptions fall into a sort of Heisenbergian uncertainty trap: it is difficult to know whether an e-mail message is worth interrupting your work for unless you open and read it - at which point you have, of course, interrupted yourself.' What could be done to change computing to help mitigate this multitasking?
National Academies on U.S. Science (Click for story)	National Academies, the nation's 'leading science advisory group', is warning of the continued loss of America's competitive edge with regards to science in the global community. In a press release they call for the immediate increase of teachers and advanced research and development, citing that 'in 2001 U.S. industry spent more on tort litigation than on research and development.' The Committee includes, among others, Intel's Craig 'Don't Call Us Benedict Arnold CEOs' Barrett.
IBM Donates Parts of Rational to Open Source (Click for story)	IBM has decided to contribute portions of the Rational Unified Process to the Eclipse Foundation. From the article: 'RUP is a vast collection of methods and best practices for promoting quality and efficiency throughout software development projects. IBM's donation will also provide a foundation architecture and Web-based tools for the industry to engineer, collaborate on, share and reuse software development best practices.'
The Future of Videogame Aesthetics (Click for story)	Here's another look at the 'Realism vs Style' debate. David Hayward, a level designer involved with UT2004 mod Alien Swarm, among others, has written an interesting essay on the aesthetics of videogames, suggesting that, similar to other art forms, the peak of realism in computer games might also be a plateau that acts as precursor to wider experimentation: "We've come a long way since the flint-carved figures of early 3D games, but there's still progress to make before we're producing the game equivalent of sixteenth century marbles. Though it makes for a myopic obsession when compared to the vastness of the picture plane, photo-realism is nonetheless a worthwhile technological achievement to aim for, because it is through this that games will attain the sensation of a lucid dream."
Holding Developers Liable For Bugs (Click for story)	According to a ZDNet report, Howard Schmidt, ex-White House cybersecurity advisor, thinks that developers should be held personally liable for security flaws in code they write . He doesn't seem to think that writing poor code is entirely the fault of coders though: he blames the education system. He was speaking in his capacity as CEO of a security consulting firm at Secure London 2005. Seems to me they are aiming too low here. What if the code is to spec, but the design was wrong? I would rather see the companies held responsible. That will give an incentive to provide the support / tools / time to do the job right.
Make Banks Responsible for Phishers (Click for story)	Writing for Wired News, security guru Bruce Schneier says that the only way to stop phishers and identity thieves is to make financial institutions solely responsible : "Push the responsibility -- all of it -- for identity theft onto the financial institutions, and phishing will go away. This fraud will go away not because people will suddenly get smart and quit responding to phishing e-mails, because California has new criminal penalties for phishing, or because ISPs will recognize and delete the e-mails. It will go away because the information a criminal can get from a phishing attack won't be enough for him to commit fraud -- because the companies won't stand for all those losses."
Google Declares War on Microsoft (Click for story)	According to an article in The Inquirer, 'Google has confirmed that it will launch free spreadsheet and word-processing software online and take on Microsoft in one of its biggest markets. Under the deal, Google will allow web users to access Sun's OpenOffice from a toolbar.'" This is full confirmation of a story from Tuesday. Forbes thinks this isn't anything to write home about, while InfoWorld disagrees.
Sony Doing An End Run Around Its Own DRM (Click for story)	According to a story at CNN, Sony has an odd response to complaints from fans who have discovered they cannot import their CD content to an iPod. Individuals who complain to Sony BMG about iPod incompatibility are being directed to a Web site that provides information on how to work around the technology. In short, some labels appear to have been instructing customers how to defeat DRM -- which, IIRC, is a violation of DMCA." From the article: "For now, the copy-protected discs work only with software and devices compatible with Microsoft Windows Media technology. Apple -- the dominant player in digital music -- has resisted appeals from the labels to license its FairPlay DRM for use on the copy-protected discs. The DRM initiatives are generating complaints from fans, many of whom own iPods. The message boards of artist fan sites and online retailers are filled with complaints from angry consumers who did not realize they were buying a copy-protected title until they tried to create music files on their home computers. (This illustrates yet again how copy protection hurts sales rather than helps.) Also notice that Sony's instructions has you install their DRM on your computer.
Wireless Positioning (Click for story)	This Intel-written whitepaper introduces a way to determine location with the aid of freely accessible, nearby radio sources, such as fixed Bluetooth devices, 802.11 access points, and GSM cell towers. Basically, the device reads the IDs of these local 'radio beacons' (each of which has a unique or semi-unique ID), looks up their positions in a locally-cached database, and performs a computation akin to triangulation. Intel created Place Lab in an effort to satisfy the emerging requirement for location-awareness within mobile devices such as smartphones, PDAs, and laptops, or even moving vehicles. According to the whitepaper, over four million of the required radio beacons have already been mapped.
Reuse Engineering for SOA (Click for story)	In most development organizations, software reuse occurs on a regular basis in at least an ad hoc manner. Code is shared across projects in an informal manner. SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) provides the mechanism for more formal reuse. So what are the issues? This article examines some of the challenges associated with the creation and usage of reusable services.
Sorry, Wrong Wiretap (Click for story)	CNN is covering a little-mentioned Inspector General's report which mentions that the FBI 'sometimes gets the wrong number when it intercepts conversations in terrorism investigations' due to various reasons, and that 'The FBI could not say Friday whether people are notified that their conversations were mistakenly intercepted or whether wrongly tapped telephone numbers were deleted from bureau records.'
Google's Patents Reveal Strategy To Beat Microsoft (Click for story)	According to 'The Google Legacy,' history is about to repeat itself. From the article: 'Microsoft today is where IBM was years ago. And Google is in a position to do to Bill Gates what he did to IBM. The result could be a new industry kingpin. Arnold, author of The Google Legacy, said in an interview this week that it appears that Microsoft doesn't understand Google in much the same way that IBM didn't understand Microsoft 20 years ago. "It will be the Googleplex from 2004 to 2020 - a network paradigm," said Arnold. "It will be enabled by Google's approach to innovation."'
BBC Commentator Goes After Software Licensing (Click for story)	Bill Thompson, a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital, criticizes current software licenses (including the GPL) for giving developers 'freedom from responsibility which would be considered wholly unacceptable in almost any other sphere of activity, public or private'." From the article: "A friend of mine is a children's writer. When she writes a non-fiction book she is typically asked to sign a contract that indemnifies the publisher against legal costs resulting from errors of fact in the book. If she was to suggest a school experiment that involved drinking sulphuric acid, because she'd confused it with acetic, then she'd be in big trouble. Yet I can't do anything when a company produces software that exposes my online banking details to any script kiddie with time to spare, because I've agreed a license that removes such liability.
Early AJAX Office Applications (Click for story)	Perhaps many, who viewed Zimbra presentation from yesterday, thought about other office-related applications they would like to see moved to the Web. Richard McManus on ZDNet provides a list of the currently available AJAX apps. Did you know there was AJAX word processor, AJAX spreadsheet, AJAX calendar, AJAX presentation-building software, AJAX e-mail client , AJAX note-taking software and some other interesting applications, which, deployed on your local server, do not need installation and "just work" in a browser window?
CA Sec. of State Panel on Open Source Elections (Click for story)	The Open Voting Consortium has announced that California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson is forming a panel to investigate using open source software in elections. Suggested Panel members include Security expert Bruce Perens and Python guru David Mertz who is associated with the sourceforge EVM2003 voting machine project. This is big since a favorable outcome could help fund prototypes of true open source election equipment and systems.
Tech Geezers vs. Young Bloods (Click for story)	Robert Mitchell talks about how technology is dividing him from younger generations: "The technologies I've watched grow have shaped an entire culture of which I am not a part." Adds Dinosaur: "Ask them [members of the younger generation] HOW the things work, and they have no idea. They are really riding on the backs of the 'old folks' like us that built the goodies they enjoy."
Palm's Mistakes (Click for story)	Mike Singer has an article at ZDNet called Five reasons for Palm's slide which describes succinctly how Palm went from owning the palmtop platform -- OS and apps -- to getting chopped into pieces (some recently sold to a Japanese firm), using an OS from Microsoft and teaming up with Microsoft. The author claims, among other things, that Palm's stuff never worked well enough with Windows (while the RIM Blackberry did), which ultimately allowed Windows Mobile to eliminate them. A hard fall for a company that really did innovate.
Why Students Are Leaving Engineering (Click for story)	A former engineering major has written an interesting article explaining why he thinks many smart students are not studying engineering anymore." Many business leaders have commented on the lack of engineers and several companies have even started initiatives to help bolster our diminishing ranks. Will these measures be enough, or does the system require much more drastic measures?
Too Many Passwords (Click for story)	A survey of 1700 technology end users in the United States released today reveals some interesting findings about password management habits. 'The results suggest that having to juggle multiple passwords causes users to compensate with risky security techniques and creates a drain on productivity by taxing the resources of IT support centers.' Further, corporate requirements of frequent password replacement further exacerbates the toll on human memory. Is the solution a master password, with all of the potential problems that represents, or biometrics, or are we stuck with post-it notes and a call to the help desk?
Keeping the Lights On (Click for story)	IBM article examining the role that older workers, experienced with legacy systems, should play in system maintenance . From the article: "Many enterprises still execute critical business operations ... via older software systems that run on large, mainframe computers rather than individual PCs. To meet changing business needs, these companies continually update, extend, and integrate their systems. Paradoxically, many of these companies also have policies that threaten the single greatest source of knowledge about their older systems: their most senior personnel. Although the aging workforce represents a vast pool of talent and experience, these businesses neither actively recruit senior workers nor provide incentives to retain those on staff.1 Instead, they mistakenly assume that they can hire younger, lower-paid people to perform the same tasks.
NSF Reports No Geek Shortage (Click for story)	The NSF's report titled 'Graduate Enrollment in Science and Engineering Programs Up in 2003, But Declines for First-Time Foreign Students' (a pdf of the report released for the first time last month) is now available online. In an analysis of the report, Edwin S. Rubenstein of ESR Research states of these latest figures: '4.2 percent of science and engineering PhDs work outside their field of training, chiefly for financial reasons. This further weakens corporate America's claim of a shortage of high-tech workers.'" Interesting to see how things have changed since then.
Why Vista Had To Be Rebuilt From Scratch (Click for story)	The Wall Street Journal has a long front-page article describing how Jim Allchin approached Bill Gates in July, 2004, with the news that then-Longhorn, now-Vista, was 'so complex that its writers would never be able to make it run properly.' Also, the article says, 'Throughout its history, Microsoft had let thousands of programmers each produce their own piece of computer code, then stitched it together into one sprawling program. Now, Mr. Allchin argued, the jig was up. Microsoft needed to start over.' And start over they did. The article is astonishing for its frank comments from the principles, including Allchin and Gates, as well as for its description of Microsoft's cowboy spaghetti code culture.
Better Web Apps With Ajax (Click for story)	an article on IBM's site detailing the fundamentals of Java-based Ajax. From the article: "This article gives you a good understanding of the fundamental principles of Ajax, and a nuts-and-bolts knowledge of the client and server side components that participate in an Ajax interaction. These are the building blocks of a Java-based Ajax Web application. In addition, you will be shown some of the high-level design issues that come with the Ajax approach.
Creating Artificial Proteins (Click for story)	By examining how proteins have evolved, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have been able to design genes to create artificial proteins . The researchers have discovered a set of simple "rules" that nature appears to use to design proteins. By feeding these rules into a computer program, they were able to obtain a sequence of artificial genes. These genes were then inserted into laboratory bacteria, producing the artificial proteins as expected.
Games Teaching the Basics of Programming (Click for story)	Wired is reporting that computer programmer Igor Kholodov has created a game designed to make learning the basics of programming fun. From the article 'The board game turns players into skiers who must race down a mountain in the quickest way possible. With each roll of the die, players must follow instructions that are similar to computer program codes. Using basic math, players have to figure out which paths are open to them and then decide the fastest way to the finish line.'
Computer Security Still Totally Inadequate (Click for story)	Several news sources are running articles detailing the lack of computer security on all platforms. Symantec foretells a dark future for Firefox and Mac users describing their security as a "false paradise". Kernel developer and Red Hat fellow, Allan Cox stated in his recent interview with O'Reilly that "even the best systems today are totally inadequate". He goes on to say that "We are still in a world where an attack like the Slammer worm, combined with a PC BIOS eraser or disk locking tool, could wipe out half the PCs exposed to the Internet in a few hours," Cox said. "In a sense we are fortunate that most attackers want to control and use systems they attack rather than destroy them."
Intelligence in the Internet Age (Click for story)	News.com takes a look at technology versus intelligence of the general population. From the article: 'Is technology making us smarter? Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?'
Anders Hejlsberg on C# 3.0 (Click for story)	Channel9 has a video of Anders Hejlsberg demoing C# 3.0. The new language enhancements include implicitly typed locals, extension methods, strongly-typed lambda expressions, anonymous types, and LINQ - a builtin SQL-like syntax for data access. The spec, samples and a working compiler can be found on MSDN.
Game Scripting With Python (Click for story)	There is very interesting article about game scripting with Python over at Sylphis3d.com. It talks about how game engines should be structured as operating systems with actors being the processes. The proposed design is based on a special version of Python called Stackless and already successfully implemented in their own Sylphis3D game engine .
When Will E-Books Become Mainstream? (Click for story)	IBM developerWorks is running an interesting article dicussing the difficulties faced by e-books and what it might take to help them to 'break out'. What are some other ways to give books a 21st-century facelift?
Microsoft Employees Critical Of Their Employer (Click for story)	BusinessWeek is running an article on internal unrest at Microsoft from their own employees. 'Once the dream workplace of tech's highest achievers, it is suffering key defections to Google and elsewhere... Much of the sharpest criticism comes from within. Dozens of current and former employees are criticizing -- in BusinessWeek interviews, court testimony, and personal blogs -- the way the company operates internally.' In related news, Steve Ballmer has pledged to make changes inside Microsoft to avoid the embarrassingly long development cycle of Vista, including a 'revamping of the engineering and the processes.' Is it too late?
IBM Training Employees To Leave IBM? (Click for story)	IBM just launched a new program that will encourage some employees to earn teaching certificates and degrees . IBM will help defray the costs of these new degrees. With those newly earned degrees, the IBM employee would then become a 'former' IBM employee who moves onto a career as a public school math or science teacher. While it seems odd that IBM would encourage employees to switch careers, the point is that IBM is trying to help offset an expected shortage in the number of math and science teachers in the United States." From the article: "While many companies encourage their employees to tutor schoolchildren or do other things to get involved in education, IBM believes it is the first to guide workers toward switching into a teaching career. The company expects older workers nearing retirement to be the most likely candidates, partly because they would have more financial wherewithal to take the pay cut that becoming a teacher likely would entail.
Plotting the Revolution's Arc (Click for story)	This is an opinion article by Zonk (an editor from SlashDot) on the new Nintendo: Very few things surprise me about videogames anymore. I won't claim to be all-knowing by any means, but there are very few genuine surprises these days. Release dates are known well in advance, endless features and interviews are conducted with developers during the course of a game's creation, and what few elements that publishers try to keep under wraps get leaked to the media by individuals wanting their moment in the sun. Even the big gaming news stories of this past year (Hot Coffee, the PS3 PreRendered Movie Debate) were more frustrating than surprising. Happily, Nintendo managed to pull a rabbit out of their hat. Today's announcement of exactly what the revolution behind the Revolution will be is nothing short of a showstopper. Read on for my reaction to Nintendo's new bid for the brass ring.
The Law of Unintended Consequences: Patents (Click for story)	Fortune has an interesting article about the relationship between patent law and innovation. It compares the biotech industry with the computer industry and discusses the effects of the Bayh-Dole amdendment, which has allowed universities to make a lot of cash. But in the process innovation and scientific collaboration seem to have been stifled.
Video Game Industry to Sue Michigan's Governor (Click for story)	A news release at Warcry writes that the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) plans on filing suit in Michigan to overturn the recent Violent Games Act. From the article: 'The ESA argues that this bill is an effort to substitute the government's judgment for parental supervision and turn retailers into surrogate parents. Lowenstein said that the industry's products were being unreasonably and unfairly singled out. He contends that while there is no question that a few games have content that some audiences will find offensive, the same can be said for some content in TV, films, music, and books. Since the government does not regulate the sales of those entertainment industries, it should follow suit for the sale of video games. Ultimately, he concluded, parents, not government or industry, must be the gatekeepers of what comes in the home.'
Behind The Development Of The iPod nano (Click for story)	A Time Magazine article on the behind-the-scenes development of the iPod nano reveals that development work began just nine months ago, when the iPod mini was still a top-seller. Every internal component was redesigned and packed into every millimeter of the space inside. Famed Apple designer Jonathan Ives spent months on the tiniest of details, like the laser-etching of the logo and the roughness of the clickwheel compared to the smoothness of the rest of the exterior. 'I know you're not going to consciously find these details particularly appealing," says Ives, 'but I think it's the fact that we've worried about all of them that makes the product so precious.'
The Next 50 Years of Computer Security (Click for story)	An informative interview with Linux guru Alan Cox, with an emphasis on Linux and security. Alan will be the keynote speaker at EuroOSCON this October." From the article: "It is beginning to improve, but at the moment computer security is rather basic and mostly reactive. Systems fail absolutely rather than degrade. We are still in a world where an attack like the slammer worm combined with a PC BIOS eraser or disk locking tool could wipe out half the PCs exposed to the internet in a few hours. In a sense we are fortunate that most attackers want to control and use systems they attack rather than destroy them.
International Call for Open Standards (Click for story)	The New York Times is carrying a report urging nations to adopt open-information technology standards as 'a vital step to accelerate economic growth, efficiency and innovation'. Sponsored by The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, it also points out that 'open technology standards - the digital equivalent of a common gauge for railroad tracks - are not the same thing as open-source software. Open source is a development model for software in which code is freely shared and improved by a cooperative network of programmers'. This leaves room for companies willing to accept standards, but closes the door to companies unwilling to play nice.
Berners-Lee Says Internet Will Make Kids Creative (Click for story)	Tim Berners-Lee is interviewed about how on-line life will make our children more creative than us. He makes various points and predictions about what the internet will do.
Massachusetts Explains Legal Concerns for Open Documents (Click for story)	ZDNet is running a story that sheds new light on the decision by Massachusetts to switch to open formats for the commonwealth's official documents. This issue has previously been discussed on Slashdot, first The Massachusetts Office Party and then Microsoft Lashes out at Massachusetts IT Decision . From the article: 'Eric Kriss, Secretary of Administration & Finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, told CRN on Friday that Massachusetts had concerns about the openness of Microsoft XML schemas as well as with potential patent issues that could arise in the future.' The article also quotes a Microsoft executive on further reason that Microsoft's upcoming Office 12 will not support OpenDocument.
Valve's Gabe Newell Speaks on Console Development (Click for story)	Gabe Newell, of Valve fame, criticizes Microsoft and Sony on how difficult it will be for next-gen developers to produce games on their upcoming hardware. He is especially critical of Sony's model, where code written to run on Cell will be very hard to port to other systems, and vice versa. Will this bring upon a new era of PC Game superiority? Only time will tell. In the meantime, Newell says he slow death at the hands of anti-piracy efforts. From the article: 'The danger remains invisible to most, hidden by the zeal of a war on piracy. And that is how the public domain may die a quiet death, extinguished by self-righteous extremism, long before many even recognize it is gone.'
New Algorithm for Learning Languages (Click for story)	U.S. and Israeli researchers have developed a method for enabling a computer program to scan text in any of a number of languages, including English and Chinese, and autonomously and without previous information infer the underlying rules of grammar. The rules can then be used to generate new and meaningful sentences. The method also works for such data as sheet music or protein sequences.
IBM Reports Indicate Linux TCO Is Lower (Click for story)	Information Week reports that two research reports sponsored by IBM argue that Linux is less expensive to buy and operate than Windows or Unix. The first, a Robert Frances Group study, concluded: 'Linux is 40% less expensive than a comparable x86-based Windows server and 54% less than a comparable Sparc-based Solaris server. The Linux server's costs were $40,149, compared with $67,559 for Windows and $86,478 for Solaris.' The second, a Pund-IT report, titled 'Beyond TCO--The Unanticipated Second Stage Benefits Of Linux,' indicates that 'Linux is enormously popular among IT staff members, many of whom are at the beginning of their careers, as well as with IT educators in universities and technical institutions worldwide.' This has resulted in Linux playing a significant role in the recruitment and retention of IT staff and managers.
Death to the Games Industry (Click for story)	Greg Costikyan has an article up on The Escapist railing against the current state of the industry. Bigger budgets, obese publishers, and creatively dead franchises that continue to see publishing are snuffing out the opportunity for innovation in an increasingly mainstream market. From the article: "For the sake of the industry, for the sake of gamers who want to experience something new and cool, for the sake of developers who want to do more than the same-old same-old, for the sake of our souls, we have to get out of this trap. If we don't, as developers, all we will be doing for the rest of eternity is making nicer road textures and better-lit car models for games with the same basic gameplay as Pole Position. Spector is right. We must blow up this business model, or we are all doomed. What do we want? What would be ideal? A market that serves creative vision instead of suppressing it. An audience that prizes gameplay over glitz. A business that allows niche product to be commercially successful - not necessarily or even ideally on the same scale as the conventional market, but on a much more modest one: profitability with sales of a few tens of thousands of units, not millions. And, of course - creator control of intellectual property, because creators deserve to own their own work.
New Data Center Standard (Click for story)	the Telecommunications Industry Association (the people who brought you the CAT standards for unshielded twisted pair cabling) recently published a 148 page document meant to standardize the design considerations for every single aspect of a data center. The standard covers everything from site selection to rack mounting methods
Flash EULA Doesn't Fit the Times (Click for story)	The latest Flash player license seems to forbid downloading their player onto a laptop. From the License: "you may not use the Software on any non-PC product or any embedded or device versions of the above operating systems, including, but not limited to, mobile devices, internet appliances, set top boxes (STB), handhelds, PDAs, phones, web pads, tablets, game consoles, TVs, DVDs, gaming machines, home automation systems, kiosks or any other consumer electronics devices or mobile/cable/satellite/television or closed system based service." This comes at a time when laptops are outselling desktops. And to add insult to injury, "You agree that Macromedia may audit your use of the Software ... In the event that such audit reveals any use of the Software by you other than in full compliance with the terms of this Agreement, you shall reimburse Macromedia for all reasonable expenses related to such audit.
Google Seeks to Develop Parallel Internet? (Click for story)	As reported on On the Media and Business 2.0, Google appears to be purchasing dark (unused) fiber optic cable across the United States with the intention of building its own alternative parallel internet that would presumably be called GoogleNet. Possessing such a thing could allow Google to offer internet access in the form of free wifi or other means and create a powerful captive marketing audience which Google could monopolize. Outside of these marketing opportunities, such a development in infrastructure could help reduce Google's long-term content delivery costs were it to take on more bandwidth-intensive activities in the future.
Spyware Maker Indicted on Hacking Charges (Click for story)	The San Diego Union-Tribune is reporting that Carlos Enrique Perez Melara, the author of an investigative tool called 'Lover Spy,' has been indicted on 35 counts of federal hacking violations. This begs the question: if you develop and sell a software product, are you responsible for what your users choose to do with it?" From the article: "Perez, a native of El Salvador, probably is in the Los Angeles area, said Stewart Roberts, the second highest-ranking agent at the San Diego FBI office. Crime Stoppers has offered a $1,000 reward. Perez is charged with 35 crimes, each of which carries a potential five-year prison sentence if he is convicted.
Locked-Out Journalists Turn To Podcasting (Click for story)	An Interesting Canadian Press article is up on the Macleans website discussing locked out union journalists podcasting to stay on the air . The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation locked out 5,500 unionized employees Aug. 15 over a contract dispute. Most of those walking the picket line are radio, TV and internet journalists and technicians. In the last few days, they've been cranking out podcasts - locked out folks in Fredericton, New Brunswick; Regina, Saskatchewan; Vancouver, British Columbia and other cities have all participated. Some have 'real news', music and interviews. Others are more propaganda-like. A whole batch of them are at www.cbcunplugged.com.
Growth in Indian Offshoring Slowing (Click for story)	CNN/Money is reporting that high wages are causing some software companies to look to other countries for outsourcing, including Eastern Europe and several other SE Asian countries. Gartner Research believes a drop of 45% in India's share could happen in the next two years. Is this the beginning of the end of the dominance of India in the tech offshoring market?
Google's Turn To Be The Villain (Click for story)	The New York Times has an article titled "Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain" (also evil but at least free registration required) According to the article, the "go-getting" attitude of Google is coming across as arrogance to many people in the Valley. More importantly, it draws attention to the fact that Google has drained the market of talent, caused a 25% to 50% hike in salaries and made it difficult for startups to get funding.
College Libraries Without Books (Click for story)	CBS News is reporting that books are a thing of the past at a University of Texas library this fall. The University will be converting the library to a 'social gathering place more akin to a coffeehouse.' This push is done in response to the increasing use of online research as a part of undergraduate studies. According to the article the missing books will be replaced by "colorful overstuffed chairs for lounging, barstools for people watching, and booths for group work. In addition to almost 250 desktop computers, there will be 75 laptops available for checkout, wireless Internet access, computer labs, software suites, a multimedia studio, a computer help desk and repair shop, and a cafe.
More Students Prefer Interdisciplinary to CS (Click for story)	With increased offshore outsourcing and continuing simplification of such tasks as writing a trivial application, Computer Science degrees are not as attractive for college students anymore, NYT finds. Students prefer interdisciplinary majors, where the programming skills are combined with solid scientific backgrounds in biotech, chemistry or business." From the article: "For students like Ms. Burge, expanding their expertise beyond computer programming is crucial to future job security as advances in the Internet and low-cost computers make it easier to shift some technology jobs to nations with well-educated engineers and lower wages, like India and China.
Open Source Guide For The Average PC User (Click for story)	The regular Yahoo! News feature Tech Tuesday this week is dedicated to open source software for the home user. Open source for all spells out the open source ideas for a regular PC user, while providing some helpful links to some popular software. The open source PC is a guide on most popular open source apps that would be common for a home user to have. Is open source for you? discusses shortcomings of open source software and cases when it's not recommended." From the article: "Never fear, counterculture types. You can still liberate the code, and experience many other perks, by becoming part of the open-source movement. With the steadily increasing number of open-source applications on the Web, there are more projects than ever to check out, covering nearl