One of the country's most popular video-sharing sites is among dozens being punished or shuttered for offering content the government says is pornographic, violent or a threat to national security. The elephant in the living room, Tibet, is not mentioned.
Scientists crunch the data sent back by the Cassini probe to determine that a large subterranean ocean is likely to exist. If it does, here's the big question: Can it support life?
According to a press-release from SlySoft, makers of the DVD-copying software AnyDVD HD, the BD+ anti-copying system used by BluRay disks has been cracked. BD+ has been held out as some kind of uncrackable answer to the DRM wars, and was cited by many pundits for BluRay's victory over HD-DVD in the recent format wars.
Richard Doherty of the Envisioneering Group will have to revise his
statement from July, 2007 regarding BD+: "BD+, unlike AACS which
suffered a partial hack last year, won't likely be breached for 10
years". It is worth mentioning that since he made that statement only
eight months have gone by.
Peer van Heuen, head of High-Definition technologies at SlySoft adds:
"Admittedly, we are not really so fast with this because actually we
had intended to publish this release already in December as promised.
However, it was decided for strategic reasons to wait a bit for the
outcome of the "format war" between HD DVD and Blu-ray. On top of
that, we first wanted to see our assumptions confirmed about the in
the meantime released BD+ titles regarding the BD+ Virtual Machine. We
are rather proud to have brought back to earth the highly-praised and
previously "unbreakable" BD+. However, we must also admit that the
Blu-ray titles released up to now have not fully exploited the
possibilities of BD+. Future releases will undoubtedly have a modified
and more polished BD+ protection, but we are well prepared for this
and await the coming developments rather relaxed". Van Heuen adds
jokingly: "The worst-case scenario then is our boss locks us up with
only bread and water in the company dungeon for three months until we
are successful again".
Science blogged PZ Myers, a sharp critic of creationism, was blocked from attending the premiere of Expelled, a creationist propaganda film. The ban apparent
ly came from the producer, who personally instructed the police to keep Myers out; however, Myers's family and guest were allowed to attend.
The irony? Myers's guest was Richard Dawkins, bestselling author of The God Delusion.
Link
The Hugo nominees for 2008 have been announced, and wotta list!
Best Novel
The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)
Brasyl by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor; Analog Oct. 2006-Jan/Feb. 2007)
The Last Colony by John Scalzi (Tor)
Halting State by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit)
The awesomely, Sovietly square Nexcopy USB200PC key duplicator will flash 20 USB sticks at once from a master key. Sounds like a useful tool for samizdata (see, for example, Cuba, where keys were used to spread videos of a suppressed congressional crisis), and it's going to look great on the scrapheap of history in a decade or so!
Link
(via OhGizmo)
markybob writes "Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 beta has been released. It features GNOME 2.22 and uses Linux kernel 2.6.24. Furthermore, it uses Firefox 3 beta 4, and PulseAudio is enabled by default. To ease the transition of Windows users, it includes Wubi, which allows users to install and uninstall Ubuntu like any other Windows application. It does not require a dedicated partition, nor does it affect the existing bootloader, yet users can experience a dual-boot setup almost identical to a full installation."
0321t_YouTube_awards And the winner for best music video: "Chocolate Rain." Tay Zonday morphed from an unknown musician to an Internet superstar who got booked on national TV shows... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:58 pm
Astronauts have been testing a new technique for repairing the fragile heat shield of the US space shuttle Endeavour. Like handymen caulking a bathtub, the two... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:42 pm
ArieKremen writes "Israeli Avraham Trakhtman, a Russian immigrant mathematician who had been employed as a night watchman, has solved the Road Coloring problem. First posed in 1970 by Benjamin Weiss and Roy Adler, the problem posits that given a finite number of roads, one should be able to draw a map, coded in various colors, that leads to a certain destination regardless of the point of origin. The 63-year-old Trakhtman jotted down the solution in pencil in 8 pages. The problem has real-world implementation in message and traffic routing."
Don’t you just hate it when you spend $1 billion building something, only to find out it’s obsolete within a decade? That’s the fate of semiconductor managers who have old manufacturing... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:00 pm
CANTON- Canton school superintendent John D'Auria will hold a forum at 7:30 p.m. April 9 at the Knights of Columbus hall, 500 Pleasant St. D'Auria will field questions about the proposed nearly $4.5 million override, class sizes and other matters in the school department. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:00 pm
Guests from Que Publishing and ESET will appear on radio talk show Let's Talk Computers. Que Publishing is a company of Pearson Education, the world's largest education publisher and a Pearson (NYSE: PSO) company. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:00 pm
No outrage? I beg to differ with letter writer Richard Riman. I think we are all outraged at the horrible things happening in our town. The Maureen Kenney debacle was just the conduit that moved people, some previously silent, into action. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:00 pm
SAN JOSE, Calif., March 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Privately held Ampro Computers Inc. today accepted an offer to be acquired by ADLINK Technology (6166 TT, "ADLINK"). Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:00 pm
HANSON -The board of health needs volunteers to help out in the event of a public health emergency. A training session will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Calvary Baptist Church in Hanson. For more information, call 781-293-3138 or 781-294-4201. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:00 pm
BRAINTREE VOICES " The schools are great. (Our students) do very well. " (c) 2008 Patriot Ledger, The; Quincy, Mass.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:00 pm
By ADAM RIGLIAN QUINCY - A water-and-sewer revenue shortfall will not be solved by raising rates, city councilors said. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:00 pm
By Mark Guydish, The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Mar. 21--PLYMOUTH -- The question: Who was the first to infer the existence of the Mid Atlantic Ridge? The answer: Matthew Fontaine Maury (what, you didn't know?). Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:00 pm
CANTON - Blue Hills Regional Technical Schools Continuing Education Program will sponsor an over-30 Men's Basketball program at 6 p.m. Mondays beginning March 24 at the school, 800 Randolph St. Also being offered is co-ed volleyball from 6 to 9 p.m., Tuesdays beginning March 25. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:00 pm
By Louis Llovio, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Mar. 21--Charles E. McCabe is a Venture Forum board member who helped create the network. Chief executive officers looking to make their companies bigger, but who have nowhere to turn for advice, might soon have role models. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:00 pm
An anonymous reader writes "In July 2007, Richard Doherty of the Envisioneering Group (BD+ Standards Board) declared: 'BD+, unlike AACS which suffered a partial hack last year, won't likely be breached for 10 years.' Only eight months have passed since that bold statement, and Slysoft has done it again. According to the press release, the latest version of their flagship product AnyDVD HD can automatically remove BD+ protection and allows you to back-up any Blu-ray title on the market."
I may be the only person who’s not become worshipful of Obama’s speech on race and religion and who finds it more disturbing the more I think about it. But then, I am. At its core, his speech... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 12:20 pm
Pickens brings news that researchers from Rice University have discovered that it's possible to store hydrogen inside buckyballs. Hydrogen can be an excellent power source, but it is notoriously difficult to store. The buckyballs can contain up to 8% of their weight in hydrogen, and they are strong enough to hold it at a density that rivals the center of Jupiter. "Using a computer model, Yakobson's research team has tracked the strength of each atomic bond in a buckyball and simulated what happened to the bonds as more hydrogen atoms were packed inside. Yakobson said the model promises to be particularly useful because it is scalable, that is it can calculate exactly how much hydrogen a buckyball of any given size can hold, and it can also tell scientists how overstuffed buckyballs burst open and release their cargo."
Scientists who conducted the most comprehensive survey to date of New Zealand's Antarctic waters were surprised by the size of some specimens found, including jellyfish with 12-foot... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:44 am
Flixwagon, one of the companies offering the ability to broadcast live on the internet from your mobile phone, has added the feature I’ve been wanting: a widget-player you can put on your blog or... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:20 am
I just realized that this year marks the 25th anniversary of the release of one of my favorite novels: Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale. Unlike most of Helprin's sometimes over-moralizing and politically-fueled... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:15 am
The mobile phone High Tech Computer (HTC) has been developing to run on the Android software from Google will be called "Dream," and it will have a large touchscreen and full QWERTY keypad, a person close... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:06 am
By Rachel Melcer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Mar. 21--Sigma-Aldrich Corp., in search of cutting-edge business opportunities, is making a strategic investment in Clayton-based Prolog Ventures, a life-science venture capital fund. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C. Mar. 21--RALEIGH -- An overwhelming majority of randomly selected businesses and apartment complexes have installed low-flow water devices, according to a news release from the city. In a report to the City Council on Tuesday, City Manager J. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
Henry, Dave and Matt Young of Peach Bottom and Dennis Milhoan, president of Lancaster Dairy Farm Automation in Lititz, recently were awarded 2008 Pacesetter Awards. Pennsylvania Dairy Stakeholders presents the awards to top promoters of the dairy industry. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By Tim Flach, The State, Columbia, S.C. Mar. 21--Lexington town leaders want to reduce clear-cutting of trees for new stores and offices. The plan is an effort to ensure natural buffers remain when commercial development abuts neighborhoods. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By Reid J. Epstein, Newsday, Melville, N.Y. Mar. 21--County Executive Steve Levy reiterated last night his call for federal and state lawmakers to help Suffolk fund major expansion of the county's sewer systems. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By Megan Hartley, The Baltimore Sun Mar. 21--The milkman is back in Baltimore. Some Mount Washington residents are getting dairy products delivered to their front door from a small Frederick County farm. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
Text of report in English by state-run North Korean news agency KCNA [KCNA headline: "Agricultural Workers Plant Trees"] Pyongyang, March 21 (KCNA) - Officials and members of the Union of Agricultural Workers of Korea planted trees at the arboretum around the Kumsusan Memorial Palace and in the Mangyongdae Revolutionary Site on Thursday. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
Text of report by Caribbean Media Corporation news agency website CASTRIES, St Lucia, CMC - Hotels on the island's north and east coasts were Thursday receiving a battering from huge waves caused by a deep low pressure weather system in the Atlantic. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
By Stephanie Innes, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson Mar. 21--A $1 million grant to The Nature Conservancy in Arizona is paying for the conservation of 9,500 acres along the Arizona-New Mexico border. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
Text of report by Caribbean Media Corporation news agency website BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC - The unusually high sea swells affecting the island were Thursday being blamed for the drowning of an elderly man at a beach on the outskirts of the capital. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Mar 2008 | 11:00 am
Verizon Wireless has snapped up most of the licenses in the prime segment of the US wireless spectrum in a record-breaking federal auction, the government said Thursday. Verizon won the coveted C-block... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 10:58 am
The results of the Australian Startup Carnival were announced Sunday, and as a judge I had the opportunity to review every entry. The carnival was entry based, so not every Australian startup was featured,... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 10:34 am
By Evan Ackerman Raising a fish is hard work. Comfish understands that “most people feel that the precise care of tropical fish is time consuming, requires expertise and is expensive and thus most... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 10:22 am
This week there was a new conference on the Web 2.0 block in Europe. Plugg saw investors and startups from across Europe come together to discuss the market and some 20 startups pitched their companies... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 10:11 am
Like handymen caulking a bathtub, two spacewalking astronauts squirted pink putty into deliberately damaged tile samples to test a new technique for repairing the space shuttle's fragile... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 9:55 am
Judging by a just-released Washington Post interview, ex-Fed chair Alan Greenspan has gone mad. There is an upside, of course, in that he just delivered the quote of the year so far. Here is Alan, talking... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 9:47 am
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Bruce Schneier has an essay on the mind of security professionals like himself, and why it's something that can't easily be taught. Many people simply don't see security threats or the potential ways in which things can be abused because they don't intend to abuse them. But security pros, even those who don't abuse what they find, have a different way of looking at things. They always try to figure out all the angles or how someone could beat the system. In one of his examples, Bruce talks about how, after buying one of Uncle Milton's Ant Farms, he was enamored with the idea that they would mail a tube of live ants to anyone you asked them to. Schneier's article was inspired by a University of Washington course in which the professor is attempting to teach the 'security mindset.' Students taking the course have been encouraged to post security reviews on a class blog."
CHICAGO, March 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Kent Displays announced today that several of its Reflex(TM) display products are showcased in the Chicago Museum of Science and... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 9:14 am
RESTON, Va., March 21, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) has renewed its Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI(R))... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 9:00 am
MADISON, Wis., March 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SAP America, Inc., a subsidiary of SAP AG (NYSE: SAP), today announced that radiation therapy system manufacturer... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 9:00 am
TORONTO, March 21 /PRNewswire/ - This Saturday, The Globe and Mail launches an unprecedented and revealing look inside the Taliban in Afghanistan. Who are they? Why are... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 8:30 am
BURLINGTON, Mass., March 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Zitgist LLC announced today that it has appointed Michael K. Bergman as its new CEO, effective immediately. The announcement... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 8:30 am
Alt-music interrogator Russell Porter has quite a following in the UK; his Porter Report videos chronicle culture with aggressive wit and offbeat charm. Today, the "professional chancer and well known layabout" joins us on Boing Boing TV for an interview with Rosa Rex and Katy Klaw, better known as the Blues / Rockabilly duo Peggy Sue and the Pirates. Mr. Porter ends with a wet offshore homage to "swimmin' with bowlegged wimmin."
Tibetans and their supporters around the world held vigils this week in support of the ongoing uprising in Tibet, as Chinese military and police jailed protesters inside Tibet, and reports of injuries and deaths continue.
Some of the vigil participants reported they were unable to connect with family and friends at home in Tibet, to check on their well-being, because of blocked telecommunications. Others (an exiled grandmother and her 11-year-old son, alike) spoke of being "glued to YouTube," straining to watch blurry phonecam videos of the demonstrations and violence.
"The Chinese government must immediately allow independent media access to all areas of Tibet," said the Tibetan Association's Kyulo. "We continue to hear eyewitness reports of house to house searches and arbitrary arrests in Lhasa and growing numbers of killings in Amdo, Kham, and other areas."
"Without the internet, we would have no information at all about what's going on inside of Tibet," said Tseten Phanucharas. "nor would this global movement in solidarity with the Tibetan people exist."
HOCKLEY, Texas, March 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Safe skin care is something that everyone is concerned with these days and for good reason. With ever-increasing exposure to... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 8:25 am
China has ordered more than two dozen video entertainment Web sites to shut down under new rules governing such sites, a broadcast regulator said on its Web site Friday. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 6:31 am
cortex tips us to a story about a nationwide effort to incorporate advanced technology into the next generation of prosthetic arms. Researchers for the DARPA-funded project are developing feedback techniques that range from sensors on the surface of the user's skin to electrodes implanted on the inside of the user's skull that intercept and interpret signals from the motor cortex. Quoting: "'Think about taking a sip from a can of soda,' Harshbarger says. The complex neural feedback system connecting a native limb to its user lets that user ignore an entire series of complicated steps. The nervous system makes constant automatic adjustments to ensure, for example, that the tilt of the wrist adjusts to compensate for the changing fluid level inside the can. The action requires little to no attention. Not so for the wearer of current prosthetic arms, for whom the act of taking a sip of soda precludes any other activity. The wearer must first consciously direct the arm to extend it to the correct point in space, then switch modes to rotate the wrist into proper position. Then he must open the hand, close it to grasp the soda can (not so weakly as to drop it but not so hard as to crush it), switch modes to bend the elbow to correctly place the can in front of his mouth, rotate the wrist into position, and then concentrate on drinking from the can of soda without spilling it."
The Onion's latest video segment -- a newscast from a future where humans are subservient to robots -- is not only uproariously funny, it's also a damned fine, top-notch piece of science fiction. More like this, please.
Link
(via Danger Room)
>
The Tor project was accepted into the Google Summer of Code program for 2008!
The Tor project is looking for a few good happy mutants. Are you a hacker interested in contributing to a successful open source project? Do you qualify for the GSOC? Are you interested in helping solve some of the practical issues a large and successful anonymity network faces?
It appears that many of the BB happy mutants enjoy Tor - Perhaps this is a good chance for a few good students to be paid to hack on the project!
Tor, of course, is The Onion Router, an anonymizing system for beating censoring firewalls like those in China, Syria and the Denver International Airport.
Link
(Thanks, Jacob!)
After hearing stories of trouble at airport security checkpoints related to Apple's newest laptop, TSA acquired one and x-rayed it. The TSA's "Blogger Bob" summarized that because the MacBook Air uses a solid state drive instead of a traditional hard drive, its internals look entirely different than any other laptop.
He also says that he cannot show the image of the x-ray of this laptop because that is sensitive information.
I'd love to see some rebellious x-ray technician pick up the slack and show us all what's so special.
In the followup comments, "Bob" says that he isn't sure if an X-ray of a MacBook Air would breach national security, but that someone would come along shortly to determine whether it is or isn't.
Link
(Thanks, Phil!)
Miro, the free/open Internet TV client, has just released a major update, going to 1.2. Miro combines BitTorrent (fast downloads), VLC (play any video format) and RSS (subscribe to video in "channels" and have new episodes downloaded directly to your desktop as they're published).
The idea is to create an open platform for enjoying video online, one that isn't owned by any company, one that anyone can produce video for -- to make video open like the web, not owned by any company. Basically, to make a Firefox for Internet video.
# On Windows and Linux, we updated to XULRunner 1.9, which brings memory and performance improvements.
# We’ve added a much-requested preference to set new channels to not auto-download.
# New preferences for tweaking number of simultaneous auto-downloads and torrent seeding.
# Important re-architecting of the frontend and backend code.
# Lots of bug fixes and tweaks.
# On OSX, we updated to Perian 1.1.
# On Windows, the Miro installer is now much simpler and prettier.
# Improved support for Flash in Channel Guide pages.
# Improved translations for dozens of languages.
(Disclosure: I am proud to volunteer as a board member for the non-profit Participatory Culture Foundation, a 501(c)3 charity that makes and publishes Miro)
wraith808 points out a story about remarks made by the CEO of software and game development company Stardock about sales in the PC game industry. His suggestion to other developers is simple: ignore the software pirates. From Ars Technica: "'So here is the deal: When you develop for a market, you don't go by the user base. You go by the potential customer base. That's what most software companies do. They base what they want to create on the size of the market they're developing for,' Wardell writes on his blog. 'But not PC game developers.' Don't let people who aren't your audience control the titles you make, and ignore piracy. This is much like Trent Reznor's strategy, although the execution is different. Instead of worrying about pirates, just leave the content out in the open. The market Reznor plays to will still buy the music; he's simply stopped worrying about the pirates. He came to the same conclusion: they weren't customers, they might never be customers, so spending money to try to stop them serves no purpose."
WASHINGTON - The two largest cellphone companies dominated bidding in a record-setting government airways auction, according to results released yesterday. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 4:00 am
Bain Capital of Boston has given up on a deal to take networking company 3Com Corp. private, after failing to satisfy a federal agency that the transaction wouldn't harm national security. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 4:00 am
mytrip brings us a story from news.com about an FBI operation in which agents posted hyperlinks which advertised child pornography, recorded the IP addresses of people who clicked the links, and then tracked them down and raided their homes. The article contains a fairly detailed description of how the operation progressed, and it raises questions about the legality and reliability of getting people to click "unlawful" hyperlinks. Quoting: "With the logs revealing those allegedly incriminating IP addresses in hand, the FBI sent administrative subpoenas to the relevant Internet service provider to learn the identity of the person whose name was on the account--and then obtained search warrants for dawn raids. The search warrants authorized FBI agents to seize and remove any "computer-related" equipment, utility bills, telephone bills, any "addressed correspondence" sent through the U.S. mail, video gear, camera equipment, checkbooks, bank statements, and credit card statements. While it might seem that merely clicking on a link wouldn't be enough to justify a search warrant, courts have ruled otherwise. On March 6, U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt in Nevada agreed with a magistrate judge that the hyperlink-sting operation constituted sufficient probable cause to justify giving the FBI its search warrant."
This winter, the armies of Yale invaded Massachusetts and conquered Harvard. Cornells troops turned Dartmouths militia into a vassal force. Columbia allied itself with Yale and occupied Long Island, before... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 1:35 am
Scientists can synthesize DNA from scratch and regularly add new genes to bacteria, plants and animals. It's not easy to distinguish our growing menageries of engineered organisms from natural ones, but a new method makes it possible -- for now. Commentary by Carl Zimmer.
That page listing the top ten Smurfs currently burning up the Digg front door has suddenly disappeared. What to do? Whether a web server is suffocating due to heavy traffic or the page you want has been deleted by its owner, our guide on Wired's How-To Wiki can help you find that lost content.
The two largest cellphone service providers Verizon Wireless and AT&T; won a greater swath of radio spectrum in the government auction that ended this week, heading off new competition that could... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 12:35 am
Two NASA astronauts left the International Space Station on Thursday evening to test techniques for repairing delicate shuttle tiles with a kind of orbital spackle. NASA has been looking for ways to... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 12:35 am
Because Titan, Saturns largest moon, is spinning faster than expected, there is likely a liquid ocean 50 or 60 miles below the surface, a team of scientists reported in Fridays issue of the journal Science... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 21 Mar 2008 | 12:35 am
Riding with Robots writes "NASA reports that by using data from the Cassini probe's radar, scientists established the locations of 50 unique landmarks on the surface of Saturn's planet-size moon Titan. They then searched for these same lakes, canyons and mountains in the data after subsequent Titan flybys. They found that the features had shifted from their expected positions by up to 30 kilometers. NASA says a systematic displacement of surface features would be difficult to explain unless the moon's icy crust was decoupled from its core by an internal ocean, making it easier for the crust to move. If confirmed, this discovery would add to the growing list of moons in the solar system that are icy on the outside and warm and liquid inside, providing potential habitats. We've previously discussed Titan's hydrocarbon lakes and potential cryovolcano."
Ian Lamont writes "The chair of Yale's CS department and Connecticut's former consumer protection commissioner are calling for the creation of a robust biometric authentication system on a national scale. They say the system would safeguard privacy and people's personal data far more effectively than paper-based IDs. They also reference the troubled Real ID program, saying that the debate has centered around forms of ID rather than the central issue of authentication. The authors further suggest that the debate has led to confusion between anonymity and privacy: 'Outside our homes, we have always lived in a public space where our open acts are no longer private. Anonymity has not changed that, but has provided an illusion of privacy and security. ... In public space, we engage in open acts where we have no expectation of privacy, as well as private acts that cannot take place within our homes and therefore require authenticating identity to carve a sphere of privacy.' The authors do not provide any suggestions for specific biometric technologies, nor do they discuss the role of the government in such a system. What do you think of a national or international biometrics-based authentication scheme? Is it feasible? How would it work? What safeguards need to be put in place?"
The iPhone might be ideally suited to giving doctors access to medical information and imagery like X-rays and CT scans, and the upcoming 2.0 release of the iPhone's firmware has business-friendly features that might endear it to hospital IT staffs too.
The iPhone might be ideally suited to giving doctors access to medical information and imagery like X-rays and CT scans, and the upcoming 2.0 release of the iPhone's firmware has business-friendly features that might endear it to hospital IT staffs too.
Additional publishers, hoping to recapture a chunk of national advertising lost to the internet, are joining a network started last month by the New York Times Co., Hearst, the Tribune Co. and Gannett.
> The Tor project was accepted into the Google Summer of Code program for 2008!
