Fat Reinvention - Bald Fat Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) A fat Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder may be enough to renew the stars tainted stardom.  Although Tom Cruise has fallen out of favor with his extreme Scientology beliefs, fans...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 1:59 pm

Daily Top 10 - Applegate, Tropic Thunder and Heath Ledger

(TrendHunter.com) Our daily Top 10 was driven by mega celeb telethons, including Christina Applegate and Jennifer Aniston.  Nose jobs, spoof posters and digital dress up were not too far behind...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 1:45 pm

Samsung Cell Phone Pin a Hot item in Beijing

When they're not watching their favorite athletes, Olympic fans are going crazy for pins which are being sold on the streets of Beijing. According to EDT, the unofficial Olympic sport, took off at...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 12:41 pm

China Mobile adds 7.11 mln new subscribers in July

China Mobile Ltd. announced on Aug. 20 it added 7.11 million new mobile phone subscribers in July this year, while China Unicom Ltd. said on Aug. 19 that it added 539,000 in the same period. [via China...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 12:29 pm

Apple tries to de-bug iPhone (USATODAY.com)

USATODAY.com - Apple (AAPL) acknowledged Tuesday that a software update for the iPhone partly fixes the connection snags that have caused a global firestorm for the new iPhone 3G.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Aug 2008 | 12:19 pm

Martin wants broadband across USA (USATODAY.com)

USATODAY.com - WASHINGTON - High-speed Internet access is so important to the welfare of U.S. consumers that America can't afford not to offer it - free of charge - to anybody who wants it, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin says.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Aug 2008 | 12:19 pm

States Throw Out Electronic Voting Machines

Davide Marney passes along an AP story about the thousands of voting machines gathering dust in warehouses across the country after states such as California, Ohio, and Florida have banned their use. Many of these machines cost $3.5K to $5K each. Local election boards are struggling to find ways to recover any of the cost of the machines, or even to recycle them. The picture in Ohio is the most confusing, as multiple court cases limit the state's options and result in a situation in which the discredited machines will nevertheless be used in the presidential election coming up in November. The state's new (Democratic) attorney general has just issued a rule banning the practice of election workers taking the machines home with them the night before elections.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 20 Aug 2008 | 12:16 pm

JavaFX looks to stake claim in RIA (InfoWorld)

InfoWorld - With its new JavaFX technology for rich Internet applications, Sun Microsystems hopes to leverage the strength of the Java development base and Java's ubiquitous presence on devices to make a strong run in a race in which it is a very late entrant.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Aug 2008 | 12:00 pm

Some eBay sellers frustrated with rule changes (AP)

AP - Some people who sell things on eBay are fed up with new rules the company has been imposing in hopes of making the auction site more attractive to online shoppers. Now even more changes are coming in the next few weeks, but this time eBay Inc. hopes it can cool tempers.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:48 am

Senators Obama, McCain Battle Over NASA Funding - DailyTech

OverTheLimit.info

Senators Obama, McCain Battle Over NASA Funding DailyTech - 45 minutes ago As Republican presidential hopeful John McCain (R, AZ) and Democrat Barack Obama (D, IL) trump across the nation trying to persuade Americans why they should get votes, Florida is again a battle state where both hopefuls are spending a lot of time and ... McCain Says Obama Flipped His Stance On NASA E Canada Now Obama backs $2 billion NASA funding United Press International Houston Chronicle - Washington Post - Florida Today - eFluxMedia all 55 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:45 am

Death of a Streamcaster Part Deux: Pandora Could "Pull the Plug - DailyTech

Ontario Now

Death of a Streamcaster Part Deux: Pandora Could "Pull the Plug DailyTech - 47 minutes ago “We're approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision,” says Pandora founder Tim Westergren in an interview with the Washington Post, regarding the livelihood of his online radio station living under a massive royalty hike imposed last year. Fees may sink Pandora CNET News Pandora: Last gasp for Internet radio can't be further prolonged BetaNews ZDNet - Washington Post - Ars Technica - CRN all 91 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:42 am

American 'Bigfoot' is monkey suit - BBC News

Telegraph.co.uk

American 'Bigfoot' is monkey suit BBC News - 48 minutes ago The claimed recent discovery of Bigfoot in the US state of Georgia has turned out to be a hoax - it was a rubber gorilla suit in a block of ice. Video: Bigfoot Claim Is Just a Big Hoax AssociatedPress California: Bigfoot? Just Rubber, Folks New York Times CNET News - San Jose Mercury News - San Francisco Chronicle - eFluxMedia all 690 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:42 am

Googlephone security team seeks bug hunters - Register

Canada.com

Googlephone security team seeks bug hunters Register - 51 minutes ago By John Leyden → More by this author Google's Android security team has appealed to bug hunters to help it iron out flaws in the platform. In memory of iPhone 3G InfoWorld Robotripping: hands on with the Android SDK beta Ars Technica CNET News - InformationWeek - ZDNet - PC Magazine all 258 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:38 am

YouNoodle In The News

The local ABC affiliate dropped by YouNoodle’s offices in San Francisco to get an idea of how useful their new startups valuation predictor is. ABC’s Sue Thompson interviewed CEO Bob Goodson...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:18 am

MIT Students Get Top Marks for Hacking Boston Subway - Wired News

Canada.com

MIT Students Get Top Marks for Hacking Boston Subway Wired News - 1 hour ago By Charlie Sorrel August 20, 2008 | 6:04:48 AMCategories: Hacks, Law, Security, Transportation In a story straight out of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, three MIT undergraduates concocted a scheme to hack Boston's transit payment system, ... Judge lifts fare card hack gag order, punts on 1st Amendment Ars Technica MIT students ungagged: Judge vacates gag order ZDNet Kansas City infoZine - CRN - Reuters - The Associated Press all 165 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:11 am

Ciber Sets Up Server and Storage Technology Center

Systems integrator Ciber has opened an IBM Business Partner Innovation Center in Mishawaka, Indiana.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:00 am

Apple Tries to De-Bug iPhone

By Edward C. Baig Apple acknowledged Tuesday that a software update for the iPhone partly fixes the connection snags that have caused a global firestorm for the new iPhone 3G.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:00 am

Gas Natural H1 Investments in Catalonia Reach E40 Million

Gas Natural has reported that it invested E40 million in the autonomous Spanish community of Catalonia in the first half of 2008, bringing supplies to three new municipalities, extending the network to new clients in towns which already have gas services, and renovating the existing distribution network.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:00 am

Globe7 Announces Strategic Partnership With New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd.

HONG KONG, Aug. 20 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Globe7 HK Ltd. and New Straits Times Press Bhd.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:00 am

IKANO Assists Service Organizations of All Types to Reduce Email Management Costs - Over 120,000 Internet Customers Migrated Into Google Apps(TM) Partner Edition

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:00 am

This Week's Business Press Poll Question

Log onto the Las Vegas Business Press Web site and let us hear your opinion on this week's question.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:00 am

New Way to Search, Convention-Watching Perch Highlight Net Notes

By Al Gibes Another new search engine, more on destroying hard drives and a better way to keep tabs on the Democrats during their Denver shindig highlight today's edition of Net Notes.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:00 am

China: More Than 50 Websites Blocked at Olympics Press Centre, Study Says

Text of press release published by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on 19 August New York, 19 August: Research published today by OpenNet Initiative says that more than 50 websites related to news, human rights, and pro-Tibet groups were blocked in Beijing and in the Olympics Main Press Centre as the Games were about to begin.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:00 am

IBM Upgrades InfoSphere Portfolio

IBM has upgraded its InfoSphere portfolio with the introduction of new versions of its IBM master data management software and InfoSphere Information Server.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:00 am

Finisar Corporation to Hold Analyst and Investor Meeting on October 7

Finisar Corporation (NASDAQ: FNSR), a technology leader in fiber optic solutions for high-speed networks, will host an Analyst and Investor Meeting on October 7, 2008, at The Metropolitan Club in New York City.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Aug 2008 | 11:00 am

Acorn Reports Second Quarter 2008 Financial Results

SHANGHAI, China, Aug. 20 /Xinhua-PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Acorn International, Inc. (NYSE: ATV) ("Acorn" or the "Company"), a leading integrated...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:30 am

Magpies Are Self-Aware

FireStormZ writes "Magpies can recognize themselves in a mirror, confounding the notion that self-awareness is the exclusive preserve of humans and a few higher mammals. It had been thought only four species of apes, bottlenose dolphins, and Asian elephants shared the human ability to recognize their own bodies in a mirror. But German scientists reported on Tuesday that magpies, a species with a brain structure very different from mammals, could also identify themselves. It had been thought that the neocortex brain area found in mammals was crucial to self-recognition. Yet birds, which last shared a common ancestor with mammals 300 million years ago, don't have a neocortex, suggesting that higher cognitive skills can develop in other ways."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:08 am

TransUnion's SmartMove Provides Independent Rental Owners With New Level of Risk Insight

New MySmartMove.com website to positively redefine renter-landlord interaction CHICAGO, Aug. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- TransUnion today announced the launch of SmartMove (
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:08 am

Surprise, VMware in ... - InternetNews.com

SYS-CON Media

Surprise, VMware in ... InternetNews.com - 2 hours ago By Richard Adhikari: More stories by this author: There are no permanent enemies in politics, just permanent interests, the truism goes; and this is apparently true in business as well. Microsoft slackens VM licensing rules Register Microsoft Lifts Licensing Restriction on Virtual Mobility New York Times InfoWorld - InformationWeek - PC Pro - BetaNews all 72 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:07 am

Do Sprinters Cheat, or Is 100m Sprint Performance a Jump Function?

Tonight I was re-watching Usain Bolt's recent world record 100m performance in the 2008 Olympics and it got me thinking about physiological limits and human performance trends. What are the limits to human...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:07 am

Intel's Nehalem Takes Center ... - InternetNews.com

Wall Street Journal

Intel's Nehalem Takes Center ... InternetNews.com - 2 hours ago By Andy Patrizio: More stories by this author: SAN FRANCISCO - Intel today offered a look inside its next generation of processors, the Nehalem family, with new details and demos during the Intel Developer Forum (IDF). Intel details new core chip line BBC News OQO Shows off Handheld Computer Based on Atom PC World CNET News - InformationWeek - Wall Street Journal - Register all 295 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:07 am

Princeton Review Security Flaw Outed By Competitor - InformationWeek

TechRadar.com

Princeton Review Security Flaw Outed By Competitor InformationWeek - 2 hours ago One file reportedly contained information about 34000 students and another contained names and birth dates of 74000 students. By Thomas Claburn The Princeton Review, an educational testing company, inadvertently exposed the personal data and test ... Students' records wind up on Web Sarasota Herald-Tribune Student files accidentally put on Web United Press International The News-Press - eSchool News - Dark Reading - TechRadar.com all 35 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:00 am

Enterprise 2.0: The Nature of the Firm

The break-up of behemoth, vertically integrated enterprises commenced in the 1970's, got a boost from junk bond financing in the 1980's, and accelerated in the 1990's with globalization. Now, late in the...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:00 am

RadioShack Corporation Names Phyllis Proffer Vice President - Investor Relations

FORT WORTH, Texas, Aug. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- RadioShack Corporation (NYSE: RSH) today announced that Phyllis Proffer has been named Vice President - Investor...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:00 am

One Network Delivers Multi-Enterprise Demand Driven Transportation Solution

Company migrates 2348 Companies and 5,400 users to enhanced Demand-Driven Transportation Solution DALLAS, Aug. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- One Network Enterprises, an innovator...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:00 am

Social Networks, Web 2.0 and Multi-Generational Workforce Centerstage at Second Annual Southern California Knowledge Management Forum in September

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- For CIOs, Chief Knowledge Officers, researchers and other professionals managing knowledge assets for their organization, the...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:00 am

IKANO Assists Service Organizations of All Types to Reduce Email Management Costs - Over 120,000 Internet Customers Migrated Into Google Apps(TM) Partner Edition

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- IKANO Communications, the nation's leading aggregator of IP services for Internet access providers of all types, officially...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:00 am

CareerBuilder.com Survey Shows How Astrology and Birth Order Factor Into Careers and Compensation

CHICAGO, Aug. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Are middle children more likely to program computers or fight fires? Do Scorpios or Capricorns belong to a higher earning bracket? A...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 10:00 am

Another day, another iPhone fix - Register

dBTechno

Another day, another iPhone fix Register - 2 hours ago By Bill Ray → More by this author Version 2.0.2 of firmware for Apple's iPhone was made available yesterday, offering improvements on 3G reception for some, but not fixing the crashing applications Steve is promising to sort by September. Iphone upgrade doesn't work Inquirer Steve Jobs says fix for crashing iPhone apps coming in Sept. Ars Technica Apple Insider - Computerworld - E Canada Now - BetaNews all 92 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 20 Aug 2008 | 9:59 am

HP posts 3Q profit jump; faces stiff competition (AP)

AP - Hewlett-Packard Co. weathered economic turbulence remarkably well in the fiscal third quarter but the technology bellwether faces another big challenge — stiffer personal-computer competition — that threatens to slow its steady growth.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Aug 2008 | 9:38 am

Ericsson, STMicro merge wireless chips (Reuters)

Reuters - Ericsson (ERICb.ST) and STMicroelectronics have agreed to join their wireless chip and software businesses to create a joint venture that will supply four of the world's top five cell phone makers.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Aug 2008 | 9:27 am

Phone a friend in exams

A Sydney girls' school is redefining the concept of cheating by allowing students to "phone a friend" and use the internet and i-Pods during exams. The Sydney Morning Herald reports. "Presbyterian Ladies'...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 9:03 am

7 Southern California men arrested in child porn investigation - Los Angeles Times

7 Southern California men arrested in child porn investigation Los Angeles Times - 3 hours ago The men are among 52 suspects charged with possessing or producing child pornography using computer networks to exchange graphic images and videos. Feds bust P2P-based kiddie porn ring ZDNet 55 men netted in 8-month Calif. child porn probe The Associated Press FOXNews - OCRegister - United Press International - NBC Sandiego.com all 279 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 20 Aug 2008 | 9:02 am

Article By Dr. Pradeep K. Mukherji Published on Leading Chinese Outsourcing Web Portal

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Aug. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Avasant, a leading global management solutions provider, today announced that an article titled "Next Wave of...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 9:00 am

Motorola Powers the First WiMAX Network in East Malaysia

The new wireless broadband network enables REDtone to quickly and cost- effectively expand its services in the region KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia, Aug. 20...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:30 am

Hopes fade for lost baby whale in Australia

A desperate baby whale abandoned by its mother was still trying to suckle from yachts in an Australian harbour Wednesday as last ditch efforts were being made to save it from death.
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:14 am

Why Corporates Hate Perl

Anti-Globalism recommends a posting up at O'Reilly's ONLamp on reasons that some companies are turning away from Perl. "[In one company] [m]anagement have started to refer to Perl-based systems as 'legacy' and to generally disparage it. This attitude has seeped through to non-technical business users who have started to worry if developers mention a system that is written in Perl. Business users, of course, don't want nasty old, broken Perl code. They want the shiny new technologies. I don't deny at all that this company (like many others) has a large amount of badly written and hard-to-maintain Perl code. But I maintain that this isn't directly due to the code being written in Perl. Its because the Perl code has developed piecemeal over the last ten or so years in an environment where there was no design authority.. Many of these systems date back to this company's first steps onto the Internet and were made by separate departments who had no interaction with each other. Its not really a surprise that the systems don't interact well and a lot of the code is hard to maintain."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:02 am

TSA puts commercial pilots on no-fly and terrorist watch lists

Here are a couple of accounts of commercial airline pilots, one of whom has been put on the TSA's no-fly list and the other is on the terrorist watch-list, for reasons that no one will disclose.

A Gulf War veteran and his wife say they've been unfairly placed on a federal list that limits their commercial flight access and threatens his job as a commercial pilot. To fight back, the couple, who are Muslim, filed a lawsuit today against a host of U.S. government agencies. "We don't know why they're on the list. They don't know why they're on the list. The government won't tell us why they're on the list," said Amy Foerster, an attorney with Saul Ewing, who is providing pro bono counsel and working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and the Schuylkill County couple on the case, which was filed in U.S. district court...

James Robinson is a retired Air National Guard brigadier general and a commercial pilot for a major airline who flies passenger planes around the country. James Robinson is a retired brigadier general and a commercial pilot. His name is on the terrorist "watch list."

He has even been certified by the Transportation Security Administration to carry a weapon into the cockpit as part of the government's defense program should a terrorist try to commandeer a plane.

But there's one problem: James Robinson, the pilot, has difficulty even getting to his plane because his name is on the government's terrorist "watch list."

Robinson is one of many James Robinsons on the list, including a 5-year-old. Good news, though -- all you need to do to avoid the secondary screening is fly under your initials, rather than name. Better hope the terrorists never figure that out. Ho ho ho. Airline captain, lawyer, child on terror 'watch list', Grounded pilot, wife sue over 'no-fly' list (via MeFi)

Source: Boing Boing | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am

TSA puts commercial pilots on no-fly and terrorist watch lists

Here are a couple of accounts of commercial airline pilots, one of whom has been put on the TSA's no-fly list and the other is on the terrorist watch-list, for reasons that no one will disclose. A Gulf...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am

Fruit Block on Drugs

HEART and cancer drugs may not work properly if washed down with grapefruit, orange or apple juice, say researchers. A study by Canadian scientists found a chemical in the juices shut certain drugs out of the body.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am

Separating Above- and Belowground Effects of Alliaria Petiolata and Lonicera Maackii on the Performance of Impatiens Capensis

By Cipollini, Kendra A McClain, Georgette Y; Cipollini, Don ABSTRACT. - Invasive plants can exert their effects on native plants through both above- and belowground mechanisms.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am

Plastic Chemical Safe, FDA Rules

WASHINGTON - Despite concerns from parents, consumer groups and politicians, a chemical used in baby bottles, canned food and other items isn't dangerous, federal regulators said Friday.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am

New Products

By Anonymous Stainless Pumps Binks offers new stainless steel Exel pumps, which are designed for high-flow circulation systems requiring moderate pressure with maximum durability and dependability.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am

Dow to Buy Rohm & Haas

By Anonymous Dow Chemical Co., Midland, Mich., has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Rohm and Haas of Philadelphia. The deal is expected to be completed in early 2009. It reportedly will make Dow the world's leading producer of specialty chemicals and advanced materials.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am

Wednesday's Letters to the Editor

Budget cuts Re "Senior cafe faces closure" (Page 1, Aug. 18): The city faces a deficit of $16.9 million; the senior cafe closure would save $24,000. That's 0.142 percent of the deficit. They've got to be kidding.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am

Early Reactor Plan Given OK By Regulatory Group

By Rob Pavey A proposal to add two new reactors to Plant Vogtle cleared a major hurdle Monday with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's finding that there are no environmental impacts to prevent issuing an early site permit.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am

Red, White and Blue - and Green

By Mike Matz When we think of what kind of country we wish to leave our children and grandchildren, we probably would rather not hand down a nation bereft of its natural wonders with its once-abundant resources depleted, gone forever.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am

Habitat Use of Grass Pickerel Esox Americanus Vermiculatus in Indiana Streams

By Cain, Michelle L Lauer, Thomas E; Lau, Jamie K ABSTRACT. - One hundred and twenty five sites from 91 rivers and streams in Indiana were evaluated from 1990-2005 to determine grass pickerel Esox americanus vermiculatus habitat use.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am

Fisherman Dies After His Boat Sinks

By Neil Harvey neil.harvey@roanoke.com 981-3349 A 37-year-old Franklin County man apparently drowned early Monday in Smith Mountain Lake, according to the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 20 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am

TSA inspector breaks airplanes by climbing on them using instruments as handholds

A TSA inspector decided to get a closer look at some American Eagle jets at O'Hare, so he climbed up on them, using a fragile, vital instrument (the Total Air Temperature probes) as handholds. He damaged...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 7:52 am

TSA inspector breaks airplanes by climbing on them using instruments as handholds

A TSA inspector decided to get a closer look at some American Eagle jets at O'Hare, so he climbed up on them, using a fragile, vital instrument (the Total Air Temperature probes) as handholds. He damaged the craft so badly that the regular maintenance crew grounded them -- and if they hadn't noticed, the lives of everyone on-board could have been endangered. Remember, folks, the "S" in TSA stands for "Security."

Citing sources within the aviation industry, ABC News reports an overzealous TSA employee attempted to gain access to the parked aircraft by climbing up the fuselage... reportedly using the Total Air Temperature (TAT) probes mounted to the planes' noses as handholds.

"The brilliant employees used an instrument located just below the cockpit window that is critical to the operation of the onboard computers," one pilot wrote on an American Eagle internet forum. "They decided this instrument, the TAT probe, would be adequate to use as a ladder."

Commuter Flights Grounded Thanks To Bumbling TSA Inspector (via MeFi)

Source: Boing Boing | 20 Aug 2008 | 7:52 am

China limits use of Olympians' names online (AP)

AP - China has banned the use of its Olympic gold medalists' names as Internet addresses by anyone but the athletes themselves.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Aug 2008 | 7:33 am

Hewlett-Packard's profit rises 14% on strong computer sales

The company's revenue increases 10% from the year-earlier quarter. Hewlett-Packard Co. rose above the economic...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 7:00 am

Researchers produce blood in lab from stem cells

The discovery marks a technical advance but has a long way to go before it can be considered an alternative to donor blood. ...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 7:00 am

Beijing: "Alive in Baghdad" videoblogger among US citizens detained in pro-Tibet protests

Following up on two previous posts today about the detention of tech-art protesters in Beijing, we now have word that videoblogger Brian Conley of "Alive in Baghdad" has also been taken in by authorities.

Conley and others previously announced as having been detained were working with the group Students for a Free Tibet to document pro-Tibet protests in Beijing.

Here is SFT's statement:

Beijing - Brian Conley, creator of the well-known videoblog, Alive in Baghdad, was detained with his friend, Jeffrey Rae, early Tuesday, August 19th in Beijing. Their detention appears to have taken place at the same time as that of international artist James Powderly, whose detention was reported Tuesday. Three other bloggers and activists, Jeff Goldin, Michael Liss, and Tom Grant, have also been missing since Tuesday morning. Conley, 28, Rae, 28, Goldin, 40, Liss, 35, Grant, 39 are all American citizens.

The five “citizen journalists” and activists were in Beijing to support and promote human rights, freedom of expression, and freedom for the Tibetan people. They and numerous others have acted as an independent media centre for the dozens of pro-Tibet activists in Beijing who have sought to draw attention to the Chinese government’s occupation of Tibet during the Olympics. Rae and Conley shot and released online high-resolution photographs and footage of the recent protest by Students for a Free Tibet supporters at the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park.

Beijing: Citizen Journalists, Videoblogger, Activists Detained (SFT)

Previously:
* Beijing: Five US activists detained after lighting up "Free Tibet" LED Throwies banner near Olympics site
* GRL's James Powderly detained in Beijing for planning pro-Tibet "L.A.S.E.R. Stencil" art protest

Below: Video shot by Detainee Brian Conley of “Ethnic Park” Protest on August 13th, 2008.

Source: Boing Boing | 20 Aug 2008 | 6:13 am

eBay to lower sellers' fixed-price fees (CNET)

CNET - eBay will reduce the fees it charges to sellers to list fixed-price items, the online auctioneer is set to announce Wednesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Aug 2008 | 6:00 am

FTC Bans Prerecorded Telemarketing Drivel

coondoggie writes "In the ongoing battle to let us eat dinner in peace without being interrupted by amazingly annoying telemarketer blather, and in this case the even more infuriating recorded telemarketing drivel, the Federal Trade Commission today basically outlawed recorded telemarketing calls. Specifically, the FTC changed its venerable Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) to prohibit, as of Sept. 2009, telemarketing calls that deliver prerecorded messages, unless a consumer has agreed to accept such calls from a given caller/seller. Between now and 2009, telemarketers must provide an obvious, easy and quick way for consumers to opt-out of any call, the FTC said. Such an opt-out mechanism needs to be in place by December 1, 2008."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 20 Aug 2008 | 5:51 am

HP posts 3Q profit jump; faces stiff competition

Hewlett-Packard Co. weathered economic turbulence remarkably well in the fiscal third quarter but the technology bellwether faces another big challenge -- stiffer personal-computer competition -- that...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 5:50 am

Microsoft to pay Novell $100 million more for Linux support (Reuters)

Reuters - Microsoft Corp plans to pay software maker Novell Inc up to $100 million in additional subscription fees due to strong demand for Novell's open-source Linux software that partners with Microsoft's proprietary Windows software.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Aug 2008 | 5:20 am

Training for Space: Centrifuges, Spinning Chairs and Vomit Comets

Wired contributing editor David Kushner describes the grueling training regimen that all cosmonauts (and millionaire clients of Space Adventures) must undergo.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 20 Aug 2008 | 4:00 am

Going to Space? First Stop: Eight Months of Grueling Training in Russia's Star City

Do you want to be the commander or the engineer?

It's exactly the kind of question you'd expect to hear from Richard Garriott, the 47-year-old father of massively multiplayer online gaming. His titles, which have sold more than 100 million copies, let gamers assume the role of magician, warrior, or sci-fi super-soldier. In real life, Garriott goes by the nickname Lord British and dresses up in Elizabethan garb.

But on this May afternoon in a cramped classroom northeast of Moscow, Garriott is not playing a game. He's fiddling with a joystick, but he's training for a real-life mission as a cosmonaut. In front of him is a simulation of the control panel of the Soyuz spaceship. "I know you are great computer gamer, so here you go," his instructor jokes in a thick Russian accent as he fires up the videoscreen so Garriott can practice a descent.

When the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft blasts off from Kazakhstan on October 12 and travels to the International Space Station, Garriott will be on board. The Soyuz can accommodate three people. US astronaut Mike Fincke will sit in the left seat, and mission commander Yuri Lonchakov will occupy the center seat. Garriott didn't have the right stuff, but he did buy the right seat.

Garriott will become the sixth private citizen to join the most exclusive, most high-octane clique on the planet: Call it the 240-mile-high club. Membership includes Greg Olsen, who made his fortune developing infrared cameras; Mark Shuttleworth, the software engineer who spearheaded Ubuntu; and Charles Simonyi, former chief architect of Microsoft. What they have in common, other than tremendous success in the tech industry, is a willingness to pay tens of millions of dollars for a week and a half in space.

But here's the fine print: That ticket to the ISS comes with a stopover. Before they blast off, the wealthy adventurers must spend as many as eight months at Russia's cosmonaut training ground, Zvyozdny Gorodok, aka Star City. They live in cramped dormitories in the Prophylactory Building, or Prophy, which looks more YMCA than Star Trek. They slip and slide down frozen walkways past dilapidated Soviet structures. They subsist on cafeteria food slathered in mayo. They bury themselves in textbooks or ride "vomit comets" and centrifuges.

"Everybody knows you can go to space if you are a perfect physical specimen and incredibly smart," Simonyi says. "But what if you are kind of normal?"

Then you have to fork over $30 million to Space Adventures, a company that serves as go-between with the Russian space program. Just don't call its clients space tourists. "That term implies you are there to take photos and hang out," Garriott says. "I'm trying to prove you can actually be a valuable contributor to the activities on board the space station." He notes that he'll be conducting research on protein crystal growth on behalf of a biotech firm. But he doesn't deny that he's really going up because it will be a friggin' blast. "I'd be misleading you if I didn't admit that it's a very selfish activity," he says.

Selfish, and potentially risky for the rest of the crew. "There are a million ways I can screw up and kill everyone," Garriott says. That's why he's getting remedial cosmonaut training. Today's descent simulation is uneventful at first. But then the instructor ups the ante with a malfunction, and Garriott's capsule veers off target. "I don't want to kill us!" Garriott yelps, flicking his mouse. "No way, dude!"

Too late. The descent simulation ends. The instructor checks the results. "Your landing is very bad," he says gravely. Luckily, here in Star City they can restart and try again.

Zvyozdny Gorodok is the birthplace of spaceflight. Ever since the Soviets built the cosmonaut training center in 1960, this city of 8,000 has been shrouded in mystery, even left off maps. After Yuri Gagarin trained here and became the first person to travel into space, Star City became a sort of Bolshevik Oz in the minds of the Russian people, with highly evolved star men living in gleaming silver towers.

The reality, Garriott discovers as he checks in at the security booth on his first day of training in January, is a bit different. Nearby, an old woman sells chocolate and cigarettes from a tiny kiosk. Garriott makes his way past the solemn armed guards at the gate and follows a trail through the towering pines. Grim cement buildings covered in peeling paint rise from the cracked pavement. An enormous babushka trudges past, lugging a grocery sack.

Tributes to Gagarin are everywhere. There are paintings of him, like religious icons, in all the buildings. There are statues and busts of him outside the Yuri A. Gagarin Russian State Science Research Cosmonaut Training Center. There's a bizarre futurist sculpture of him flying through a symbolic ring in front of the so-called Cosmonaut's House. The building houses a museum, but it's also the site of a flea market, where locals haggle over G-strings and furry hats.

Garriott arrives at his new quarters, a drafty little apartment on the third floor of the Prophy. He tacks up inspirational pictures of Gagarin, as well as posters of some of his videogames. On the door, he has put up a picture of himself and penciled Richard Garriott lives here underneath it.

"It's like going to a monastery," says Simonyi, who stayed here from September 2006 to March 2007. "You have a small bag and a toilet kit and move into a dorm. You have to live very simply."

"The whole lifestyle of Star City was very different from what I was used to," says Space Adventures' fourth orbital client, Anousheh Ansari, a 42-year-old US-based Iranian woman and a sponsor of the Ansari X Prize (a $10 million competition to develop a reusable manned spaceship). "You can't count on hot water. A lot of time, the water that comes out is dark brown and starts lightening up only after 20 minutes. I'm lactose intolerant and need a special diet. But over there, I had to learn to live with what was available."

Garriott thought ahead and packed a stockpile of gamer meals: candy bars and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. He lined up his rations on a shelf when he arrived, then sat on the edge of his bed. Gone were his personal assistant, his 6,000-square-foot mansion, his sprawling 13-acre lawn, and his private observatory. But he was as giddy as a kid on his first day of college.

"I grew up in a place like this, where everyone I knew went to space," Garriott tells me over a lunch of veal and cabbage at a dreary Star City cafeteria. The place he's talking about is Nassau Bay, a Houston suburb favored by NASA employees because of its proximity to the Johnson Space Center. His father, Owen Garriott, rocketed to Skylab in 1973 and to Spacelab-1 in 1983. "I always assumed that my future would include going into space," he says.

But there was a problem: His vision sucked. When Garriott was a preteen, his family doctor at NASA showed him the results of his eye test. "I'm so sorry, Richard," he said. "You'll never be accepted as an astronaut."

"It was just kind of a shock," Garriott says, sawing away at his glistening pile of meat. "But I went from shock to dismay to 'Who is he to tell me what I can't do?'"

Young Garriott spent his days monkeying around with electronics and his nights playing Dungeons & Dragons. He turned his love of role-playing games into a career, coding the Ultima franchise and cofounding the development studio Origin Systems. In 1992, Electronic Arts bought Origin for $35 million in stock, making Garriott a very wealthy geek. He spent some of that on a mansion he dubbed Britannia Manor, outfitted with secret passageways.

Garriott may have made his riches designing adventures for others, but he has also orchestrated plenty of adventure for himself. A symbol representing his motto, "Ethical hedonism," is tattooed on one of his ankles along with a ring of additional tattoos, each marking a memorable experience—like diving to the Titanic or hunting for meteorites in Antarctica. But those terrestrial exploits weren't enough for Lord British.

So in the late '90s, Garriott became a donor to and board member of the X Prize Foundation, the organization created by Peter Diamandis to foster private space initiatives. He also invested in Diamandis' parabolic flight company, Zero-G, and became an investor and board member of Space Adventures, a company that had just been founded as a kind of space travel agency.

In 1998, Eric Anderson, president and cofounder of Space Adventures, pitched NASA and the Russians on the idea of selling a seat aboard a spacecraft. NASA balked, but the cash-starved Russians were game. Though Star City had been top secret until the end of the Cold War, it was now opening up in a bid for tourism money. The Russians told Anderson they needed funding for a study on the feasibility of selling a ride on the Soyuz.

Garriott, flush with wealth from the sale of Origin, says he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to finance the research. Around the year 2000, the Russians came back with an answer: Space Adventures could purchase a seat in the capsule ... for $20 million.

Garriott didn't flinch. He signed up, figuring he was first in line. His trip was set for April 2001.

Then the dotcom bubble burst, taking most of Garriott's cash with it. In his place went US investor Dennis Tito, who would go down in history as the first citizen space explorer. "It was devastating," Garriott says. Four more multimillionaire cosmonauts and six years later, Garriott finally scraped together the dough for the trip, which now costs $30 million. "I'm spending the majority of my money to do this," he says.

When he arrived at Star City on January 20, 2008, Garriott found a comrade: Aussie-born playboy Nik Halik, a 39-year-old fellow millionaire who made his money in real estate and stocks. Halik now travels the world as a motivational speaker and self-described "thrillionaire."

Halik told Garriott of his childhood spent indoors with chronic asthma. While other kids played outside, he would sit in bed thumbing through Encyclopaedia Britannica and compiling a list of the 10 things he wanted to do before he died. By the time he got to Star City, he had crossed off the bulk of his list: mansions in Mykonos and Morocco—check. Chasing tornadoes—check. Lunch in a submersible on the Titanic—check. A night in the sarcophagus of the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid of Giza—not on his list, but bloody wicked. "I've got three more to go: the space station, Everest, and the lunar surface," he says. "After that, I'm done."

Technically, Halik isn't signed up to fly until at least April 2009, but he coughed up an extra $3 million to come here early ... just in case. Garriott points at Halik and jokes, "I'm the one going to space, unless this guy breaks my legs." Halik grins broadly.

Though Space Adventure clients pay a fortune for their trip, there's no guarantee they'll actually make it. The slightest ailment could scuttle their plans. In 2004, an x-ray turned up a spot on Olsen's lung, and the infrared-camera developer had to wait a year for clearance to fly. The 37-year-old Japanese dotcom millionaire Daisuke Enomoto suffered a worse fate. Just a month before his 2006 liftoff, he was diagnosed with a kidney stone. Ansari took his place. Enomoto has yet to make his flight.

Garriott had a close call of his own. Just before departing for Russia, doctors found a hemangioma on his liver. Though the small, benign lesion could have been with him his whole life and never caused a problem, there was a slim chance it could rupture and bleed in space. Garriott underwent surgery to have it removed. He shows me the 6-inch scar on his belly.

All winter, the two wealthy adventurers carefully navigate the icy sidewalks, knowing that a minor injury could ground them. In the cafeteria, they usually eat alone. When they pass cosmonauts, all they get is a grunt and nod of acknowledgment.

It's not hard to imagine why they're having trouble fitting in: Though the months of preparation seem daunting to Garriott and Halik, a cosmonaut spends several years training for a flight. And the outsiders' eccentricities haven't exactly endeared them to the locals. Garriott wears two rattails, which he's been cultivating for more than 20 years. He has them rebraided occasionally and is working up the nerve to ask someone at the Star City barbershop for help. But that's nothing: Before Enomoto was grounded, he talked about dressing up as an anime character during his flight and trying to assemble a toy robot in space.

The chores assigned to the travelers are rather unglamorous. During his 2002 space trip, Shuttleworth drained the sewage. Garriott will be tasked with similar grunt work, like pumping out condensation. And while he is trained to perform all roles in case of an emergency, he will have no mission-critical responsibilities. "There is nothing the right-seat person is doing that couldn't be done by one of the other crew members," he says. "Even if the person in the right seat faints, the crew is perfectly capable of flying the vehicle. The minimum training for us is 'Don't mess with things.'"

Marina Driga, a military captain and press liaison, confides what some around Star City think of its high-profile trainees: "People say it is better to send monkey."

"Ya doomayoo, ya mogoo,ya boodoo," says a hulking old Russian with a blue V-neck sweater, a gray comb-over, and two gold teeth.

"Now you repeat," his translator tells Garriott and Halik: "I think! I can! I vill!"

"I think, I can, I will," the two trainees respond lifelessly.

It's early afternoon in a Khrushchev-era building in Star City. We're gathered in a wood-paneled classroom. Nearby, there's an anatomical model with an exposed brain. A chart hanging from a cabinet shows a man in what looks at first glance like an electrode-studded diaper.

Halik and Garriott sit opposite their instructor, Rostislav Bogdashevsky, a psychologist who has been training cosmonauts for more than 45 years. Behind him, there's a large black-and-white photo of his star pupil, Gagarin, smiling down. The mere mention of that Soviet hero elicits a hearty grin from Bogdashevsky. "There vas no one like him," the psychologist says through the heavily accented translator. "He vas good at adapting to everything. He vas himself all the time."

And now, Bogdashevsky is training the psyches of a couple of wealthy foreigners. Problem is, his nuggets of wisdom don't always survive the journey into English. As the translator says things like "Stress is yourself," an assistant cycles through a slide show that rarely syncs with the lecture.

"Can you tell me how many psychic states we can have?" Bogdashevsky asks.

Garriott shrugs. "Seven?"

Bogdashevsky smiles and shakes his head. "You make mistake. There are 63."

It's one thing to adjust to life in Star City—but quite another to endure the confounding, confining, and sometimes just plain goofy training regimen. The first challenge is the language. Garriott is an autodidact wunderkind who persuaded his high school teachers that learning Basic code counted as fulfilling his foreign-language requirement. He won't be as fortunate at Star City. All of the instructions, instrumentation, and communications in space will be in Russian. So, for four hours a day, Garriott and Halik slave over fat, dusty language books in class, then tote them back to the Prophy to study more at night.

The grueling physical training is a relief from all the Cyrillic lettering. Some of it is standard conditioning in the drab smelly gym. No Tae Bo or aerobics—just medicine balls, a pool, and weight machines. (The most interesting thing in the gym is Gagarin's old locker, the contents sealed behind glass.)

Other training sessions involve what's called a vestibular chair. All trainees routinely get strapped into this torture device. The black chair sits on a round wooden platform in a small, dank room. Once someone is buckled in, the chair spins like a midway ride, clockwise and counterclockwise for as long as 10 minutes at a stretch. As Garriott gyrates, he's instructed to tilt his head forward and back—the better to create disorientation. "You can feel this kind of ... sloshing in your inner ear," he says. "NASA stopped using it, but the Russians still believe it helps desensitize you so you don't get motion sickness." Sometimes the lab coats pepper the cosmonauts with math questions while they're strapped in, just to see how their brains are functioning.

Nausea is also a problem during the dozens of trips they take on the vomit comet, a plane that follows a parabolic trajectory, letting you experience weightlessness in 10-second increments during the drop. Trainees are advised to pack several plastic bags for the trip, since they're likely to fill more than one with the contents of their stomach. As a veteran of 150 parabolas on Diamandis' Zero-G flights, Garriott passed without losing a beet.

All this is nothing compared with the TsF-18 centrifuge. Weighing 300 tons and measuring 59 feet long, it looks like a giant blue phallus. It spins at 170 miles per hour, and riders are instructed not to open their mouth while in motion because the pressure will break their jaw, according to Driga. "It is like nightmare," she adds. "Imagine being buried deep in sand and wanting to move but cannot."

This ordeal is preparation for the inevitable physical challenges of the mission. During launch of the Soyuz craft, cosmonauts experience four times the force of gravity. As if that weren't harrowing enough, the past two reentries were "ballistic," meaning that instead of controlled descent, the capsules were essentially in free fall—hitting up to 9 gs. (NASA shuttle descents typically hit only 3 gs.) "I'm not a worrier," Garriott says. But the fact that no one is sure what caused those ballistic descents can't be a comfort.

When he's enduring 9 gs in the centrifuge, he can at least clutch the "dead man's stick," a controller with a button he can release if the savage gravitational force becomes unbearable (or if he passes out).

There are no dead man's sticks in space. And no matter how stressed anyone gets, they can't even enjoy a little release by manipulating their own joystick: One of the effects of weightlessness is reduced blood flow to the lower half of your body. The rumor in Star City is that many have tried in vain to get it up out there. "There vas top-secret program of this," Driga says. "But the man could not perform. Viagra vill not help."

Going to the bathroom in space may be the trickiest docking maneuver of all. In a Star City museum that includes replicas of the MIR space station and Gagarin's capsule, the first thing everyone wants to see is the space toilet. It's a small plastic bucket with a crotch cup and a vacuum. To use it, Garriott will have to position himself over the bucket, and a suction tube will Hoover up his crap. During tours, the guide paints a pristine picture of the process, involving a seamless deposit of waste into a bag that's sealed for storage until landing. "This vay," he says, "everything is clean and nice in space!"

Not quite. After Olsen took his spaceflight, he phoned Enomoto with urgent advice. "Always have napkins with you," Olsen said. "There's an old saying that no matter how you shake and dance, the last few drops go down your pants. That happens in space, too." One space tourist (whose identity is closely guarded) forgot to switch on the vacuum in the ISS toilet before off-loading. The results were disastrous, and the chamber was splattered with feces. Even worse, the unlucky traveler had to float over and tell the other cosmonauts in halting Russian about the urgent—and potentially life-threatening—spill.

As the psychology training winds down for the day, the good Bogdashevsky leans over the table and passionately gestures at his two students. For the past two hours, they've discussed how to resolve any negative emotion in space. The lecture closes with a series of physical exercises they can do while strapped into their space chair. "Throw away negative emotion," the translator says as Bogdashevsky rubs his ears. "Warm up your ears!" the translator says as Bogdashevsky rubs his stomach. "Massage your internal organs! Three or four times a day for five minutes!"

Garriott and Halik nod dutifully. "Now you not have problems," Bogdashevsky concludes. "You understand positive thinking. He who manages to do this is immortal soul."

By April 12, after four months of isolation, stress, and discomfort, our civilian spaceniks are finally starting to settle in. It's Cosmonauts Day, a holiday honoring Gagarin's first flight into space, and in Star City the celebration lasts late into the night. The thrillionaire wannabe-cosmonauts haven't been invited. But they show up anyway.

It's held in a giant yurt covered with camel hair; inside are famous cosmonauts and their families. Many of the men are wearing traditional Uzbek robes and are seated around an enormous table overflowing with food. But everyone is staring at Garriott and Halik as they walk in, and the two feel like they've been caught trespassing.

After an awkward pause, they are welcomed in broken English, and a long, alcohol-filled night ensues. "That was when we first got to know all these cosmonauts really well," Garriott says. He and Halik may have been perceived as effete space tourists (or monkeys) at first, but they learned enough Russian to make themselves understood, and they stuck it out long enough to prove their commitment. Garriott and Halik can now joke around with the residents of Star City. Halik chums it up with the bosomy, middle-aged woman who runs the cantina. Garriott later finds the unlikely pair in the kitchen, where they're seeing who can down more vodka shots.

After that night, the American and the Aussie increasingly felt accepted as members of the Star City family. Before one cosmonaut came back from space, Garriott and Halik talked the Prophy housemothers into giving them the key to her room so they could wrap every bit of her place in toilet paper, all the way down to the grapes in her fridge. The older Russian cosmonauts even showed the pair a secret way into the building in order to dodge the standard postflight quarantine.

But no amount of camaraderie and training can prepare Halik and Garriott for the worst part of the journey, worse than the grueling training, worse than the punishing gs of takeoff, worse than the indignities of space bathrooms. "The hardest part of the trip was coming back," Ansari says. "You realize that you may never experience this again." It's difficult to readjust to life on Earth, to go from being a temporary cosmonaut to being a normal civilian. Olsen is known to wear his old Star City jumpsuit to schools and youth groups, happy for the opportunity to recount the story of the greatest moments of his life.

Garriott has a simple solution for post-orbital ennui: another ticket to space, which could now be as much as $45 million. "I'm already strategizing how I can earn the required funds," he says.

There's a full-scale Soyuz replica in a Star City facility known as Building 1. Garriott and Halik squeeze into the fake spacecraft and slip on their headsets. It's time to run through another descent exercise, an instructor tells them over an intercom. And this time, no one is nearby to help them.

The capsule is so cramped that Garriott and Halik can't lean forward in their seats to reach certain buttons; they have to jab at them with 18-inch metal wands. The exercise today involves separating the Soyuz from the ISS and returning to Earth. They go through the motions of releasing the latch from the space station.

Garriott begins the countdown in preparation for firing the thrusters. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six ...," he says. His finger is poised over the Manual Fire button in case the thrusters don't kick in at the right instant, which could cause the Soyuz to skip off the edge of the atmosphere like a stone on a pond.

But the thrusters work fine. One minute later, Garriott begins a second countdown, this time to signal the end of the thruster burn. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six ..." The thrusters click off. Just before entering the atmosphere, the Soyuz separates from the habitation and instrumentation chambers, and, as Garriott puts it, "we wait to fall out of the sky."

This simulated landing is a success. No ballistic reentry. Touchdown complete.

Aside from surviving the trip, Garriott has one more wish—to earn the title of astronaut. As a gamer, he cares deeply about the difference between character classes—whether a ninja, merchant, or citizen spaceman. But the moniker he has dreamed of all his life is not coming easily. NASA has strict rules about how it titles its explorers, and Garriott cannot qualify, no matter what he does, because he's a private citizen. Instead of an astronaut, they'll call him a space flight participant.

Garriott thinks that's ridiculous. "Every dictionary says that astronaut and cosmonaut are synonyms," he says. "It means anyone who trains for or participates in space flight, period. And once you start training at Star City, they call you cosmonaut."

But they sometimes call him something else, too. As Garriott steps out of the Soyuz, a Russian guard in green fatigues is there to meet him. Garriott has never seen him before, but the dude—clearly a diehard Ultima fan—knows him. "Hail Lord British!" he says, in his thick Russian accent. Velcome home.

Contributing editor David Kushner (david@davidkushner.com) wrote about AI researchers in issue 16.02.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 20 Aug 2008 | 4:00 am

The Space Tourist Who Wasn't

I met Daisuke "Dice-K" Enomoto in Star City, Russia, in August 2006. Enomoto, 37, is slight with tired eyes and a shock of bleach-blond dyed hair. His idea of space travel comes from comic books and Star Wars. He grew up as a self-described otaku, coding his own computer games and dreaming of space—or, at least, space as it was portrayed in Star Wars and manga. His favorite anime show, Gundam, chronicles a future full of giant robots in which humans are abandoning this planet for the stars. "People who live on Earth, their souls is tied up by gravity, you understand?" Enomoto says. "I sympathize with this idea. Maybe in the future people should live in the space."

Enomoto applied his programming skills to building Internet companies, making millions. He bought a swanky wraparound penthouse loft overlooking Tokyo's famous electronics district, Akihabara. He tooled around in Porsches and Segways, and threw raves. He redecorated the moon-age pad himself, tricking it out with sinuous white walls modeled after the International Space Station. But life was bearing down on him. He married and divorced, had a couple of kids. One of his former companies, Livedoor, was embroiled in criminal lawsuits over stock and accounting issues. He needed to get away from the money, the demands, the scandal. And what better place to go than space? "I just want to go up there," he says, "and chill."

This giddy club kid paid $20 million (the price of a trip to the International Space Station at the time) to Space Adventures. He left behind his sci-fi penthouse and moved into a tiny two-room apartment in Star City to train for his 10-day space trip. He bunked with a Russian translator named Sergei, who stayed up every night shoving wads of newspaper into the window cracks to keep out the freezing winds.

The months of intensive cosmonaut training was hard on the keyboard jockey, especially the fitness regimen. When he arrived, he could do only two chin-ups. Swimming 800 meters took him 26 minutes. He was also unprepared for the antinausea conditioning in the whirling vestibular chair. Enomoto had his own technique for trying to deal with the looping around. "I imagined that I was driving in the PlayStation game Ridge Racer," he says. It didn't work. Within minutes, he was spewing borscht all over his blue spacesuit.

The longer Enomoto stayed at Star City, however, the more he came to enjoy the simple life there. Gone were the pressures of life in Japan. "I realize life is more than just money," he says. The broadband access in his cramped Star City apartment and several seasons of 24 on DVD didn't hurt.

Enomoto had big plans for his ride into space—and not just the ultimate iPod playlist he put together for the trip, a meticulously arranged mix of techno and trance. He also intended to take cosplay to a whole new level. He would dress like his favorite anime character—the mighty Char Aznable from Gundam. He had his assistant make a custom space suit, an orange and black number complete with a homemade Dice-K patch stitched on the front.

Every Space Adventures client can do experiments during his or her trip to space—most have chosen to conduct scientific research. Enomoto decided to see if he could assemble Gundam toys in weightlessness. Enomoto explains, "I make robots in these bags!" as he reaches his hands inside what looks like an elaborate Ziploc filled with robot parts, "just because it's fun!"

Enomoto's space dreams came crashing down one August morning shortly after my arrival in Star City. The discovery of a kidney stone means he can't fly. Enomoto's backup, Anousheh Ansari, a 41-year-old Iranian woman living in the US, will be taking his seat in the next Soyuz launch. After a visit to the hospital, he's sitting in his apartment with a steaming cup of tea. Enomoto's phone rings off the hook from friends just getting the news. But Enomoto is all smiles.

"My flight isn't canceled," he tells his friend on the phone, "it's just postponed." With his training complete and his condition treatable by a blast of ultrasound, Enomoto is in even better shape. He'll be up in space in no time. Best of all, he says, now he can work out some final details like getting the space station manuals translated into Japanese. And, he says, maybe he'll use the extra time to negotiate a spacewalk outside the ISS.

In the meantime, he's happy Anousheh is getting her crack at the flight.

Any chance he'll let her assemble one of his robot toys in space when she goes? "I don't think so!" he says, with a nerdy laugh and a snort. He spent $20 million, and the robots are coming with him.

As of August 2008, Enomoto hadn't returned calls, and Space Adventures wouldn't comment on his future flight status.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 20 Aug 2008 | 4:00 am

Aug. 20, 1960: Back From Space, With Tails Wagging

1960: Belka and Strelka, a couple of stray mutts impressed into the Soviet space program, become the first living creatures to return alive from an orbital flight.

The Russians had been using dogs for experimental high-altitude flights long before Belka (Russian for "squirrel") and Strelka ("Little Arrow") lifted off from Baikonur on what would be a 16-orbit flight. Their safe return was by no means a certainty: Less than a month earlier, two other dogs were lost when the booster rocket meant to carry their Vostok spacecraft into orbit exploded on launch.

Then there was Laika, of course, the first living being to orbit the Earth. But Laika was sent into space on a one-way ticket; the Russians knew beforehand that she wasn't coming back.

It was the Americans, not the Russians, who put the first animals into rocket-powered missiles to test the effects of rapid acceleration and weightlessness on a living organism. Albert, a rhesus monkey, was the first to go, launched into suborbital space on June 11, 1948, aboard a V-2 Blossom rocket. He did not survive.

The Russians began experimenting with rabbits, mice and rats before switching to dogs in the early 1950s. In general, the Russians were successful at bringing their dogs home safely, and several of them made multiple flights. One plucky pooch, Snowflake, made at total of six flights during 1959 and 1960.

In selecting their animals, the Russians preferred females (owing to their temperaments and the ease of waste elimination) and strays (which were considered hardier and more adaptable than pampered house pets).

The dogs went through rigorous training to get them ready to fly. Because the dog would be immobile throughout the flight -- in a specially constructed safety module inside the capsule -- she was confined in gradually smaller boxes for days on end, and trained to sit still for long periods of time. The animal grew accustomed to wearing a space suit and was placed in flight simulators and centrifuges that prepared her for space flight.

Belka and Strelka did not go into space unaccompanied. With them onboard Sputnik 5 were 40 mice, a couple of rats and some plants. All were unharmed by their one-day voyage.

Strelka, in fact, went on to become a mother. One of her puppies was presented to President Kennedy's daughter, Caroline, as a gift from the Soviet Union. When Caroline's dog produced her own litter, JFK got a few laughs by referring to them as "pupniks."

Eight months after Belka and Strelka returned to Earth, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first biped to orbit the Earth and return safely.

Source: Various

Source: Wired Top Stories | 20 Aug 2008 | 4:00 am

Inside Russia's Camp for Cosmonauts

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

In the woods an hour outside Moscow, a sign on the road reads zvyozdny or "star." You are now approaching Star City, home of the Russian space program where cosmonauts have trained since the time of Yuri Gagarin. Clients of Space Adventures who shell out tens of millions of dollars for a trip to the International Space Station can expect to spend up to eight months training here before blastoff.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

Star City cosmonauts and workers, and their families, reside in these apartment buildings. Some 8,000 people live in Star City year round.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

Buses wait outside the entrance to Star City. There is a security booth, and nearby is a kiosk selling cigarettes, snacks, and souvenirs.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

The Cosmonaut House is the main community center in Star City. It has a theater for events, a indoor flea market, and a museum that includes Yuri Gagarin's office and artifacts.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

A sculpture outside the Cosmonaut House represents Gagarin flying effortlessly through a ring that symbolizes earthly limitations.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

This photo collage at the entrance to the Cosmonaut House is just one of many memorials to Yuri Gagarin around Star City.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

This is a replica of the MIR mock-up/trainer inside the Star City space museum.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

Inside the Star City museum is a simulation of the Soyuz vehicle. The two holes lined with bright aluminum are parachute containers that pop open at lower altitudes for a soft landing.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

A MiG monument stands at the air base entrance of Star City.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

Artwork celebrating flight shows the MIR at the center, surrounded by images of planes.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

Richard Garriott, dressed in his flight suit, stands in the stairwell near his one-bedroom apartment in Star City.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

Rostislav Bogdashevsky, the renown Star City psychologist who has been training cosmonauts for more than 45 years, instructs Richard Garriott and Nik Halik with the aid of a translator.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

Rostislav Bogdashevsky conducts psychological training of the cosmonauts inside this room. Note the picture overhead of a smiling Gagarin, one of his former pupils.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

The bare-bones gymnasium in Star City houses exercise equipment, a pool, and a locker room. Space Adventures clients may spend several hours a day in here.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

Gagarin's locker, preserved behind glass in the Star City gym, holds his tennis racket, shoes, and towels.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

The Soyuz TDK 7 showing the habitation chamber atop, and descent module below.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

A peek inside the Soyuz TDK 7.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

Richard Garriott, bottom, and Nik Halik, top, train in the Soyuz TDK 3. Richard Garriott points out: "Note the very close quarters that in real life are even tighter. If you see the green at the bottom of the screen, that is where a door has been cut into the side for easy access. In reality, that is where the parachute compartment sticks into the passenger area. Nik and I are going line by line in the Flight Data Files as the sim progresses. Each line has a time and action to perform and the result we expect. Note that I have a stick in my right hand. When strapped in, especially when in a space suit, it is hard to reach some buttons, so that device is for reaching and pressing buttons that might be hard to reach. Near the right of the screen, you can see the small periscope viewport. At this moment in the sim, our attitude is aligned with Earth. This is likely just after insertion, or just before reentry."

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

This building houses the TsF-18 centrifuge.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

The TsF-18 centrifuge is one of the largest and most advanced in the world. It can simulate the gravitational forces that cosmonauts experience during liftoff and landing—up to nine times as much as Earth's gravity. Space Adventure clients don't endure the full level of the machine's torture—30 gs for unmanned runs—but they are warned to keep their mouths shut at all times, as the extra gs can break their jaws.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

The Hydrolab is an underwater training facility used to simulate a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. The mockup section of the ISS shown here can be lowered by the crane into the tank. Cosmonauts wear Orlan spacesuits as they perform spacewalk maneuvers.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

The Soyuz Café is a private gathering place for cosmonauts and others celebrating special events in Star City. The blue chamber to the side of the lodge is modeled after the Soyuz, except it contains a wine cellar and comfy sofas.

photo: Photo: Benedict Redgrove

Richard Garriott holds the old Star City planetarium, a handheld device. A sheet of black paper with holes would be slipped into the viewer and held up to the light.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 20 Aug 2008 | 4:00 am

Japan Demands Probe of iPod Nano Flameouts

iminplaya sends in an item from TechNewsWorld that begins, "Several incidents of iPod Nanos bursting into flames have created consumer jitters in gadget-happy Japan. Apple is downplaying the problem, pointing out that no major injuries or damage have been reported. The problem is due to defective batteries, the company said, and only a tiny percentage of the devices have caught on fire." Japan has seen 14 such incidents so far, two in recent days. iminplaya adds, "I like that. Only a 'tiny percentage'... Is anybody beginning to understand why I would prefer that these devices not be allowed on airplanes?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 20 Aug 2008 | 3:41 am

Adobe Flash Ads Launching Clipboard Hijack Attacks

bullyBEEF writes "Malicious hackers are using booby-trapped Flash banner ads to hijack clipboards for use in rogue security software attacks. In the Web attacks, which affect Mac, Windows, and Linux users running Firefox, IE, and Safari, bad guys are seizing control of the machine's clipboard (probably using the Flash command setClipboard) and inserting a hard-to-delete URL that points to a fake anti-virus program. A number of legitimate sites have been seen to host acs carrying the attack — including Newsweek, Digg, and MSNBC.com. Researcher Aviv Raff offers a harmless demo of how it's done."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 20 Aug 2008 | 1:54 am

Get More out of Photoshop Lightroom 2

Clicking the shutter is only the first step. To get truly killer results, you'll need to spice up those pics, and we show you how using the new features in Lightroom 2. The "baby brother" of Adobe Photoshop helps you get your shots web-ready with just a few clicks of the mouse. Got tricks to share? Log in and add them.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 20 Aug 2008 | 1:00 am

Alt Text: 'World of Warcraft' Masters In-Game Bribery

World of Warcraft has announced a new "Recruit-a-Friend" initiative, designed to rope in those few people who still talk to their spouses and significant others after 8 p.m. instead of beating pretend demons with sparkly weapons. The deal is this: If a current player can convince someone to sign on for a two-month tour of fantasy duty, they get a free zhevra mount.

I should explain a couple of those words for the sweet innocents who have managed to avoid the tawdry, painted World of Warcraft.

First: zhevra. A zhevra is a zebra with a horn. Like a unicorn, but a zebra. That's kind of a theme with Warcraft: Take a normal animal, paste on an extra body part or two, and give it a fantasy name. A zebra with a horn is a zhevra, a crocodile with six legs is a crocolisk, a two-headed buzzard is a bonestripper. There's some fantasy precedent for this, but I'm going to be disappointed if the upcoming Warcraft expansion has me fighting three-eyed yaks (yakaboos) and nine-armed octopi (nonopi, or possibly octoplarghs).

As for the mount part, characters in Warcraft can learn to ride an animal, but not until level 30. Starting characters might be able to conjure fireballs or summon a demon, but put them in front of a horse and it's like integral calculus to a sleepy stoat. "Horse, huh. How does this work? You ... I go on top of it? Like above it? And it moves? I'm not ... screw it, I'll walk."

Once characters reach level 30, though, they're not limited to horses. Depending on your character's race and reputation, you might end up riding a wolf, a ram, a dorky-looking bird, a dorky-looking mechanical bird, an elephant (sorry, elekk) or something even stranger. Get enough Warcraft characters together on their mounts and it's like I Ran the Circus without the Three-Snarper-Harp.

So, to sum up: If you get one of your friends to shell out for two months of Warcraft, your character will get to ride a completely cosmetic zebra with a horn instead of whatever it's riding now. It's a sign of Warcraft's unrelenting brain-grip that this is incredibly compelling.

World of Warcraft's developers have mastered the unholy art of in-game bribery. They have discovered that players will do any number of stupid, tedious things in order to earn perks that have no effect on the game.

Just this week I've been fighting in battlegrounds -- special areas where armies clash and 12-year-olds question each other's sexuality -- over and over just for a chance to win a tiny little flying dragon. This dragon doesn't fight on my behalf or give me powers or anything. He just follows me around. In real life I try to avoid being tailed by parasitic flying creatures, but in the game I seek it out, even though I hate battlegrounds.

And really, what does my little dragon tell the other people in the game? The same thing it tells you -- I spent too much time playing Warcraft.

This isn't so bad, mostly because the other players spend too much time playing Warcraft as well. The zhevra mount, however, tells people: "Not only do I spend too much time playing Warcraft, I hassle those with enough wisdom to avoid it." It's sort of like helping out a drug baron, except at least drug mules generally get some cash out of the deal. This is as if someone said: "Hey, if you board a plane with this condom full of cocaine stashed someplace unmentionable, I'll give you a stylish cravat."

I can only hope that this will serve as a cautionary tale to those who, unlike me, have managed to resist the massively multiplayer siren song that Warcraft continues to sing. But if it doesn't, and you decide to sign up for the game anyway, let me know. Those zhevra mounts are pretty boss.

- - -

Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to be thankful that at least they didn't call it a zebracorn.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 20 Aug 2008 | 1:00 am

Google Wireless Plan Angers Audio-Equipment Makers

Cross one off the list of Google's friends.

Wireless audio-equipment manufacturers and producers of live events are up in arms against Google's efforts to open up a little-used patch of radio spectrum.

What's being contested is the so-called "white space" spectrum, the vacant bands between ultra-high frequency television channels. As U.S. broadcasters transition from analog to digital transmission in time to meet the February 2009 deadline imposed by the Federal Communications Commission, the unused spectrum has become a battleground, pitting not just audio professionals but organizations such as the National Football League, movie studios and Broadway producers against Google.

Google turned up the heat Monday by launching a "Free the Airwaves" campaign with a website and a petition lobbying the FCC to open up the spectrum.

"Remember that fuzzy static between channels on the old TVs?" says the site. "Today more than three-quarters of those radio airwaves, or 'white space' spectrum, are completely unused. This vast public resource could offer a revolution in wireless services of all kinds, including universal wireless Internet."

But for audio-equipment manufacturers and live sound producers, the fuzzy static is their meal ticket.

"We are worried the FCC will buckle and allow white space to be used by personal portable devices seeking wireless services," says Karl Winkler, director of business development for Lectrosonics, a manufacturer of wireless professional audio systems.

The result, say audio industry professionals, could be disastrous. Wireless audio equipment could face significant interference from personal devices searching for wireless connectivity on the spectrum already being used by high-end audio equipment.

"The radio frequency environment is going to become more crowded and more difficult to use," says Mike Torlone, director of marketing services at AKG Acoustics, a division of audio-equipment manufacturer Harman International.

That could potentially lead to loss of signal and interruptions in transmissions, and could force audio producers and production managers to change the way they do business, say experts.

"In that case the number of wireless microphones used will be reduced significantly and it cost big productions millions of dollars to redesign what they do," says Winkler.

The kinds of performances affected aren't limited to the next Justin Timberlake concert or a video shoot for American Idol. While Broadway productions and live shows at Las Vegas are expected to bear the brunt of the decision to open up white space, even local bands, fast-food restaurants, political rallies and church pastors delivering their Sunday sermons could find themselves facing more than a few glitches.

The efforts to unlock the white space has been one of the biggest issues facing the audio-equipment industry and the professionals involved in it, says Bill Evans, editor of trade publication Front of House.

"Everybody is not only angry and upset, they are very, very worried," he says. "We are talking about the livelihood of people here."

The move from analog to digital TV transmission allowed the Federal Communications Commission to reclaim a part of the spectrum, between 698 MHz to 806 MHz. Recently the FCC successfully auctioned the 700 MHz spectrum, a large chunk of which was won by Verizon Wireless.

While a portion of the remaining spectrum has been reserved for future public-safety networks, white space between TV channels remains, and that has caught the attention of companies such as Google, Motorola, Microsoft and Philips.

The tech giants are lobbying to use the white space to deploy new wireless technologies to deliver broadband internet services to portable devices.

That's where the hitch lies, says Chris Lyons, manager of technical and educational communications at Shure, a professional audio-equipment manufacturer.

Lyons says it's not the broadband access per se that will cause problems, but the way devices would have to search through the spectrum for free bands.

Audio professionals claim that prototypes of devices capable of spectrum-sensing have failed some key tests. The FCC is expected to release a final report about the results next month.

For its part, Google says it doesn't want devices that could interfere with wireless audio equipment in the market either.

"From the beginning we have said that no white space device should come to market unless the FCC signs off on it," says Dan Martin, a Google spokesman.

Industry professionals hope there will be a technological fix for the problem soon, one that could allow wireless audio equipment to co-exist with devices using wireless broadband on the same spectrum.

But till then, the FCC needs to stay strong, says FOH magazine's Evans. "We are not ready yet," he says. "We need more time."

Google says it has suggested the use of a geolocation database that would ensure no white space device could transmit without first getting the all-clear from the database. That would allow manufacturers to prevent the use of white space bands in the vicinity of a Vegas show, for instance.

Meanwhile, companies are preparing for the worst. For instance, Lectrosonics is now offering a wider range of frequencies for its wireless microphones.

Until last year, the company's wireless microphones spanned a range of 537 MHz to 768 MHz. Now that a part of that band has been auctioned off, the company has reworked its devices to operate in the 470 MHz to 691 MHz spectrum. It has also added another band, the 944 MHz to 952 MHz spectrum, to the mix.

Those changes haven’t been easy. Over the course of a year, Lectrosonics reallocated engineering resources and spent "several thousand dollars" getting each new product certified by the FCC.

"We have a limited amount of engineering resources and there are hard costs such as FCC licenses that we have had to get," says Winkler.

Smaller wireless audio-equipment manufacturers may not have a choice, says Winkler. "We think a number of manufacturers will be shaken out. Lower quality, lower power systems will have a difficult time."

Source: Wired Top Stories | 20 Aug 2008 | 12:30 am

Google Wireless Plan Angers Audio-Equipment Makers

Cross one off the list of Google's friends.

Wireless audio-equipment manufacturers and producers of live events are up in arms against Google's efforts to open up a little-used patch of radio spectrum.

What's being contested is the so-called "white space" spectrum, the vacant bands between ultra-high frequency television channels. As U.S. broadcasters transition from analog to digital transmission in time to meet the February 2009 deadline imposed by the Federal Communications Commission, the unused spectrum has become a battleground, pitting not just audio professionals but organizations such as the National Football League, movie studios and Broadway producers against Google.

Google turned up the heat Monday by launching a "Free the Airwaves" campaign with a website and a petition lobbying the FCC to open up the spectrum.

"Remember that fuzzy static between channels on the old TVs?" says the site. "Today more than three-quarters of those radio airwaves, or 'white space' spectrum, are completely unused. This vast public resource could offer a revolution in wireless services of all kinds, including universal wireless Internet."

But for audio-equipment manufacturers and live sound producers, the fuzzy static is their meal ticket.

"We are worried the FCC will buckle and allow white space to be used by personal portable devices seeking wireless services," says Karl Winkler, director of business development for Lectrosonics, a manufacturer of wireless professional audio systems.

The result, say audio industry professionals, could be disastrous. Wireless audio equipment could face significant interference from personal devices searching for wireless connectivity on the spectrum already being used by high-end audio equipment.

"The radio frequency environment is going to become more crowded and more difficult to use," says Mike Torlone, director of marketing services at AKG Acoustics, a division of audio-equipment manufacturer Harman International.

That could potentially lead to loss of signal and interruptions in transmissions, and could force audio producers and production managers to change the way they do business, say experts.

"In that case the number of wireless microphones used will be reduced significantly and it cost big productions millions of dollars to redesign what they do," says Winkler.

The kinds of performances affected aren't limited to the next Justin Timberlake concert or a video shoot for American Idol. While Broadway productions and live shows at Las Vegas are expected to bear the brunt of the decision to open up white space, even local bands, fast-food restaurants, political rallies and church pastors delivering their Sunday sermons could find themselves facing more than a few glitches.

The efforts to unlock the white space has been one of the biggest issues facing the audio-equipment industry and the professionals involved in it, says Bill Evans, editor of trade publication Front of House.

"Everybody is not only angry and upset, they are very, very worried," he says. "We are talking about the livelihood of people here."

The move from analog to digital TV transmission allowed the Federal Communications Commission to reclaim a part of the spectrum, between 698 MHz to 806 MHz. Recently the FCC successfully auctioned the 700 MHz spectrum, a large chunk of which was won by Verizon Wireless.

While a portion of the remaining spectrum has been reserved for future public-safety networks, white space between TV channels remains, and that has caught the attention of companies such as Google, Motorola, Microsoft and Philips.

The tech giants are lobbying to use the white space to deploy new wireless technologies to deliver broadband internet services to portable devices.

That's where the hitch lies, says Chris Lyons, manager of technical and educational communications at Shure, a professional audio-equipment manufacturer.

Lyons says it's not the broadband access per se that will cause problems, but the way devices would have to search through the spectrum for free bands.

Audio professionals claim that prototypes of devices capable of spectrum-sensing have failed some key tests. The FCC is expected to release a final report about the results next month.

For its part, Google says it doesn't want devices that could interfere with wireless audio equipment in the market either.

"From the beginning we have said that no white space device should come to market unless the FCC signs off on it," says Dan Martin, a Google spokesman.

Industry professionals hope there will be a technological fix for the problem soon, one that could allow wireless audio equipment to co-exist with devices using wireless broadband on the same spectrum.

But till then, the FCC needs to stay strong, says FOH magazine's Evans. "We are not ready yet," he says. "We need more time."

Google says it has suggested the use of a geolocation database that would ensure no white space device could transmit without first getting the all-clear from the database. That would allow manufacturers to prevent the use of white space bands in the vicinity of a Vegas show, for instance.

Meanwhile, companies are preparing for the worst. For instance, Lectrosonics is now offering a wider range of frequencies for its wireless microphones.

Until last year, the company's wireless microphones spanned a range of 537 MHz to 768 MHz. Now that a part of that band has been auctioned off, the company has reworked its devices to operate in the 470 MHz to 691 MHz spectrum. It has also added another band, the 944 MHz to 952 MHz spectrum, to the mix.

Those changes haven’t been easy. Over the course of a year, Lectrosonics reallocated engineering resources and spent "several thousand dollars" getting each new product certified by the FCC.

"We have a limited amount of engineering resources and there are hard costs such as FCC licenses that we have had to get," says Winkler.

Smaller wireless audio-equipment manufacturers may not have a choice, says Winkler. "We think a number of manufacturers will be shaken out. Lower quality, lower power systems will have a difficult time."

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 20 Aug 2008 | 12:30 am

Apple updates iPhone software to fix glitches (Reuters)

Reuters - Apple Inc has issued a software update for the latest iPhone to help fix connection problems that led to a flurry of online complaints from customers, a European mobile service provider said on Tuesday as Credit Suisse reported strong U.S. sales of the device.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Aug 2008 | 12:29 am

Summary Box: HP 3Q profit jumps 14 pct

THE RESULTS: Hewlett-Packard Co. said Tuesday that its fiscal third-quarter profit jumped 14 percent while sales rose 10 percent -- 5 percent if adjusting for currency fluctuations -- as strong laptop...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 20 Aug 2008 | 12:24 am

New Multi-GPU Technology With No Strings Attached

Vigile writes "Multi-GPU technology from both NVIDIA and ATI has long been dependent on many factors including specific motherboard chipsets and forcing gamers to buy similar GPUs within a single generation. A new company called Lucid Logix is showing off a product that could potentially allow vastly different GPUs to work in tandem while still promising near-linear scaling on up to four chips. The HYDRA Engine is dedicated silicon that dissects DirectX and OpenGL calls and modifies them directly to be distributed among the available graphics processors. That means the aging GeForce 6800 GT card in your closet might be useful once again and the future of one motherboard supporting both AMD and NVIDIA multi-GPU configurations could be very near."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 20 Aug 2008 | 12:08 am

VeriFone names new CFO to oversee corrected books

VeriFone Holdings Inc. on Tuesday appointed Clinton Knowles as its interim chief financial officer while the maker of payment processing equipment tries to recover from an accounting debacle that has battered...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 19 Aug 2008 | 11:57 pm

Wearable Motorcycle Puts Batman's Toys to Shame

The Deus Ex Machina is a concept vehicle that's part cybernetic suit, part three-wheeled electric motorcycle.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 19 Aug 2008 | 11:57 pm

Wearable Motorcycle Puts Batman's Toys to Shame

The Deus Ex Machina is a concept vehicle that's part cybernetic suit, part three-wheeled electric motorcycle.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 19 Aug 2008 | 11:57 pm

VeriFone shares soar 35 pct on upbeat outlook

VeriFone Holdings Inc.'s shares soared more than 35 percent late Tuesday after the maker of payment processing equipment provided a rosy outlook and cleaned up an accounting mess that had cast a pall over...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 19 Aug 2008 | 11:52 pm

Poll: What Kind of D&D Character Would John McCain Be?

A McCain aide dismisses skeptics of the candidate's cross-in-the-dirt POW story as the "pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd." We ask the obvious journalistic follow-up question: If John McCain were a D&D character, what would he be?

Source: Wired Top Stories | 19 Aug 2008 | 11:45 pm

E-commerce: EBay changes aim for fewer critics and more sellers

EBay will unveil sweeping changes today to encourage more fixed-price sellers as part of a wider attempt to transform the business from global car boot sale to worldwide shopping mall. A new fee structure...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 19 Aug 2008 | 11:06 pm

The question: Do animals feel grief?

Justine Hankins: Animals invest time, energy and genetic material into their young and they naturally want them to survive
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 19 Aug 2008 | 11:06 pm

Spacewatch

Some of the most secret of satellites are also the brightest and easiest to see
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 19 Aug 2008 | 11:04 pm

Business Highlights

Wholesale inflation soared in July, leaving prices rising at the fastest pace in nearly three decades. While recent declines in oil and other commodity prices raise hopes inflation may have peaked, some...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 19 Aug 2008 | 10:48 pm

Judge Rules Man Cannot Be Forced To Decrypt HD

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "In Vermont, US Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier has ruled that forcing someone to divulge the password to decrypt their hard drive violates the 5th Amendment. Border guards testify that they saw child pornography on the defendant's laptop when the PC was on, but they made the mistake of turning it off and were unable to access it again because the drive was protected by PGP. Although prosecutors offered many ways to get around the 5th Amendment protections, the Judge would have none of that and quashed the grand jury subpoena requesting the defendant's PGP passphrase. A conviction is still likely because prosecutors have the testimony of the two border guards who saw the drive while it was open." The article stresses the potential importance of this ruling (which was issued last November but went unnoticed until now): "Especially if this ruling is appealed, US v. Boucher could become a landmark case. The question of whether a criminal defendant can be legally compelled to cough up his encryption passphrase remains an unsettled one, with law review articles for the last decade arguing the merits of either approach." Update: 08/19 23:49 GMT by KD : Several readers have pointed out that this story in fact did not go unnoticed.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 19 Aug 2008 | 10:21 pm

Your Favorite Little Podcast: Episode Thirteen

Here's the latest episode of Derrick Bostrom's "Your Favorite Little Podcast," featuring a terrific playlist of unusual, forgotten, underrated, and ignored music. Derrick's podcast, along with The Casbah ("an eclectic rock & roll and rhythm radio show featuring surf-instrumentals, garage, blues and more"), and Little Steve's Underground Garage on Sirius Radio, take care of about 95% of my music listening needs.

From Derrick's show notes:

I also love it when the wrong people visit this site by mistake, venting their disorientation and discomfort in the comments. I especially love it when they use terms like “elevator music” as if this was incisive criticism. After all, some folks still obsess over “authenticity,” preferring “immediacy” and “spontaneity” above all other concerns. Somehow, the soundtrack to a long-defunct Saturday morning kids show or a 30-year-old vanity pressing from an unknown lounge singer just doesn’t work for them

But for those of you who just want a little mundane background music for your misanthropic existence, a little something to listen to while you put your pants on one leg at a time (just like the next guy), I hope this podcast fits the bill.

Your Favorite Little Podcast: Episode Thirteen

Source: Boing Boing | 19 Aug 2008 | 9:40 pm

DPI and Net Neutrality's Overseas Weak Spot

Ian Lamont writes "An unnamed source at an American ISP says staff there briefly considered using Deep Packet Inspection to comply with an order from Argentina's Department of Justice to block access to a local gambling site. The ISP ended up not going that route, owing to the cost, but some engineers at the company worry that DPI will eventually be implemented on the ISP's overseas network, thereby positioning it for an easier US rollout should Net Neutrality lose out in Washington. Besides being used for traffic-shaping, DPI can also monitor the traffic of ISP subscribers to supply targeted advertising."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 19 Aug 2008 | 9:38 pm

Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

I haven't read Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse by Victor Gischler, but this description, sent to me by the publisher, makes it sound good. If you've read it, please post your review in the comments.

Mortimer Tate was an insurance salesman on the verge of a nasty divorce when he holed up in a mountain cave in Tennessee and rode out the end of the world. Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse begins nine years later, when he emerges into a bizarre landscape filled with hollow reminders of an America that no longer exists. Since “The Fall,” highways are lined with abandoned automobiles, for which there is no fuel. Houses stand empty and what little civilization remains revolves around a string of strip clubs called Joey Armageddon’s Sassy-a-Go-Go, where the beer is cold, the lap dancers are hot, the bouncers are armed with M-16s—and electricity is generated by indentured servants pedaling stationary bicycles. Accompanied by his cowboy sidekick Buffalo Bill and two gorgeous and lethal women named Sheila and Tyler, Mortimer journeys to the Lost City of Atlanta—and an explosive final showdown that just might determine the fate of humanity.

Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

Source: Boing Boing | 19 Aug 2008 | 9:13 pm

Trace Arsenic in Water Linked to Diabetes

A new study is the first to link low-level arsenic exposure to Type 2 diabetes.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 19 Aug 2008 | 9:10 pm

IBM and AMD Create First 22nm SRAM Cell

arcticstoat notes an announcement from IBM that, along with technology partners, they have produced the first working sample of a SRAM cell built on a 22nm fabrication process. According to the article, this represents the next generation after 32nm process chips and won't be in products for some years. "The technology was developed with several partners, including AMD, Toshiba, STMicroelectronics and Freescale, as well as the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, where IBM performs a lot of its semiconductor research. IBM says that the cell's development involved 'novel fabrication processes,' including high-NA immersion lithography..., high-K metal gate stacks, extremely thin silicide, damascene copper contacts, and advanced activation techniques."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 19 Aug 2008 | 8:56 pm

Pro-Obama D&D tee

Now that the McCain campaign has declared war on Dungeons and Dragons, Dennis has struck back with this tee.

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.

Pro-Obama Dungeons and Dragons Crowd (Thanks, Dennis!)

See also: McCain staffer slams Dungeons and Dragons players

Source: Boing Boing | 19 Aug 2008 | 8:29 pm

Space art from the 1950s

Plan59's 1950s space-art gallery has some real gems! Space Art (via Neatorama)

Source: Boing Boing | 19 Aug 2008 | 8:24 pm

Katamari Damacy King baby-hat

Veronica from ItchyStitchy has the pattern needed to make this child-sized Katamari Damacy Prince of All Cosmos hat thing. Someone get my smelling salts, I just went into a cute coma! The kid will be wearing it to GenCon (natch). FO and Pattern: Katamari Damacy Prince of All Cosmos Baby Hat! (via Craft)

Source: Boing Boing | 19 Aug 2008 | 8:20 pm

EFF clobbers Boston transit's gag order on MIT students' research

Hugh from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "EFF's Coders' Rights project had a big win for free speech when a judge ruled that the gag order against MIT student security researchers should be lifted. Right on!"

Today, a federal judge lifted an unconstitutional gag order that had prevented three Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students from disclosing academic research regarding vulnerabilities in Boston's transit fare payment system. The court found that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Agency (MBTA) had no likelihood of success on the merits of its claim under the federal computer intrusion law and denied the transit agency's request for a five-month injunction. In papers filed yesterday, the MBTA acknowledged for the first time that their Charlie Ticket system had vulnerabilities and estimated that it would take five months to fix.

Tuesday's ruling lifts the restriction preventing the student researchers from talking about their findings regarding the security vulnerabilities of Boston's Charlie Card and Charlie Ticket -- a project that earned them an "A" from renowned computer scientist and MIT professor Dr. Ron Rivest. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) represents the students as part of its Coders' Rights Project.

Judge Lifts Unconstitutional Gag Order Against MIT Students

Source: Boing Boing | 19 Aug 2008 | 8:17 pm

Beijing: Five US activists detained after lighting up "Free Tibet" LED Throwies banner near Olympics site

An update on the pro-Tibet tech-art protests happening in Beijing: Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) tells Boing Boing that a group of five pro-Tibet activists displayed an LED Throwie Banner near the Olympics site in Beijing. The protesters, all of whom are US nationals, were promptly detained by Chinese authorities.

From SFT, via email to BB:

This was inspired by GRL's "Throwies" project, and the building and implementation of this was done by a complete separate group of Tibet activitists. They combined a traditional protest banner with over five hundred throwie lights and batteries sewn and taped onto the banner.

Details on the SFT website, Photos on Flickr, and here is a short video. "Still no more news on GRL founder James Powderly at this point," a SFT rep tells us. Previous BB post on Powderly's detention in Beijing, over 24 hours ago.

Here's a snip from the SFT press release about today's action:

Five pro-Tibet activists unfurled a banner spelling out “Free Tibet” in English and Chinese in bright blue LED “throwie” lights in Beijing’s Olympic Park tonight. The five were detained by security personnel after displaying the banner for about 20 seconds at 11:48 pm August 19th. Their whereabouts are unknown. The detained activists are Americans Amy Johnson, 33, Sam Corbin, 24, Liza Smith, 31, Jacob Blumenfeld, 26, and Lauren Valle, 21.

"The Chinese government is desperate to turn the world's attention away from its abuses in Tibet as the Olympics take place, but the creativity and determination of Tibetans and their supporters has once again ensured that Tibetan voices are heard and seen in Beijing despite the massive security clampdown," said Tenzin Dorjee, Deputy Director of Students for a Free Tibet. "The Chinese leadership must realize that the only way it can make the issue of Tibet disappear is to acknowledge the demands of the Tibetan people and work with them to bring an end to China's occupation of Tibet."

The lights used on the banner are blue 10 mm light-emitting diodes (LEDs) powered by small batteries, commonly known as “throwies.” Throwies are open-source technology attributed to OpenLab and Graffiti Research Lab, developed as a means of creating non-destructive graffiti and light displays. This is the first time ever that they have been used on a banner. James Powderly, free speech activist and co-founder of the Graffiti Research Lab (GRL), was detained in Beijing early this morning (see http://freetibet2008.org/globalactions/jamespowderly).

Previously: GRL's James Powderly detained in Beijing for planning pro-Tibet "L.A.S.E.R. Stencil" art protest

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