Vodafone Group PLC , the world's biggest mobile phone provider by sales, announced a series of changes to its management and organization on Tuesday, appointing a new chief executive for Europe and splitting... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:29 am
AP - Vodafone Group PLC, the world's biggest mobile phone provider by sales, announced a series of changes to its management and organization on Tuesday, appointing a new chief executive for Europe and splitting its emerging markets business into two divisions. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:26 am
AP - Google Inc. said Tuesday it will further cut the amount of time it keeps users' data logged on its search engine to meet EU privacy demands. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:25 am
Google says it will further cut the amount of time it keeps users' data logged on its search engine -- from 18 months to 9 -- to meet EU privacy demands. Google introduced an 18-month limit in 2007. The announcements were meant to appease EU data protection officers who have questioned the need for search engines to keep search history data at all.
As children get older, their attitudes to science become more negative, possibly dampened by uninspiring teaching Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:22 am
Renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has bet 100 dollars (70 euros) that a mega-experiment this week will not find an elusive particle seen as a holy grail of cosmic science, he... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:03 am
International, domestic clients boost agency roster as it reaches nine years in high-tech public and investor relations BOULDER, Colo., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Catapult Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:01 am
InfoWorld - Welcome to Demo Fall 2008, where 72 young companies are vying for the attention of deal-hungry venture capitalists from North America, Europe, and Asia. With only six minutes to strut their stuff on stage, it???s no surprise that the flashy, consumer-focused companies garner most of the attention. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:00 am
Alerts.com partners with i-SAFE, the worldwide leader in e-Safety education and American Income Life Insurance Company and National Income Life Insurance Company, to bring the free... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:00 am
MagusCore SSD1933 dual-core multimedia processor leverages MM2000 to deliver superior multimedia performance at ultra-low power consumption for portable devices TAIPEI, Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:00 am
Platform Satisfies Growing Demand for Mobile Social Networking, Responds to Trends in Maintaining Multiple and Niche Social Networks Intercasting Corporation Builds on Leadership... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:00 am
The Company Is One of the Largest SaaS Providers Within the Oracle PartnerNetwork REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- E2open, Inc., the leading provider of... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:00 am
Reporting Local Success in the First few Months of Sales GIVAT SHMUEL, Israel, September 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cimatron Limited (NASDAQ: CIMT), a leading... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:00 am
More Than 1,000 Bank Heists in Five Years Led by Security Expert Jim Stickley Reveal Sensitive Data Can Be Compromised Within 30 Minutes or Less BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 11:00 am
Google Inc. said Tuesday it will further cut the amount of time it keeps users' data logged on its search engine to meet EU privacy demands. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 10:57 am
O3b Networks has raised $60 million in funding for a $650-million project to send 16-birds and build a satellite broadband network that is focused on emerging markets and remote areas with little or no... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 10:56 am
Unlike Apple Inc.'s cryptic approach leading up most big product launches, the company's marketing message for an event it's holding Tuesday in San Francisco leaves little to the imagination. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 10:24 am
Wilmington, North Carolina volunteered to be the very first U.S. market to change to digital-only television broadcasting. While the rest of us have to wait until February, the lucky city’s Mayor... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 9:44 am
Smivs notes a BBC report on a government study toting up the high cost of converting the UK to high speed broadband, which could exceed £28.8 B ($52.5 B). The options examined range from fiber to the neighborhood, providing 30-100 Mbps connections for a total cost of £5.1 B ($9.3 B), up to individual fiber to the home offering 1 Gbps to each household at a cost of £28.8 B. England's rural areas could pose tough choices. In the lowest-cost, fiber-to-the-neighborhood scenario, "The [group] estimates that getting fiber to the cabinets near the first 58% of households could cost about £1.9 B. The next 26% would cost about £1.4 B and the final 16% would cost £1.8 B."
I’ve been waiting for the release of the MSI Wind since back in June, but problems with the six cell battery and other unspecified delays have caused the Wind to be largely unavailable until only... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 9:14 am
Google's ambition to expand into the TV advertising market has been boosted by a multi-year deal with US media giant NBC Universal to sell ads across several of its cable networks.Under the agreement,... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:44 am
By Evan Ackerman Well, this is it. What we’ve all been waiting for, right? The 2011 production version of the Chevy Volt. Happy (and impressed) as I am that GM has actually committed to producing... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:15 am
By Bracken, Joseph A ALL THAT IS: A NATURALISTIC FAITH FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. By Arthur Peacocke. Edited by Philip Clayton. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007. Pp. xvi + 219. $22. COSMIC IMPRESSIONS: TRACES OF GOD IN THE LAWS OF NATURE. By Walter Thirring. Translated by Margaret A. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
By Tuncel, Semra G Oztas, Nur Banu; Erduran, M Soner ABSTRACT Air pollution and groundwater pollution in conjunction with agricultural activity were investigated in Antayla province on the Turkish Mediterranean coast. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
By Anonymous The U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the State University of New York at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering have teamed to speed the development and commercialization of nanotechnology-enabled sensors and electronic devices. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
As hurricane remnants continue to bring much needed rain to Central Virginia, rising water levels in the James River have had the simultaneous effect of reinvigorating life on the river and covering up the scene of a crime. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
Soaking rains gave central Virginia some relief from dry conditions, but in Louisa County it only eased the guilt of the head of the water authority. It seems no matter how dry it gets for how long, Louisa doesn't have to restrict water use. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
By Chet F. Anderson A reasonable person would not now doubt that California and the West are in a drought that may have begun eight years ago. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
By Mark Taylor mark.taylor@roanoke.com 981-3395 Easing stealthily up to the hole, pro angler John Crews put his plan into action. Crews had his eyes on a couple of two- to three-pound bass that he'd spotted in the area. The bass had proven tough. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
Gasoline-powered lawnmowers blamed for air pollution during summer months will have to run cleaner under new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
JAMES RIVER Castaway Sporting Goods (804) 706-9100 reported Michael Harwood (Mataoca) caught a 7.5-pound largemouth bass in a private pond; Ken Brandon bluecat, 35; Danny Purdie (Petersburg) bluecat, 32; Boyd Christ crappie, 3.6, in Colonial Heights; John Edwards, Jr. bluecat, 55, Dutch Gap area. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
By Courtney Cutright courtney.cutright@roanoke.com 981-3345 The discussion between leaders at Smith Mountain Lake and those downstream on the Staunton River continued Friday -- in a closed meeting that took on a much quieter tone than last month's overflow public hearing in Gretna yet still had emotions running high. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
NCR Achieves Gold Certification from Cisco in the Gulf NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) announced it has achieved Gold Certification from Cisco. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
By Strayhorn, Carole Keeton Millions of silicon wafers make world tour before arriving in your MP3 player. Small Parts, Big World In a global economy, companies rely on technology-based logistical systems to track components as they move throughout the world. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
By Korzaan, Melinda L Boswell, Katherine T ABSTRACT This study incorporates the Big Five personality traits into a theoretical model that explains and predicts individuals concerns for information privacy, computer anxiety, and individual behavioral intentions. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
Intel Asia-Pacific Embedded Sales Group and Ultra Mobility Group's Director to deliver keynote address on developing environmentally-conscious embedded systems TAIPEI, Taiwan, Sept. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
Consider it a couch-surfing site for bands. If you're a musician, you can log on to betterthanthevan.com and search for lodging in the town you're touring in. Conversely, if you're the kind who doesn't mind opening up your home to a traveling band, you can add your name to the database. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
In celebration of its first anniversary for adopting the Orange brand name for all its servicesOrange Jordan launches the unprecedented "TV from Orange" service Orange Jordan, the sole integrated telecommunications operator in the Kingdom, has launched the advanced Internet Protocol TV service, "TV from Orange", the first-of-its-kind in the Kingdom designed for broadband connection (ADSL) and Livebox. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
LONDON, September 9 /PRNewswire/ -- - Yudu.com Will Let Anyone Publish, Share, Find, Buy & Sell ePublications - "Not Just Another Document-Sharing Site" - Yudu.com Targets Creative Consumers, Professionals and Small Businesses A UK website launched today delivers anyone the power to publish online multimedia documents that include video, audio and flash - easily and instantly. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
By Lawlor, Maryann Analysts' expertise defines cyberthreats. A small yet dedicated cadre of network and intelligence experts is helping keep the U.S. Army's network safe in Europe -and by extension, worldwide-by ferreting out the bad guys in Cyberspace. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
Gorilla Nation (www.gorillanation.com), the world's largest online ad rep firm, today announced that it has been selected to exclusively represent the online ad inventory of six African-American web properties through its GNMulticultural division. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
LONDON, September 9 /PRNewswire/ -- - Social Networking for the Future of Business Communications Brandstation is a corporate social networking platform, created by viewmy.tv ltd., specialists in social media. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am
Reuters - Nokia's Internet offering is far from
ready and the world's top cellphone maker is seeking further
acquisitions to speed up the roll out of new services, Niklas
Savander, the head of the unit, said in an interview.
Top cellphone maker Nokia has opened up its media sharing site and games offering on Facebook and is looking to broaden ties with the fast-growing social networking site. Niklas Savander, the head of... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 7:15 am
CNET - AT&T is upgrading the digital video recorder on its U-Verse Internet-based television service, allowing users to record and play back multiple programs on up to eight televisions. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Sep 2008 | 7:15 am
By Luke Anderson Just this past weekend I found myself sitting near a bonfire with friends and family. At one point in the night we decided that it was time to make s’mores. We already had all of... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 7:12 am
By Luke Anderson I’m not the kind of guy that goes out of his way to keep up with the latest fashion trends. I tend to just wear whatever is comfortable, and doesn’t look half bad. What I will... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 7:11 am
Since I couldn't make this year's Second Life Community Convention, I asked former NWN Events writer and non-profit metaverse developer Rik Riel, who was there to give a talk, to do some photo-blogging... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 7:03 am
The partnership boosts the Internet search giant's effort to expand beyond Web advertising. Google Inc.'s nascent... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 7:00 am
Wilmington, N.C., is the first city to switch signals, offering officials valuable lessons ahead of the country's transition in February. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 7:00 am
CNET - q&a Jimmy Wales is best known for evangelizing Wikipedia, the open-source, nonprofit encyclopedia he co-founded in 2001. On Tuesday his for-profit venture, Wikia, in its fourth year, unveiled a community for all things "green." Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Sep 2008 | 7:00 am
The new venture tries to crack a tough business by allowing market forces to set prices. Haggling over the price... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 7:00 am
The UK's Miniweb has raised $32M (18.5M) from Meritage Funds and DeGeorge Holdings. Miniweb has developed technology that piggybacks on Europe's BSkyB service. But we have to say this thing seems half-baked... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 6:56 am
hhavensteincw writes "On Monday Google detailed new plans to digitize millions of newspaper pages with articles, photographs, and headlines intact so they can be accessed and searched online. 'Around the globe, we estimate that there are billions of news pages containing every story ever written,' Google said in a blog post. 'It's our goal to help readers find all of them, from the smallest local weekly paper up to the largest national daily.' For example, Google noted the availability of an original article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from 1969 about the landing on the moon." When you search the news archive for, e.g., "Chicago fire" or "Rosenberg trial," a significant fraction of the result pages cost money to view.
This 1936 article on the use of the "Chinese soy bean" to make Ford cars is absolutely charming in its random use of phrases like "chop suey" and "automobile farming."
PLASTICS — chemical compounds which, are compressed under heat into desired shapes, and thereafter are not subject to corrosion—are increasingly in use. Some are made of coal-tar products, some of milk; and one, which Henry Ford is now employing extensively, utilizes the Chinese soy bean. This useful plant, is, next to rice, the staff of life in the Celestial republic; like beans, peas, and other “legume” plants, it contains the proteins, or nitrogen compounds, for which we eat meat. Its oil, also, has found many uses; and those who have eaten the great American national dish, chop suey, are familiar with the dark soy sauce which accompanies it. The mechanical uses of the soy bean (which does not resemble American beans) are of more recent discovery. It furnishes a fibrous flour, which gives body to a phenol (carbolic acid) compound. Under heat and pressure, this changes into a hard, strong, glossy substance, suitable for buttons, knobs, handles, mouldings, etc. About fifteen pounds of beans are now used in each Ford car, and raised under the direction of the manufacturer.
This 1936 article on the use of the "Chinese soy bean" to make Ford cars is absolutely charming in its random use of phrases like "chop suey" and "automobile farming." PLASTICS chemical compounds which,... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 6:33 am
A group of companies, led by PGP, have ponied up a bunch of money to renovate and restore Bletchley Park, the crumbling site of the birthplace of modern cryptography. There's a lot of charm in the present, mouldering campus, but I can only imagine what a nice shot of cash could do for the place.
The fund-raising campaign will be led by cryptography provider PGP, together with IBM and other technology firms. Phil Dunkelberger, chief executive of PGP, told ZDNet UK in a video interview that the group of companies would be making donations to repair the buildings at Bletchley Park, including the National Museum of Computing, and would be calling for other organizations to get involved.
Photos: A 'Cipher Challenge' for Colossus
"We're calling attention (to the fact that) Bletchley is falling into disrepair, and that, probably, the world owes a debt of gratitude to that place," Dunkelberger said.
Etsy seller Ohthepollybilities makes these sweet little teacup bird-feeders: "Made from a China teacup, it is a very versatile piece. You can fill it with seed or water. If you want, do both, put water in the dish, seed in the cup. Hang it out and let the birds enjoy it or if you prefer, you can use it indoors. It can be hung by a sink to hold sponges, or hung in your bathroom to hold makeup and brushes. The possiblities are really endless and it will add a touch of charm wherever you hang it."
Teacup Birdbath or Feeder
(via Craft)
Google has thrown its weight behind ambitious plans to bring internet access to 3bn people in Africa and other emerging markets by launching at least 16 satellites to bring its services to the unconnected... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 9 Sep 2008 | 6:04 am
Sweet Queen Victoria! Why didn't somebody think of this before?! Was there some engineering issue that had to be overcome to allow such an elegant, ingenious and obvious design? Did this require new materials that were destined for space? Did the secret lie in a spy's briefcase lost since the end of the Cold War? I would certainly be a proud Leviton engineer if I had sketched this on my cocktail napkin!
Gavin sends us "An article that I wrote for Wired (and Playboy) a few years back that never ran in either magazine. I just put it up on my website and it seems right up BB's alley:
A rundown of futurism, going through nine sets of predictions on what the world would be like by the year 2000, from Megatrends (1988) to Glimpses of the Future (1888--and an amazing amount of correct material!), including best/worst predictions (my favorite: two astronauts will have a gunfight in outer space over a woman) and accuracy rates for each futurist."
Most of the futurists I read focused on the rise and fall of governments, and especially, the progress of technology and the sciences. The future of art and literature got short shrift, as did sex and religion. At first, I thought this was because too many of the predictors considered their readership to be drawn from the business community. But that didn’t wash: an accurate prediction of fashion trends, or societal attitudes towards sex, would be immensely valuable to any savvy investor or corporate type. Would-be prophets avoid arts and entertainment because they seem too difficult to pin down, too trend-driven. Science provides the illusion that progress occurs in an orderly fashion: Mendel’s pea-plants to the discovery of DNA to the Human Genome Project to a cure for cancer, all in a tidy line.
The Security Group at
the University of California in Santa Barbara has released the
video that shows the attacks carried out against the Sequoia
voting system. I heard about the video when talking to some members of the
group, but it was never made available to the public before. The video was
shot as part of the Top-To-Bottom Review organized by the California Secretary
of State. Even though the review was carried our in July 2007, the video has
been posted only now, more than a year after (why?).
The video shows an attack where a virus-like software spreads across the
voting system. The coolest part of the video is the one that shows how the
"brainwashed" voting terminals can use different techniques to change the
votes even when a paper audit trail is used. Pretty scary stuff. The video is
proof that these types of attacks are indeed feasible and not just a
conspiracy theory.
Also, the part that shows how the "tamperproof" seals can be completely
bypassed is very funny (and disturbing at the same time).
AP - Internet search leader Google Inc. and NBC Universal said Monday they're teaming up to allow Google to sell advertisements on some of NBC's cable channels such as MSNBC, Oxygen and the Sci Fi network. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Sep 2008 | 4:40 am
AP - Sprint Nextel Corp. is making a big push to help customers understand their phones, creating a formal program to make store employees available to explain their products and set them up for buyers. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Sep 2008 | 4:10 am
Halfway into DEMOfall 2008, the conference is more or less what I expected from a convention of start-up companies: Most of the showcased products and services are a complete bore. I suppose it makes perfect sense since most start-ups go belly up in their early years. It's fairly simple. The start-ups that I find interesting have introduced intriguing new products that offer very desirable features we don't already have.
In the early 20th century, the hand-cranked Berkel slicer was the state of the art for turning a hunk of cured meat into paper-thin petals of flavor. Funny thing is, those prewar Berkels are still unparalleled. Their key innovation: The spinning blade is concave — a design dreamed up by Dutch butcher Wilhelm Van Berkel in 1898 — so only the cutting edge touches the meat. If the entire surface made contact with your prosciutto, the friction would melt the fat and cook the flesh slightly, changing the taste. Berkel still makes slicers, but now they're motorized — and gourmands complain that the higher rpms rekindle the heat problem. As Joe Bastianich says of the 80-year-old model in his NYC eatery Otto, "Sometimes the simplicity of an old technology is what makes it so effective."
There was no WiFi access at TechCrunch50. Nor were there any paradigm-shifting business plans or splashy announcements. Although TechCrunch50 boldly went head-to-head with the prestigious DEMO conference, it has a decidedly different vibe -- it's got all the self-consciousness, awkwardness and bad lighting of a high-school house party without the booze.
In the early 20th century, the hand-cranked Berkel slicer was the state of the art for turning a hunk of cured meat into paper-thin petals of flavor. Funny thing is, those prewar Berkels are still unparalleled. Their key innovation: The spinning blade is concave — a design dreamed up by Dutch butcher Wilhelm Van Berkel in 1898 — so only the cutting edge touches the meat. If the entire surface made contact with your prosciutto, the friction would melt the fat and cook the flesh slightly, changing the taste. Berkel still makes slicers, but now they're motorized — and gourmands complain that the higher rpms rekindle the heat problem. As Joe Bastianich says of the 80-year-old model in his NYC eatery Otto, "Sometimes the simplicity of an old technology is what makes it so effective."
1999: Some people fear massive computer problems, but does 9/9/99 create headaches? Nein, nein, nein.
As 1999 entered its final months, most of the tech anxiety focused on Jan. 1, 2000, and what would happen if older computers interpreted 00, a year marked with only two digits, as 1900 rather than 2000. The Y2K problem was getting plenty of attention in IT departments, in the media and in government.
But there were also worries because some data systems used the digits 9999 to mark the end of a file. If a program was coded to stop running at 9999, the logic went, it might abruptly terminate processing a file if it came to the date 9/9/99.
Sept. 9 was not the first date that caused concern. Some nervous nerdies also worried about Jan. 1, 1999. 1/1/1999, with three 1s, three 9s. But ... no prob.
Sept. 9 in fact was not even the first 9999 date of the year. That came on April 9, the 99th day of '99. Any dating system that simply counted days from the first of the year and used just two numbers for the year might have been vulnerable. But nothing of note happened.
Nonetheless (or ninetheless) 9/9/99 was still causing some apprehension. Those who downplayed the concern noted that the date would translate into machine code as 090999, which would not stop any process.
Conversely, at least one expert worried that the real problem wasn't in the date being interpreted as an end-of-file marker (or trailer), but in an end-of-file marker being interpreted as a date. In this scenario, ill-written software itself intended to patch the Y2K glitch might go overboard and read an intentional 9999 end-of-file value as a date and convert it into an explicit 1999 date. Without the 9999 trailer at the end of the file, a program might go on running after it was supposed to stop, said Fred Kohun, associate dean of the school of communication and information systems at Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh.
Some IT people regarded the whole thing as "pernicious myth ... in the order of credibility of the abominable snowman." Other IT departments took the 9/9/99 opportunity to test their contingency plans for Y2K. If nothing happened, they'd had a rehearsal for a perceived larger threat. If something did happen, they were at the ready, or at least as ready as they could muster.
In the end, no big problems materialized. That turned out be a preview of Y2K itself, which -- depending on which view you adopted -- was either a colossal waste of time, money and effort, or the lack of trouble was a vindication of all the time, money and effort that prevented problems before they could occur.
This much is certain. Today is the ninth anniversary of 9/9/99, and that won't happen again in our calendar for at least 99.9999 years.
Seems like McAfee has created a new Internet-based service to provide active protection on the fly when a PC gets hit by malicious computer code. "[Artemis] is a lot faster than traditional methodologies and it closes the gap between when a piece of malware is written, discovered, analyzed and protected against ... Artemis is available at no charge as part of McAfee VirusScan Enterprise or McAfee Total Protection Service for small and medium-sized businesses. Artemis is also available for McAfee's consumer products, where the functionality is called Active Protection."
I can tell you firsthand that no Republican officials that I know of have been involved in this situation.
There are certainly partisan undertones around this story however, considering the Obama campaign has much to gain from a large registration effort at Va. Tech. But any facts supporting the idea that Republicans were behind the misinformation distributed by the county where Virginia Tech is located have not emerged.
From Jon Taplin's blog: "Late last month local Virginia Republican officials began to worry about the thousands of students at Virginia Tech who were being registered by the Obama Campaign. So they put out a series of press releases incorrectly asserting dire consequences for the students."
The releases warned that such students could no longer be claimed as dependents on their parents’ tax returns, a statement the Internal Revenue Service says is incorrect, and could lose scholarships or coverage under their parents’ car and health insurance.
Generally, micro inspection cameras are frightfully expensive professional instruments for dedicated industrial applications with commensurately high professional fees attached. When I stumbled across the $182 Ridgid SeeSnake, I became so excited that I felt a wave of static electricity across my scalp and was momentarily light headed before I regained my composure long enough to click Add to Shopping Cart.
Besides being able to see in hidden locations, there are hook and magnet wand attachments to grab objects discovered in these previously uncharted territories. Clearly, this is not a professional grade tool and is not a direct replacement for versions costing thousands of dollars. However, with the 3' foot wand it is more than adequate for looking in your own ears. Ladies and gentlemen, let's face facts, that alone is worth $182 and any ancillary purpose is gravy.
An anonymous reader recommends a speculative blog entry by Chris Soghoian up on CNet. Soghoian makes a convincing case that the NSA could be using loopholes in the law to gather real-time location information on the mobile phones of millions of people. There is no hard evidence that this is happening, but the blog post sheds light on the dense undergrowth of companies populating the wireless space that could be easy pickings for a National Security Letter with a gag order attached. "While these household names of the telecom industry [AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint] almost certainly helped the government to illegally snoop on their customers, statements by a number of legal experts suggest that collaboration with the NSA may run far deeper into the wireless phone industry. With over 3,000 wireless companies operating in the United States, the majority of industry-aided snooping likely occurs under the radar, with the dirty work being handled by companies that most consumers have never heard of."
Lynette Clark, Chairman of AIP, and her husband, Dexter Clark, say that Sarah Palin was a Secessionist in the mid-90s, and attendee to meetings and such, and that her husband was an ongoing member until 2002. The McCain people protest that Sarah Palin was never really a full-flredged member of AIP, but just the past few months made a vid supporting AIP ...
Thomas Naylor's part of the Secession movement is a leftist concept, and other states hold libertarian, and sometimes rightist ideas, such as the Alaskans. The idea of the movement is an anti-Globalist, anti-Empire "Divided We Stand"...
Pop surrealist Camille Rose Garcia has opened an astonishing show of paintings at New York's Jonathan LeVine Gallery. Garcia's psychedelic visions depict an interzone of the insane where charming entities enact a paranoiac's fairy tale. Or something like that. The exhibition, titled Ambien Somnambulants, runs through October 4 and is also viewable online. Seen here, "Night of the Sleepwitch" (Acrylic, Silver Leaf and Glitter on Panel, 33 x 40 inches). From the gallery:
In Ambien Somnambulants, tragic sleepwalkers wander along beautifully bleak post-apocalyptic dreamscapes, inspiring dissent from a dire dystopia. Garcia’s stunningly subversive images expand upon her signature style of elaborate socio-political narratives, hidden beneath layers of fairy-tale charm. The artist creates human and animal characters, influenced by a vintage animation aesthetic, which aid in her epic visual storytelling, rendered in a palette of psychedelic color, glitter, and glazed-over collaged wallpaper. Her use of bright color serves as a visual distraction from painful realities, while her use of silver leaf as a decorative element, references an age of abundance and opulence, slightly tarnished to represent the twilight years of our civilization.
ptorrone writes "I picked up the Esquire E-inked cover today and took a bunch of high res photos, for the makers out there. It has a programming header, 5-pin ISP, a Microchip PIC 12f629 which is flash programmable, 8 pin, 6 lithium coin cell CR2016s, 3 volts each. Two E-ink screens with flex connections — looks like it was made to be reprogrammed and different screens. The top screen has 11 segments, the bottom has 3. It was designed 2008-06-04. The PCB was made by Forewin, half thickness, 2 layer board (FR4). I think someone out there will likely reflash the PIC and make the segments go on / off at different times and perhaps put other displays on it, there's a little bit of hacking to be had but not that much really."
Hackers have formulated a way to guarantee profits in the stock market. There's a hitch. It's illegal to hack into online brokerage accounts of others and pump up stock prices of stocks you already own. One man is sentenced to two years in prison by a federal judge, and agrees to cooperate in the feds' investigation.
InfoWorld - 3Tera is expanding platform support for its AppLogic grid software for Web applications, enabling it to run on Windows, a company official said at the TechCrunch50 2008 conference in San Francisco on Monday. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Sep 2008 | 11:18 pm
@10u8 writes "For time scales to leap, or not to leap, has been the question here before. The ITU-R will be considering leap seconds again in a few weeks. This week the USNO posted a survey about leap seconds by the US DoD. The issue has civil implications as well as technical ones, and there is a demonstrated way to respect the history, remove leaps from navigation and POSIX time, yet keep the sun overhead at noon."
CNET - Electronic Arts is delaying the release of its Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince video game until next summer so that it will coincide with the release of the film, which has also been postponed. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Sep 2008 | 10:35 pm
Iddo Genuth writes to tell us that many of the large tech companies have banded together in order to develop TransferJet technology. Discussed earlier this year, TransferJet promises to allow rapid data transfer between devices in close proximity. "The group of companies involved in the development of TransferJet has been tagged the 'TransferJet Consortium' and includes many industry giants such as Sony, Canon, Kodak, Nikon, Pioneer, Toshiba, Samsung and many others. The companies intend to market a broad array of products and services incorporating TransferJet technology with the intention of increasing its usage through the consumer electronics industry. With this new technology, there will be no need for access points or complex data transfer setups. By touching the two devices together, intuitive operation will kick in and the files will be transferred automatically."
Users of BitTorrent freebie tracking services should be on the lookout for spam e-mail containing a trojan virus. The e-mail, sent at random regardless of whether you are a BitTorrent user, contains an attachment that says it has information about your online surfing history.
blake182 writes "CNET reports that PGP, together with IBM and other technology firms, is mounting a fundraising effort to benefit the ailing Bletchley Park, home of the Station X codebreaking efforts in World War II. 'We're calling attention (to the fact that) Bletchley is falling into disrepair, and that, probably, the world owes a debt of gratitude to that place,' said Phil Dunkelberger, chief executive of PGP."
Colin Smith writes "TradElect, the Microsoft .Net based trading platform for the London Stock Exchange, was offline for about seven hours, meaning that their 5-nines SLAs are shot for approximately the next 100 years. The TradElect system was launched back in June of 2007 and was designed for increased speed and system capacity."
The next-gen BlueMotion Golf is more efficient and less polluting than a Toyota Prius, and of course we're not going to see it in America anytime soon.
The new season promises new characters and more action -- including Terminator love triangles. Josh Friedman offers a peek at what's ahead for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Roland Piquepaille writes "A researcher from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) claims that 68 molecules can explain the origins of many serious diseases. After reviewing findings from multiple disciplines, he 'realized that only 68 molecular building blocks are used to construct these four fundamental components of cells: the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), proteins, glycans and lipids,' and he said that 'these 68 building blocks provide the structural basis for the molecular choreography that constitutes the entire life of a cell.'"
Tomorrow, Apple will unveil... Something. Apple has been pushing this as a big event, encouraging journalists to fly out to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts -- rather than the smaller Moscone Center, which means that this actually could contain some surprises. My suspicion is that we will finally see a subscription model for music. There, I said it.
