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New Frequency Set to Turbocharge Wi-Fi - Wired News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 10 May 2010 | 4:09 am HP Hurricane WebOS Tablet Later this Year? - Techtree.com
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 10 May 2010 | 4:09 am Free copies of FOR THE WIN for teachers, librarians, youth workers, and others
Are you a teacher, librarian, youth worker, or someone else who could use a copy of my new young adult novel FOR THE WIN?
As I've done with my previous three books, I've set up a matchmaking service for people who need copies of my books and people who want to buy copies of my printed books as a way of paying me back for the free, downloadable versions I make available on my site. If you work at an institution that could use a free copy, please send your details to freeftwbook@gmail.com. The book launches tomorrow, and the website and free ebook editions direct potential donors to the list of institutions that need copies. Previous donation programs have resulted in hundreds of hardcovers being donated to worthy institutions by generous readers. Please pass the word! In the virtual future, you must organize to survive Source: Boing Boing | 10 May 2010 | 4:06 am CubeSat XI-V: Japan gets tweeting satellite
As if the Akiba Pulse Box (the Twitter heart beat posting device) or the Bowlingual (the iPhone Twitter app for dogs) weren’t enough: Japan now boasts the world’s tweeting satellite, the CubeSat XI-V. Developed by the Nakasuka Lab at the University of Tokyo, the pico satellite (four inches) is currently orbiting Earth and keeps posting [JP] various data to its followers on Twitter. It’s mostly relatively cryptic stuff like the satellite’s position in outer space, the current temperature, etc., but you also get the occasional image of mother Earth, for example this or this one (too bad these are so small). It’s been posting its status to Twitter for ten days, and it has well over 2,500 followers already. The XI-V, which weighs 1kg and was developed in twelve months, has been orbiting in outer space for about five years. You can find more technical info on the satellite here. Via Asiajin
Source: CrunchGear | 10 May 2010 | 4:01 am New Frequency Set to Turbocharge Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi is about to lay claim to a new frequency band that could result in speeds at least 10 times faster than what’s currently available. An agreement between the Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Gigabit Alliance will let the Wi-Fi Alliance carve out specs and standards to support Wi-Fi operation in the 60-GHz frequency band in a bid to make Wi-Fi faster. By contrast, Wi-Fi today operates in the 2.4-GHz and 5- GHz bands. “Today’s Wi-Fi speeds are measured in the low hundreds of megabits per second,” says Edgar Figueroa, executive director of the Wi-Fi Alliance.”The 60-GHz band allows for significant boost in performance, so we are talking about speeds in the gigabits per second range.” Specifically, the move to 60 GHz could allow for speeds in the range of 1 gigabits per second to 6 gbps, in contrast to today’s theoretical maximum of 150 Mbps for 802.11n. “Wi-Fi in 60 GHz band could mean some compelling apps, such as those connecting your Blu-ray player to your TV or sharing uncompressed video in real time without any degradation,” says Figueroa. With the proliferation of multimedia such as photos, home video and HD movies, consumers are looking for faster ways to transfer data that can also cut through the cable clutter. Users who are hooked on Lost through Hulu or can’t resist watching Lady Antebellum videos on YouTube currently have to hook up their computers to a TV through an HDMI cable. Wi-Fi in the 60-GHz band could be the first step toward helping consumers go truly wireless, says Xavier Ortiz, an analyst at ABI Research. The drawback is that the higher frequency waves have much shorter range and won’t go through walls well. “The 60 GHz is like a beam of light — you have to have line of sight — but you can get multi-gigabit point-to point networking speeds with it,” he says. The agreement between the Wi-Fi alliance and the Wi-Gig standard also helps two different standards to come together. Earlier, the Wi-Gig alliance, which has been advocating the 60-GHz band, had to work independently to get chip makers and gadgets manufacturers to get on board with its technology. “Now we are going to rally the industry around a compelling subset of features and go through a process of testing compatibility and interoperability,” says Figueroa. Figueroa estimates routers and other gadgets that have dual-band or tri-band capability, that is the ability to switch between 2.4 Ghz or 5 GHz and the 60-GHz band, will be available in about two years. See Also:
Photo: (nicolasnova/Flickr) 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 May 2010 | 4:00 am Apple vs. Flash: The InfoWorld peace plan (InfoWorld)InfoWorld - The fight between Apple and Adobe over Flash on the iPhone OS has all the trappings of a major industry rift. No one doubts at this point that Apple is on a mission to kill Flash. After many long years, the on-again, off-again conflict between two companies that have relied on one another since the early days of the Mac has finally gone nuclear.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 May 2010 | 4:00 am Tween Virtual World Woozworld Spins Off From Tribal Nova, Raises $3 Million
With the new funding round, which was led by iNovia Capital and ID Capital, a division of Telesystem Group, Woozworld will be spinning off from virtual world developer Tribal Nova, which incubated and launched Woozworld in December, 2009. Woozworld claims over 350,000 members and one million user-generated virtual spaces (up from about 50 at the end of last year). Woozworld says it intends to continue developing and promoting its ‘Web 2.0 virtual world’ where tween users build an entire world where they can engage with their peers, design their own virtual spaces, set up the activities they choose and even manage their own businesses. Chris Arsenault of iNovia Capital and Daniel Cyr of ID Capital will be joining the spin-off’s Board of Directors.
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 10 May 2010 | 3:59 am Apple to SIM-lock Japanese iPads - Computerworld
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 10 May 2010 | 3:54 am Sony Vaio P Gets Accelerometer, Touchpads, 3G
Sony has dropped its not-a-netbook Vaio P into a vat of candy-colored paint, tossed in an accelerometer, a 3G chipset, GPS, a compass and a pair of touchpads and given it a good shake. Amazingly, given this low-tech approach to R&D, the new P turned out pretty good. The Vaio P, now officially dubbed a notebook by Sony’s PR team, is the familiar purse-sized computer we’ve come to know and ignore: It runs Windows 7 on it’s too-small 8-inch 1600×768 screen via the ultra-mobile Atom Z540 chip (with Intel GMA 500 graphics), 64GB SSD and 2GB RAM, and it eschews a trackpad in favor of a nubbin. The new hardware certainly takes it into the iPad/iPhone/Android league of portability, with the compass, GPS and 3G hooking up with turn-by-turn navigation. In fact, you can even wander down the street and use the Vaio P as you obliviously bump into fellow pedestrians, just like you can with a cellphone, thanks to an optical trackpad and mouse buttons either side of the screen, for “two-handed operation while standing or walking.” The cellphone/iPad comparisons fall down with the battery life. Sony claims just five hours, which should be halved to get the real time. You can, if you like, pop on a bigger pack for double the life. Finally, the accelerometer will also flip pages as you turn the Vaio P on its side, which will let you read it like a book. A very tall and thin book, but you get the idea. The new Vaio P will be available in June, price to be decided. Given that the current 64GB model is $1000, Sony might want to lower the price to a more iPad-competitive level. Then again, an extra $200 for a keyboard and crappy battery life might be just what some people are looking for. Press release [Sony] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 May 2010 | 3:50 am Toyota hopes to price hydrogen cars at $50000 - USA Today
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 10 May 2010 | 3:37 am Researchers Demo Hardware Attacks Against India's E-Voting MachinesAn anonymous reader writes "India, the world's largest democracy, votes entirely on government made electronic voting machines that authorities claim are 'tamperproof,' 'infallible,' and 'perfect,' but last week security researchers proved that they can be manipulated to steal elections. A team led by Hari Prasad, Professor J. Alex Halderman, and Rop Gonggrijp released an awesome video that shows off hardware hacks they built. These machines are much simpler than e-voting designs used in the US, but as the research paper explains, this makes attacking the hardware even easier. Halderman's students at the University of Michigan took only about a week to build a replacement display board that lies about the vote totals, and the team also built a pocket-sized device that clips onto the memory chips, with the machine powered on, and rewrites the votes. Clippy says, 'It looks like you're trying to rig an election ...'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 10 May 2010 | 3:14 am Apple iPad Goes On Preorder In the UK From £429 - ITProPortal
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 10 May 2010 | 2:59 am Spanish Groupon Lookalike Groupalia Grabs €2.5 Million
Groupalia, a Spanish 
Source: TechCrunch | 10 May 2010 | 2:53 am Explorative Angertography - 'Anger' by Fred Gomes Showcases Different Ways to Express Anger (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) 'Anger' by Fred Gomes is incredibly interesting. These pictures all showcase different ways of dealing with anger, from soundless fury to pain-inducing rage. There are different ways...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 May 2010 | 2:34 am Viral Twitpic: Things Lady Gaga Wants [BoomTown]
This Twitpic that just rocketed around Twitter is just too funny to ignore–it’s a chart-astic depiction of “Things Lady Gaga Wants.” That would include: Your ugly, your bad romance and, of course, your leather-studded kiss in the sand. With Gaga’s “Bad Romance” music video becoming the most watched video of all time on YouTube–201 million views since last November–it’s kind of perfect. Here’s the chart (click on it to make it larger), with the “Bad Romance” video below it: Source: All Things Digital | 10 May 2010 | 2:14 am iPad’s International Roll-Out Begins: Here’s What You’ll Be Paying
People in Australia, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Japan can now pre-order the iPad from their respective Apple Stores, reports Boy Genius Report. Late last week, Apple had already shared some details on the international roll-out, including the fact that the tablet computers will effectively hit stores in the nine countries cited above on May 28. Details on pricing at the time weren’t disclosed yet, but now these are live, too. We’ve taken the liberty of checking out all nine local stores to see what the respective starting prices look like: Australia iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: A$ 629 iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: A$ 799 Canada iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: $549 iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: $679 UK iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: £429 iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: £529 France iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: 499 € iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: 599 € Germany iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: 499 € iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: 599 € Italy iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: 499 € iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: 599 € Switzerland iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: CHF 649 iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: CHF 799 Spain iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: 479 € iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: 579 € Japan iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: ￥48,800 iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: ￥61,800 Are you in any of these countries? Then tell us if you like those prices and if you will be pre-ordering an iPad (provided you haven’t already purchased one in a different way). Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 10 May 2010 | 2:10 am FCC's neutral net plan tough balancing act - TheDay.com
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 10 May 2010 | 2:07 am Ness Technologies Wins IVR Contract with Bank DiscountTEL AVIV, Israel, May 10, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ness Technologies, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 May 2010 | 2:07 am Projected Pop Culture Clashes - AC/DC vs. 'Iron Man 2' Interactive Projection at Rochester Castle (VIDEO)(TrendHunter.com) Visual candy is the best way to generate buzz, and this AC/DC vs. 'Iron Man 2' interactive projection definitely gets the job done. Right after the great Nokia interactive project on...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 May 2010 | 2:05 am Weekly Recap: Seven Must-Read Posts From Last WeekHabbo grows past YoVille, suggesting social networks and real identities aren't always the future of virtual worlds. iPhone/iPad app for Second Life: 10K copies sold in several months, free version available...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 May 2010 | 2:02 am Ness Technologies Starts Multi-Million Shekel Project to Implement SAP System for Maccabi Healthcare Services' Service ProvidersTEL AVIV, Israel, May 10, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ness Technologies, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 May 2010 | 2:00 am Ness Technologies Starts Multi-Million Shekel Project to Implement SAP System for Maccabi Healthcare Services' Service ProvidersSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 May 2010 | 2:00 am Zynga's Rise Pushes Incumbents To Jump Into Social Videogames [Voices]By Yukari Iwatani Kane, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal The rise of social-gaming companies like Zynga Game Network Inc. is sending repercussions through the videogame industry, pushing established players to retool and fight back with similar games of their own. Zynga produces simple online games that are typically played through Facebook as a way to socialize with friends. The games are generally free to play with options for users to buy virtual items. Zynga’s “FarmVille,” in which players grow crops and raise livestock, is the most popular game on Facebook, with 78 million active monthly users, according to the measurement service Developer Analytics. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 10 May 2010 | 1:55 am Epic Pancake Art - 'Jim's Pancakes' is a Blog Dedicated to the Artistry of Breakfast (VIDEO)(TrendHunter.com) It don't know if I could bring myself to eat the pancake creations from Jim's Pancakes. The pancakes on this blog are so artistically done and cute that it should be a crime to have...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 May 2010 | 1:45 am Cognizant Acquires PIPC, a Global Program Management Consulting FirmTEANECK, N.J., May 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH), a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, announced today it has acquired The PIPC Group, a global program management consulting firm based in London.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 May 2010 | 1:30 am Publicis Groupe Announces its Acquisition From Dentsu Inc. of 7,500,000 of its Own Shares in Order to Cancel ThemSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 May 2010 | 1:23 am 8-inch screen, accelerometer: Sony takes the wraps off its updated Vaio P
Sony Europe today unveiled their newest version of the “ultra-mobile PC” VAIO P, which was teased by the company late last month. And apart from a new design and fresh colors, Sony added quite a number of interesting features and functions. For example, there’s an accelerometer now, which allows you to browse through websites, pictures or PDF pages by tilting the device to the left or right. Turn the VAIO on its side to view that content in portrait mode, “turning pages” with the trackball, mouse buttons and an additional touchpad.
And it has quite a few other nice specs (model name: VAIO P11S1E):
The new Vaio P will be available in five colors (orange, green, pink, black or white) starting June, at least in Europe (Japan gets it on May 22). Sony hasn’t said anything yet about pricing in the US or Europe. But Japan is to get a model with an Atom Z530 (1.60 GHz) for $1,080, which means Sony plans to roll out a number of different versions of their new PC. Note: As of this writing, neither Sony America nor Sony Global are mentioning the new Vaio P on their sites.
Source: CrunchGear | 10 May 2010 | 1:21 am Furniture Foosball Tables - The 'Ultimate Clash of Generations' is a Designer Chair Fight (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) I'll bet you've never seen a foosball table like the Ultimate Clash of Generations table. The pieces on this table aren't little soccer men--they are actually pieces of designer furniture...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 May 2010 | 1:15 am Apple and Controlling the Platform [Voices]By Steve Cheney, Blogger, Steve’s blog It’s almost scary how much power Apple (AAPL) seems to have these days. Heck, during the Gizmodo iPhone 4G saga, they apparently even had control over the police! One thing is sure – Steve Jobs has been pretty serious about keeping power ever since Apple lost the PC vs Mac war. So how is Apple trying to stop Android from stream-rolling over them in mobile? Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 10 May 2010 | 1:05 am On Twitter, Followers Don't Equal Influence [Voices]By Scott Berinato It could be that Twitter research is popular because Twitter data is free and so accessible. That’s okay. Gift horses are just as good for riding. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 10 May 2010 | 1:04 am The Cybersecurity Boom [Voices]By Marjorie Censer and Tom Temin, Reporters, Washington Post When cybersecurity firm Triumfant was founded in late 2002, it developed software meant to assist help desks in managing information technology problems. The company soon found a more valuable use for its software: detecting malicious acts on networks of computers and making automatic fixes. Earlier this year, the small Rockville-based firm, which has fewer than 20 employees, announced it is partnering with Fairfax-based SRA International (SRX), a major government contractor, to beef up SRA’s cybersecurity product. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 10 May 2010 | 1:03 am Facebook, Zynga, and Buyer-Supplier Hold Up [Voices]By Chris Dixon, Blogger, cdixon.org The brewing fight between Facebook and Zynga is what is known in economic strategy circles as “buyer-supplier hold up.” The classic framework for analyzing a firm’s strategic position is Michael Porter’s Five Forces. In Porter’s framework, Zynga’s strategic weakness is extreme supplier concentration – they get almost all their traffic from Facebook. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 10 May 2010 | 1:02 am Why IT Security Guys Now Also Need To Be Legal Experts [Voices]By Mike Masnick, Editor, Techdirt Every so often we get complaints from people who point out that this site is called “Techdirt,” and yet quite frequently talks about the legal issues. There are a few different responses to this, but one of the key points is that, if you’re in the tech field these days, you actually really do need to be pretty familiar with the law in a lot of ways. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 10 May 2010 | 1:01 am MusicID For iPhone Goes GlobalSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 May 2010 | 1:01 am Facebook Confirms Its Location Product
“There are currently no plans to add marketing partners to this product. We may consider working with marketers to enhance the experience in the future, but have no plans to do so at launch,” a Facebook spokesperson tells us in response to our story. You’ll notice two key words in there, “product” and “launch.” So Facebook is acknowledging the “product” that we found. And you have to believe they wouldn’t bring up a “launch” or know details about it if it weren’t happening soon. This was in response to the section of my previous post where I say, “This information seems to go along well with reports last week in AdAge that Facebook was teaming up with some big brands for their location functionality. Presumably, these brands will be populated, and maybe even some highlighted, in this new Places tab.” Facebook wants it to be clear that there will be no marketing partners at launch (but there could — and likely will — be later). Actually, this is what AdAge said in its most recent article about marketers and location on Facbeook. “Marketers, which have taken a keen interest in both Facebook and geo-targeted marketing, will be integrated into the system sometime after [the launch],” Michael Learmonth and Emily Bryson York reported last week. Facebook wouldn’t talk about a specific product for that article, but did have the same line about there being no marketing partners at launch. I asked Facebook for a comment about the launch timing, all I got back was, “Sorry – nothing to share around timing.” But again, this acknowledges that the code we found on the site, is in fact what’s coming. That means a check-in service built around a new Places component. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 10 May 2010 | 12:56 am Top 50 Trends of the Week (May 9) - From Geometric Cutout Pants to Minimalist Superhero Posters (COUNTDOWN)(TrendHunter.com) For the week of May 9th, these are the Top 50 trends, which include Geometric Cutout Pants, Underwater Hotels (UPDATE) and Buggy Body Inks. The rankings are based on hundreds of thousands...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 May 2010 | 12:45 am Infosys BPO Launches Enhanced Sales and Fulfillment Outsourcing ServicesSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 May 2010 | 12:29 am 30 Treacherous Tanks - From Discontinuing Gas Guzzlers to Armored Churches (CLUSTER)(TrendHunter.com) Living in a day and age that focuses on independence, power and force, it's not surprising that there have been quite a few treacherous tanks featured on Trend Hunter in the last little...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 May 2010 | 12:14 am Mpeg 7 To Include Per-Frame Content IdentificationAn anonymous reader writes "NEC has announced that its video content identification technology has been incorporated in the upcoming Mpeg 7 video standard, allowing for each video frame to have its own signature, meaning that even minute changes to the file such as adding subtitles, watermarks or dogtags, and of course cutting out adverts, will alter the overall signature of the video. According to NEC this will allow the owners of the video to automatically 'detect illegal copies' and 'prevent illegal upload of video content' without their consent. NEC also claims that its technology will do away with the current manual checking by members of the movie industry and ISPs to spot dodgy videos."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 10 May 2010 | 12:01 am Velociraptor cufflinksMake a stylish and rapacious impression with Etsy seller GiantEye's velociraptor cufflinks! Velociraptor Cufflinks (Thanks, Sinbox!) Previously:Scrabble cufflinks Working cigarette lighter cufflinks...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 May 2010 | 12:00 am Velociraptor cufflinks Make a stylish and rapacious impression with Etsy seller GiantEye's velociraptor cufflinks! Velociraptor Cufflinks (Thanks, Sinbox!)
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Source: Boing Boing | 10 May 2010 | 12:00 am Security Experts Cite Need for Major Policy Changes to Protect Global Security in Report to NATO and the European UnionSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 May 2010 | 12:00 am Security Experts Cite Need for Major Policy Changes to Protect Global Security in Report to NATO and the European UnionBRUSSELS, May 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Security & Defence Agenda (SDA) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the key findings from the first ever Security Jam, a global on-line brainstorming session on the challenges facing global security.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 May 2010 | 12:00 am Recycled Motherboard Pen Scores An 'A' For Nerd Appeal And An 'F' For ErgonomicsBy Andrew Liszewski I’m sure we’ve all seen the plethora of accessories made from stripped circuit boards, including everything from Christmas tree ornaments to clipboards, but this is the...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 May 2010 | 11:57 pm Real-Time Guitar Effects With Your iPhone? There's An App (& Accessory) For ThatBy Andrew Liszewski The iPhone’s greatest strength is not what it’s capable of, but the unique ways app and accessory makers have found to use those capabilities. And if you’re a guitar...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 May 2010 | 11:57 pm Wireless Gigabit Spec Published, Gains Cisco Support (PC World)PC World - The group developing a super-fast wireless data technology that can transmit data up to 10 times as fast as today's fastest Wi-Fi published its initial specification on Monday and named Cisco as the latest backer of the technology.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 May 2010 | 11:50 pm WRAPUP-Peabody, Xstrata lead fallout from Australia mine tax* Xstrata suspends copper exploration over Australia mine taxSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 May 2010 | 11:48 pm Shinko Plantech -2009/10 parent resultsYear ended Year ended Year to Six months toSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 May 2010 | 11:40 pm Shinko Plantech -2009/10 group resultsYear ended Year ended Year to Six months toSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 May 2010 | 11:40 pm Polish PBG Q1 net at PLN 18 mln, beats consensusWARSAW, May 10 (Reuters) - Poland's largest-listed construction group PBG beat market expectations with a smaller-than-expected fall in first-quarter net profit to 18 million zlotys ($6.3 million), the...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 May 2010 | 11:38 pm Taiwan's TSMC posts stronger April salesTAIPEI, May 10 (Reuters) - April sales at TSMC , the world's largest contract chip maker, rose 50 percent from a year earlier after the company ramped up production of new chips to meet growing demand...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 May 2010 | 11:35 pm "Idol" creator Fuller marks iTunes milestone (Reuters)Reuters - "American Idol" creator Simon Fuller on Monday marked a digital music milestone, and said he was looking to the Internet and other digital platforms for the next big thing in global entertainment.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 May 2010 | 11:16 pm Social Game Publishers Hit Payday From Mother’s Day Flower Offers
Mothers Day represents a huge gift giving market, second only to the holiday season. Last year lone, $14.1 billion was spent on Mother’s Day-related gifts. In the week leading up to Mother’s Day, about $1 million per day was generated by “gifts for mom” promotions that paired offers from online flower merchants like 1-800-Flowers with free in-game virtual goods and currency. According to TrialPay, social game publishers running Mother’s Day campaigns saw five-fold increase in offer-based revenue, which generally accounts for 15-20% of a social game’s total revenue. Visitor conversion rates more than doubled during Mother’s Day (player-to-payer conversions). And 40% of consumers were first-time buyers that had never made a purchase through a game. TrialPay Facebook-focused offers platform is used by a number of big-name social game publishers including Playfish and Playdom. In fact, Facebook recently announced its foray in the offers game, and partnered with TrialPay to use their offers in the test round. Clearly, there’s a lot of money in the offers space and Facebook wants a piece of the pie. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 9 May 2010 | 11:04 pm Twitter for Android starts making up for lost time (Appolicious)Appolicious - It wasn’t long after Twitter launched an official BlackBerry app and acquired the makers of the popular iPhone app, Tweetie, before an official Android app was revealed. With a growing mobile empire, it’s also evident that Twitter is improving its usability with each official app.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 May 2010 | 10:20 pm Yet another Facebook privacy risk: emails Facebook sends leak user IP address (UPDATED)
UPDATE, Sunday, May 9, 2010 : Facebook has fixed the issue. Barry Schnitt, Policy Communications at Facebook, writes: We originally included IP address information in these email headers as part of industry best practices designed to improve spam filters. This is similar to what many webmail providers do. However, we agree this practice no longer makes sense for Facebook and we've discontinued it. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We've been covering the mounting privacy violation woes for Facebook users here on Boing Boing in recent weeks—here's another issue to be aware of. Facebook base64-encodes your IP address in every emailed event that you interact with. Matt C. at Binary Intelligence Blog explains that Facebook's automated email notifications (which go out when, say, a friend comments on your status or sends you a message) appear to contain the IP address of the user who caused that Facebook email to be sent: The email headers contain a line similar to:As Matt points out in the blog post, this may not be the most onerous of Facebook's privacy problems, and it's certainly not the only one. But no good purpose for users is served by leaking user IPs, and there are many good reasons not to. Facebook, get your shit together for chrissakes. (binint.com, thanks Jake Appelbaum / IMAGE: Facebook, a Creative Commons-licensed photo from the Flickr stream of Franco Bouly)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 9 May 2010 | 10:13 pm Wi-Fi Alliance(R) and WiGig(TM) Alliance to Cooperate on Expansion of Wi-Fi TechnologiesAUSTIN, Texas and TOKYO, May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig Alliance) today announced a cooperation agreement for multi-gigabit wireless networking.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 May 2010 | 10:01 pm May 10, 1869: Golden Spike Links Nation by RailRails across a continent reduce travel time from six months all the way down to one week.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Armor Plated Helmet Cam Captures Jackass AnticsNo matter how hard you thrash it, GoPro's helmet-mounted cam will record all your jackass stunts in glorious HD.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Q&A: Why the Iconic Yugo Isn't Just a PunchlineA scholarly tome casts the lowly car in a new light and makes a celebrity of its author.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Lost Tribes of RadioShack: Tinkerers Search for New Spiritual HomeAs we evolve from gadget makers to mere technology users, most RadioShacks are doing away with the eccentric, mad-scientist vibe that electronics hobbyists came to know and love.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 9 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Armor Plated Helmet Cam Captures Jackass AnticsNo matter how hard you thrash it, GoPro's helmet-mounted cam will record all your jackass stunts in glorious HD.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 9 May 2010 | 10:00 pm 15 Agonizing Automotive AtrocitiesYou know you should turn away. You may even want to turn away. But you cannot.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Jargon Watch: Mycotecture, Goojji, Amfibus, HypersexualityToday's jargon challenge: Try using the name of China's Google knockoff and the word for mushroom-root architecture in a single tweet.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Lost Tribes of RadioShack: Tinkerers Search for New Spiritual HomeAs we evolve from gadget makers to mere technology users, most RadioShacks are doing away with the eccentric, mad-scientist vibe that electronics hobbyists came to know and love.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Happy Mother's Day from Yoko Ono
Photo: Yoko Ono: My Mommy Is Beautiful (2004). Stretched and primed linen canvases, paper, pens, tape, glue, table, chair, artist's holograph instructions. Visitors were invited to write a thought or memory about their mothers, or bring a photograph, and attach it to the canvases. "Very quickly, the canvases became completely covered in memories and messages, which soon covered the walls as well," Ms. Ono writes.
She invites Boing Boing readers to engage in an online version of this project here: My Mommy is Beautiful / 2010. The Status of Routing Reform — How Fragile is the Internet?crimeandpunishment points out the Associated Press's look (as carried by SkunkPost) "at an issue the government has been aware of for more than 20 years, but still isn't fixed and continues to cause internet outages: a flaw in the routing system that sends data from carrier to carrier. Most outages are innocent and fixed quickly, but there's growing concern the next one could be devastating. A general manager at Renesys Corporation, which tracks the performance of Internet data routes, says 'It amazes me every day when I get into work and find it's working.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 9 May 2010 | 8:53 pm Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Gameplay Details - PSX Extreme
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 9 May 2010 | 8:12 pm Spotted: Facebook’s Check-In Functionality And New “Places” Tab
Over the past several weeks, there’s been a lot of speculation about Facebook’s location functionality. At least part of that speculation can end now. We now know what Facebook is planning to launch with regard to location shortly, because it’s right there in their code. Specifically, it’s right there in the JavaScript on the touch.facebook.com version of the site. This is the mobile version of Facebook that is optimized for phones with touchscreens like the iPhone and Android phones. Visiting this site on the Safari web browser (which, of course, the iPhone uses a version of) causes something interesting to happen: it just hangs. And when you enable debug mode, it’s easy to see why. This touch version of Facebook’s site is attempting to populate something called the “places_tab.” Unfortunately, Facebook hasn’t enabled that yet, so it throws the error. While that alone is interesting, much more interesting is what you find when you dig deeper into this JavaScript. Based on the code, this is what it seems that Facebook is about to launch: A mobile version of the site using the HTML5 location component to grab your location information from your phone. Once it does that, you’re taken to this new Places area of Facebook that presumably will have a list of venues around you. From here you can click a button to check-in. Yes, there will be check-ins. But it’s slightly more interesting than that as well. Facebook will record not only your latitude and longitude, but also your altitude, heading, and speed, according to this code (and assuming they can get all of that information). It will also record the accuracy of the location measurement. I’m just speculating here, but perhaps that will help curb cheating that has begun to run rampant on other location services like Foursquare. Again, this code is only found on the touch.facebook.com version of the site right now (and this code is specifically in a directory for the iPhone). That may suggest that Facebook will launch the functionality here first, and then move it to the native mobile applications on platforms such as the iPhone and Android. This also means that it may not be on Facebook proper to begin with. This makes some sense since only some desktop browsers support location right now. Still, you have to assume that the Places area will reside on Facebook.com somewhere, even if you can’t check-in from the desktop at launch. This information seems to go along well with reports last week in AdAge that Facebook was teaming up with some big brands for their location functionality. Presumably, these brands will be populated, and maybe even some highlighted, in this new Places tab. After reading those stories, I wondered if Facebook was planning to do check-ins, or perhaps do something more along the lines of Twitter: simply let people tag their location to status updates. It’s now clear (assuming that they fully deploy this code) that check-ins are in fact coming. That said, I still wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook allows other location services such as Foursquare and Gowalla to populate location parameters through Facebook Connect or the newer OpenGraph APIs. Then the question is if Facebook would also use those services’ places databases to build out its own — or if they have already been doing that behind the scenes. As I wrote yesterday, Facebook is likely to be a key component in moving towards a place database that everyone seems to want, but no one can seem to deliver on. And just to add a little more intrigue to all of this, we hear that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in New York City yesterday meeting with Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley. A second source confirms that the two sides have been talking again recently (not that it’s unusual for two companies to talk, but the timing is interesting). So was this meetup yesterday one last friendly meeting before they start going head-to-head? A meeting to solidify a partnership? Something more? We should find out shortly…
     
Source: TechCrunch | 9 May 2010 | 7:14 pm Lyme Disease Tick Map iPhone app well worth the small price (Appolicious)Appolicious - The Lyme Disease Tick Map iPhone app ($1.99) has so much more information than its name suggests, and is well worth its low price for anyone who finds themselves in areas of high tick concentration.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 May 2010 | 5:56 pm Geostationary GPS Satellite Galaxy 15 Out of ControlBruce Perens writes "The Galaxy 15 commercial satellite has not responded to commands since solar flares fried its CPU in April, and it won't turn off. Intelsat controllers moved all commercial payloads to other birds except for WAAS, a system that adds accuracy to GPS for landing aircraft and finding wayward geocaches. Since the satellite runs in 'bent pipe' mode, amplifying wide bands of RF that are beamed up to it, it is likely to interfere with other satellites as it crosses their orbital slots on its way to an earth-sun Lagrange point, the natural final destination of a geostationary satellite without maneuvering power." (More below.)
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Source: Slashdot | 9 May 2010 | 5:45 pm NSFW: Facebook Breached My Privacy, And Other Things That Whiny, Entitled Dipshits Say
The fact is, I express some pretty controversial views here on TechCrunch. Views on subjects like race and prostitution and terrorism and mental illness. Views that you – as a smart, educated TC reader – are perfectly able to process and discuss in a mature way, but views that could easily be misconstrued by the wider internet community, should they be reposted on other blogs, or quoted out of context. From this point forward, then, I’m banning you from reposting, quoting or even discussing my columns outside of TechCrunch. It’s to protect my privacy more than anything else: I mean, sure, I’ve chosen to share those views online – in an inherently unsecure environment – but still I reserve the right to be shocked and outraged should they find their way from one semi-controllable online environment to another slightly less controllable one. And I reserve that right to be outraged for one reason alone: I am fucking delusional about how the Internet works. This week everyone‘s talking about online privacy. Specifically, they’re talking about Facebook and how the company protects user data, especially after it began sharing some of that data with ‘trusted’ third party sites like Pandora, Yelp and Microsoft’s Docs.com (whatever the hell that is). You’ve probably seen The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook animation, which illustrates in stark terms how much more open the service has become in the past five years. Everyone’s weighing in with their opinion: from Jeff Jarvis’ view that Facebook needs to respect the difference between the public and your public to Scooby’s excitement over the prospect that privacy is one step closer to the grave. Meanwhile, you can’t throw a sheep without hitting some preachy tutorial on how to keep your embarrassing photos hidden online, especially with graduation time rolling around and college partiers trying to reinvent their image for the workplace. A typical story is told in the New York Times by Laura M Holsen who wrote yesterday about how the ‘Tell-All Generation Learns to Keep Things Offline‘…
Where to begin with poor old Min Liu? Let’s first be charitable and not point out the hilarious contradiction in quietly removing photographs of your college drinking from Facebook and then describing those same photographs in the New York Times. Let’s instead consider her apparently sensible decision to ask friends to remove potentially embarrassing photographs, and to give her new boss “limited access to her Facebook page”. Privacy advocates would nod with approval at a young woman who takes her online privacy seriously, while those same advocates would – and do – call for Facebook to respect her choices and keep her private data private. Scoble on the other hand would tell her to calm down, smoke a bowl and upload the resulting photos to Twitpic. For my part, I have a different kind advice to those like Ms Liu who want to keep private photographs private. A third way, if you like… Don’t let them be uploaded to the Internet in the first place. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve heard whining recently that photographs they uploaded to the web (or in the case of Liu, photographs they presumably were aware were being taken and were heretofore happy to remain online) have now ended up in the public domain. A couple of weeks back, a friend complained to me that a photograph of her taken at a party had been posted on a blog without her permission. The photograph has attracted mean comments which, she said, was a breach of her privacy. Hmmm. Copyright, yes, privacy no. Until the unkind commentary started, she was perfectly happy with the photograph being online – blithely assuming that only her friends would care enough to look for it. It was only after the wrong kind of people started Googling her (in her case, the wrong people were snarky bloggers; in Min Liu’s case they were prospective employers) that she suddenly became concerned about privacy. Likewise every day thousands – millions – of college students upload photographs to Facebook, labouring under the assumption that only their friends will care to look for them. Every day those same students attend parties and pose for digital photographs, knowing full well that they’ll end up online, but again assuming that no-one but their social circle will care to track them down. Subsequent wailing about privacy settings on Facebook or any other social network is at best a red herring, at worst disingenuous bullshit. “Oh, but my Facebook account is private…. but my Twitter stream is locked!” Oh please. If all it takes to break a privacy system is for one of your friends to copy and repost your “private” photos or tweets then they’re not private at all. The only true privacy is not to post anything on a social network that you wouldn’t want the world to see. It’s like that old advice for sending credit card numbers by email: think of it like a postcard; you wouldn’t send your credit card number that way, so don’t do it by email. Think of photos on Facebook as the colourful side of that postcard. We can blame Mark Zuckerberg all we like for killing privacy, but the truth is all he’s doing is giving us the rope with which to hang it ourselves. I’ve written before about how as more and more of this stuff becomes public, we’ll all become much more blasé about the youthful indiscretions of others, be they friends, political candidates or prospective employees. But that Utopian future will be a long time coming: it’ll still be a couple of generations before bosses stop making key hiring decisions based on the private life of candidates. So if privacy tools are a red herring, Scoble’s (and my) dream of a world of openness is years away, and there’s no sign that college students are going to stop partying any time soon, then what advice can we give to kids like Liu to ensure they’ll still employable once their intern supervisor stumbles across their “private” Facebook photos? Actually, it’s much the same advice as grown-ups have been giving college kids for decades: think about your résumé. The only difference between now and ten years ago when I started college is that the advice is now pluralised: now you have to think about your résumés. Résumé number one is the once we all understand: the work résumé. From day one of college, this is the document that students obsess over – how getting these grades, joining this club, or organising this social event will “look good on my résumé”. Right from the start there’s a lazer-like focus on picking and choosing the activities that will look good on the all-important piece of paper which will guarantee them employment on graduation. But today, thanks to social media, everyone a second résumé – call it the ‘social résumé’ – and it’s just as important to obsess over what’s going to look good and bad on it. The social résumé is the one that a prospective employer finds when he Googles your name, or when she joins your Facebook friend circle and discovers that you haven’t been quite as careful with privacy settings as you should have. It’s the résumé they find when they stumble across your friend’s Flickr account, or the MySpace page you’d totally forgotten about. It’s like the traditional section at the end of your work résumé where you list your interests “music, reading…” except that, because it’s partly crowd-sourced, it’s much, much harder to edit after the fact. Harder, but not impossible. Sure you should go to parties and get drunk – it’s college for Christ’s sake – but you should also train yourself not to pose for photos while you’re doing it. It’s perfectly possible if you take the idea of the social résumé seriously enough: countless of my drunken friends hold down sober jobs simply through their survival instinct of knowing when there’s a camera pointing at them, or only confiding in people who aren’t going to ‘OH:’ their every word. (By contrast my drunken exploits are a matter of public record – but there’s a reason why I’m not looking for a job in teaching or at a bank.) Sure there are going to be times when that instinct breaks down, or when someone takes a photo without your permission and refuses to keep it private – and in those situations I’m a firm believer that Facebook et al have an obligation to act to defend a person’s reasonable assumption of privacy. But in almost every case where we hear someone griping about privacy online, it’s over something they have either willingly posted on a closed, but essentially public, network themselves – or has allowed one of their friends to post. In other words, their problem is not that something ended up online, simply that they were unable to keep control of something they willingly shared with at least a portion of the world. And it’s that attitude that needs to change – from one of retroactive bleating about privacy to one of proactive filtering of what we choose to share in the first place. Blaming Facebook’s flaky approach to privacy for the ills of the exhibitionist generation is just yelling at the stable door, long after the horse has bolted. [Photo credit: 'What Would Scooby Do?' by Jamie Klinger (Wig, model's own)]      
Source: TechCrunch | 9 May 2010 | 4:32 pm Happy Mothers Day! Get Her A Geni Family Tree Poster
A couple of weeks ago Yammer CEO David Sacks came by the office to give us some news. Sacks, who is also the CEO of genealogy site Geni, also told me about a new product Geni is launching; – family tree posters. There are two 16″ × 20″ versions – $30 for a printed poster, $120 for a canvas, framed poster. One of Geni’s key features is to allow the merging of family trees, so it’s easier to create one tree going back four generations. If you have pictures it makes the poster a really cool gift. I gave the one Sacks made for me to my parents and they love it (my father has diligently created our family tree on both sides of the family, with help from his sister). Sacks also talked about Geni’s overall business. Over $1 million in revenue and he says they’ll be profitable within the year. The company has raised $16.5 million over three rounds. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 9 May 2010 | 4:20 pm A Closer Look At Microsoft Spindex, An Experimental Social Aggregator
When you first fire up Spindex, the site asks you to link your Twitter, Facebook, and Evernote accounts, as well as any RSS feeds you follow. After you do that you’re kicked into the main site, which is broken into three sections: a left sidebar for navigation, and two columns with content. In the navigation sidebar you select which source you want to browse through (based on the accounts you linked earlier), and there’s an option to see a combined stream of the data inputs called ‘All’. At the very top of the page is a search box that lets you search all of your friends’ recent updates (it’s like Twitter search, but restricted to just your friends). In the middle column is “My Stream” — depending on what filter you’ve selected in the Sources panel, you’ll see a stream of the most recent updates from your Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds in reverse chronological order. Beneath each of these posts are the basic sharing options you’d expect from each service: you can Comment on, Like, or Share a Facebook item, and can Reply, Favorite, and Retweet Twitter posts. The interface for this is well done — hitting Reply or Comment causes a text box to appear in-line, as opposed to using popup windows. The far right column is where Spindex’s special sauce lies (though it’s clearly got a ways to go). When you first log into Spindex, this column gives you a quick overview of what your friends have been talking about and sharing. There’s a section for commonly shared links, as well as a “Most commented on post”. Below that are a handful of thumbnails showcasing the images your friends have been sharing recently. And at the very top is a list of trending terms (these are based on items your friends have been sharing, as opposed to the entire Facebook or Twitter communities). Below this social content are a bunch of popular news stories, as determined by Bing.
As you interact with items in your stream (the middle column), this far right column changes. Hit ‘reply’ to a tweet about Mother’s Day, and the right column will show Bing search results that have the keywords “mothers” and “day”. The right column also shows a few recent tweets or status updates from the person you’re replying to. The site is still rife with quirks, which are to be expected given that it’s a tech preview. I noticed that if I refreshed my Facebook feed multiple times, I’d often wind up with a different “Most commented” post, and sometimes I wouldn’t see one at all. After linking my Twitter account with Spindex, the only way I could get the service to import new tweets was to log out and back in. And after staying logged in for around twenty minutes, I found that ‘My Stream’ no longer had any results available from Facebook or Twitter. All of that said, Spindex has potential, provided Microsoft FUSE can fine-tune their algorithms to help give an accurate overview of your Facebook, Twitter, and RSS feeds. Of course, it’s still a research project, so it may be quite a while (if ever) before it’s released to the public. In the mean time, you might want to check out TC50 finalist Threadsy, which also presents your social streams in a multi-column format.
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 9 May 2010 | 4:11 pm UK Election Arcana, Explained By SoftwareAn anonymous reader writes "For the first time in 35 years the UK government is looking to be at risk of getting a hung or coalition government. (The most recent previous hung parliaments were in 1974 and 1929.) The voting rules are somewhat arcane and the votes this time are such that there are many strange possible outcomes and a surprisingly large number of permutations of coalitions that could be formed and political strategies that may go into their forming. There are at least 60 permutations, some more politically plausible than others. Adam Back wrote some software to work out the permutations , and lists some of the arcane factors affecting the outcome. If Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown chose to, it would appear even that he could simply refuse to resign, ostensibly trying to form a coalition indefinitely, maybe even forcing the Queen to dismiss the current Government, which last happened in 1834 under King William IV."
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Source: Slashdot | 9 May 2010 | 3:59 pm Microsoft's Free, Online Version of Office To Premiere This Weekwalterbyrd writes "Microsoft will offer an online version of Office 2010 for free. I have to wonder, will this remain free indefinitely? Or is Microsoft just trying to firmly establish its OOXML standard, then go back to business as usual?" Probably a harder sell after Google's acquisition of DocVerse.
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Source: Slashdot | 9 May 2010 | 2:42 pm Obama bemoans 'diversions' of IPod, Xbox era (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 May 2010 | 2:40 pm DNSSEC and the Geopolitical Future of the Internetsynsynackack writes "The Register reports that the DNSSEC protocol could have some very interesting geo-political implications, including erosion of the scope of state sovereign powers. The chairman of ICANN, Peter Dengate-Thrush, explained, 'We will have to handle the geo-political element of DNSSEC very carefully.' Experts also explained that split DNS and the DNSSEC protocol don't match very well; technically, it is possible for someone at the interface of the global Internet and a country-wide Internet to strip electronic certificates attached to data and repackage the data with a new one."
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Source: Slashdot | 9 May 2010 | 1:37 pm 48 Hour Magazine is almost finishedHappening now: two dozen editors, writers, and designers are gathered around the former Rolling Stone conference table putting together a magazine in two days. 48 Hour Magazine kicked off on Friday at noon when it opened to submissions, and if all goes well it will ship to the printer in less than an hour and a half. The theme is Hustle, and that's pretty much what we're doing right now.Source: Boing Boing | 9 May 2010 | 1:33 pm Bio-Detector Scans For 3,000 Viruses and Bacteriaseparsons writes "Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently unveiled a three-inch-long bio-detector than can scan for 3,000 different types of viruses and bacteria in just 24 hours. The device, dubbed the Lawrence Livermore Microbial Detection Array (LLMDA), boasts significant advantages over traditional bio-detectors, which can only identify a maximum of 50 pathogens. The three-inch-long glass slide is packed with 388,000 probes that can detect more than 2,000 viruses and 900 bacteria. The device may have huge implications in identifying agents released during biological and chemical attacks. Plus, in more everyday uses, LLMDA can ensure food, drug and vaccine safety and help diagnose medical problems. Scientists' next version of LLMDA is even more impressive: A new bio-detector will be lined with 2.1 million probes that can scan for 5,700 viruses and thousands of bacteria as well as fungi and protozoa."
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Source: Slashdot | 9 May 2010 | 12:32 pm Good idea? Internet voting coming to U.S. elections for military, overseas citizens
This is probably a case of where the idea is sound but humans will no doubt muck everything up. Thirty-three states here in the good ol’ U.S. will allow military and overseas citizens to vote via the Internet beginning with the mid-term election in November. This is being done in part to ensure that overseas voters’ votes, you know, count. I don’t know how many of y’all have ever lived overseas, but it’s probably easier to find Jay Leno funny than it is to obtain a ballot, then have it count. It’s 2010 and we still don’t have simple things like voting figured out. Amazing. In steps the Internet to the rescue, right? The idea is to have these voters (including military personnel) vote via the Internet in some capacity. Now, whether or not that means you’ll be able to e-mail some overseas county clerk, as it were, with the subject MY VOTE and the body I VOTE FOR CANDIDATE A, HE’S COOL AND STUFF is completely unknown. There’s been a bunch of trial programs to figure our exactly how the votes would be cast. Do you set up a VPN for votes to pass through? Maybe a special Web site with super fancy authentication? No idea. The problem with this, of course, is that the Internet is wildly insecure. Any teen with a copy of ettercap could, if he wanted, snoop an entire cafe’s Internet traffic while sipping a latte. Don’t think SSL will protect you, because it won’t! I’ve seen it effortlessly defeated so many times that I’m hesitant to even check my throwaway Gmail account on a public connection (airport Wi-Fi, at the café, heck, even at the TechCrunch office in New York). Unless I can see the pipe coming from the street into my modem, then to my router, I have zero control over who or what could possibly “hack” my connection. When you’re dealing with something as important as voting, you can guarantee that there will be people looking to cause trouble—it’s just human nature (which is partially why I want “I, Robot” to actually happen). Internet voting: a solution to a very real problem that unfortunately will never work as well as you’d like. Maybe it would work if people weren’t jerks…
Source: CrunchGear | 9 May 2010 | 12:30 pm Ancient Comet Fragments Found In Antarctic SnowAn anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Cosmos Magazine: "Two tiny meteorites recently recovered from Antarctic snow contain material dating back to the birth of our Solar System, and may provide clues about the delivery of organic matter to Earth. Researchers believe that these micrometeorites likely came from the cold, comet-forming outer regions of the gas and dust cloud that comprised the early Solar System, and sample its composition. Discovered in 2006, the particles measure less than 0.25 mm across and survived their journey through Earth's atmosphere relatively unscathed. More importantly, scientists found that they contain unusually high amounts of organic matter."
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Source: Slashdot | 9 May 2010 | 11:28 am Leonard Nimoy posts picture of his mom for Mother's Day
Leonard Nimoy shared a picture of his mother on his Twitter feed today in honor of Mother's Day:
The lady is my Mom. She was curious. The man walking on is Dad. Los Angeles, 1970's. Source: Boing Boing | 9 May 2010 | 11:17 am The Boom (Or Bubble) In Federal CybersecurityHugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that the increasing number and intensity of cyberattacks has attracted the attention of the Obama administration and Congress, which have begun steering dollars to the problem. Much of that new spending, estimated at $6 to $7 billion annually just in unclassified work, is focused on the Washington region, as the federal government consolidates many of its cybersecurity-focused agencies in the area. 'I think it is a real growth opportunity in coming years,' says David Z. Bodenheimer, a partner at law firm Crowell & Moring in Washington, who leads the firm's homeland security practice and specializes in government contracts. 'The market is still rather fragmented and in flux, but is developing with a speed that it is attracting both the major defense and homeland security contractors who are establishing independent business units to pursue these opportunities, and it is also a real opportunity for the smaller players who have niche products.' One reason the field is attracting so many companies is that the barriers to entry are low — at least, relative to other defense industries. But as start-ups and others rush to stake claims, some wonder if a bubble of sorts is beginning to inflate and recall that many venture firms in the early 2000s chased similar prospects. 'A lot of the early people made significant money,' says Roger Novak, founder of Novak Biddle Venture Partners. 'But there were [also] a lot of "me too" companies.'"
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Source: Slashdot | 9 May 2010 | 10:27 am Fanciful handmade wallpaper features unsung scientific heroines (and giant bugs) At BKLYN DESIGNS this weekend I ran into Katie Deedy, whose handmade wallpaper featuring a Victorian woman walking giant bugs on a leash caught my eye. She explained that all of her wallpaper was "narrative-inspired" and this was her new line, which paid homage to under appreciated 19th century female scientists:
And while discoveries by men such as Darwin and Newton have made them household names, there are countless others whose scholarly work has been lost, forgotten or even usurped by other intellectuals. Our Spring 2010 wallpaper line highlights three such individuals, all of whom are women, whose phenomenal academic stories have fallen between the cracks of history. As female scientists in the nineteenth century, these women faced an oxymoronic distinction that their male counterparts eluded. Sexist barriers discouraged most young girls from the pursuit of an intellectual calling, yet our subjects persevered by challenging the status quo and developing their own route to recognized scholastic excellence. Each woman was largely self taught, and relied almost entirely on an innate passion for her respective field--something that makes their achievements all the more remarkable. Our bonnet is off to these unsung scientific heroines!Grow House Grow Source: Boing Boing | 9 May 2010 | 10:07 am Apple Files For “iTunes Live” Trademark
Apple has been filing applications for quite a number of trademarks lately, most of which get rigorously tracked and dissected by sites like PatentlyApple.com, among others. But somehow, the most recent applications filed by Apple trademark correspondent Lisa G. Widup have gone unnoticed. Until today. Looks like Apple earlier this week filed for trademarks for iTunes Live, which might mean nothing but could also be an indication that the Cupertino company is about to ramp up its featured live music sessions offering on iTunes, mainly live performances pre-recorded at special concerts at Apple Stores around the world (so far there have been in-store gigs in London, Montreal, New York, Tokyo, Sydney and Munich). The mark consists of the stylized words “iTunes Live” (see image up top) and was filed under two separate classes: - Online retail store services in the field of entertainment featuring prerecorded musical, audio and audiovisual content - Entertainment services, namely, arranging and conducting of concerts and live musical performances Might not mean anything, but that shouldn’t stop music fans from hoping for more in-store concerts on iTunes in the near future.
     
Source: TechCrunch | 9 May 2010 | 8:18 am Saturday Night Live Rewards Facebook Fans With Betty White [MediaMemo]Facebook users demanded that Betty White host Saturday Night Live, and last night they got their wish. Here’s her opening monologue, which gives you a pretty good sense of how the show went: Lots of jokes about her being old, but also dirty — in an OK-for-broadcast-TV way. Her take on Facebook, by the way: “It sounds like a huge waste of time”. Oh. And there were a lot of MacGruber sketches, which are supposed to get you to watch the MacGruber movie later this month. Here are all of them, stitched together in one clip: Source: All Things Digital | 9 May 2010 | 7:08 am Seeing The Forest For The TreesEconomies of scaleOnce the system has assembled its catalogue from the bottom up, it goes through it from the top down, winnowing out all the redundancies. In the parts catalogue for a horse seen in profile, for instance, the second layer from the top might include two different representations of the horse’s rear: One could include the rump, one rear leg and part of the belly; the other might include the rump and both rear legs. But it could turn out that in the vast majority of cases where the system identifies one of these “parts,” it identifies the other as well. So it will simply cut one of them out of its hierarchy.Even though the hierarchical approach adds new layers of information about digitally depicted objects, it ends up saving memory because different objects can share parts. That is, at several different layers, the parts catalogues for a horse and a deer could end up having shapes in common; to some extent, the same probably holds true for horses and cars. Wherever a shape is shared between two or more catalogues, the system needs to store it only once. In their new paper, the researchers show that, as they add the ability to recognize more objects to their system, the average number of parts per object steadily declines.Although the researchers’ work promises more efficient use of computer memory and programmers’ time, “it is far more important than just a better way to do object recognition,” says Tai Sing Lee, an associate professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. “This work is important partly because I feel it speaks to a couple scientific mysteries in the brain.” Lee points out that visual processing in humans seems to involve five to seven distinct brain regions, but no one is quite sure what they do. The researchers’ new object recognition system doesn’t specify the number of layers in each hierarchical model; the system simply assembles as many layers as it needs. “What kind of stunned me is that [the] system typically learns five to seven layers,” Lee says. That, he says, suggests that it may perform the same types of visual processing that takes place in the brain.In their paper, the MIT and UCLA researchers report that, in tests, their system performed as well as existing object-recognition systems. But that’s still nowhere near as well as the human brain. Lee says that the researchers’ system currently focuses chiefly on detecting the edges of two-dimensional depictions of objects; to approach the performance of the human brain, it will have to incorporate a lot of additional information about surface textures and three-dimensional contours, as the brain does. Zhu adds that he and his colleagues are also pursuing other applications of their technology. For instance, their hierarchical models naturally lend themselves not only to automatic object recognition — determining what an object is — but also automatic object segmentation — labeling an object’s constituent parts.Written By Larry Hardesty/Graphic By Christine Daniloff/MIT News Office---Image 2: A new object recognition system developed by researchers at MIT and UCLA looks for rudimentary visual features shared by multiple examples of the same object. Then it looks for combinations of those features shared by multiple examples, and combinations of those combinations, and so on, until it has assembled a model of the object that resembles a line drawing. Images: Long (Leo) ZhuSource: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 May 2010 | 6:47 am Use rust particles to reveal the data on your credit-card's magstripeHere's a fun science experiment: finely powder some rust and then blow it over the magstripe on your credit card and you can see the zeroes and ones encoded on it by the stripes where the magnetic forces attract the ferrous particles. For a bonus, Anaglyph tried this out on a woo-woo product called a Shoo!Tag, which is supposed to use "a three dimensional or trivector signature imprinted onto the magnetic field of a three field magnetic memory card to create a protective barrier from pests." No evidence of a "trivector signature" was in found.Another Science Experiment (Thanks, Anaglyph!) Source: Boing Boing | 9 May 2010 | 6:46 am Tiny cannon is adorably deadlyThis tiny brass cannon fires steel ball bearings with great force and accuracy, making it the deadliest cute thing and cutest deadly thing I've seen all year. Mini Cannon Firing and Destroying Targets. Among the World's Smallest Guns (via @georgeruiz)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 9 May 2010 | 6:46 am NSB, NSF Recognize Extraordinary Science, Service With Annual AwardsVannevar Bush Award, Waterman Award and Public Service Awards made as National Science Foundation and National Science Board celebrate 60th anniversaryPresident Barack Obama sent warm greetings to top scientists, engineers and policy makers who gathered on May 5th at the annual awards dinner of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Science Board (NSB) to pay tribute to the achievements and public service contributions of outstanding scientists, and to recognize a program that inspires and engages young girls to enter the fields of science and engineering.After welcoming remarks, NSB Chairman Steven Beering invited to the podium John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and science advisor to the President, who extended his own wishes for the NSF and NSB on their sixtieth anniversary. He noted that earlier in the day, the House of Representatives passed a resolution sponsored by Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon and Ranking Minority Member Ralph Hall, paying tribute to the NSF and NSB on this historic occasion.Holdren then shared with the 250-member audience a letter from President Obama in which he acknowledged the important contributions of the evening's hosts."Since their creation in 1950, NSF and NSB have provided invaluable service to our nation by supporting world-class scientific research and providing impartial advice to Presidents and Congress," the President said. "From bolstering our national security to supporting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in our schools, they have upheld NSF's founding mission to promote American innovation and drive our economic progress."Promoting STEM education was a theme echoed throughout the evening, beginning with the presentation of the NSB's Vannevar Bush Award to Bruce Alberts "for his dedication to the creativity, openness and tolerance that define science; passion for improving the human condition; and transformational and inspirational leadership in science education, international capacity building, and the tireless pursuit of a 'scientific temperament' for the world."Alberts spoke appreciatively and fondly of his first NSF grant in the amount of $2,400 received in 1967, which began his career. Today a prominent biochemist and editor-in-chief of Science, he outlined his active commitment to dual passions: the improvement of science and mathematics education, and science diplomacy. In just three days, Alberts, a United States Science Envoy, will travel to Indonesia.NSF Director Arden L. Bement presented the highest honor conferred by the NSF, the Alan T. Waterman Award, to Subhash Khot, an associate professor in the computer science department at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.Bement referenced great thinkers in praising the young Khot."Einstein once said that 'Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.' If we accept that to be true--and who are we to argue?--then it can be truly said that Dr. Khot is not only a mathematician, but a poet of the first order," said Bement. "Aristotle himself observed that, 'the mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.' And so it is entirely fitting that, in nominating Dr. Khot for this prestigious award, someone remarked, 'His work is beautiful technically, as well as producing beautiful results.'"In accepting this award, Khot, a theoretical computer scientist who works in an area called "computational complexity," spoke of his origins in a remote town in India, and put his work in a practical context, describing his development of algorithms that optimize the efficiency of such modern-day conveniences as online driving directions.NSB's Honorary Awards Chairman Ray Bowen then presented the NSB's Public Service Awards, which are given each year to an individual and to an organization. Nalini Nadkarni, a pioneer in forest ecology studies and public outreach and a faculty member at Evergreen State College, was honored "for her groundbreaking research in forest canopy science, and for her outstanding and unique achievements in public service in science through forging connections with the general public and involving non-traditional audiences in her scientific research. Nadkarni who explores the nexus of science and art, drawing on rappers, poets and other performers for creative communication, compared receiving this award to a "still point"--when dancers momentarily stop movement to assess where they've been and where they're going. She vowed to continue the work about which she's been passionate since receiving her first NSF grant in 1984.The Expanding Your Horizons Network was then honored "for its decades-long commitment to the early development of interest in mathematics and science among young women, making significant strides toward its goal to develop a pool of qualified women to undertake careers in mathematics, science and engineering." Rachel Sheinbein, president of this grassroots organization led by STEM professionals, accepted the award on behalf of EYH and the 800,000 girls whom it has served since its founding in 1974.NSF and the NSB encourage nominations for its 2011 awards. Additional information is available at the "Related Websites" listed below.---Image Caption: Honored at the NSF/NSB 2010 Awards Dinner were (from left to right) Nalini Nadkarni, NSB Public Service Awardee; Rachel Sheinbein, president, the Expanding Your Horizons Network (EYH), NSB Public Service Awardee; NSB Chairman Steven Beering; NSF Director Arden L. Bement; EYH Executive Director Stacey Roberts-Ohr; Subhash Khot, NSF Waterman Awardee. Credit: Sandy Schaeffer for NSFSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 May 2010 | 6:41 am 42,226 Daily Temperature Readings, And CountingA rare 114-year record, kept by generations, logs changing climateEvery day since Jan. 1, 1896, an observer has hiked to a spot at The Mohonk Preserve, a resort and nature area some 90 miles north of New York City, to record daily temperature and other conditions there. It is the rarest of the rare: a weather station that has never missed a day of temperature recording; never been moved; never seen its surroundings change; and never been tended by anyone but a short, continuous line of family and friends, using the same methods, for 114 years. On top of that, observers have for decades recorded related phenomena such as first appearances of spring peepers, migratory birds and blooming plants. At a time when scientists are wrestling to ensure that temperature readings from thousands of divergent weather stations can be accurately compared with one another to form a large-scale picture, Mohonk offers a powerful confirmation of warming climate, as well as a compelling multigenerational yarn. The story is told in an article by researchers from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Mohonk in the current issue of the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.Mohonk was founded in 1869 by the Smileys, a close-knit Quaker family that still runs the 7,200-acre property on a high ridge in the Shawangunk Mountains. When the fledgling United States Weather Bureau (later the National Weather Service) founded an official station there, it supplied thermometers, log sheets and other materials; Albert K. Smiley, one of the twin brothers who founded the place, volunteered to man it. The thermometer (occasionally replaced by a new duplicate over the decades) has always been kept in a box out of direct sun, in the same place, a short walk from the Mohonk hotel; a brass rain gauge at the end of a boat dock is the 1896 original. In 1906, Albert's half-brother, Daniel, took over the readings. In 1930, Daniel's sons Bert and Doc followed. In 1937, Bert's son Daniel Smiley Jr., picked up the job. In addition, Daniel Jr., an old-school amateur naturalist, started recording many other observations, including first spring sightings of various creatures, on some 15,000 index cards. In 1988, the year before Daniel Jr. passed away, he handed his duties to Paul Huth, a longtime friend and employee. Today Huth or one of his staff still walks up to the box at 4 pm every day. The weather log, for many decades kept on hand-written sheets, lacks only 37 days of precipitation data from 1901, 1908 and 1909, due to a missing data sheet, and a few days when observers apparently didn't look at the rain gauge. The temperature record is complete.Enter another father-son team. In 1971, Edward R. Cook, then serving as a military policeman at nearby West Point, became friends with Daniel Smiley Jr. Later, Cook became a tree-ring scientist and climatologist at Lamont, and began studying conifer trees at Mohonk--some of which turned out to be over 400 years old. From these, he extracted a rough record of weather in the Hudson Valley before Europeans settled. Then Edward Cook's son, Benjamin I. Cook, became a climate modeler at Lamont. It was under Benjamin's leadership that the Cooks and their colleagues at Mohonk began studying the instrumental readings and other data.Starting in 1990s, Mohonk staffers spent hundreds of hours digitizing the records so they could be analyzed. "It is incredibly rare to have the level of continuity that we have at Mohonk," said Benjamin Cook. "Any one record cannot tell you anything definitively about climate globally or even regionally. But looking closely at sites like this can boost our confidence in the general trends that we see elsewhere, and in other records."Indeed, the new study finds remarkable correlations with many other widely spread, but less continuous records. At Mohonk, average annual temperatures from 1896-2006 went up 2.63 degrees Fahrenheit. Global measurements in the same time over both land and oceans put the rise at about 1.2 to 1.4 degrees; but land temperatures are rising faster than those over the oceans, and those at Mohonk track the expected land trend closely. As expected also, temperatures are up in all seasons, but increases have been especially evident in summer heat waves, and this has been accelerating in recent years. Prior to 1980, it was rare for the thermometer to surpass about 89 degrees more than 10 days a year; since then, such events have come to Mohonk on at least 10 days a year—and often, on more than 20 days. At the same time, the number of freezing days has been decreasing--about a day less every five years over the long term, but since the 1970s, at the accelerated rate of a day every two years. This also matches wide-scale observations in North America and elsewhere.The Mohonk records do not match wider trends in one area. The start of the growing season—the date on which freezing temperatures end—has been advancing steadily in many places, but not here. Instead, the total number of yearly above-freezing days is increasing because more unusually warm days are puncturing the winter. As described in an earlier study in the International Journal of Climatology, also by the Cooks and Mohonk staff, the effect has been a sort of an intermittent false spring that may expose some early-flowering plants to frost damage. The earliest flowering native plants like hepatica, bloodroot and red-berried elder are likely to be most affected, said Benjamin Cook. He said it is still too early to tell the ecological effects of such disruptions, but added: "The data from Mohonk will be invaluable for expanding our knowledge of how ecosystems respond to climate change." Temperature data after 2006 has not yet been analyzed, but Mohonk maintains an up-to-date online archive of the weather data accessible to the public.The new study comes at a time when some skeptics have questioned the accuracy of long-term weather records, on the basis that many stations have been moved or that surroundings have changed, occasionally putting instruments nearer to buildings, parking lots or other possible heat sources that could skew readings upward. However, recent studies including one by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have found that such year-to-year inconsistencies cut both ways, and that instruments near developed spots actually more often read too cool rather than too hot. Researchers say every effort has been made to adjust for errors, and that errors one way or the other at individual stations basically cancel each other out, leaving the averages correct."Pictures, anecdotes, and cursory glances of poorly sited or maintained sites and weather stations may suggest problems, but until the data is analyzed it is impossible to conclude that the record is compromised by cold or warm biases," said Cook. "The advantage to Mohonk is that we can revisit the record in detail, with minimal corrections. This helps confirm the large-scale trends, and it helps us identify stations with errors that need to be corrected."As for the long history behind the studies, he said: "We and the Smileys all just happened to be in the right place, at the right time."The other authors of the study are Kevin J. Anchukaitis, also of Lamont; and Paul C. Huth, John E. Thompson and Shanan F. Smiley, of the Mohonk Preserve.---Image 1: The rain gauge at Mohonk is the brass 1896 original, supplied by the US Weather Bureau (now called the National Weather Service). Credit: Linda Keyes/Courtesy Mohonk PreserveImage 2: Paul Huth checks the thermometer at the Mohonk Preserve, located at the same spot for 114 years, and read every day without a break. Credit: Linda Keyes/Courtesy Mohonk PreserveSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 May 2010 | 6:38 am Copyfighter tee: STEP OUTSIDE ANALOGUE BOY Copyfighting UK MP Tom Watson (who voted against his party whip on the loathsome Digital Economy Act) is styling in this STEP OUTSIDE ANALOGUE BOY tee made for him by @jkerrstevens. WANT. Step Outside Analogue Boy (via @glynwintle)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 9 May 2010 | 6:38 am How Does Ice Flow?Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute present first results of a new measurement method in AntarcticaCurrently the yearly General Assembly of the European Geological Union takes place in Vienna, Austria. Dr. Olaf Eisen from the German Alfred Wegener Institute presents results from an environmentally friendly measurement method that he and his colleagues used on an Antarctic ice-shelf for the first time in early 2010. It supplies data that are input to models for the ice mass balance and thus permit better forecasting of future changes in the sea level.The quality of scientific models depends to a decisive degree on the available database. Therefore members of a young investigators group supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) now applied a special geophysical measurement method, vibroseismics, for data collection in the Antarctic for the first time. "By means of vibroseismic measurements, we would like to find out more about the structure of the ice and thus about the flow characteristics of the Antarctic ice sheet," explains Dr. Olaf Eisen from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association. He is head of the LIMPICS young investigators group (Linking micro-physical properties to macro features in ice sheets with geophysical techniques).Eisen now presents first results from geophysical measurement campaign in the Antarctic on the international conference. The objective of the expedition was to determine the internal structure of an ice sheet from its surface by means of geophysical methods. The cooperation partners are the Universities of Bergen (Norway), Swansea (Wales, UK), Innsbruck (Austria) and Heidelberg (Germany) and the Commission for Glaciology of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. For test purposes vibroseismics was used along with proven explosive seismic methods for the first time on an ice sheet.One of the problems involved in the application of seismic methods on ice sheets is the very porous firn layer, which may be 50 to 100 meters thick. Explosive seismics involves drilling a hole, approximately 10 to 20 meters deep, into the firn to achieve a better coupling between the explosive charge and the surrounding firn or ice. Drilling takes a lot of time and permits only slow progress along the seismic profiles. Vibroseismics entails the generation of seismic waves directly on the surface. For this purpose the vibrator pad of a 16-ton vibroseis truck of the University of Bergen is pressed onto the precompressed firn and set into operation at a defined vibration rate. In contrast to explosive seismic methods, the excited seismic signal is known and can be repeatedly generated as frequently as desired, leading in the end to improved data quality. However, the loss of seismic energy in the porous firn is a disadvantage. Therefore, the scientists compare the explosive seismic and vibroseismic methods quantitatively and in this way want determine how much energy is propagating from the surface through the ice and reflected back to the surface. First data analyses show that vibroseismics is coequal to the classic explosive seismics concerning the amplitude of the waves sent into deeper snow and ice layers. An explicit advantage is the lower effort and thus less time and energy the scientists spend to measure seismic profiles now.Yngve Kristoffersen, professor of geophysics at the University of Bergen, who provides the vibroseismic equipment, explains: "The successful pilot study opens up a new era for efficient and more environmentally friendly methods for obtaining seismic information on the internal structure of the ice and the bedrock underneath it. This would extend our knowledge about how the ice sheet moves across the bedrock and about the geological structure of the rock under the ice." Furthermore, in the coming years this method will be applied during pre-site surveys of future geological drill sites under ice shelves, which will contribute to a better understanding of climate history.---Image Caption: The seismic snow streamer is laid out. Credit: Olaf Eisen, Alfred Wegener InstituteSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 May 2010 | 6:31 am Oil Spill Dome Finds Trouble UnderwaterThe dome that was meant to help contain the oil spill in the gulf ran into trouble on Saturday after it encountered flammable hydrate formations as it was lowered onto the leak area.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 May 2010 | 6:20 am FCC Pushing For Better Piracy ControlsFederal regulators are endorsing the efforts of Hollywood by allowing cable and satellite TV companies to turn off output connections on the back of set-top boxes to help prevent pirating.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 May 2010 | 5:45 am World’s Largest Dam Can Be Seen From SpaceA Canadian ecologist has discovered the world's largest beaver dam, located in a remote area of northern Alberta, which can be seen from space.Researcher Jean Thie said he used satellite imagery and Google Earth software to find the dam, which is about 2,800 feet long on the southern edge of Wood Buffalo National Park.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 May 2010 | 5:40 am Where is Dark Matter Hiding?According to a highly sensitive particle detector, dark matter particles don't appear to exist. However, dark matter detection reports from another, less sensitive instrument suggests otherwise. What is going on?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 9 May 2010 | 3:45 am Facebook Follows Foursquare, Checks in With McDonald's - eWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 9 May 2010 | 3:25 am
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As I said earlier tonight, 
Thanks to the increase in number of gamers signing up for flower delivery offers for Moms, Mother’s Day was payday for social game publishers this year, with ad-funded payments skyrocketing during the holiday. 
Code doesn’t lie.
Starting this week, I’m implementing a rule for readers of this column.
Earlier this week during a keynote presentation at Web 2.0, Lili Cheng, head of Microsoft’s Future Social Experiences Labs (FUSE) group, 
