`Google called the Bush administration’s request for data on Web searches as “so uninformed as to be nonsensical” in papers filed in San Jose federal court Friday, arguing that turning over the information would expose its trade secrets and violate the privacy of its users.
The 21-page brief filed by the Mountain View search giant angrily dissected the government’s claim that the search results would produce useful evidence regarding child pornography. [..]
Google’s struggle with the Justice Department has focused worldwide attention on the risk that Internet technologies will be used by governments for surveillance purposes — and that the privacy of users could be compromised without their ever knowing it.
In justification of its demand of data from Google, the Justice Department revealed that it had requested — and received — similar data from Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL.’
`The results of the second OMNI Opinion Poll, concerning predictions for the year 2007, turned up some interesting ideas. The least change is envisioned in terms of religion and the arts, while progress is seen for the medical and educational arenas. All in all, the opinions of the OMNI Online audience didn’t differ too drastically from those of the experts in January’s “The Seers’ Catalog”.’
`Welcome to the Most Holy-n-High Church of the Blinding Light of the Holy Glowing™ Form of the One Toupeed and Gloriously Bloated Shatner!’
`A well known cryptographer has applied power analysis techniques to crack passwords for the most popular brand of RFID tags.
Adi Shamir, professor of computer science at the Weizmann Institute, reported his work in a high-profile panel discussion at the RSA Conference here. Separately, Ron Rivest, who co-developed the RSA algorithms with Shamir, used the stage of the annual panel to call for an industry effort to create a next-generation hashing algorithm to replace today’s SHA-1.
In recent weeks, Shamir used a directional antenna and digital oscilloscope to monitor power use by RFID tags while they were being read. Patterns in power use could be analyzed to determine when the tag received correct and incorrect password bits, he said.’
`About an hour passed, then it was my time to suit up. A few other gentleman had already taken the Veyron out for a spin, and the flash bulbs were going off like machine guns. It was standing room only trying to catch a glimpse of the burgundy colored Veyron whizzing by. I was eventually waved over by a member of Bugatti, asked to put on a helmet and fill out a brief “driver bio” and then took my place in line. I was instructed to take a nice, easy lap and not to push the car too hard. “Sure” I thought, I can do that.
I get inside the car – which was beautiful by the way – and settle in, trying to get comfortable before my wild ride in the spotlight. After a few minutes of working the shifter and the pedals to settle into my groove, I was waved onto the track and got the green flag. I gave her about half gas and BOOM, I’m off like a shot. I proceed to fly through the course at a gingerly, controlled pace, struggling to keep myself from flooring it and breaking the sound barrier. Turn after turn I fell more in love with the car – the handling and power were so effortless – it was like a racecar with a luxury cockpit. I was in heaven, living every man’s wildest fantasy. For those brief 2 minutes it was good to be me.
Then, about 3/4 of the way around the track, my perfect fantasy was abruptly interrupted. [..]’
`”Don’t work too hard,” wrote a colleague in an e-mail today. Was she sincere or sarcastic? I think I know (sarcastic), but I’m probably wrong.
According to recent research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, I’ve only a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message. The study also shows that people think they’ve correctly interpreted the tone of e-mails they receive 90 percent of the time.
“That’s how flame wars get started,” says psychologist Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago, who conducted the research with Justin Kruger of New York University. “People in our study were convinced they’ve accurately understood the tone of an e-mail message when in fact their odds are no better than chance,” says Epley.’
`A former NSA employee said Tuesday there is another ongoing top-secret surveillance program that might have violated millions of Americans’ Constitutional rights.
Russell D. Tice told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations he has concerns about a “special access” electronic surveillance program that he characterized as far more wide-ranging than the warrentless wiretapping recently exposed by the New York Times but he is forbidden from discussing the program with Congress.
Tice said he believes it violates the Constitution’s protection against unlawful search and seizures but has no way of sharing the information without breaking classification laws. He is not even allowed to tell the congressional intelligence committees – members or their staff – because they lack high enough clearance.’
`A bright yellow slime mould that can grow to several metres in diameter has been put in charge of a scrabbling, six-legged robot.
The Physarum polycephalum slime, which naturally shies away from light, controls the robot’s movement so that it too keeps out of light and seeks out dark places in which to hide itself.
Klaus-Peter Zauner at the University of Southampton, UK, who developed the slime-controlled bot with colleagues from Kobe University in south-central Japan, says the idea is to find simpler ways to control a robot’s behaviour.’
`For the first time, researchers have created a working prototype of a radical new chip design based on magnetism instead of electrical transistors.
As transistor-based microchips hit the limits of Moore’s Law, a group of electrical engineers at the University of Notre Dame has fabricated a chip that uses nanoscale magnetic “islands” to juggle the ones and zeroes of binary code. [..]
Because the chip has no wires, its device density and processing power may eventually be much higher than transistor-based devices. And it won’t be nearly as power-hungry, which will translate to less heat emission and a cooler future for portable hardware like laptops.’
`Video games and the Internet have been subject to suspicion since the computer became a household fixture. One complaint: People get sucked into spending enormous amounts of time on the computer, to the detriment of other parts of their life.
But are they addicted?
The answer depends on what you mean by “addicted.” Most experts say computers are not addictive in the same sense that drugs are, but they could be on the same level as gambling.’
I should have been at work about an hour and a half ago. Heh. :)
`A Serbian funeral director is facing legal action after organising the burial of a man who was still alive.
The mistake was noticed only as the coffin was being lowered into the ground, prompting angry scenes from grieving relatives.
The family from Novi Sad in Serbia had been told that the head of their family, Bogoljub Topalovic, 84, had died in hospital. But the body of another man who had died at the same hospital was in the coffin.
Mourners realised a mistake had been made when Bogoljub rang his daughter on her cellphone during the funeral service to ask why no one had been to visit him for a few days.’
`[..] Since then I have built a considerably more general device. My new device is capable of working with nearly any kind of 125 kHz card, and most types of 13.56 MHz cards. It is also capable of bidirectional communication, so that it can send data from the reader to the tag. This is necessary to work with most of the newer tags, including any cryptographic tag. (Note, of course, that a tag that uses cryptographic techniques can resist any practical attempts to clone it over the air; but I can still talk to the tag, and do anything that its reader could, even if I cannot clone the thing.)’
`Ford is developing a new form of automotive propulsion, and the implications for the American Auto Industry are huge. The Hydraulic Hybrid could be the greatest innovation since the internal combustion engine itself, and Ford is on the inside track with its F-150 Hybrid. New Tech Spy Has learned details about the system that are simply amazing and could put Ford in a commanding position in the fiercely competitive full size pickup market.
The Idea behind the current crop of Hybrid cars is well known; the cars main energy comes from gasoline which recharges batteries that move the car at low speeds. Hydraulic Hybrids work in the same manner, only instead of batteries, excess energy is stored in hydraulic cylinders.That in itself is not revolutionary, except for the fact that Nickel Metal Hydride batteries used today are not an efficient way to store energy, and hydraulic storage blows them away with 3X the efficiency. Even next generation Lithium Ion batteries do not come close to Hydraulic Energy Storage.’
`We’re getting all too accustomed to hard drive makers squeezing more and more data into smaller and smaller spaces, but there’s still something really sweet about the news that Seagate’s rolling out a new 12GB 1-inch drive called the ST1.3 that’s 23% smaller than their current 1-inch drive yet squeezes in 50% more storage capacity. They’re aiming these drives squarely at mobile phone makers, so brace yourselves for announcements of a whole bunch of 12GB cellphones in the weeks and months after Seagate starts shipping these things (they’re saying it’ll be Q3 of this year).’
This is pretty cool. If I’d had one of these when I was a kid I’d have been the coolest kid in the whole neighbourhood. No doubt about it.
(streaming video)
see it here »
`Microsoft’s new OS Vista “Welcome Center” screen, seen by all PC users when they start their computers, will display ads. Because that practice has caused complaints, the company is facing trouble from the U.S. Department of Justice as well as states attorneys general who are considering legal action. A report was filed last Wednesday with the judge handling Microsoft’s antitrust compliance.
With millions if not billions of people viewing that screen at least a few times a week, calling it prime advertising real estate is an understatement. While TV has died as a mass media, Microsoft’s “Welcome Center” will cause marketers to drool over its reach but cause extreme concern among those who feel Microsoft will use the space to promote the company’s own products.’
`At the heart of PixelOptics’ technology are tiny, electronically-controlled pixels embedded within a traditional eyeglass lens. Technicians scan the eyeball with an aberrometer — a device that measures aberrations that can impede vision — and then the pixels are programmed to correct the irregularities.
Traditional glasses correct lower-order aberrations like nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatisms. PixelOptics’ lenses handle higher-order aberrations that are much more difficult to detect and correct.’
`It took over 14 years of research, innovation, and refinements, with a 20 million dollar investment to produce the Laser Turntable! [..]
Two beams read the stereo sound, two track the left and right shoulders of the groove, and one beam maintains the height and focus of playback head on any thickness record, and allowing for some warpage. Rather amazing to think about, and more so to hear!’
`A body of research suggests that playing video games provides benefits similar to bilingualism in exercising the mind. Just as people fluent in two languages learn to suppress one language while speaking the other, so too are gamers adept at shutting out distractions to swiftly switch attention between different tasks.
A new study of 100 university undergraduates in Toronto has found that video gamers consistently outperform their non-playing peers in a series of tricky mental tests. If they also happened to be bilingual, they were unbeatable.
“The people who were video game players were better and faster performers,” said psychologist Ellen Bialystok, a research professor at York University. “Those who were bilingual and video game addicts scored best — particularly at the most difficult tasks.”‘
`According to several different support threads over at Microsoft’s user groups forum, the latest definitions file from Microsoft “(version 5805, 5807) detects Symantec Antivirus files as PWS.Bancos.A (Password Stealer).”
When Microsoft Anti-Spyware users remove the flagged Norton file as prompted, Symantec’s product gets corrupted and no longer protects the user’s machine. The Norton user then has to go through the Windows registry and delete multiple entries (registry editing is always a dicey affair that can quickly hose a system if the user doesn’t know what he or she is doing) so that the program can be completely removed and re-installed.’
An interesting job offer for a PHP programmer posted on Craigslist.
`Using cartoons, games and kid-friendly websites, the federal intelligence community is seeking to win the hearts and minds of America’s children.
Move over, McGruff. The trench-coated canine mascot of the National Crime Prevention Council has some youthful competition in the battle for the hearts and minds of America’s children. Now in virtual training on the website of the National Security Agency are the CryptoKids, the code-makers and code-breakers of America’s future. [..]
This Toys ‘R’ Us approach to spying is nothing new for the fifteen agencies that comprise the “intelligence community” of the US government, including the CIA, the NSA and the National Reconnaissance Office. In 1997 President Bill Clinton mandated that all government agencies set aside virtual space on their websites for child-friendly material. Today, these sites serve as recruiting portals for America’s youth.’
`By creating plasma in open air with lasers, Japanese scientists are working on a true 3D display
The Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) announced an exciting breakthrough in optoelectronics — a working three dimensional display. The display does not rely on any sort of optical illusion or disorientation. Instead, infrared lasers are aligned to converge and create small amounts of plasma. The plasma acts as a floating “dot” on top of the laser grid.’
`The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity. [..]
The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old “Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment” portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding this year.’
`A Taiwanese citizen has been indicted as an agent of the People’s Republic of China in a lengthy indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Florida, federal officials announced in Washington Friday. [..]
Moo and Serge Voros of Paris have been indicted in Miami, Florida with attempting to export an F-16 aircraft engine, Black Hawk helicopter engines, cruise missiles, and air-to-air missiles to China, according to a statement released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities.’
`Those of you fortunate enough to own Final Cut Pro 4.5, or those who promote eclecticism: nested in your FCP application itself is a string that is quite out of the ordinary. [..]
“If we can’t ship this puppy by then, we might as well be herding yaks. I’m glad it’s getting weird again. I didn’t understand it when it wasn’t weird. The C switch statement: Mmmmmm! Chock full of nooses! That would be like crossing the streams or something. Mmmm… Chicago style pizza! I’ve got my blankie, I’m good to go. A lot of this job is mental. “Mostly clockwise, sometimes reverses…” What’s the sound of one luma clamping? I just wanna be in the app! Oh, rough and woeful music which we have! Cause it to sound! The Yak is a delightful creature… rather like a visit with a bovine Confucious Nobody might know anything. I don’t know, somehow it just works. How do you tempt a Yak? [..]”
[..] 10 bucks drugs were involved.’
`The British Red Cross has told GamesIndustry.biz that it hopes to work with developers to prevent the “illegal and detrimental” misuse of the red cross emblem in videogames.
“It is important for videogame manufacturers not to use the emblem in their games, including for matters related to its humanitarian purpose, such as first aid or general medical care,” said Michael Meyer, head of international law for the British Red Cross.
“The use of the emblem in videogames is both illegal and detrimental to the special protective value of the emblem.”‘
‘The Moo Bella Ice Cream Vending Machine is not yer ordinary common or garden vending machine, oh no. It’s a Linux powered, wireless Internet connected, ‘make from scratch in 45 seconds’, patented techno marvel. No word on Penguin flavours, but the idea is that these machines will produce on-demand fresh, real ice cream just about anywhere. Instantly aerated, mixed, flavoured and frozed in less than a minute. With chocolate chip sprinkles too. Yowsers!’
Also a video: One sweet dream.
`Journalist of Russia’s First TV Channel (ORT) Viktor Shvagerus insists that Russian special services have a video of British spy Andrew Fleming masturbating on the spy stone. Two weeks ago, Russia’s FSB reported seizing of a spy electronic device belonging to the British intelligence designed as a stone. But it turned out later that the national TV channels did not show the most interesting part of the spy scandal. [..]
The cameraman wrote: “Censorship was applied to the footage showing one of the supposed spies performing an indecent action with the stone-like transmitter. Behind the cameras FSB experts explained that the British spy was masturbating in front of the stone. They did not name the man, but they grinned every time the name of Andrew Fleming was mentioned (secretary of the British Embassy in Russia Andrew Fleming is meant).”’
`A hacker who stopped more than three million Spanish computer users from using the internet has been sentenced to two years in jail. Twenty-six-year-old Santiago Garrido used a computer worm to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks after he was expelled from the popular “Hispano” IRC chat room for disobeying its rules.
The attacks disrupted an estimated three million users of the Wanadoo, ONO, Lleida Net and other internet service providers – amounting to one third of all of Spain’s web users at the time of the 2003 offense. [..]
“Many times hackers use DDoS techniques to try and blackmail the website under attack. On this occasion, it seems the hacker was so furious about being thrown out of a chat room that he resorted to a criminal act to wreak his revenge, affecting millions of internet users in the process,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.’
