`Unlike Windows, which is a mature commercial product which is normally included with every new computer, Linux is given away. Now it may not sound like much of a problem, after all there is very little profit in merely giving a product away.
This would be certainly true were in not for the Linux project’s seductive Marxist ideology and the effect that it has on ‘Blue-State’ liberals. Indeed, Linux is so pervasive amongst the blue states and many liberal universities that a leading computer expert Steve Balmer (from Microsoft) described Linux as cancer. [..]
Imagine if the State of the Union address were hacked because the TV station decided to save money by using Linux? Imagine if a stealth-bomber crashed because it’s software was written by anonymous Chinese or European hackers. It would make as much sense as inviting the French to come over and take over the White-House.
And guess what software Osama Bin Laden uses on his laptop?’
`I’ve been a fan of Michael Dell for about ten years since I read an article about him in Reader’s Digest. Not wanting to believe that my friend Michael would allow this garbage to be installed on computers that bare his name, I assumed that somehow a virus had snuck its way onto my machine in the ten minute window where my computer was without anti-virus software. Sadly, Google search after Google search revealed that in fact Dell is being paid to pre-install this filth on their machines. [..]
What Dell is doing should be illegal. They are being paid to install spyware on new computers. They are making it difficult for customers to remove the spyware on their own. Then, they charge $49 to teach you how to remove it. This would be like a doctor being paid to infect you with a disease and then charging you for the antidote.
Dell claims that people like me are overreacting, but a lot of people seem to disagree.’
`Boffins at the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University and Harvard University have come up with an idea for a storage device which involves some nano-structures and a bit of water.
Normally if you tip water over your computer, you msy get an electric shock and your computer will keel over and die, but the boffins have worked out that you can get stable ferroelectricity in nanostructures by terminating their surfaces with traces of water.
[..] It means that if the technique was applied to store data, it would be possible to have more than 100,000 terabits per cubic centimetre.’
This lightbulb has been on for 105 years or so. And now you can see a live webcam of it. Bask realtime in its 4 watt glow.
‘This is a my street-legal jet car on full afterburner. The car has two engines: the production gasoline engine in the front driving the front wheels and the jet engine in the back. The idea is that you drive around legally on the gasoline engine and when you want to have some fun, you spin up the jet and get on the burner (you can start the jet while driving along on the gasoline engine). The car was built because I wanted the wildest street-legal ride possible. With this project, I was able to use some stuff I learned while getting my fancy engineering degree (I have a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University) to design a street-legal jet car without the distraction of how other people have done it in the past – because no one has. I don’t know how fast the car will go and probably never will. The car was built to thrill me, not kill me. That doesn’t stop me from the occasional blast on the highway though.’
`At the height of the Cold War in the late 1950s, all international communications were either sent through undersea cables or bounced off of the natural ionosphere. The United States military was concerned that the Soviets (or other “Hostile Actors”) might cut those cables, forcing the unpredictable ionosphere to be the only means of communication with overseas forces. The Space Age had just begun, and the communications satellites we rely on today existed only in the sketches of futurists.
Nevertheless, the US Military looked to space to help solve their communications weakness. Their solution was to create an artificial ionosphere. In May 1963, the US Air Force launched 480 million tiny copper needles that briefly created a ring encircling the entire globe. They called it Project West Ford. The engineers behind the project hoped that it would serve as a prototype for two more permanent rings that would forever guarantee their ability to communicate across the globe.’
`At a distance of about 40 feet, a .308-caliber bullet traveling 2,900 feet per second barely slows down as it punches through a piece of metal. But what happens when you put a refrigerator-size piece of computer hardware in its path?
At a high-tech ballistics center managed by National Technical Systems (NTS) in Camden, Arkansas, HP engineers are about to find out. On one side of the control room: a custom-made mounted rifle barrel that delivers bullets to a target with pinpoint accuracy. On the other side: an HP StorageWorks XP12000 Disk Array that’s operating under a full production load and streaming high-quality videos to nearby monitors. An NTS ballistics expert in the control room is ready to electronically fire the weapon. The fate of the hardware will be determined in a fraction of a second.’
`Philips suggests adding flags to commercial breaks to stop a viewer from changing channels until the adverts are over. The flags could also be recognised by digital video recorders, which would then disable the fast forward control while the ads are playing.
Philips’ patent acknowledges that this may be “greatly resented by viewers” who could initially think their equipment has gone wrong. So it suggests the new system could throw up a warning on screen when it is enforcing advert viewing. The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts.’
`No matter how hard we pray, how many chickens we sacrifice, how often we chant naked by moonlight, every network is at one time or other exposed to the ultimate technology risk: users.
They’re short, tall, skinny, and fat. They’re smart or stupid, unique or cloned — but no matter what, they’ll abuse technology.’
`Imagine having a full-time administrative assistant who regularly sends sweet messages and virtual flowers to all of your girlfriends, in your name, using e-mail and SMS.
And image that this assistant also browses through the dating sites and faithfully enters the personal and vital statistics of every woman who meet your requirements right into your electronic black book.
Now, imagine that you have a dedicated accountant who constantly evaluates your Booty Yield so you can determine whether any particular woman is worth the time, effort and money that you’ve invested.
Are you starting to get the picture of what GirlFriend X is all about?
GirlFriend X is your automated love life manger, taking care of the tedious side of having relationships with women so you can spend more time enjoying them!’
`Microsoft Corp. estimates it lost about $14 billion last year to software piracy — and those may prove to be the most lucrative sales never made.
Although the world’s largest software maker spends millions of dollars annually to combat illegal copying and distribution of its products, critics allege — and Microsoft acknowledges — that piracy sometimes helps the company establish itself in emerging markets and fend off threats from free open-source programs. [..]
The proliferation of pirated copies nevertheless establishes Microsoft products — particularly Windows and Office — as the software standard. As economies mature and flourish and people and companies begin buying legitimate versions, they usually buy Microsoft because most others already use it. It’s called the network effect.’
`From NASA’s press event for the 25th anniversary of its first shuttle launch: See the ‘Discovery,’ a supercomputer that turns out any kind of space-related data at an incredibly quick rate. NASA’s Rupak Biswas gives the tour.’
`A Malaysian man said he nearly fainted when he recieved a $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday.
Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father’s phone line in January after he died and settled the $23 bill, the New Straits Times reported.
But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a $218 trillion bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported.
It wasn’t clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya’s father’s phone line was used illegally after after his death.’
`Japan’s space agency reports that the sleepy Tokyo suburb of Kogane has been hit by a laser from an orbiting spacecraft. Click below for the full details of this first-ever extraterrestrial event.
Another first for Japan’s future military space-communications apparatus: the Optical Inter-orbit Communications Engineering Test Satellite, also known, fortunately, as Kirari, zapped the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology in the Tokyo suburb of Kogane with a laser. Not to worry, though, the beam was fired for communication purposes, not destructive ones.’
`AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers’ phone calls, and shunted its customers’ internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s lawsuit against the company.
Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF’s lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants. [..]
According to a statement released by Klein’s attorney, an NSA agent showed up at the San Francisco switching center in 2002 to interview a management-level technician for a special job. In January 2003, Klein observed a new room being built adjacent to the room housing AT&T’s #4ESS switching equipment, which is responsible for routing long distance and international calls.’
`In a modest victory for broadband providers, a highly anticipated bill in the U.S. Congress does not include specific rules saying that some Internet sites must not be favored over others. [..]
Under Network neutrality, the companies that own the broadband pipes do not configure their networks in a way that plays favorites. They may not be allowed to transmit their own services at faster speeds, for example, or to charge Net content and application companies a fee for similar fast delivery.
chart
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon.com, Skype and some advocacy groups have been pressing Congress for strict laws requiring Net neutrality, and had been hoping that Barton’s bill–called the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act–would mandate it.’
`In a rare discussion about the severity of the Windows malware scourge, a Microsoft security official said businesses should consider investing in an automated process to wipe hard drives and reinstall operating systems as a practical way to recover from malware infestation.
“When you are dealing with rootkits and some advanced spyware programs, the only solution is to rebuild from scratch. In some cases, there really is no way to recover without nuking the systems from orbit,” Mike Danseglio, program manager in the Security Solutions group at Microsoft, said in a presentation at the InfoSec World conference here.’
`Last week, Federal Parliament passed a law that allows the Government to read private emails, text messages and other stored communications without our knowledge. The power extends to innocent people, called B-parties, if they have been unlucky enough to communicate with someone suspected of a crime or of being a threat to national security.
The Government should sometimes be able to monitor the communications of innocent people. This may be necessary to protect the wider community where a suspect can only be tracked through another person. However, the law goes beyond what can be justified and undermines our privacy more than is needed.
Under the Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Act, the Government will be able to access communications not only between the B-party and the suspect, but also between the B-party and anyone else. If you have unwittingly communicated with a suspect (and thereby become a B-party), the Government may be able to monitor all your conversations with family members, friends, work colleagues, your lawyer and your doctor.’
`A rash of oven-door thefts may be linked to a recent case in which a woman bought what she thought was a flat-screen television, only to discover that the package held an old oven door, police said.
South Bend detective Sgt. Jim Walsh said police arrested a suspect Thursday they believe sold the appliance door to the woman. According to police reports, officers found an oven door and packaging materials inside the trunk of the man’s car.
Oven doors are an increasingly hot item in burglaries targeting vacant properties. Walsh said police have investigated five recent burglaries where oven doors were among the items stolen.
Police have had two reports of the doors being sold as flat-screen televisions, and it’s likely that others went unreported by the embarrassed dupes, Walsh said. Officers continue to investigate at least two other suspects who may be disguising oven doors and selling them.’
`As if shopping for new flat-panel, high-definition television is not hard enough, Mitsubishi is scheduled to announce this week that it has developed commercial television that uses colored lasers to display bright, deep images on large, thin, lightweight screens — surpassing images seen on film. The television sets, which Mitsubishi is calling the first of their kind, are expected to reach stores sometime late next year.
At the heart of the first generation of this new television is an existing rear-projection technology called digital light processing. In the past, this technology, developed by Texas Instruments, used white-light mercury lamps as the television’s light source. With laser television, separate red, green and blue lasers are used in conjunction with an HDTV chip, said Frank DeMartin, vice president for marketing and product development at Mitsubishi.’
`How easy is it for the average internet user to make a phone call secure enough to frustrate the NSA’s extrajudicial surveillance program?
Wired News took Phil Zimmermann’s newest encryption software, Zfone, for a test drive and found it’s actually quite easy, even if the program is still in beta.
Zimmermann, the man who released the PGP e-mail encryption program to the world in 1991 — only to face an abortive criminal prosecution from the government — has been trying for 10 years to give the world easy-to-use software to cloak internet phone calls.’
`The new iGoatse is the definitive skin for your iPod.
There are no words to describe it.
And you know why.’
`Today I learned from a trusted source that Apple is poised to make history next Saturday when it unveils the worlds first advertisement that can be seen from space.
Apple had hoped to keep their creation secret until the grand unveiling, however, after I was tipped off, and with just a little bit of lateral digging, I was able to uncover enough background information to get a clue of the location.
From there, it was just a matter of firing up Google Earth, and hunting for it! The pictures are a few months old, but clearly show the advert well on the way to completion.
The sheer size of the publicity stunt is difficult to comprehend. It covers 893240 square metres; roughly equivalent to eighty football pitches.’
`A device that can pick up on people’s emotions is being developed to help people with autism relate to those around them. It will alert its autistic user if the person they are talking to starts showing signs of getting bored or annoyed. [..]
The “emotional social intelligence prosthetic” device, which El Kaliouby is constructing along with MIT colleagues Rosalind Picard and Alea Teeters, consists of a camera small enough to be pinned to the side of a pair of glasses, connected to a hand-held computer running image recognition software plus software that can read the emotions these images show. If the wearer seems to be failing to engage his or her listener, the software makes the hand-held computer vibrate.’
`Microsoft is moving full steam ahead with a plan to permanently modify the way Internet Explorer renders multimedia content on Web pages, but in what amounts to an admission that the changes could be disruptive, the software maker plans to give Web developers an extra 60 days to continue making preparations. [..]
“Despite what Microsoft says about minimal impact, it makes it much harder to use an application that has a lot of ActiveX or Applets. Each time you load a page with a control, you have to activate it. So if the user goes to PageA with a control and activates it, then goes to PageB with a control and activates that one, if they then go back to PageA again then have to activate it again,” said the source, who requested anonymity.
He said software vendors and sites that use ActiveX, Flash and Applets “will get a lot of howls” from users when the update ships on April 11.’
`While the X86 world hops from one to two processing cores, startup Azul Systems plans to integrate 48 cores on its second-generation Vega chip, expected next year.
Azul has become one of the hottest young companies in California thanks to its network-attached systems for accelerating Java and other virtual-machine performance.
The first-generation Vega processor it designed has 24 cores but the firm expects to double that level of integration in systems generally available next year with the Vega 2, built on TSMC’s 90nm process and squeezing in 812 million transistors. The progress means that Azul’s Compute Appliances will offer up to 768-way symmetric multiprocessing.’
`Fine example of a WW II Enigma cipher machine in a very good condition and a great history; full functional. Year of construction 1941 by Manufacturer Chiffriermaschinen Gesellschaft Heimsoeth and Rinke, Berlin. The Enigma machine is placed in an oak woodwork case. Three high-quality, all-metal, matched rotors and an Umkehrwalze “B”. The rotors are continuous numbered; serial numbers has been removed. There are two spare rotors in an additional small wooden box. Plug board is lettered QWERTZU…, wheels numbered 1-26. 100% Original!!! No Copy!!’
`The first computer circuit to be built on a single molecule has been unveiled by researchers in the US.
It was assembled on a single carbon nanotube, a standard component of any nanotechnologist’s toolkit.
The circuit is less than a fifth of the width of a human hair and can only be seen through an electron microscope.
The researchers, from IBM and two US universities in Florida and New York, told the journal Science that the work could lead to faster computer chips.’
