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Math

First Self-Replicating Creature Spawned In Conway's Game of Life 241

Posted by Soulskill from the emergent-gameplay dept.
Calopteryx writes "New Scientist has a story on a self-replicating entity which inhabits the mathematical universe known as the Game of Life. 'Dubbed Gemini, [Andrew Wade's] creature is made of two sets of identical structures, which sit at either end of the instruction tape. Each is a fraction of the size of the tape's length but, made up of two constructor arms and one "destructor," play a key role. Gemini's initial state contains three of these structures, plus a fourth that is incomplete. As the simulation progresses the incomplete structure begins to grow, while the structure at the start of the tape is demolished. The original Gemini continues to disassemble as the new one emerges, until after nearly 34 million generations, new life is born.'"
AMD

Submission + - AMD 690 Chipset Updated, Performance Boost (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Earlier this year, AMD launched its 690 series motherboard chipset and it was relatively well accepted for its affordability, power efficiency, and performance versus competitive chipsets. AMD has since taken the 690 series chipset and optimized it further through BIOS and software level enhancements that result in marked performance gains in a number of situations and also introduces new features. This article showcases a motherboard from Gigabyte that features the latest updates and compares its performance to the unaltered board from when the chipset was first introduced, to see just how much the platform's performance has matured. The majority of the performance enhancements were targeted toward better HD DVD and Blu-ray playback at 1080p."
Programming

Submission + - Moonfall: Lua + CSS (moonfalll.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: CSS Purist might hate this: Simple to use CSS with variables, combining LUA and CSS. A simple LUA domain specific language that generates CSS dynamically as a cgi script or statically for maximum performance.
Privacy

Submission + - Unencrypted passwords at "secure" sites 1

Submitted by linear a
linear a writes: I've noticed that quite a few web sites do *not* encrypt user passwords. I've gotten into the habit of hitting the "email me my password" from them to see what happens. So far I've found maybe 6 that must store passwords in clear since they were able to return the original password back to me. Clearly this is Bad Security Practice. Also, I've had notably bad progress when I ask them to fix this practice. Some of these are sites one would clearly expect to have better security (e.g., a software vendor and an online bank). Do you have thoughts on how to better encourage better password practice at these places? Also, is this is really as common as it seems to be for me?
KDE

Submission + - KDE 4.0 Beta 1 Released 1

Submitted by
mernil
mernil writes: "The KDE Community is happy to announce the immediate availability of the first Beta release for KDE 4.0. This release marks the beginning of the integration process which will bring the powerful new technologies included in the now frozen KDE 4 libraries to the applications."
Programming

Submission + - Plans for the Rich Web Application Backplane 2

Submitted by IndioMan
IndioMan writes: Both mashups and Ajax are now firmly entrenched in the Web landscape. Put them together and you have the makings for Rich Web applications. This article explains the Rich Web Application Backplane, currently a W3C Note, which is designed to bring standardization to the field, proving a set of common building blocks, or components, these applications tend to use.

Comment Name Recognition (Score 5, Informative) 262

by Gaspo (#20005533) Attached to: Cisco to Kill Linksys Brand Name
Cisco definately does have name recognition amongst most consumers. I work retail at a location which sells a lot of networking equipment, and whenever people ask "What's this Linksys stuff?", I always respond that they're a division of Cisco. Most of the time, that gets a favorable response, and I see a good bit of Linksys hardware leave the shelf because of that fact. A good move by Cisco.
Education

Submission + - What is the Who's Who of Security Certification?

Submitted by lunarpaladin
lunarpaladin writes: Okay, so I'm a junior admin (MCSA, Security+, CSA) that has finally come to find what he wants to specialize in. Security. I love reading about different security practices, methods, and technologies. My problem is that when it comes to actual certification, there is an overwhelming amount of certs, courses, books, and the like out there for this area of study. Where does one even begin? I'm totally lost. Is there a recommended or suggested certification/study path for one who wants to become a specialist in this area? What have you guys done to get to where you are now?
United States

Submission + - Politicians want IT to solve US Healthcare Crisis?

Submitted by muhan
muhan writes: Looking back at the recent New Hampshire Democratic and Republican presidential debates, I see a recurring theme amongst most of the candidates that they will use and fund Information Technology to drastically reduce the cost of healthcare in America. They seem to believe that electronic records and prescriptions, patient ownership of their medical records etc. will help drive down costs in the healthcare system. The only things I've heard and read about in respect to these types of IT projects in healthcare is that it's a big money pit. Prime example: The current IT modernization program in England called the National Programme for IT in the NHS. The link states that it is behind schedule and being constantly revised in real time.

Are there any examples of IT in healthcare for things like electronic records that has actually been successfully implemented on a large scale? Is the massive use of IT to drive down healthcare costs a pipe dream and simply an easy political sound bite for these politicians?
Google

Submission + - Google logo error!

Submitted by Bobshush
Bobshush writes: As you should know by now, Google has the wonderful practice of creating custom logos for holidays and other random events throughout the year. However, it seems that they've screwed up for Valentines day by misspelling their name. Check it out at google.com. Googe?
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft claims IBM is blocking OOXML

Submitted by
walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: ""Microsoft is accusing rival IBM of orchestrating a campaign to block efforts to standardize Office document formats." Of course, when Microsoft says "standardize" they mean Microsoft standards. Funny thing is: why blame IBM for ODF? I thought Sun had more to do with ODF than IBM. Seems like Microsoft is forever immating Apple, and paranoid of IBM."
Mozilla

Submission + - Firefox javascript/cookie vulnerability uncovered

Submitted by mybecq
mybecq writes: Michal Zalewski has uncovered and disclosed a serious vulnerability (BugZilla: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=37044 5) in Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1, whereby a javascript string containing '\x00' (escaped NUL character) can cause Firefox to allow malicious sites to manipulate cookies for third-party webpages.

A demonstration of the vulnerability is available. The vulnerability requires javascript and session cookies to be enabled to be able to be exploited.
The Internet

US Group Wants Canada Blacklisted Over Piracy 585

Posted by samzenpus from the are-you-on-the-list dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Following up on an earlier story, the IIAA wants to add Canada to a blacklist of the worst intellectual property offenders. A powerful coalition of U.S. software, movie and music producers is urging the Bush administration to put Canada on an infamous blacklist of intellectual property villains, alongside China, Russia and Belize. 'Canada's chronic failure to modernize its copyright regime has made it a global hub for bootleg movies, pirated software and tiny microchips that allow video-game users to bypass copyright protections', the International Intellectual Property Alliance complains in a submission to the U.S. government."

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