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Google

Google Assists In Arrest Of Indian Man 609

Posted by CmdrTaco from the many-shades-of-evil dept.
An anonymous reader writes "After a Google user posted a profane picture of the Hindu saint Shivaji, Indian authorities contacted Google to ask for his IP address. Google complied. He was arrested and is reported to have been beaten by a lathi and asked to use the same bowl to eat and to use in the toilet. Not surprisingly, Google is a keen to play this down as Yahoo is being hauled over the coals by US Congress for handing over IP addresses and emails to the Chinese Government which resulted in a Chinese democracy activist being jailed." Readers are noting that these are 2 unrelated cases — the latter is several months old.
Data Storage

Stored Data to Exceed 1.8 Zettabytes by 2011 143

Posted by CmdrTaco from the less-than-eighty-percent-porn dept.
jcatcw writes "By 2011, there will be 1.8 zettabytes of electronic data stored in 20 quadrillion files, packets or other containers because of, among other things, the massive growth rate of social networks, and digital equipment such as cameras, cell phones and televisions, according to a new study by IDC. Data is growing by a factor of 10 every five years. According to John Gantz, IDC's lead analyst, "at some point in the life of every file, or bit or packet, 85% of that information somewhere goes through a corporate computer, website, network or asset," meaning any given corporation becomes responsible for protecting large amounts of data that it and its customers may not have created. The study, which coincided with the launch of a " digital footprint" calculator, also found that as the world changes over to digital televisions, analog sets and obsolete set-top boxes and DVDs "will be heaped on the waste piles, which will double by 2011.""
Math

Mathematician Solves a Big One After 140 Years 144

Posted by kdawson from the works-with-holes dept.
TaeKwonDood notes that ScientificBlogging.com has just written about a development in applied math that was published last year. "The Schwarz-Christoffel transformation is an elegant application of conformal mapping to make complex problems faster to solve. But it didn't do well with irregular geometries or holes, so it simplified too much for a lot of modern-day mechanical engineering applications. 140 years after Schwarz and Christoffel's work, a professor at Imperial College London has generalized the equation. MatLab users rejoice!"
Space

Space Spotters Track Secret Satellites 110

Posted by Zonk from the better-than-sweeps-week dept.
Ponca City, We Love You writes "When government officials announced last month that a top-secret spy satellite would come falling out of the sky they said little about the satellite itself. They didn't need to. Spotters equipped with little more than a pair of binoculars, a stop watch and star charts, had already uncovered some of the deepest of the government's expensive secrets and shared them on the Internet. Thousands of people form the spotter community. Many look for historical relics of the early space age, working from publicly available orbital information. Still others are drawn to the secretive world of spy satellites, with about a dozen hobbyists doing most of the observing. When a new spy satellite is launched the hobbyists will collaborate on sightings around the world to determine its orbit, and even guess at its function. They often share their information on their web site, satobs.org."
Power

Submission + - Does any company power down at night? 11

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: My Health Sciences Campus has about 8,000 computers on desks, and any night about half of them are left on. I know, because I track all the MAC addresses in case there is a virus outbreak. Aside from the current fad of "being green", has anyone had any success in encouraging users to power-down at night? Eliminate running bots, protect yourself from the next virus outbreak, keep your data safe, etc. My esteemed director's view: "I log off of my PC at night". Or does it matter, security wise, let alone power consumption wise?
Movies

Uwe Boll Returns To Small-Time Terrible Films 51

Posted by Zonk from the crawled-back-under-that-rock dept.
SatanicPuppy writes "According to Reuters Uwe Boll, the German director the critics love to hate, will return to low-budget filmmaking now that his latest and biggest production, the $70 million fantasy epic 'In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale,' bombed at the North American box office. The tax shelter loopholes that funded the previous films have been banned in Germany, making further large budget films unlikely."
Movies

Submission + - Blu-ray player 1.0? No bonus features for you! (consumerist.com)

Submitted by PontifexPrimus
PontifexPrimus writes: The current Blu-ray players won't be able to access content on disks released later on; the current generation (profile 1.0) won't be able to access the extras on newer disks (profile 1.1, "Bonus View"); the only exception being the Sony PS3. Further down the road we find profile 2.0 ("BD live") which requires internet connection capability for the player hardware. How will the owners of current players react when bonus features and other content will be denied to them on newer releases? Why would a standalone movie player require internet capability? And when will this generation be superseded by profile 3.0, profile 95 and profile XP?
Space

New Chip For Square Kilometer Radio Telescope 88

Posted by kdawson from the little-green-men-using-quantum-computers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet Aus reported on a new low-noise chip that could help in building the $1.6B Square Kilometer Array, the world's largest radio telescope. Wikipedia claims the telescope will be 50 times as sensitive as current instruments. It will have a resolution able to detect every active galactic nucleus out to a redshift of 6, when the universe was less than 1 billion years old and way crazy. It will have the sensitivity to detect Earth-like radio leakage at a distance of several hundred to a few thousand light years, which could help greatly with the search for extraterrestrial life. The chip's designer, Prof. Jack Singh, commented on the chip's ability to help with quantum computing research, due to its ability to operate at millikelvin temperatures, necessary to prevent quantum decoherence."
Movies

Paramount to Drop HD DVD? 470

Posted by CmdrTaco from the this-might-be-it-folks dept.
zeromemory writes "The Financial Times reports that " Paramount is poised to drop its support of HD DVD after Warner Brothers' recent backing of Sony's Blu-ray technology, in a move that will sound the death knell of HD DVD and bring the home entertainment format war to a definitive end." According to the Times, Warner Brother's recent defection to Blu-Ray allowed Paramount to terminate their exclusive relationship with HD DVD. Universal Studios remains the only major studio to exclusively support the HD DVD format, though rumors have surfaced that their contract may also contain a termination provision similar to that exercised by Paramount."
Security

Facebook Widget Installs Zango Spyware 137

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hate-when-that-happens dept.
BaCa writes "A malicious Facebook Widget actively spreading on the social networking site ultimately prompts users to install the infamous "Zango" adware/spyware. The tremendous success and lightning fast expansion of Facebook empowered the social networking giant with an impressive user base. Needless to say, in a digital world where web traffic equals money, such a user base attracts spammers, virus/spyware seeders, and other ethic-less online marketers like honey would attract flies."
Businesses

Submission + - FDIC closes Netbank, Inc.

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: One of the first and best, in my opinion, internet banks in the country was closed by the FDIC today. Being a loyal customer for 8 years, I am saddened that an institution that provided me with so much great service and a cool, hi tech way [early 2000 way at least] to conduct my financial transactions is shutting down. Seems that mortgage defaults are to blame. Here's the link to the story and the defunct web page... http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200709281658DOWJONESDJONLINE000790_FORTUNE5.htm http://www.netbank.com/
Biotech

Journal Journal: Discredited Korean embryonic stem cells' true origins revealed

Journal by stemceller
A report from researchers at

Children's Hospital Boston

and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute sheds new light on a now-discredited Korean embryonic stem cell line, setting the historical record straight and also establishing a much-needed set of standards for characterizing human embryonic stem cells. The report was published online August 2 by the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Biotech

Submission + - New antibiotics for pathogenic attacks of bacteria (heraldbiz.com)

Submitted by
allengineering
allengineering writes: "A team of research directed by the pr. KIM Kyung-Gyu of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Sungkyunkwan discovered the structure of the protein Rse B playing an essential part in the transmission of the signals of stresses resulting from the pathogenic attacks of bacteria. The article is been published in the edition of May of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the the USA (PNAS). This projection should make it possible to develop new antibiotics."
United States

Submission + - Forensics Expert says Al-Qaeda Images Altered

Submitted by WerewolfOfVulcan
WerewolfOfVulcan writes: Wired reports that researcher Neal Krawetz revealed some veeeeeery interesting things about the Al-Qaeda images that our government loves to show off.

From the article: "Krawetz was also able to determine that the writing on the banner behind al-Zawahiri's head was added to the image afterward. In the second picture above showing the results of the error level analysis, the light clusters on the image indicate areas of the image that were added or changed. The subtitles and logos in the upper right and lower left corners (IntelCenter is an organization that monitors terrorist activity and As-Sahab is the video production branch of al Qaeda) were all added at the same time, while the banner writing was added at a different time, likely around the same time that al-Zawahiri was added, Krawetz says." Why would Al-Qaeda add an IntelCenter logo to their video? Why would IntelCenter add an Al-Qaeda logo? Methinks we have bigger fish to fry than Gonzo and his fired attorneys... }:-) The article contains links to Krawetz's presentation and the source code he used to analyze the photos.
The Internet

Submission + - Suprnova.org Is About To Return

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The legendary BitTorrent site Suprnova.org will be back in action soon. Sloncek, the former owner of suprnova.org decided to donate the domain to The Pirate Bay lads, who will relaunch the site in a few days, staying true to its original design. The return of a Legend.

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