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The Almighty Buck

"Cash For Clunkers" Program Runs Out of Gas 594

Posted by timothy from the spend-all-you-want-they'll-print-more dept.
Ponca City, We love you writes "The Washington Post reports that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has called members of Congress to inform them that the 'cash for clunkers' program will be suspended because the program has run out of money, and congressmen say they intend to ask the Obama administration to divert some funding from the existing economic stimulus package to maintain a scheme that they see as genuinely stimulative. 'Clearly, this has been a very stimulative program that's got consumers back into the car market. It's our hope that possibly more funds can be made available,' says Cody Lusk, president of the American International Automobile Dealers Association." If there is more funding, though, a report on CNET says it may come out of money to have been set aside for renewable energy loans by the US government.
Communications

School System Considers Jamming Students' Phones 785

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the only-one-man-would-dare-give-me-the-raspberry dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The St. Ansgar, Iowa school system is considering buying cell-phone jamming equipment for up to $5000 if it is deemed legal. The use of the equipment would be suspended in the case of an emergency, but one has to wonder if they would be quick enough to shut it down should an emergency arise. 'A Federal Communications Commission notice issued in 2005 says the sale and use of transmitters that jam cellular or personal communications services is unlawful.'"
The Courts

11-Word Extracts May Infringe Copyright In Europe 132

Posted by kdawson from the dibs-on-copyright-on-"the" dept.
splodus writes "The European Court of Justice, Europe's highest court, has ruled that a service providing 11-word snippets of newspaper articles could be unlawful. Media monitoring company Infopaq International searches newspaper articles and provides clients with a keyword and the five words either side. This practice was challenged by the DDF, a group representing newspaper interests, as infringing their members' copyright. The court has referred the issue back to national courts to determine whether copyright laws in each country will be subject to the ruling. The full ruling is available at the European Court of Justice Web site."
Networking

Stopping Spam Before It Hits the Mail Server 157

Posted by Soulskill from the napalm-would-catch-it-even-earlier dept.
Al writes "A team of researchers at the Georgia Institute for Technology say they have developed a way to catch spam before it even arrives on the mail server. Instead of bothering to analyze the contents of a spam message, their software, called SNARE (Spatio-temporal Network-level Automatic Reputation Engine), examines key aspects of individual packets of data to determine whether it might be spam. The team, led by assistant professor Nick Feamster, analyzed 2.5 million emails collected by McAfee in order to determine the key packet characteristics of spam. These include the geodesic proximity of end mail servers and the number of ports open on the sending machine. The approach catches spam 70 percent of the time, with a 0.3 false positive rate. Of course, revealing these characteristics could also allow spammers to fake their packets to avoid filtering."
Communications

Apple Kills Google Voice Apps On the iPhone 541

Posted by kdawson from the hey-wait-isn't-he-on-our-board dept.
molnarcs writes "Apple pulls Google Voice-enabled applications from its App Store, citing duplication of functionality. The move affects both Google's official Google Voice and third party apps like Voice Central. Sean Kovacs, main developer of GV Mobile, says that he had personal approval for his app from Phil Shiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, last April. TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid suspects AT&T behind the move."
Medicine

Are Women Getting More Beautiful? 834

Posted by CmdrTaco from the or-are-you-just-less-picky dept.
FelxH writes "Scientists have found that evolution is driving women to become ever more beautiful, while men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors. The researchers have found beautiful women have more children than their plainer counterparts and that a higher proportion of those children are female. Those daughters, once adult, also tend to be attractive and so repeat the pattern." I just thought my standards were changing as I got older, but it turns out it's just science!
Security

Hackers' Next Target — Your Brain? 295

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the true-tongue-in-cheek dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Wired reports that as neural devices become more complicated — and go wireless — some scientists say the risks of 'brain hacking' should be taken seriously. '"Neural devices are innovating at an extremely rapid rate and hold tremendous promise for the future," said computer security expert Tadayoshi Kohno of the University of Washington. "But if we don't start paying attention to security, we're worried that we might find ourselves in five or 10 years saying we've made a big mistake."' For example, the next generation of implantable devices to control prosthetic limbs will likely include wireless controls that allow physicians to remotely adjust settings on the machine. If neural engineers don't build in security features such as encryption and access control, an attacker could hijack the device and take over the robotic limb." Relatedly, several users have written to tell us that science may be closer to the science fiction "mind wipe" than previously thought. Put this all together and I welcome the next step in social networking; letting the cloud drive my limbs around town via a live webcam and then wiping the memory from my brain. Who has MyLimb.com parked and is willing to deal?
Education

Submission + - Where have all the tech students gone? (spacegrant.org)

Submitted by
CertifiedSpaceCadet
CertifiedSpaceCadet writes: "Where have the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) students gone? NASA wants to know. In the 1950's you could reach them with science fiction stories. In the 1970's it was the first personal computers and hands-on programming. No more! Where are the technically talented young people hiding? Are they passively watching the Science Channel? Are they off playing War Craft? Are they twittering their lives away? I am now working on the idea to search for them on Second Life. Are there enough of them there to make that virtual space worth checking out?"
Graphics

What's the Importance of Graphics In Video Games? 506

Posted by Soulskill from the not-all-pixels-are-created-equal dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I develop games as a hobby. I've experimented with games on almost every platform available. For me, the gameplay is the most influential factor of a game, with history and graphics dividing second place. But, for some reason, it's not the technical beauty of the graphics that appeal to me. I have played Crysis, and I've played Pokémon games. The graphics of the Pokémon games entertain me as much as the graphics of Crysis. I think both are beautiful. So, why is the current generation of games giving so much importance to the realism in graphic games? I think it is sufficient for a game to have objects that are recognizable. For example, while the water in some games may not look as good as in Crysis, I can still tell it's water. What are your opinions on the current direction of game graphics? Do you prefer easy-to-render 3D scenes that leave space for beautiful effects, like with Radiosity, or more complex 3D scenes that try to be realistic?"

Comment Re:not really a ban (Score 2, Informative) 631

by anotheregomaniac (#28561157) Attached to: FDA Considers Banning Acetaminophen-Based Pain Killers
There is a synergistic effect between the two drugs that enhances the pain relief from the narcotic and reduces the amount of narcotic needed to achieve relief. Separating them will require doctors to prescribe the two be taken together or more of the narcotic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicodin#Pharmacokinetics

I recently had surgery and was given clear instructions about avoiding anything with acetaminophen while taking Vicodin. If adding a little acetaminophen reduces the amount of narcotic needed, I think that is a good idea, as long as instructions are followed.

I would think all the OTC remedies that mix acetaminophen in with every known variety of other drug would be a much greater problem w.r.t. acetaminophen overdose.
The Internet

Malcolm Gladwell Challenges the Idea of "Free" 206

Posted by kdawson from the crying-out-from-a-world-of-hurt dept.
An anonymous reader brings us another bump on the bumpy road of Chris Anderson's new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, which we discussed a week ago. Now the Times (UK) is reporting on a dustup between Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. Recently Gladwell reviewed, or rather deconstructed, Anderson's book in the New Yorker. Anderson has responded with a blog post that addresses some, but by no means all, of Gladwell's criticisms, and The Times is inclined to award the match to Gladwell on points. Although their reviewer didn't notice that Gladwell, in setting up the idea of "Free" as a straw man, omitted a critical half of Stewart Brand's seminal quote.

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