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Google

Submission + - What Are Google and Verizon Up To? (nytimes.com)

Submitted by pickens
pickens writes: Robert X. Cringley has an op-ed in the NY Times in which he contends that Google has found a way to get special treatment from Verizon but without actually compromising net neutrality by beginning to co-locate some of their portable data centers with Verizon network hubs. "With servers so close to users, Google could not only send its data faster but also avoid sending it over the Internet backbone that connects service providers and for which they all pay," writes Cringley. "This would save space for other traffic — and money for both Verizon and Google, as their backbone bills decline (wishful thinking, but theoretically possible). Net neutrality would be not only intact, but enhanced." So why won't Google and Verizon admit what they're up to? "If my guess is right, then I would think they’re silent because it’s a secret. They’d rather their competitors not know until a few hundred shipping containers are in place — and suddenly YouTube looks more like HBO."

Comment Re:Very interesting (Score 1) 150

by Nunavut (#33134222) Attached to: Artist Photoshops Scenes From WWII Into Present Day

A lot seperates us between now and then. Countless dead, every family across the planet touched by it. Nobody on this planet has a family that was untouched by that war. Absolutely Everyone lost someone in that war.

That is an interesting thought there; but consider the Inuit of Canada. It wasn't until the 50's and 60's that we were finally introduced to "modern technology". We literally went from isolated hunter gatherers using spears and still living off the land to meeting explorers who came by airplane introducing us to rifles and automobiles. We didn't have the slow technological advance that the rest of the world adjusted to; it was a huge leap for us up here and most of the elders are still trying to adjust. I'm 99.9% sure my family has never been touched by war! I'm not saying we don't sympathize for anyone and everyone that has lost someone to war; but not every family on Earth has direct decedents of war casualties
GNOME

Submission + - Who really contributes to open source? (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Andrew Orlowski of The Register picked up on a census of GNOME contributors that confirms what many of us have long believed: contributions to open source projects are very heavily skewed to a few key individuals. But then Orlowski goes off the deep end, turning it into a rant against companies that benefit from open source while allegedly contributing little. The reality is that 75% of Linux kernel contributions come from the very companies he singled out (http://blogs.computerworld.com/14576/who_writes_linux_big_business), and a similar picture emerges at Eclipse and many Apache projects. Why does the myth that corporations take but not give persist? And more importantly, what does it mean for certain open source projects to be so dependent on company employees rather than independent individuals?
Privacy

Submission + - RIM to allow India to monitor Blackberry services (indiatimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Research in Motion has agreed to allow Indian security agencies to monitor its BlackBerry services, after pressure from governments worried about national security. RIM has offered to share with Indian security agencies its technical codes for corporate email services, open up access to all consumer emails within 15 days and also develop tools in six to eight months to allow monitoring of chats.

Submission + - Wikileaks "a clear and present danger"

Submitted by
bedmison
bedmison writes: "In an op-ed in the Washington Post titled "WikiLeaks must be stopped", Marc A. Thiessen writes that "WikiLeaks represents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.", and that the United States has the authority to arrest its founder, Julian Assange, even if it has to contravene international law to do so. Thiessen also suggests that the new USCYBERCOM be unleashed to destroy WikiLeaks as an internet presense. From the article:

"With appropriate diplomatic pressure, these governments may cooperate in bringing Assange to justice. But if they refuse, the United States can arrest Assange on their territory without their knowledge or approval. In 1989, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum entitled "Authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to Override International Law in Extraterritorial Law Enforcement Activities."

This memorandum declares that "the FBI may use its statutory authority to investigate and arrest individuals for violating United States law, even if the FBI's actions contravene customary international law" and that an "arrest that is inconsistent with international or foreign law does not violate the Fourth Amendment." In other words, we do not need permission to apprehend Assange or his co-conspirators anywhere in the world.

Arresting Assange would be a major blow to his organization. But taking him off the streets is not enough; we must also recover the documents he unlawfully possesses and disable the system he has built to illegally disseminate classified information.

This should be done, ideally, through international law enforcement cooperation. But if such cooperation is not forthcoming, the United States can and should act alone. Assange recently boasted that he has created "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking." I am sure this elicited guffaws at the National Security Agency. The United States has the capability and the authority to monitor his communications and disrupt his operations.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Bing enticing Google users (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Strudelkugel
Strudelkugel writes: Edwin Perello discovered that Bing, the Microsoft search engine, could find addresses in his rural Indiana town when Google could not. Laura Michelson, an administrative assistant in San Francisco, was lured by Bing’s flight fare tracker. Paul Callan, a photography buff in Chicago, fell for Bing’s vivid background images. When Microsoft introduced it last year, Bing made a splash with its vivid background images. In June, Google presented searchers the option of a colorful background rather than the stark, white page.Like most Americans, they still use Google as their main search tool. But more often, they find themselves navigating to Microsoft’s year-old Bing for certain tasks, and sometimes they stay a while.

Submission + - Hacker Uses XSS & Google to Find Physical Loca (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Hacker Uses XSS and Google Street View Data to Determine Physical Location

The hacker, by getting a user to visit a malicious Web site, used remote JavaScript and AJAX to acquire a routers MAC address. When the unsuspecting user visits the malicious Web site, JavaScript remotely scans for the type of router used, accesses the routers MAC address and sends it directly to the attacker. From there, he was able to utilize Google Street View data to determine the location of a router – in his case, accurate within 30 feet...
Movies

Submission + - Why bad 3D, not 3D glasses, gives you headaches (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: The most common complaint about 3D is that the glasses give you a headache, but that's not actually true, according to the man who teaches the pros how to make better 3D. Speaking at the BBC in London, Buzz Hays, chief instructor for the Sony 3D Technology Center in Culver City, California, explained: “It’s not the technology’s fault, it’s really the content that can cause these problems. It’s easy to make 3D but it’s hard to make it good – and by ‘good’ I mean taking care to make sure that this isn’t going to cause eyestrain.” He went on to detail some of the mistakes made by inexperienced 3D film makers, from poor composition of shots, through uncomfortable convergence settings, to overuse of on-set monitors without viewing their content on a big screen. But the biggest admission Buzz made was that not even the 'experts' know all the tricks yet, which is why 3D should only get better from here. In the same seminar, Buzz also explained why 3D glasses are here to stay — at least for the next few years.
Announcements

Submission + - Obama Sets End of Iraq Combat for August 31st (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: President Barack Obama has announced that On August 31st the United States will cease all combat operations in Iraq although 50,000 troops will remain until the end of 2011. It's been a long seven and a half years with no guarantee of this announcement actually signifying the end of violence. Pundits are already speculating on whether or not this withdrawal speech is "Mission Accomplished 2." Possibly the most significant confirmation of and commitment to a withdrawal the world will hear from the United States in Iraq.
Iphone

Submission + - Microsoft Can Deblur Images Automatically (microsoft.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At the annual SIGGRAPH show. Microsoft Research showed new technology that can remove the blur from images on your camera or phone using on-board sensors — the same sensors currently added to iPhone 4. No more blurry low light photos!
Security

Submission + - The Canadian who holds the key to the Internet (thestar.com)

Submitted by drbutts
drbutts writes: The Toronto Star has an interesting story on how they are securing DNS: It's housed in two high-security facilities separated by the North American landmass. The one authenticated map of the Internet. Were it to be lost — either through a catastrophic physical or cyber attack — it could be recreated by seven individuals spread around the globe. One of them is Ottawa's Norm Ritchie. Ritchie was recently chosen to hold one of seven smartcards that can rebuild the root key that underpins this system" called DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions). In essence, these seven can rebuild the architecture that allows users to know for certain where they are and where they are going when navigating the Web.

Submission + - Slashdot is Dying, New York Times Confims It (nytimes.com) 12

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The New York Times is running a story about how Slashdot has dropped in popularity compared to other news sites in social web space. Quote: "Why is Slashdot almost irrelevant to the social media community? It used to be the biggest driver of traffic to tech web sites, but now it hardly delivers any traffic at all to them. We explore some of the reasons, including input from our own community."
Security

Submission + - US Ability to Identify Nuclear Terrorists Decays

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "In a story reminiscent of Tom Clancy's "The Sum of All Fears," the NY Times reports that according to a report released by the National Research Council, the ability of the US to identify the source of a nuclear weapon used in a terrorist attack is fragile and eroding. The goals of the highly specialized detective work, known as nuclear attribution, is to clarify options for retaliation and to deter terrorists by letting them know that nuclear devices have fingerprints that atomic specialists can find and trace. “Although US nuclear forensics capabilities are substantial and can be improved, right now they are fragile, underresourced and, in some respects, deteriorating,” the report warns. “Without strong leadership, careful planning and additional funds, these capabilities will decline.” The report calls on the federal government to take steps to strengthen its forensic capabilities and argues for the necessity of better planning, more robust budgets, clearer lines of authority and more realistic exercises. “Much work remains to be done.” says Albert Carnesale, a nuclear engineer who during the cold war represented the United States in atomic negotiations."

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