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Submission + - Will Wright to do "SimTVShow" (wired.com)

Submitted by SmarterThanMe
SmarterThanMe writes: Will Wright, creator of various famous computer games beginning with "Sim-", is involved in the production of a new TV show "Bar Karma". The possibly vaguely Sci-Fi show will involve viewers heavily in putting forward their own storyboards that the show will then play out. Viewers also vote on the storyboards that they most like for the next episode. In effect, the viewing public collaborates with each other to create the show!
Privacy

Submission + - UK Moots Internet Censorship Powers for ISPs (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A key UK government minister, Ed Vaizey (Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries), has ominously proposed that internet providers (ISPs) should introduce a new Mediation Service that would allow them the freedom to censor third party content on the internet, without court intervention, in response to little more than a public complaint. Vaizey anticipates that internet users could use the "service" to request that any material deemed to be "inaccurate" (good luck with that) or privacy infringing is removed. No doubt any genuine complaints would probably get lost in a sea of abuse by commercial firms trying to attack freedom of speech and expression.
Games

Submission + - Castle Vox moddable strategy game

Submitted by BortQ
BortQ writes: Indie gamedevs Sillysoft have released Castle Vox, a turn-based strategy game that combines elements of Diplomacy, Chess, and Axis & Allies. The game is free to play and comes with a map editor built-in that you can use to create your own boards. It also has an AI SDK that programmers can take advantage of to create computer AI players. The game is available to download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Science

Submission + - 40 million years old Primate fossils found in Asia (wired.com) 2

Submitted by sosaited
sosaited writes: It has been widely believed that our ancestors originated out of Africa, but a paper published in Nature by Carnegie Museum of Natural History scientists puts this in doubt. The paper is based on the fossils of 4 primate species found in Asia which are 40 million years old , during which period Africa was thought to not have these species.

The diversity and timing of the new anthropoids raises two scenarios. Anthropoids might simply have emerged in Africa much earlier than thought, and gone undiscovered by modern paleontologists. Or they could have crossed over from Asia, where evidence suggests that anthropoids lived 55 million years ago, flourishing and diversifying in the wide-open ecological niches of an anthropoid-free Africa.
Graphics

The First Photograph of a Human 138

Posted by samzenpus from the fist-cheese dept.
wiredog writes "The Atlantic has a brief piece on what is likely to be the first photograph (a daguerreotype) showing a human. From the article: 'In September, Krulwich posted a set of daguerreotypes taken by Charles Fontayne and William Porter in Cincinnati 162 years ago, on September 24, 1848. Krulwich was celebrating the work of the George Eastman House in association with the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Using visible-light microscopy, the George Eastman House scanned several plates depicting the Cincinnati Waterfront so that scholars could zoom in and study the never-before-seen details.'"
Security

Submission + - Aussie kids foil finger scanner with Gummi Bears (zdnet.com.au) 4

Submitted by mask.of.sanity
mask.of.sanity writes: An Australian high school has installed "secure" fingerprint scanners for roll call for senior students, which savvy kids may be able to circumvent with sweets from their lunch box. The system replaces the school's traditional sign-in system with biometric readers that require senior students to have their fingerprints read to verify attendance.

The school principal says the system is better than swipe cards because it stops truant kids getting their mates to sign-in for them. But using the Gummi Bear attack, students can make replicas of their own fingerprints from gelatine, the ingredient in Gummi Bears, to forge a replica finger. The attack worked against a bunch of scanners that detect electrical charges within the human body, since gelatine has virtually the same capacitance as a finger's skin.

A litany of fingerprint scanners have fallen victim to bypass methods, many of which are explained publicly in detail on the internet.

Submission + - Researchers Find a 'Liberal Gene'

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Liberals may owe their political outlook partly to their genetic make-up, according to new research from the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University. Ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4. The study's authors say this is the first research to identify a specific gene that predisposes people to certain political views.

Submission + - Risky Nuclear Designs

Submitted by Martin Hellman
Martin Hellman writes: Yesterday, Slashdot reported that a system failure at Warren AFB in Wyoming affected 50 ICBM’s and that “various security protocols built into the missile delivery system, like intrusion alarms and warhead separation alarms, were offline.” Assuaging fears that America’s nuclear deterrent might have been compromised during this failure, the source article notes that the missiles still could be launched from airborne command centers. Other reports cite an administration official offering assurances that "at no time did the president's ability [to launch] decrease." Given the difficulty of debugging software and hardware that is probably not a good thing. The history of nuclear command and control systems has too many examples of risky designs that favor the ability to launch over the danger of an accidental one.
Earth

Submission + - Giant Lab Replicates Category 3 Hurricanes

Submitted by
Pickens
Pickens writes: "The WSJ reports that a new $40 million research center built by the Institute for Business & Home Safety in Richburg, SC features a massive test chamber as tall as a six-story building that can hold nine 2,300-square-foot homes on a turntable where they can be subjected to tornado-strength winds generated by 105 giant fans to simulate a Category 3 hurricane. The goal is to improve building codes and maintenance practices in disaster-prone regions even though each large hurricane simulation costs about $100,000. The new IBHS lab will be the first to replicate hurricanes with winds channeling water through homes and ripping off roofs, doors and windows. The new facility will give insurers the ability to carefully videotape what happens as powerful winds blow over structures instead of relying on wind data from universities or computer simulations. The center will also be used to test commercial buildings, agriculture structures, tractor-trailers, wind turbines and airplanes. "We will be the only lab on the planet that can do what we do," says Julie Rochman, chief executive of IBHS. "We will just put them on a turntable and test them under a very realistic replication of natural hazard conditions." However there are still some disasters beyond the capabilities of the lab. Tsunamis, for one. "You have to have an earthquake under the seabed to cause the tsunami itself," says Joseph King. "We're not able to do it and certainly don't know anyone who can.""

Submission + - General Drops Nuclear Bombshell (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Martin Hellman
Martin Hellman writes: Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton, has dropped a nuclear bombshell, metaphorically speaking. Shelton’s recently released memoirs "Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior," assert that President Clinton lost a card containing key phrases needed for ordering a nuclear strike, and that the codes were missing for months. This confirms a similar allegation, made in 2004 by Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, a military aide who frequently carried the “nuclear football” during the Clinton presidency. Unfortunately, human error within the nuclear weapons complex is a frequent and dangerous occurrence.
Transportation

Submission + - Mazda's New Engine Gets 70 MPG WITHOUT a Hybrid (greencarreports.com)

Submitted by thecarchik
thecarchik writes: There’s no word on when the new version of the Mazda2 will finally reach the U.S. but when it does we can reveal that it will return a fuel economy of 70 mpg--without the aid of any electric motors. This is because the car will feature Mazda’s next-generation of drivetrain, body and chassis technologies, dubbed SKYACTIV.The new Mazda 2 will come powered by a SKYACTIV-G engine, Mazda's next-generation direct injection gasoline mill that achieves significantly improved fuel efficiency thanks to a high compression ratio of 14.0:1 (the world’s highest for a production gasoline engine). In addition to the improved fuel economy, Mazda also claims that the higher compression ratio enables more torque, especially at lower to mid-range engine speeds, which should make the car a whole lot more fun to drive around the town.
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - PlayStation Move Sells 2.5 Million Worldwide (industrygamers.com)

Submitted by donniebaseball23
donniebaseball23 writes: After boasting that the new PlayStation Move motion controller was selling "extremely well," Sony has now provided some real data to back up their claim. IndustryGamers reports that North American sales in the first month totaled 1 million units, and SCEA boss Jack Tretton said shortages for the controller could be a problem through February. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe previously said that Move sold 1.5 million in Europe, so the worldwide total now stands at 2.5 million (it just launched in Japan). This is all before Microsoft launches its Kinect platform, but the company is pumping half a billion dollars into marketing and has gained the support of Oprah and Ellen DeGeneres.

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