LWATCDR writes "First we got 64-bit Flash; then the beginnings of 64-bit Wine; now Sun is providing a 64-bit Java plugin. For most people there is nothing to hold you back from running 64-bit Linux."

mjasay writes "Craigslist's Jeremy Zawodny reviews the progress of MySQL as a project, and discovers that through third-party forks and enhancements like Drizzle and OurDelta 'you can get a "better" MySQL than the one Sun/MySQL gives you today. For free.' Is this a good thing? On one hand it demonstrates the strong community around MySQL, but on the other, it could make it harder for Sun to fund core development on MySQL by diverting potential revenue from the core database project. Is this the fate of successful open-source companies? To become so successful as a community that they can't eke out a return as a company? If so, could anyone blame MySQL/Sun for creating its own proprietary fork in order to afford further core development?"

Smivs writes "The BBC report that archaeologists have found what could be Britain's oldest surviving human brain. The team, excavating a York University site, discovered a skull containing a yellow substance which scans showed to be shrunken, but brain-shaped. Brains consist of fatty tissue which microbes in the soil would absorb, so neurologists believe the find could be some kind of fossilised brain. More tests will now be done to establish what it is actually made of. The skull was discovered during an exploratory dig at Heslington Eastin, an area of extensive prehistoric farming landscape of fields, trackways and buildings dating back to at least 300 BC."

snydeq writes "Turning off PCs during periods of inactivity can save companies between $25 and $75 per PC per year, according to Energy Star, savings that can add up quickly for large organizations. Yet most organizations remain behind the times on PC power management, in large part due to common misperceptions about PC power, writes InfoWorld's Ted Samson, who outlines five PC power myths debunked in a recent report from Forrester, ranging from the energy savings of screen savers, to the energy draw of powering up, to the difficulties of issuing patches to systems in lower-power states."

Inventor Le Trung must really like the book "The Stepford Wives," because he has built the dream of every lonely man without hope, a robot wife. Le's wife, Aiko, starts the day by reading him the newspaper headlines and they go for a drives in the countryside. Le says his relationship with Aiko hasn't strayed into the bedroom, but a few tweaks could turn her into a sexual partner, even redesigning her to have a simulated orgasm. *Shudder*

John Kelly writes "The current issue of Policy Review has a paper by an American computer scientist and the recent Permanent Undersecretary of Defense for Estonia. Drawing on the Estonian cyber attacks a year and a half ago, as well as other recent examples, they argue that botnets are the major problem. They propose that botnets should be designated as 'eWMDs' — electronic weapons of mass destruction. The paper also proposes a list of reforms that would help to limit the scale and impact of future botnet attacks, beginning with defining and outlawing spam, internationally." Many of the proposed solutions are common-sensical and won't be news to this audience, but it is interesting to see the botnet threat painted in such stark terms for readers of the Hoover Institution's Policy Review. For a more comprehensive overview of cyber-security threats, listen to NPR's interview with security experts on the occasion of the release of a new report, "Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency," which recommends creating a cyber-security czar reporting to the President.

lurking_giant writes "In a report on NewScientist.com, researchers working on development of a space elevator (an idea we have discussed numerous times) have determined that the concept is not stable. Coriolis force on the moving climbers would cause side loading that would make stability extremely difficult, while solar wind would cause shifting loads on the geostationary midpoint. All of this would likely make it necessary to add thrusters, which would consume fuel and negate the benefits of the concept. Alternatively, careful choreography of multiple loads might ease the instability, again with unknown but negative economic impacts."

Smelly Jeffrey writes "According to a recent article, Indiana BMV Communications Director Dennis Rosebrough states that applicants for a new or renewed operator's license or state identification card will no longer be allowed to smile and say cheese. Apparently new facial recognition software being employed by the state fails to function when the face is distorted by something as innocuous as smiling. Also on the list of taboos are hats, eyeglasses, and hair that hangs down over the face. The article fails to mention, however, the legality of beards, mustaches, and bushy eyebrows." Similar restrictions are in place for the Enhanced Driver License (which serves as a sort of limited passport) implemented by the state of Washington, among others.

Khuffie writes "Adobe, along with the University of Washington, are developing Zoetrope, an application that will offer a dynamic new view of the web. It is hard to explain on paper, but you can see a brilliant video of the application in action. Essentially, Zoetrope will allow users to travel back in time through a website, and see how the website gets changed. A user can create lenses on the website, for example, focusing on the price of a DVD at Amazon, and see how the price went up and down over the coming months. More interestingly, you can link lenses together across different websites, and for example, see how the price of gas was affected by say, the aggregated google news result of 'war.'"

ink writes "Sun released JavaFX 1.0 today, in a bid to take on Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight technologies. It is Sun's first Java release to include standardized, cross-platform audio and video playback code (in the form of On2 licensed codecs). The lack of a Linux or Solaris release is a notable absence. The development kit currently consists of the base run-time, a NetBeans/Eclipse plug-in and a set of artifact exporters for Adobe CS 3&4." An anonymous reader adds a link to several tutorials accompanying the new release.

alphadogg writes "It's possible that in the future conversations on your cell phone could generate enough electrical power to run the phone, without batteries. That's one possible outcome of recent work by a team of Texas researchers, who appear to have discovered that by building a certain type of piezoelectric material to a specific thickness (about 21 nanometers, compared to a typical human hair of 100,000 nanometers), you can boost its energy production by 100 percent. And the technology could power not just phones, but a whole range of low-power mobile devices and sensors. The breakthrough is an example of 'energy harvesting' that can convert one kind of energy, such as vibrations or solar rays, into electricity."

coondoggie supplies an excerpt from Network World that might make you consider a lock for your pipes: "The FBI today ratcheted up the clamor to do something more substantive about the monumental growth of copper theft in the US. In a report issued today the FBI said the rising theft of the metal is threatening the critical infrastructure by targeting electrical substations, cellular towers, telephone land lines, railroads, water wells, construction sites, and vacant homes for lucrative profits. Copper thefts from these targets have increased since 2006; and they are currently disrupting the flow of electricity, telecommunications, transportation, water supply, heating, and security and emergency services, and present a risk to both public safety and national security." (A July, 2006 post on Ethan Zuckerman's blog gives an idea of how widespread cable theft has affected internet infrastructure, and basketmaking, in Africa.)

rockwood reports that the .tel top level domain has been deployed, "in a first attempt at pushing the recently approved .tel... The top-level domain .tel was approved by ICANN as a sponsored TLD launching on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 to trademark owners of national effect and on February 3, 2009 to anyone who wishes to apply. Its main purpose is as a single management and publishing point for 'internet communication' services, providing a global contacts directory service by housing all types of contact information directly in the DNS."

Barence writes "After years of boasting about the Mac's near invincibility, Apple is now advising its customers to install security software on their computers. Apple — which has continually played on Windows' vulnerability to viruses in its advertising campaigns — issued the advice in a low-key message on its support forums. 'Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.' It goes on to recommend a handful of products." Reader wild_berry points out the BBC's story on the unexpected recommendation.