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Submission + - Texas Teen arrested for online harassment (khou.com) 1

Submitted by SpaceGhost
SpaceGhost writes: San Antonio, TX: KENS5 Reporter James Muñoz reports that police have arrested a 16-year-old girl on charges of harassment under a new Texas law that took effect September 1, 2009. H.B. 2003 says a person commits a third degree felony if the person posts one or more messages on a social networking site with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten another person. Police say the harassment went on for a few months and involved a dispute over a boy.

Submission + - Is the XMRV retrovirus a cause for Autism? (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by rla3rd
rla3rd writes: Last week, researchers from the University of Nevada, the National Cancer Institute and The Cleveland Clinic announced the startling discovery of antibodies to a little known retrovirus in 95% of patients with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), a debilitating neuro-immune disease impacting more than a million people in the United States.

Apparently, the CFS findings have impressed the scientific community. "We presented these data three times: Twice at closed conferences at the NIH, and one at an international meeting a few weeks ago, and you could hear a pin drop in the audience — it's amazement" Mikovits said. "The scientists are excited, everyone is working on it, so we know we are going to get a lot of help. It's just amazement, it's an entirely new field of medicine and everyone who's ever worked in this family of viruses is, now that we've shown it's a human pathogen, is extremely excited."

Dr. Mikovits, director of the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease explained to a television news program in Nevada, "It is not in the paper and not reported, but we have actually done some of these studies (in ASD children) and found the virus in a significant number of samples that we have tested for. It could be linked to a number of neuro-immune diseases, including autism.

Researchers tested blood samples from a "small group of children" with autism and found that 40% of them were positive for XMRV, according to a statement from the Nevada Commission on Autism Spectrum Disorders. More testing is underway which, the Commission said, "could dramatically increase that 40% positive finding."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/is-autism-associated-with_b_316986.html

Submission + - SPAM: Twitter: Don't Change Your Log-In Data

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Twitter is warning users not to modify their log-in data while the company investigates instances of users who have lost access to their accounts after modifying their usernames, passwords or e-mail addresses. According to an official posting on Twitter's Status Web site, 'This seems to affect new users as well as long term users.' Messages posted on the site's Known Issues section indicate that users first started reporting the problem late last week.
Link to Original Source
Security

Submission + - SPAM: Delta Air Lines sued over alleged e-mail hacking

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: Delta Air Lines is being sued for allegedly hacking the e-mail account of a passenger rights advocate supporting legislation that would allow access to food, water and toilets during long delays on the tarmac. Kathleen Hanni, executive director of Flyersrights.org, alleges Delta obtained sensitive e-mails and files and used the material in an attempt to derail the "Airline Passenger's Bill of Rights of 2009," of which four versions are pending before Congress. The suit was filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas and seeks a minimum of $11 million in damages. Flyersrights.org, a nonprofit organization founded in 2007, had been investigating surface delays in air travel.
Link to Original Source
The Internet

Submission + - UK MPs Oppose Cut-Off of Illegal File Sharers (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by Mark.JUK
Mark.JUK writes: The UK Labour Government minister (MP) for West Bromwich East, Tom Watson, has tabled a new Early Day Motion (EDM) that questions new government proposals to disconnect illegal file sharing (piracy) "suspects" from their broadband ISP. The EDM is signed by 9 additional MP's and could end up being debated in the House of Commons. Watson "believes that disconnecting alleged offenders will be futile given that it is relatively easy for determined file-sharers to mask their identity or their activity to avoid detection".
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Mesh Multiprotocol with Madwifi, OLSR and Debian (libelium.com)

Submitted by lannicor
lannicor writes: Among the bunch of different "Linux based" routers in the market, there is a special family known as mesh routers. These routers implement adhoc connections in order to create multipath and dynamic wireless networks. Big companies in the wireless market as Cisco and Motorola already have their own proprietary mesh protocol solutions, which are used to create muni-wireless networks to give connectivity to cities. The term multiprotocol is applied to those routers which integrate different wireless radios: Wifi (802.11), ZigBee (802.15.4), Bluetooth (802.15.1)... so that information from one interface can be switched to the others in the same device. The open source mesh algorithm OLSR has been chosen along with the Madwifi drivers and Voyage (a Debian based embedded distro) to be part of a new mesh multiprotocol router platform called Meshlium . The project counts also with an Ajax-PHP web application — Mesh Manager — to control the system and the radio interfaces. The project seems to be "developers oriented" as it is based in a plugin-architecture. Although the Mesh Manager has been developed to work in a embedded system, the project site points out it can be tested in any Linux environment (the code is also available).
Microsoft

Submission + - Thousands of Hotmail passwords posted online

Submitted by Eugen
Eugen writes: Ars Technica brings us some unsettling news for Windows Live users: "Password details for Windows Live Hotmail accounts, including @hotmail.com, @msn.com, and @live.com e-mail addresses, were posted by an anonymous user over at pastebin.com, a site that allows users to paste snippets of text and then share it privately or publicly. On October 1, there were over 10,000 account passwords posted as a result of either some type of "hack" or phishing scheme, most of which appear to be based in Europe. Pastebin has since removed the link in question, though the issue may not have such a simple solution.

The list reportedly details accounts with usernames beginning with A and B, which suggests there may be details for many more thousands of accounts. Regardless of what your e-mail address starts with, we recommend that you change your Hotmail password and security question as soon as possible. Even if you don't use Hotmail, remember that your Windows Live ID is not just for e-mail; many Windows Live Hotmail customers use their accounts to sign in to the various Windows Live client applications (Messenger) and Web services (SkyDrive), not to mention other programs like Xbox LIVE."

Submission + - Will Comcast Deal kill Hulu ? (latimes.com)

Submitted by Tiger4
Tiger4 writes: Comcast, a major US cable TV provider, may soon be in a position to kill free access to Hulu, the online TV streaming service.

"The nation's leading cable company has made no secret of its disdain for Hulu's approach of giving away the shows that Comcast and other pay-TV distributors spend billions for — and rely on to retain subscribers. Comcast is in talks with NBC Universal about pooling their entertainment assets into a new company that would own 30% of Hulu in addition to the NBC network and cable channels such as Bravo, E! and Syfy. Comcast would control the new entity and possibly have the clout to push Hulu to begin charging for access to some of its most popular shows, including "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" or "Psych." "

However, regulatory concerns do exist

There is no guarantee that Comcast and NBC Universal will come together. The deal hinges on whether a French company, Vivendi, decides to unload its 20% stake in NBC Universal. Vivendi must decide in the next two months, and then federal regulators — already concerned about media consolidation — would have to sign off on the venture of Comcast and NBC Universal.

If the deal is completed, Comcast would own 51% and GE would have 49%. This would give the Philadelphia-based cable operator a stake in Hulu, which has experienced explosive growth during the last year. The service's online audience swelled to 38.5 million viewers in August, up from 10.2 million a year earlier, according to ComScore Video Metrix, which tracks online audiences.
Security

Submission + - Bitbucket considers dumping Amazon after DDoS (networkworld.com)

Submitted by netbuzz
netbuzz writes: A crippling DDoS attack over the weekend against open-source hosting service Bitbucket and Amazon's EC2 service has questions being raised about the speed and effectiveness of Amazon's response to the emergency, as well as the general reliability of cloud services. Although careful not to place all of the blame on Amazon, Bitbucket says they're considering dumping EC2.
Apple

Submission + - Apple Buys Augmented Reality Vendor (bnet.com)

Submitted by
Michael_Curator
Michael_Curator writes: "Apple's "quiet" acquisition of Placebase in July doesn't actually have anything to do with either Google Maps or Latitude, all speculation notwithstanding. It has to do with acquiring a technology of great strategic importance that uses maps as a starting point for something bigger. Placebase is a mapping software vendor (yes, like Google), but with an added twist: an application publishing interface (API) giving publishers the ability to overlay maps with public or private data. You could imagine all kinds of uses for this type of application, from providing information about public landmarks and events to private auctions and sales. Apple could have easily opted to license the AR technology, but given the strategic importance of the application, decided to buy the vendor and own the technology outright."
Medicine

Submission + - Prosthetics with aesthetics (newscientist.com)

Submitted by
holy_calamity
holy_calamity writes: "Designers of prosthetics and the people that use them have realised that replacement limbs don't have mimic real limbs and blend in — they can be fashion statements. And they can even be upgrades to the real thing. New Scientist has a gallery of prosthetic limbs that are designed to stand out, to accompany an interview with model, athlete and double amputee Aimee Mullins who with a collection of 24 may have more legs than any other human ."

Submission + - Mercedes Prototype stops automatically@red lights (skycoequipment.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mercedes-Benz is experimenting with this very scenario at their R&D facility in Palo Alto,
Using a smart intersection, the light essentially communicates with the car. And if the driver still isn't responsive to, say, brake after several warnings of a red light, the car can stop itself
Mercedes-Benz admits that, though the technology is "almost there," we're still a decade out from its deployment.

Submission + - Ballmer Admits Windows Licensing "Gotchas" (eweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes: Microsoft puts "gotchas" in the fine print of its licences to get money out of users, Steve Ballmer admitted — and there are no plans to make those licences any simpler. An audience in London broke applauded one user, who criticised the complexity of Microsoft licences — and Microsoft's efforts to trip people up in the fine print. Ballmer told customers there were no prospects for any simplification — claimed that users like things complex — and admitted in passing that "some of the gotchas are deliberate". Ballmer went on to promise companies using Windows 7 would save £100 a month in support and admin costs.

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