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Marine Mammals Used To Fight Terrorism 131

Posted by samzenpus from the jones-the-enhanced-dolphin dept.
pinkstuff writes "The Navy unveiled its terror-fighting marine mammals at a two-day homeland security and disaster preparedness exercise in California this week. From the article: 'A Navy seal — actually a sea lion — took less than a minute to find a fake mine under a pier near San Francisco's AT&T Park. A dolphin quickly located a terrorist lurking in the black water before another sea lion, using a device carried in its mouth, cuffed the pretend saboteur's ankle so authorities could reel him in.' Queue the 'frickin lasers' jokes."
Government

Moscow Police Watch Pre-Recorded Scenes On Surveillance Cams 114

Posted by samzenpus from the I-always-feel-like-nobody-is-watching-me dept.
An anonymous reader writes "During several months of 2009, Moscow police looked at fake pictures displayed on their monitors instead of what was supposed to be video from the city surveillance cams. The subcontractor providing the cams was paid on the basis of 'the number of working cams,' so he delivered pre-cooked pictures stored on his servers. The camera company CEO has been arrested."
XBox (Games)

Modded Xbox Bans Prompt EFF Warning About Terms of Service 254

Posted by Soulskill from the by-reading-this-you-bequeath-me-all-your-possessions dept.
Last month we discussed news that Microsoft had banned hundreds of thousands of Xbox users for using modified consoles. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has now pointed to this round of bans as a prime example of the power given to providers of online services through 'Terms of Service' and other usage agreements. "No matter how much we rely on them to get on with our everyday lives, access to online services — like email, social networking sites, and (wait for it) online gaming — can never be guaranteed. ... he who writes the TOS makes the rules, and when it comes to enforcing them, the service provider often behaves as though it is also the judge, jury and executioner. ... While the mass ban provides a useful illustration of their danger, these terms can be found in nearly all TOS agreements for all kinds of services. There have been virtually no legal challenges to these kinds of arbitrary termination clauses, but we imagine this will be a growth area for lawyers."

Comment How do they know it's never happened before? (Score 4, Interesting) 193

by Hans Lehmann (#26718847) Attached to: Zipingpu Dam May Have Triggered the Sichuan Quake
The Sichuan region is earthquake-prone, but has not seen anything as large as the 7.9-magnitude quake for perhaps millions of years

Would a 7.9 quake, although large by earthquake standards, even leave evidence that lasted more than, say, 1000 years? You might be able to tell if you took a cross section of the entire fault line, I suppose, but not all fault lines are known. A L.A. city geologist found a previously unknown (but not currently active) fault under the house of a friend of mine when he was having some drainage work done; new ones are discovered all the time.

Comment Re:What about a _home_ standard for DC power? (Score 2, Informative) 287

by Hans Lehmann (#26456283) Attached to: DC Power Poised To Bring Savings To Datacenters
Linear power supplies in consumer devices disappeared years ago. I don't think I ever saw a wall-wart that actually had linear regulators in it, even back in the 80's. They're all switching supplies now, running very efficiently at very high frequencies, which is why you can get 50-100 watts out of that little brick that powers your laptop.

Comment Re:Security systems (Score 3, Interesting) 308

by Hans Lehmann (#26232825) Attached to: Last Major Supplier Calls It Quits For VHS
"Remember that while the resoloution was low by modern standards there was absoloutely no use made of data compression techniques."

The NTSC television standard itself is quite the marvel when it comes to compressing information to fit into limited bandwidth, especially considering that it was created about 60 years ago. Such concepts as the encoding of color information in a subcarrier at a lower frequency than the luminance signal, interlaced instead of progressive video, etc, were invented for one reason: to get as much information as possible through the limited bandwidth that they able to use. The guys that came up with this stuff were just as clever and innovative as whoever came up with DCT compression.
Government

Appeals Court Rules US Can Block Mad Cow Testing 455

Posted by kdawson from the please-pass-the-lentils dept.
fahrbot-bot tips a story of mad cow disease, a private meat packer that wants to test all of its beef for the disease, and the USDA, which controls access to the test kits and just won an appeals court ruling that the government has the authority to block testing above and beyond the 1% the agency performs. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef sought to test 100% of its beef, in order to reassure its export markets, especially Japan and South Korea, that its beef is safe. Large meat packers opposed any such private testing, because they feared they would be forced into 100% testing and would have to raise prices. The appeals court ruled, 2 to 1, that under a 1913 law, test kits that are used only after an animal is killed still constitute "diagnosis" and "treatment" — this for a disease that has no treatment and is 100% fatal — and therefore fall under the USDA's authority to regulate.

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