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HP the Victim of Enterprising Greenpeace Stunt Screenshot-sm 36

Posted by samzenpus from the set-phasers-to-ineffective dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Employees at Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto received a shock this morning as they checked their voicemail and found that each and every one of them had received a message from Captain James T. Kirk, AKA William 'The Shat' Shatner, upbraiding the company for abandoning their plans to remove toxins from its hardware. The organization behind this stunt was Greenpeace, who, to underline their point, scaled the building and painted 'Hazardous Products' on the roof with toxin-free paint."
Image

100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About Screenshot-sm 30

Posted by samzenpus from the tell-me-about-betamax-again-daddy dept.
runyonave writes "There are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week's 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore's Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks. That is, of course, unless we tell them all about the good old days of modems and typewriters, slide rules and encyclopedias."
The Internet

The Web of Data, Beyond What Google and Yahoo Show 50

Posted by timothy from the thought-symantic-was-just-some-company dept.
jccq writes "Both Google and Yahoo have been supporting Semantic Web markup (RDFa, RDF and Microformats) for weeks and months respectively. What they do, at the moment, is use the markup only for visual feedback by returning better looking, more functional 'page snippets.' But how would it look if you could get all these bits and compose them automatically to form a single structured information page about what you're searching for? The folks at the DERI institute have just released Sig.ma, a visual browser and mashup generator that will go all over the web of data and find dozens of sources to combine together when answering a user query. It also comes in API mode to reuse the information Sig.ma finds inside applications. Here are a screencast and a blog post, with semantic-web-geek details."
Microsoft

Microsoft Releases Linux Device Drivers As GPL 362

Posted by timothy from the could-easily-be-world's-largest-open-source-distributor dept.
mjasay writes "Microsoft used to call the GPL 'anti-American.' Now, as Microsoft releases Hyper-V Linux Integration Components (LinuxIC) under the GPL (version 2), apparently Microsoft calls the GPL 'ally.' Of course, there was little chance the device drivers would be accepted into the Linux kernel base unless open source, but the news suggests a shift for Microsoft. It also reflects Microsoft's continued interest in undermining its virtualization competition through low prices, and may suggests concern that it must open up if it wants to fend off insurgent virtualization strategies from Red Hat (KVM), Novell (XEN), and others in the open-source camp. Microsoft said the move demonstrates its interest in using open source in three key areas: 1) Make its software development processes more efficient, 2) product evangelism, and 3) using open source to reduce marketing and sales costs or to try out new features that highlight parts of the platform customers haven't seen before."
Security

Attacks Against Unpatched Microsoft Bug Multiply 122

Posted by kdawson from the how-not-to-excel dept.
CWmike writes "Attacks exploiting the latest Microsoft vulnerability are quickly ramping up in quantity and intensity, several security companies warned today as they rang alarms about the developing threat. Symantec, Sunbelt Software, and SANS' Internet Storm Center bumped up their warnings yesterday after Microsoft announced that attackers were exploiting a bug in an ActiveX control used by IE to display Excel spreadsheets. There is no patch for the vulnerability; Microsoft didn't release one in today's Patch Tuesday. A temporary fix that sets the 'kill bits' of the ActiveX control is available, but experts believe it's likely most users won't take advantage of the protection. Symantec raised its ThreatCon ranking to the second of four steps. "We're seeing it exploited, but currently on a limited scale," said Symantec's Ben Greenbaum. Sunbelt also bumped up its ranking, to high." Firefox users can't be too complacent; Secunia is warning of a 0-day in version 3.5.
Education

Tomorrow's Science Heroes? 799

Posted by kdawson from the mister-wizard-reincarnated dept.
An anonymous reader writes "As a kid I was (and still am) heavily influenced by Carl Sagan, and a little later by Stephen Hawking. Now as I have started a family with two kids, currently age 5 and 2, I am wondering who out there is popularizing science. Currently, my wife and I can get the kids excited about the world around them, but I'd like to find someone inspiring from outside the family as they get older. Sure, we'll always have 'Cosmos,' but are there any contemporaries who are trying to bring science into the public view in such a fun and intriguing way? Someone the kids can look up to and be inspired by? Where is the next Science Hero?"
Education

How To Teach Programming To Kids, Via XBox 124

Posted by timothy from the if-it's-fun-it's-educational dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Chris Wilson reviews Kodu, the new XBox game that he calls 'Logo on Steroids.' The game allows you to build a world and program every object in it with an in-house graphical language, making the game a primitive example of 'reactive state machines' in a 'multi-agent concurrent system.' It sounds like what we call 'application specific integrated circuits' in engineering, where every line of code runs in parallel."
Biotech

Researchers Enable Mice To Exhale Fat 328

Posted by Soulskill from the americans-still-too-lazy-for-this-diet dept.
destinyland writes "UCLA researchers made a startling discovery: genetic alterations enable mice to convert fat into carbon dioxide. Mammals digest fats differently than bacteria — so researchers introduced bacteria genes into mouse livers, and 'the excess fat was literally released into thin air.' (One researcher calls it 'an unconventional idea which we borrowed from plants and bacteria.') The research potentially could help treat serious medical conditions including diabetes, heart disease — and of course, obesity."

Germanium Diodes Mean Progress Toward Silicon-Chip Lasers 66

Posted by timothy from the everyone-make-lasery-noises-now dept.
David Orenstein writes "Teams at Stanford and MIT have each reported getting strong light signals from germanium-based diodes on silicon at room temperature. Engineers have long sought to do this because, with further refinement into lasers, such diodes would allow for optical interconnects on chips. Optical interconnects could operate much faster and with less power than electrical (metal) ones that are becoming bottlenecks on current chips."
The Internet

Submission + - SPAM: Vint Cerf imagines the net's future at NASA

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: "Vint Cerf performed an hour-long Q&A at NASA for their "Singularity University" (which is partially funded by Google ). A question about Twitter led Cerf to imagine even more useful micro-applications using the wireless internet and cell phones, including real-time health data and checking your location against a map of known biohazards and disease outbreaks. "These systems have applications which I think we will discover over time," Cerf says, adding "For me, the exciting thing to just anticipate, are the new ideas for using these instruments." Also speaking were Ray Kurzweil and nanotechnology expert Ray Merkle. (Read an interview with SU co-founder Peter Diamandis in the new issue of H+ magazine)."
Link to Original Source
Power

US Offering $45M For Huge Wind Energy Test Bed 91

Posted by samzenpus from the blow-baby-blow dept.
coondoggie writes "On a day when one of the largest wind farm plans bit the dust, the US Department of Energy is offering up a five-year, $45 million grant to design and build a large dynamometer facility for testing 5 to 15 MW rated wind turbines and equipment. The DOE says such a facility is needed as the US has fallen behind other countries in the race to build ever-larger wind turbines for energy production. According to the DOE, the average size of wind turbines installed in the United States in 2007 increased to roughly 1.65 MW. Additionally, turbines already developed range in the 2.5 MW to 3.5 MW capacity sizes; with plans being developed for even greater power ratings. The larger wind turbines have outpaced the availability of US-based testing facilities, the DOE stated."
Microsoft

Submission + - Mono outpaces Java in Linux desktop development (sdtimes.com)

Submitted by dp619
dp619 writes: Mono, a framework based on Microsoft technology, has become more popular for Linux desktop applications than Java, but recent changes could strengthen Java's hand, SD Times is reporting. The story also touches on the failure of Linux distros to keep pace with Eclipse.
Enlightenment

Submission + - 123456789 happens today 1

Submitted by
mcgrew
mcgrew writes: "The Chicago Tribune is pointing out that shortly after noon today, the time and date will be 12:34:56 7/8/9. The Trib points out that this happens only once or twice per century, although it actually happens twice on the day it happens in.

serious Cubs fans know the first night game at Wrigley Field was played on 8/8/88 — which just happens to be four sideways infinity symbols.

I imagine you can make any day "special" like this if you try hard enough."

The Courts

Professor Gets 4 Years in Prison for Sharing Drone Plans With Students 354

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the read-before-you-sign dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Retired University of Tennessee Professor Dr. John Reece Roth has been sentenced to four years in prison after he allowed a Chinese graduate student to see sensitive information on Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones. In 2004, the company Roth helped found, Atmospheric Glow Technologies, won a US Air Force contract to develop a plasma actuator that could help reduce drag on the wings of drones, such as the ones the military uses. Under the contract, for which Roth was reportedly paid $6,000, he was prohibited from sharing sensitive data with foreign nationals. Despite warnings from his university's Export Control Officer, in 2006, Roth took a laptop containing sensitive plans with him on a lecture tour in China and also allowed graduate students Xin Dai of China and Sirous Nourgostar of Iran to work on the project. 'The illegal export of restricted military data represents a serious threat to national security,' says David Kris of the US Department of Justice. 'We know that foreign governments are actively seeking this information for their own military development. Today's sentence should serve as a warning to anyone who knowingly discloses restricted military data in violation of our laws.' During his trial, Roth testified that he was unaware that hiring the graduate students was a violation of his contract. 'This whole thing has not helped me, it has not helped the university,' said Roth. 'And it has probably not helped this country, either.'"

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