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Chimp Found Plotting Against Zoo Guests Screenshot-sm 435

Posted by samzenpus from the give-em-hell-Santino dept.
rjshirts writes "In further proof that Planet of the Apes is coming to pass, researchers in Stockholm, Sweden have proof that primates can plan ahead. From the article: 'Santino the chimpanzee's anti-social behavior stunned both visitors and keepers at the Furuvik Zoo but fascinated researchers because it was so carefully prepared. According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said.'"
Security

Self-Encrypting Hard Drives and the New Security 205

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the you-can't-protect-against-stupid dept.
In a recent blog post, CNet's Jon Oitsik has called for a policy shift with respect to data encryption. A new standard by the Trusted Computing Group promises the availability of self-encrypting hard drives soon, leading some to call for immediate adoption. Will this create even more security problems due to lazy custodians, or should someone responsible for keeping your information safe be required to move to the new hardware? Hopefully the new hardware comes with a warning to continue to use other data protection measures as well.
The Internet

Wolfram Promises Computing That Answers Questions 369

Posted by timothy from the he's-feeling-lucky-you-feel-lucky-too dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Computer scientist Stephen Wolfram feels that he has put together at least the initial version of a computer that actually answers factual questions, a la Star Trek's ship computers. His version will be found on their Web-based application, Wolfram Alpha. What does this mean? Well, instead of returning links to pages that may (or may not) contain the answer to your questions, Wolfram will respond with the actual answer. Just imagine typing in 'How many bones are in the human body?' and getting the answer." Right now, though the search entry field is in place, Alpha is not yet generally available -- only "to a few select individuals."

Comment The first result for my name is a banjo player (Score 1) 205

by holizz (#27028279) Attached to: The CDA Is Dead, But States Are Trying To Revive It

I'm going to sue!

But seriously, if we combine this with that recent request for help from the fellow whose name brings up a paedophile ... surely we can sue for defamation of character whether the comments are referring to ourselves or not? That would be my logical conclusion without reading TFA.

Comment The blocking is secret from the user's POV too (Score 1) 203

by holizz (#26939241) Attached to: Why Doesn't the IWF Notify Those Whom They Block?

One thing I noticed when looking at the Virgin Killers page while it was being blocked was that it pretended to be a 404 error (a very unconvincing one). This is presumably part of their "don't alert people" ploy too, but it confounds the majority of people from being able to discover that it's being blocked.
Privacy

Bill Would Require ISPs, Wi-Fi Users To Keep Logs 857

Posted by kdawson from the boon-for-disk-makers dept.
suraj.sun notes CNet reporting on bills filed in the US House and Senate that would require all ISPs and operators of Wi-Fi hotspots — including home users — to maintain access logs for 2 years to aid in law enforcement. The bills were filed by Republicans, but the article notes that the idea of forcing data retention has been popular on both sides of the aisle over the years. "Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that... would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates. ... Each [bill] contains the same language: 'A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user [i.e., DHCP].'"
Programming

Web-based IDEs Edge Closer To the Mainstream 244

Posted by timothy from the hope-your-connection-is-reliable dept.
snitch writes "Last week Mozilla released Bespin, their web-based framework for code editing, and only a few days later Boris Bokowski and Simon Kaegi implemented an Eclipse-based Bespin server using headless Eclipse plug-ins. With the presentation of the web-based Eclipse workbench at EclipseCon and the release of products like Heroku, a web-based IDE and hosting environment for RoR apps, it seems that web-based IDEs might soon become mainstream."

Comment If somebody else clicks "agree" (Score 1) 874

by holizz (#26909115) Attached to: Don't Like EULAs? Get Your Cat To Agree To Them

I regularly use software with EULAs to which somebody else has agreed.

Does that mean I would be eligable to sue the company for something which the EULA-clicker supposedly no longer has the right to do?

And does it make a difference as to who owns the hardware? (i.e. sysadmin agreeing on a university computer, compared to a cat agreeing to something running on my hardware).
Cellphones

EU Commissioner Wants Standard For Mobile Phone Connectors 374

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the things-that-will-never-happen dept.
Jantastic writes "European Commissioner Günter Verheugen wants manufacturers of mobile phones to come up with a standard connector for chargers and microphones. If companies fail to do so, proposed legislation should speed up this process. In theory, this could improve competition, while enabling longer life cycles for these devices."
IBM

IBM Files Patent For Bullet-Dodging Bionic Armor 379

Posted by Soulskill from the let-the-matrix-jokes-commence dept.
An anonymous reader writes with news that IBM has filed a patent for "Bionic body armor" that would protect a wearer from long-range gunfire by detecting the incoming bullets and administering small shocks to the appropriate muscles required for moving out of the way. Quoting the patent: "When a marksman (such as a sniper) is attempting to fire a projectile from a firearm, the marksman typically prefers to be as far away from the target as possible, thus giving him or her a head start for the escape after the firing. As an example, the longest reported sniper hit was from a distance of about 2500 meters, resulting in a time of flight of about 4 seconds for the projectile/bullet. Had the target been aware of the inbound projectile, avoiding it by simply walking away would have been possible." After detecting the projectile, the armor would calculate the trajectory and "stimulate the target to move in a predefined manner ... sufficient to avoid any contact with the approaching projectile."
Space

Satellites Collide In Orbit 456

Posted by samzenpus from the starpocalypse dept.
DrEnter writes "According to this story on Yahoo, two communications satellites collided in orbit, resulting in two large clouds of debris. The new threat from these debris clouds hasn't been fully determined yet. From the article, 'The collision involved an Iridium commercial satellite, which was launched in 1997, and a Russian satellite launched in 1993 and believed to be nonfunctioning. Each satellite weighed well over 1,000 pounds.' This is the fifth spacecraft/satellite collision to occur in space, but the other four were all fairly minor by comparison."
Microsoft

MS To Offer Free Windows 7 Upgrade To Vista Users 417

Posted by samzenpus from the you-get-what-you-pay-for dept.
crazyeyes writes "With Windows 7 set for release in Dec. 09, Microsoft is getting ready with their free upgrade program, which allows Vista users to switch to Windows 7 when it arrives. The folks at TechARP have consistently scored accurate scoops on Microsoft software releases. They have now revealed Microsoft's upgrade plans, schedules and even screenshots of the upgrade process."
Mozilla

Firefox 3.2 Plans Include Natural Language, Themes 285

Posted by timothy from the subject-to-change dept.
Shrike82 writes "Mozilla have described plans for the next version of their popular web browser, Firefox. Mozilla's "Ubiquity project" is set to become a standard feature, allowing "users to type natural language phrases into the browser to perform certain tasks, such as typing 'map 10 Downing Street' to instantly see a Google map of that address, or 'share-on-delicious' to bookmark the site you're currently visiting on the social news site." Also of interest is so-called "lightweight theming" allowing users to customise the browsers design more easily. The launch date is still somewhat unclear, and Mozilla are apparently unsure if version 3.2 will be released at all, apparently considering going straight to Firefox 4."

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