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Submission + - Newly Declassified Window Film Keeps Out Hackers, (sciam.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A newly declassified window film from CPFilms Inc. (Solutia Inc.) will give war drivers a run for their money. As printed in a recent issue of Scientific American: Once manufactured under an exclusive contract with the U.S. government, this recently declassified window film is now available to the public. But don't expect to see it on store shelves anytime soon. Currently, it's only available directly from the manufacturer, and at prices that will likely make it prohibitive for all but the wealthiest home owners. The two-millimeter-thick coating can block Wi-Fi signals, cell phone transmissions, even the near-infrared, yet is almost transparent, making it no more intrusive than conventional window treatments. It can keep signals in (preventing attempts to spy on electronic communications) or out, minimizing radio interference and even the fabled electronics-destroying electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by a nuclear blast.
Music

Universal Refuses To Renew On iTunes 287

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the don't-be-greedy dept.
UnknowingFool writes "It appears for the moment that Universal will not renew its long term contract with Apple for content on the iTunes store. While the details are not known about the exact nature of the dispute, many speculate that it has to do with Apple's stance on fixed pricing and Apple's refusal to license their DRM. The worse case scenario may include Universal pulling its entire catalog from iTunes. Both sides stand to lose out with 1/3 of of new releases coming from Universal and an estimated 15% of Universal's sales coming from digital downloads. Apple's market share is about 75% of digital downloads, and digital downloads are growing while CD sales are shrinking."
United States

Submission + - Thompson to Join GOP Contest (kiplinger.com)

Submitted by
David Greenspan
David Greenspan writes: "Later this month Senator and actor Fred Thompson, (from Law and Order and other tv shows) will officially announce that he is running for President of the United States on the GOP ticket. "The former senator and actor has hired his production staff, orchestrated the advance publicity and carefully worked his audience, which is desperate for a star to lead the GOP out of its funk." Kiplinger"
Supercomputing

A Look Inside the NCSA 89

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the dave-you-like-your-ncsa-friends-better-than-me-don't-you dept.
Peter Kern writes "The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is one of the great supercomputing facilities in the world and is home to 'Abe', one of the top 10 supercomputers on the current Top 500 list. TG Daily recently toured the facility and published a stunning report about their computing capabilities (more than 140 teraflops), power requirements (a sustained 1.7 megawatts), enormous 20-ft chillers in four cooling systems and other installations that keep the NCSA online."
Games

Submission + - Xbox 360 Failure Rate Way Higher Than Expected

Submitted by maeveth
maeveth writes: Xbox 360. Most successful console of this generation, if you judge by number of units sold worldwide and number of available games and exclusives. That said, though, it's looking like it might also be the least reliable console of its generation as well. Microsoft says the failure rate is 3-5%. However, a DailyTech poll of retailers that sell the Xbox 360 and with it an option to purchase an extended warranty shows the real figures might be closer to 30-33%. (Compare that with the Nintendo Wii, which the same retailers gave a failure rate of less than 1%.) Hey, Redmond, you listening to this?
Software

Submission + - Edge Magazine Compiles List of Top 100 Video Games

Submitted by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo
Mordok-DestroyerOfWo writes: According to the BBC, Edge Magazine has compiled a list of the top 100 video games of all time. The top 10 are rather surprising in that most of the games were released a decade or more ago. Is it possible that with all of the focus on life-like graphics and animation so pervasive on the next-gen consoles, developers have forgotten what it takes to make a game enjoyable to play? Cue the Duke Nuke'em Forever jokes in 5...4...3...2...
Microsoft

Microsoft Doesn't Care About Destroying Linux 330

Posted by CmdrTaco from the to-busy-drinking-baby-blood-i-think dept.
techie writes "A latest column on MadPenguin.org suggests that Microsoft may not be really interested in killing Linux for mainstream users. It's after something else, and it's getting its way already. Read on to find out what it is. The author states, "Love it or hate it, Microsoft's IP attacks will continue, Linux user numbers will continue to grow and broad spectrum adoption throughout the rest of the world will grow and flourish. Microsoft's not interested in destroying Linux in the slightest. Why would they? it's been a fantastic vehicle for them to land a firmer grip on the corporations throughout the US."
Portables (Games)

Submission + - DS 'Brain Game' Banned in UK (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
janitorj
janitorj writes: "According to this BBC article, the Nintendo DS puzzler 'MindQuiz' was banned from UK shelves. The woman in the story, whose father and son both had Cerebral Palsy, contacted a BBC radio program to report that she "was shocked when she had performed poorly at one part of the game and it rated her efforts in a manner derogatory to the disabled.""
It's funny. Laugh.

Pentagon Developed 'Laughing Bullets' 286

Posted by CmdrTaco from the we-must-not-have-a-hysteria-gap dept.
plasmadroid writes "It might sound like a joke, but documents unearthed by New Scientist show that the Pentagon actually funded research into 'non-lethal' bullets that would also hit a target with a dose of laughing gas. That way, they'd not only be stunned but incapacitated by fits of giggles. Another idea was to put stink bombs inside rubber bullets. I guess it would work, but the idea of crowds of rioters giggling uncontrollably while being pelted with rubber bullets is truly bizarre..."
Security

Recognizing Your Own Handwriting As A Password 151

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sounds-suspiciously-like-reading dept.
Gary writes "A new online authentication system called Dynahand could make logging in to websites a little easier. With Dynahand, users simply identify their own handwriting, instead of entering a cryptic password or buying a biometric device to scan their fingerprints. The user's handwriting samples contain only digits, since numerals are harder for an outside party to recognize than letters are. The digits displayed are random, so the handwriting is the only clue to the correct answer."
Security

Submission + - Are Contactless Payments Really Secure? (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
berberine
berberine writes: " As contactless payment systems begin to gain traction across the country, questions are mounting over whether or not the security backing the RF-based technology is sufficiently advanced to prevent account fraud and the theft of personal information. With contactless payment systems about to get even more popular in the United States, there are fears that the wireless technology behind those systems is not secure enough for widespread adoption, despite assurances from Visa, MasterCard, and other major players."
The Internet

A Reprieve for Internet Radio 108

Posted by Zonk from the i-can-keep-getting-my-soundtrack-fix dept.
westlake writes "In the wake of Internet Radio's Day of Silence, SoundExchange has proposed a temporary $2500 cap on advance payments 'per channel/per station.' The Digital Music Association responded immediately in its own press release that it would agree to this, but only if the term for the new arrangement were extended to 2010 — or, preferably, forever. On another front, SoundExchange seems aware in its PR that it will have to concede something more to the non-profit webcaster, if it is to avoid Congressional action."
Toys

Thousands of Rubber Ducks to Finally End Journey 210

Posted by Zonk from the born-free-as-free-as-the-wind-blows dept.
Bert de Jong writes "The Daily Mail reports that thousands of rubber ducks who have traveled the seas of the world since 1992 are about to end their journey. After escaping out of a container fallen off a Chinese freight ship in a storm, scientists have been followed them on their fifteen year trek. This has turned out to be an invaluable source of information for studying ocean currents. Now it seems inevitable though that they will finally land on the shores of South-West England. '[Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer] correctly predicted what many thought was impossible - that thousands of them would end up washed into the Arctic ice near Alaska, and then move at a mile a day, frozen in the pack ice, around their very own North-West Passage to the Atlantic. It proved true years later and in 2003, the first Friendly Floatees were found, frozen and then thawed out, on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and Canada. So precious to science are they that the US firm that made them is offering a £50 bounty for finding one.'"

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